The Evolution of Freestyle

ScottyN

ScottyN

Member
I am doing a large written project on this subject. My real title is more focused and slanted than this but I really need a general response.
I am researching where freestyle has come from and what has created the culture surrounding this lifestyle. I have doing a significant amount of research and come up with a theory:
we can track the freestyle culture and lifestyle back to surfing in the 60's. At the time that was the sick thing to be doing and the cool scene to be seen at. From the "Dude" mentality that came with surfing came the same thing in skateboarding. The surfers wanted to do what they do in the water, on the land. out came the skateboard. in the 80's and 90's this was now the "cool" thing to be doing, all the "dudes" were doing it. At this time, skiing was become stale.
The dude culture from skateboarding found its way onto the snow and snowboarding was born. Parks were built only for snowboarders and this quickly became the cool thing to do.
Through the hard work and determination of a few individuals, freestyle skiing was born. This form of skiing owes everything to snowboarding. i think over the past few years that after snowboarding almost wiped skiing off the planet, there has been a change in direction. I believe that skiing has come back stronger and better than before and is starting to kill snowboarding. i think this may be due the greater diversity of two planks rather than one!

I would love to get a discussion going about where we think its come from where its going and WHY!? Why is culture as it is? Hip Hop? Style , baggy clothes, street, gangsta?
How technology was pushed by the athletes? the twin tip?
 
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HHAHAHAH no. More like Old Hampshire, yeah who skis and happens to love cocaine. And writing large dissertations. Thanks for ruining this for me.
 
Music has definitely affected the way we ski, and because of music like rap, it has changed the way we dress too resulting in baggy clothing and a gangster feel about skiing! Who knows what might influence skiing in the future??

Gonna keep this shit going.
 
yeah man I will do for sure. But atm its not happening coz i cant get enough sources coz this would be pretty much the first thing to be written down about this subject.
 
This is a very interesting area, and you raise many questions that deserve further pursuing. I'm not sure what level of analysis or framework you're approaching the topic with, but I think a sociological historicization and contextualization is what you're seeking.

Fortunately, others have pursued similar venues, if you can get your hands on this book I think it would deeply benefit your research/conceptualization of the issue..

http://www.amazon.com/Snowboarding-Bodies-Theory-Practice-Culture/dp/0230579442

 
So you're whole "history of freestyle" is horribly wrong. "Freestyle" skiing has been around for decades, it pre-dates snowboarding by about 20 to 25 years, hell the first 'twin-tip' skis were made in the 70's for ski ballet.

Your teacher probably knows all of this.
 
Dude, thanks for your help. I know all about "Freestyle" skiing, ski ballet, mogals and aerials and all of that in the 70's. That is what i am talking about when i say skiing became un cool. I guess what i really mean is freeskiing but both words are used nowadays. i dont have a teacher. This is an independant project.
 
Dude, thanks a lot, this is super helpful! Another source!! WICKED! Yeah i completely agree, the sources that i have found and the way i have set up the question allows for this side of the project to evolve. basically giving me more things to write about. I think the things you have brought to light have given me a good little side direction in which to delve. I think this could be very interesting and tie in nicely with the other things i am currently pursuing. Thanks a bunch man! ill keep you posted with fresh directions and findings as i go! peace
 
i plan to define a few terms at the start such as:What is alpine skiing?History of skiing/freeskingwhat is the current freeskiing culture?What have been the key technological advances that allowed this to happen?
I am going to delve into the effect of everyday culture and maybe the lack of risk taking in everyday life's effect on risk taking in skiing. The type of risk taking personality. What d'you mean by contextualization?
and cheers for the book. big ups
 
Contextualization involves describing and explaining the social (here also encompassing cultural, political and economic), historical and physical ( including geographical) circumstances (re: context) a topic exists within. Nothing occurs in a vacuum. By developing a nuanced understanding of the multidimensional conditions surrounding -and inherently embedded in- social phenomena, the processes/mechanisms of sociocultural change/transformation can be teased out.

Such analysis, as any other, requires the right tools. I don't want to bias your research too much, and the choice of frameworks/conceptualizations are obviously yours, but the book I suggested employs a Bourdieuian approach to the issue. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Bourdieu, but his concepts of Habitus, Field, Capital and Symbolic Violence (among others) are all invaluable (IMO) instruments of contextualization.

Hope that made some sense..
 
Yeah man! Super stoked on that, its all well on the way! thnaks guys, any more ideas are very welcome still need more more more! k+ big time for those.
 
Hey dude, found this useful source when I did the same sort of question during Junior High...

