Skating makes you mobile - an integration project in the BLSV

Saturday, 12 August 2023 00:00
Written by Portal Editor

During today's after-work bike rides, which one could already speak of as having become a habit, we noticed a multi-purpose transporter shortly before the old Main Bridge in Kitzingen, which also contained the words "Integration through Sport" in its inscription.

Due to our project and the individual events derived from it, this is of course an interesting sentence for us. We stopped immediately and spoke to two young people who were busy unloading skateboards and the associated safety equipment from the transporter.

Project "Integration by the help of Sport"

The two contact persons, who introduced themselves a little later as Jochen and Lucas, belong to a group of volunteers from the "Integration by the help of Sport" project, here from the "Skaten macht mobil" division from Würzburg. These first sentences alone aroused our interest and so, in addition to a flyer with information about the project, we received detailed answers to our questions about the idea of the concept: "Skating makes you mobile".

Skating is still one of the trend sports and thus the concept of combining this attractive sport for the broadest possible target group with the opportunity to meet children and young people from different national and cultural backgrounds makes use of it. Reaching the children and young people physically was always a problem. The idea of driving the skatemobile to the children and young people on site in order to meet them turned out to be an adequate solution after the first attempts. So Jochen and Lucas are today with their skatemobile on the Bleichwasen skateboard field in Kitzingen.

Your skatemobile is equipped with a mobile skate park with ramps and rails, with skateboards, helmets and joint protection, in short, the complete safety equipment for skating. All the accessories can be used at any time on the loading area of the van. A skateboard, which is sometimes also called a roller board, is a board called a deck with two axles called trucks and four wheels, the wheels, on which you can move by pushing off with one leg, standing. The skateboard is rarely used purely as a means of transportation. Rather, skating has developed over the decades into a sport with a rich repertoire of tricks and its own terminology. The tricks mostly consist of jumps with the skateboard and are often performed in combination with turns of the board and the body. The terminology alone points to the origins of this sport: America.

Mobile skate park with ramps and rails

The origin of modern skating, which used to be called "asphalt surfing", lies in the 1960s and arose from the transfer of surfing to asphalt and concrete. It developed into a trend sport, which was mainly practiced by young people. Championships were also held, which included downhill slalom, steeplechase and freestyle on a flat surface.

The development of polyurethane wheels meant a major technical advance with better grip and rolling properties, as did the construction of the axle system, which is still in use today and whose weight-sensitive mobility enables the skateboard to be steered. These technical developments reinvigorated the sport by enabling a wide variety of manoeuvres. The pioneers of today's skateboard culture were the Zephyr team from Dogtown, a neighbourhood in Venice Beach, California. This group consisted of passionate surfers who gave skateboarding a new look in the 70s by stylistic transfer of their hobby to the street.

One of the disciplines they developed was particularly groundbreaking, pool riding, which was the birth of the vert style and is continued today in the form of the halfpipe. Tony Alva, who came from the team, became the first skateboard world champion a little later and had a lasting impact on the scene and public perception with his style.

In the early 90s, the shape of the normal street skateboard changed to a slimmer, almost symmetrical shape with almost equal overhangs at the nose and tail of the board. This construction and the movement sequences and leverage effects made possible by it made new forms of tricks possible.

Skateboard culture by the Zephyr team from Dogtown

In the meantime, a few interested young people had also gathered at the skateboard facility, observing what was happening attentively. Here it was above all a 12-year-old boy with a migration background who showed great interest. Jochen spoke to him despite some communication problems and protective clothing and helmet were put on a little later. Now the first exercises followed, which the boy obviously enjoyed.

Meanwhile, Lucas explained to us that the sporting and educational dimensions of skating are very close together. This sport in particular creates a strong incentive to try out and participate. And that's exactly what the team wants to achieve. Girls in particular showed great interest in skating. Lucas reports on an example in Afghanistan, where a high, enclosed area was created especially for girls, so that they can move around freely out of the sight of boys. However, we can also see here that just setting up the equipment and laying out the skateboards is enough to arouse interest.

Jochen spoke to him despite some communication problems

In particular, the open structure with the recurring assignments at the same locations has made it clear that on the one hand new groups are constantly being formed at the locations, but core groups can also be formed that develop over longer periods of time. The resulting contacts are also used to motivate the children and young people to take advantage of structured sports offers in the surrounding clubs.

The skatemobile is also used in schoolyards, parking lots or public places

Lucas also explains that the skatemobile is not only used for events with a sporting character, but also for predominantly integrative events. With which we also express our interest in a deeper contact, because the skatemobile is also used in schoolyards, parking lots or public places, as long as the underground is suitable. The respective companions, in this case Jochen and Lucas, take care of specific instructions for the participating skaters or the creation of an event character to enliven the squares and to actively support movement offers, in short the skatemobile is a hands-on offer to try out and get to know this sport on a voluntary basis.