Rodney Mullen

As you may remember in Willard's article "Seance, Tricknowlogy, Skateboarding, and the Space of Youth", the focal "skater" of the film that is being made is Rodney Mullen. The title of that film was actually Plan B: The Revolution.

I just wanted to give a little background information on Rodney, and give some of his most memorable moments on film as examples of the evolution of his style (and therefore skating style in general). Mullen is the greatest skater that has ever lived, and probably always will be. Its arguable, but not by much. When mullen started out (he's pushing 43 by the way), he was 11 years old, and people looked at skateboarding with very strange, very constraining viewpoints. You were either

A) freestlye skater (entering slow movement oriented, balance competions)
B) a street skater (basically just carving around on the street as if it were a concrete wave, with the occasional grab of the board (later to become the "melon") and possible an early form of the ollie
C) a vert or bowl skater, grown out of the california obsession with skating dried out pools, truly the closest thing to limitless surfing these kids could find

Rodney started out as a freestyle skater, but quickly found a lot of the stuff he was inventing (as a teenager) was better performed moving fairly quickly (For example, he arguably invented the ollie, and is actually credited with inventing:

* 180 Kickflip
* 360 Bigspin flip
* 360 nollie front foot flip
* 360 nollie heelflip
* 360 nollie shove-it late flip
* 360 nollie underflip
* 360 Pressure Flip
* 50-50 Casper
* 50-50 Saran Wrap
* 50-50 Sidewinder
* 540 Shove-it
* 540 Double Kickflip
* Airwalk
* Backfoot Varial Heelflip
* Backside 180 Flip
* Backside Double Heelflip
* Backside Double Backfoot Flip
* Caballerial impossible
* Casper 360 Flip
* Casper Slide
* Casper Slide 360 Flip
* Darkslide
* Double Flip Casper Slide
* Double Heelflip
* Double Kickflip
* Double Varial Heelflip
* Flat-Ground Ollie
* Gazelle (540 Shove-it 360 Body Varial)
* Godzilla Rail Flip
* Half-Cab Double Flip
* Half-Cab Heelflip Darkslide
* Half-Cab Impossible
* Half Cab Kickflip
* Half-Cab Kickflip Underflip
* Half Flip Darkslide (Adapted from Mark Gonzales' idea)
* Handstand Flip
* Heelflip
* Helipop (360 Nollie)
* Helipop Heelflip
* Impossible Casper Slide
* Impossible Late 360 flip
* Kickflip
* Kickflip Underflip
* No Handed 50-50
* No Handed 50-50 Kickflip
* Nollie Double Flip
* Nollie Half-Flip Darkslide
* Nollie Heelflip Darkslide
* Ollie Fingerflip
* Ollie Impossible
* Ollie Nosebone
* One Footed Ollie
* Rusty Slide
* Sidewinder
* Switch 360 flip
* 360 Flip
* Triple Heelflip
* Triple Kickflip
* Varial Heelflip
* Varial Heelflip Underflip
* Yoho Plant


and thats just whats actually attributed to him as a recognizable "trick." Essentially, he took freestyle to the streets, made it 1000 times more expressive, and eventually became the best all around skateboarder alive. He has won 33 of 35 competitions he has entered, and without cashing out on things like clothes at walmart and broad, poorly designed video games like tony hawk, he's still managed to become a millionaire. Its hard to say what skateboarding would be like without Mullen (which is not really comparable to mention for any other skater on the planet). His style evolved greatly as he took his skating from the competitions to the video, where some of his greatest mentors took young rodney under their wing and taught him how to better facilitate his own style onto the open street, how to make every piece of concrete on the earth into his own skatepark, and since then he has continued to impress and wow his fans. Its hard to imagine stating this for many other athletes but Mullen is literally still at his peak, still climbing, after practicing the sport professionally for 31 years now.


The videos below represent a transgression of his style, and also a viewing into what makes a video of rodney so special.



-Rodney Mullen shortly after being signed by Bones Brigade, Rodney displays his first feature segment in a video by showing off his freestyle abilities, which, as you will see, is mostly still nearly motionless - 1985 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUc6QMr6Dk8
From 6 months prior, actual competition in japan - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuMmT3E-KVU

-His next big leap would be with the superteam of skaters known as plan b. it was here that rodney nearly single handily developed or invented modern skateboarding. by taking his flip tricks to moving objects, to ramps, to curbs, to anything he could see with his eyes as a place to create. Watching this video feels like watching skate videos from the last few years. . . and then you realize he was doing this in '93 and literally no one else could keep up.. . . most still cant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs5Oe7unAwA

- And finally, at 39 years old, Rodney created a video for his jointly owned skate company "Almost Skateboards". This was the third "vs" title between himself and cofounder Daewon Song. This video simply speaks for itself, Rodney shows no signs of slowing down, and apparently plans to stay about 5-10 years ahead of everyone else in the evolution of the sport until he cant physically stand on the board any longer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpOnUEpDHdU



But rodney isnt just a guy who is good on a piece of wood with wheels, until he started making serious money skating, he was in college for biomedical engineering. He is one of the best "insiders" of the skateboard culture world to speak about the sport, as he should be, after basically holding the sports hand and guiding it for 30 years now. He is truly the godfather of every kid who picked up a board since about 1988. In this interview, rodney attempts to explain what skateboarding means to him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekzjzFFE_pY&feature=related



-wes

Good grief. Talk about jumping scale. That's some amazing stuff.