Roller skating

Roller skating is the traveling on surfaces with roller skates. It is a form of recreational activity as well as a sport, and can also be a form of transportation. In fact, as the United States readied for World War II, the government entertained the notion to add roller skates as essential equipment to move infantry around Europe to save gas. Skates generally come in three basic varieties: quad roller skates, inline skates or blades and tri-skates, though some have experimented with a single-wheeled 'quintessence skate' or other variations on the basic skate design. In America, this hobby was most popular first between 1935 and the early 1960s and then in the 1970s, when polyurethane wheels were created and disco music oriented roller rinks were the rage and then again in the 1990s when in-line outdoor roller skating, thanks to the improvement made to inline roller skates in 1981 by Scott Olson, took hold. Roller skating is the traveling on surfaces with roller skates. It is a form of recreational activity as well as a sport, and can also be a form of transportation. In fact, as the United States readied for World War II, the government entertained the notion to add roller skates as essential equipment to move infantry around Europe to save gas. Skates generally come in three basic varieties: quad roller skates, inline skates or blades and tri-skates, though some have experimented with a single-wheeled 'quintessence skate' or other variations on the basic skate design. In America, this hobby was most popular first between 1935 and the early 1960s and then in the 1970s, when polyurethane wheels were created and disco music oriented roller rinks were the rage and then again in the 1990s when in-line outdoor roller skating, thanks to the improvement made to inline roller skates in 1981 by Scott Olson, took hold. Roller skating has had a checkered past over its nearly-three century history. Given its ebb and flow of popularity over the past century, writers labeled each generation's attraction a 'craze!' The caption in a 1904 Decatur newspaper read, 'Old Craze Comes Back,' adding, 'Roller skating promises to be as popular as it was twenty years ago.' Reported on October 11, 1904, the statement announced the opening events of a new Decatur, Illinois roller rink. In 1906, with the opening of another Chicago rink, the Inter Ocean newspaper complained that 'after twenty years of exemption from the affliction the desire to roll is again taking possession of American adults...the mania has struck Chicago!'Nearly forty years later, Charlie Tyler would write, 'This current roller skating 'craze' is nothing new.' Tyler wrote for Chicago's Herald-American in September 1941 and described the opening of Chicago's Madison Gardens Rink's thirty-fifth season on the eve of World War II. Tyler was referring to the first roller skate craze at the turn of the twentieth century, when ball bearings revolutionized roller technology and roller skaters staged spectacle events and speed-skating marathons. Clamp-on skates were mass-produced for those with great aspirations. Tyler's reporting attempted to temper the rebirth of enthusiasm for the new roller styles that had become popular, including roller derby and dancing on rollers, suggesting that we had seen this before. Today, the acceptance for roller skating is not unlike a waning moon but the sport persists. Roller skating continues to thrive as a part of pop culture in the form of recreation for leisure, dance and sport. Rollers, past and present are diehards. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Rollerblade-branded skates became so successful that they inspired many other companies to create similar inline skates, and the inline design became more popular than the traditional quads. The Rollerblade skates became synonymous in the minds of many with 'inline skates' and skating, so much so that many people came to call any form of skating 'Rollerblading,' thus making it a genericized trademark. For much of the 1980s and into the 1990s, inline skate models typically sold for general public use employed a hard plastic boot, similar to ski boots. In or about 1995, 'soft boot' designs were introduced to the market, primarily by the sporting goods firm K2 Inc., and promoted for use as fitness skates. Other companies quickly followed, and by the early 2000s the development of hard shell skates and skeletons became primarily limited to the Aggressive inline skating discipline and other specialized designs. The single-wheel 'quintessence skate' was made in 1988 by Miyshael F. Gailson of Caples Lake Resort, California, for the purpose of cross-country skate skiing and telemark skiing training. Other experimental skate designs the years have included two wheeled (heel and toe) inline skate frames but the vast majority of skates on the market today are either quad or standard inline design. Artistic roller skating is a sport which consists of a number of events. These are usually accomplished on quad skates, but inline skates may be used for some events. Various flights of events are organized by age and ability/experience. In the US, local competitions lead to 9 regional competitions which led to the National Championships and World Championships. A prescribed movement symmetrically composed of at least two circles, but not more than three circles, involving primary, or primary and secondary movements, with or without turns. Figures are skated on circles, which have been inscribed on the skating surface.