anyone seen this great 60s short (oscar nominated) about a gang of young skateboarders-in cool jackets white pants and bare feet-great score & a nice story-afterwards i found a youtube video from the same time period featuring a televised skateboard competition (very tame tricks compared to nowadays)-the competitors were two of Paris Hilton's uncles, ages 12&13 or so-the commentators were quite insistent that helmets be worn (more football helmets in those days than what we wear now) but never said anything about skating bf...
Here is the link to the movie. It's 18 minutes long. I hope this works. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3273044523822545532# It really shows you what were the beginnings of the hippie type thinking in the mid-60s. Kids thought it was cool or "tough" to go around barefooted.
Thanks for the link, barefootjaime! Great old film done in the tradition of the best surf epics. Really shows the surfing roots of skateboarding...
I imagine the reason the kids did not want shoes is because they would lose the control you get by feeling each bump or move through your feet instead of clunky shoes. Also, their feet would be more nimble if bare and able to manipulate and grip the board better with their toes. I believe early boarders referred to this as "gorilla grip". As you can see in some of the scenes, it is cold outside and they are wearing jackets and caps, but still don't want anything on their feet.
Funny you should mention clunky shoes, because that's exactly what modern skate shoes are. I always wonder why skaters wear such clumsy looking shoes. I suspect that part of the reason early skaters went barefoot is that many were originally surfers. Between a more relaxed cultural climate for barefooting (near the ocean) and the fact that they were used to riding barefoot, most of them didn't given any thought to wearing shoes. It just seemed natural to ride barefoot.
I skateboarded in the 60's and riding barefoot was about gripping the board better than shod and the fact I and my friends never wore shoes. we rode bikes, skateboarded, walked barefoot, most of us didn't wear shoes all summer and I never wore shoes after school.
dudes, have it checked fast because when an extract of skater dater was uploaded on youtube it was removed soon because of right violations. the google video clip must be the whole movie (OPT 18 '). btw if it vanishes from google video and you didn't dl it i just found the whole movie on a private network. can't tell about the quality.
