Adaptive Skateboarding
It's hard to find the words to describe how diverse the skateboard's adaptability is so below is a video composed of adaptive skaters from around the world, however it doesn't take long in skateboard social networks to find many, many more skaters.
Every skater has their own unique style based around their personal biomechanics, however adaptive thrashers take this to a whole different level that earns respect in the mainstream skate community.
Adaptibility and Skateboarding
Skateboarding is a culture rooted in adaptability and biomechanical creativity.
Skateboarding is also a sport that fosters a lot of outcasts by bringing them into a world of shared love for skateboarding. Adaptive skaters are unique among the sporting world in that there currently isn't really a true "adaptive skateboarding" sport branch because these skaters are part of the mainstream skate community in regardless of their needs for individuality; in fact it's often their individuality specifically that earns respect.
Below is a video showcasing the incredible feats of various adaptive skaters from all over the world.
Skateboarding changes lives, it teaches how to deal with failure, and how to plan success, and it's a sport of constant risk assessment.
Not only are these all reasons why disability enriches skateboarding, but the style that arises from solving these problems is capable of celebrating disability; instead of being hindered by difference, skaters excel because of it.
Oscar Loreto Jr.
Born with congenital deformation of the hands and left foot, Oscar discovered skateboarding in his adolescence, and from there it changed his life.
Gallery of Adaptive Skateboarders
Adaptive skaters face challenges unique to their differences, but skateboarding is an inherently adaptable artform based around your biomechanics. This makes the differences between average skaters part of their individual style, while adaptive skating sees entire unique forms and stances come from the skaters as their technique is modified to skate with crutches, one leg, no legs, or maybe lacking vision; all of these challenges see rebirth while skating into something special to adaptive skaters that can't be imitated by the able-bodied skater community.
Here's only SOME of the adaptive skaters out there.
Componentry and Devices
Skateboarding is hyper adaptable and can be performed with a wide range of devices and gait patterns capable of being used for casually skating as transportation.
Street and sport skating requires durable and flexible devices.
This means that for prosthetics a tough, multi-axial foot is best, or something sturdy and simple like an athletic blade foot. The adaptability of the skateboard extends however to being usable in nearly any mobility circumstances, with knee control being the primary determining factor between body boarding, crutch boarding, or riding with a prosthetic device.
An example of a great skate foot is the Venture foot by College Park, with other noteworthy providers being Fillauer, and Rush Foot, however it needs to be noted that the skateboard itself is considered a mobility aid device in some parts of the world where wheelchairs are impractical, and sometimes disabled skaters in North America opt for skating instead of the wheelchair because the mobility options with a skateboard by adept users is effectively unmatched anywhere else in the world of mobility aids with going up and down stairs even made possible.
Please refer to above gallery for many examples of how adaptive skaters have gone about skating.
Plan A(ccessibility awareness)
Let's grow awareness of the sport and lifestyle that is adaptive skateboarding, through networking and getting involved with existing skateboard programs, and reach out to disability charities to showcase that these amazing athletes are perfect people to raise awareness that disability can be an opportunity for self improvement as much as it is an obstacle to overcome in life.
About Me:
I'm Lily James is a 2nd year Orthotic & Prosthetic student from George Brown College, in Toronto, Canada.
Growing up Nowhere, Ontario in the 90's meant the first and possibly only skateboard I saw for years of my life was animated underneath Bart Simpson, but I was still too young to remember when I got my first skateboard.
Skateboarding is more than deviant fun, it's a lifestyle of facing adversity; please feel free to contact me.
I'm constantly skating, even in the prosthetics and orthotics hospital lab, this habit is surprisingly well tolerated but has earned me some talking, to skate in another room.