“In 1963 the first true freestyler ‘Eugene Tomlinson’ landed the first double backflip, in the heart of the Scotland, in a small town called Aviemore. The kicker was no bigger than your average hay bail. Nether-less he was able to land with steeze and afterbang, despite the slightly back seat landing. The sport became over shadowed by the rise of mogul skiing and aerials. ‘Eugene’s’ backflip became nothing more than a candle in the wind. It wasn’t until the late 1980’s that the likes of ‘Tanner Hall’ started to innovate the sport once more. When ‘Tanner’ was only 7 he landed his first backflip, he became the youngest person to ever land or attempt a backflip in history. As ‘Hall’ reached his teens, he started to become one of the most influential skiers of the sport. Wining his first ever ‘unrecorded’ X-Games title at 10, he was the best around. However in 1986 another true sporting legend was born, his name was ‘Simon Dumont’, Simon and Tanner battled constantly at competitions taking the titles from one another. New tricks were getting laid down each tournament. Simon landed the first dub 10 in 2001 which he was inspired to do when watching 12 year old ballerina classes at his local High School, Simon was just 14 at the time. With all this rapid progression within the sport, gang (crew) violence and drugs became an issue. Number of freestyle skiers were constantly skiing high or under the influence of narcotics. Crews would battle with knives and guns late at night. The most recent dispute was that between 4bi9 and Inspired Crew, which saw Henrik Harlaut get a serious back injury and put him out of the sport of 10 months, only to see him rise at the 2013 Aspen X-Games and stomp a nose butter triple cork 1660. However this continued drug abuse has lead to many controversial views. Take the Inspired Crew, they heavily believe in the Rastafarian lifestyle and they say that they are inspiring people to be better at what they do. This is in fact incorrect and they are inspiring they to undertake drug abuse and become Rastafarian.”

Source: http://venosci.tumblr.com/post/Freestyle_skiing_The_Future&Past
 
This may be relevant to your interests

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they were basically the Line Travelling Circus, except in 1971 (and no wizard tricks)

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To damn funny!

"Can you tell me how to get to chad's gap?"

A phrase used by newschool skiers to identify each other on or off the ski hill

Cool Story Hansel

A largely antiquated term used by newschoolers to inform another skier that they don't really care what they have to say

Wallisched

A term skiers use when they want to claim their successful maneuvers, "I just wallisched that flat bar."

Future Spin

A trick done with many spins in such a short amount of time. Appears they are "spinning into the future"

 
You can learn a lot from like a lion and few words. Not really the beginning of freestyle. But both were really big steps on getting into this whole new school thing
 
Here are a few pointers to research and cover.

To understand skiing in the 50's and 60's you have to see their equipment. Skiing was first cross country gear with roped heels. The late 60's and 70's brought the first wave of bindings. Racing had its debut around this era. Skis back then were very expensive (you had to make them) and was mostly practiced by the bourgeois class.

the 80's brought resins, hard boots and dynamic bindings. From here, skiing was easy and much more accessible. The first real wave of ski bumming was in the 80's. Ski instructing was a very popular thing (stereotypes have emerged from this era) and was practiced by the younger generation because of a light rise in wealth in North America, a peaceful era and the transmission of skiing through the baby boomers of the 70's. The youth who also associated to extreme sports were more likely to be stoners and chase the rush. (research Wayne Wong)

The 90's was the explosion in freestyle moguls. With experience from the 80's, moguls skiing took off, landing a spot on the Olympics in 1994 and demoed in 1992. With Jean Luc Brassard's win in 1994 and Johnny Mosley in 1998 exploded the ski scene started drawing in kids. The sport evolved after JF Cusson lifted the first ever Salomon 1080s; the first twintips ever marketed. Freestyle association refused flips in moguls and promped the departure of the Canadian Air Force and huge charismatic kids from the states like CR Johnson.

Skiing continues to grow with bigger tricks, more injuries and more money involved in the industry.

I hope this helps
 
aside from the paragraph on the 90's everything you said was about 1 decade late, release bindings showed up in the mid 60's, plastic boots were around 1970 I think.

also whatever your trying to say about instructors doesn't really make sense
 
Heh, I grew up in the 90's with the birth of the term "newschool". The 70's used hard leather boots, but yeah release bindings made a debut in the late 60's. My history is a little shy on that point.

The comparison I made between youth and ski instructing involved a reference to the surfer, "yeah dude" era pointed out by OP. Since people had more disposable income, families would go skiing. This increased demand for ski centers and ski instructors. Since ski instructing is a minimum income job that you did out of passion, many young adults (rebels) began teaching for income. With the friendships developped with the instructors, for being together for so long, they could relax the social formalities. the ski instructor "bum" reputation was born.

But this is a generalization because there is a full range of skiers through the ages and different cultures begin to mix.
 
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