Skater Buds

Most kids are mortified by the prospect of their parents being a source of embarrassment, and my kids are no different. Typically, however, the parents’ humiliation of the children is unbeknownst to them. As a relatively young parent, I feel acutely attuned to the feelings and emotions of my adolescent children, and I know how to be the “cool” dad and how to turn their faces red.

Sometimes I’ll blare oldies music when my kids’ friends are in the car, wear flamboyant Hawaiian t-shirts or make inane jokes. Just the other day I chaperoned my daughter and some of her friends to the local skate rink on a Friday night. Although I have a pair of rollerblades, I decided to play the embarrassing dad card and donned my antique quad roller skate from the 80s, much to my daughter’s chagrin.

Many sports and recreational activities come in and out of style, but there are a few mainstays that seem to transcend generations. Despite a variety of innovations and trendy new conveyances, roller skating has remained popular in American culture. While the style and nuances of the activity have evolvedm the basic concept has stayed the same.

You will be hard-pressed to find people donning the original quad roller skates, but there are still roller blades and options that even attach to your shoes. In my opinion, one of the reasons that roller skating has remained popular is its social nature. There are still roller skating rinks and people on roller skates can easily maintain the pace of walkers.

Extreme sports have been popular with preteens and teenagers for several decades now. The trend began with surfing and skateboarding, and snowboarding and rollerblading caught on shortly thereafter. Kids are naturally drawn to activities that are new and exciting, so it’s no wonder that they are eager to latch onto the latest trend.

Conscientious parents aren’t always keen on the idea of their kids hopping on a skateboard and bombing a vert ramp with total abandon. The best way to forestall this issue is to substitute a child’s dangerous desires with safer forms of fun. While the design has changed drastically over the years, roller-skating remains a mainstay in extreme sports. You can even find skate shoe models now that have wheels built-in.

With the holiday season bearing down on us, my husband and I decided to sit down last night and ponder what gifts to give our children. Our youngest son Bradley is in fourth grade, and he’s already expressed interest in being a scientist some day. As encouraging as those aspirations are, I can’t help but feel that the boy has missed out on a few of the highlights of childhood. He spends so much time conducting experiments with baking soda and vinegar that he doesn’t play outside enough.

This year, we’re putting our foot down and making sure that Bradley lives the carefree life of a kid his age. And that means choosing the perfect youth skate shoe for his Christmas present. It’s our hope that he will grow up to be a well-rounded, well-adjusted individual, which requires a wealth of experience. He has more than enough time to pursue his science, but childhood is fleeting.

“Adrenaline junkie” is an understatement, and “daredevil” doesn’t even begin to cover it. Someone might need to come up with an even stronger way to describe Dirk Auer, the German man who made history in July by skating down a rollercoaster track. Auer rode the rails of a coaster in Stuttgart, traveling 2,821 feet in a minute flat. That’s more than half a mile of track.

While few of us mere mortals could hope to compete with Auer’s feats of derring-do, just donning a pair of roller skate shoes provides a thrill on a more manageable scale. Skate shoes are great for getting in shape and exercising without realizing that you’re actually engaged in a workout. Why not save the roller coasters for the pros and the crazies.

My 12-year-old son has been obsessed with hockey from the moment he was old enough to lace his own skates. We take him to Phoenix Coyotes games whenever possible and try to support his enthusiasm by paying for lessons and clinics whenever we can afford it. The only problem is that we live in Phoenix, Arizona – a wonderful town, but not exactly the ice hockey capital of the United States.

For obvious reasons, the only rinks in the area are indoors, and they all cost a pretty penny to use. I wanted to find an alternative that would allow him to practice his skating outdoors. Street roller skates turned out to be the sensible solution. Now instead of pestering me for money to go to the ice rink, he just skates to school and over to his friends’ houses. When high school hockey tryouts come around, I know that he’ll have an edge.

Back in the 1950s, ’60s and even into the ’70s, roller skating was a low-intensity, leisurely affair. Roller rinks weren’t athletic arenas so much as social gathering places. You might meet your sweetheart during a roller skating session, but you weren’t likely to find much in the way of spirited competition. In fact, my own parents met and bonded for the first time at their local VFW hall, which was transformed into a makeshift rink on the weekends.

More recently, quad roller skates have made way for inline skates. Aggressive skating is one of the most popular extreme sports, and it’s probably the easiest to pick up. In street-style aggressive skating, participants use whatever structures might be lying around to make an impromptu obstacle course. Rails, benches, walls, curbs and stairs are all fair game. Vert competitions are held on half-pipes where skaters try to get big air even as they bust out tricks.

As anyone who’s tried running as a form of cardiovascular exercise would surely attest, the activity isn’t for everyone. Although the health benefits of running are beyond dispute, there’s no getting around the fact that it can take a serious physical toll on the body. The high-impact motion of feet repeatedly hitting hard pavement can make for an unappealing situation. Luckily, the skater bud offers a viable alternative.

These skate shoes offer people all the benefits of running – the cardiovascular workout and endurance training – while also spicing it up with some fun. When you go whizzing past a sweaty, exhausted jogger, you can’t help but feel grateful that the skate shoes are doing some of the work for you. It’s time to put all of the excuses aside; now there’s no reason to hold back from developing a beneficial fitness plan.

Fashion trends seem to operate in a cyclical fashion. Many of the same styles that were popular at the height of the hippie movement in the late 1960s came back into fashion in the ’80s. You may have even noticed the brief reemergence of polyester pants and bell-bottoms – clothes that were perfectly normal in the ’70s – in the early to mid ’90s. It’s enough to cause us to wonder what trend from the past will be next to reappear. Will teenagers be wearing flannel and other assorted grunge rock apparel in 2010?

But clothing isn’t the only cultural element that continues to recycle itself in the public consciousness. The roller skating trend that was so popular in post-war America is rearing its head once again. This time, however, roller blades and the roller skate shoe are all the rage. Skate shoes embrace all of the best elements of skating – the sense of freedom and whimsical wonder – while eliminating the bulky awkwardness of quad skates.

It’s in most children’s nature to follow trends. Before we figure out what we want to be, we imitate the actions of others. This doesn’t entirely explain the popularity of extreme sports – they do provide an exhilarating thrill, after all – but it comes close. There will always be a huge mass of followers, but only a select few kids actually set the trends and lead the pack.

Skate shoes are a cutting-edge alternative to skateboards and traditional roller blades. When not in use, they take up much less room in a kid’s backpack and they light up for nighttime demonstrations. It’s no surprise that skate shoes have begun to catch on at middle schools across the country. After all, the cool kids have given these extreme skates their stamp of approval.