Freestyle walking - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Freestyle walking appeared as early as 1995 in a video on MTV Unfiltered. The sport was first and most notably introduced to the world in April 1996 via MTV's The Week in Rock where the freestyle walking segment was introduced and then commented on by Kurt Loder and later as a segment in the MTV News show: "MTV News Un-Filtered." It was featured as part of an "Authority Sucks Week" MTV promotion.=
History
The art of freestyle walking (loosely related to free running

Free running

Freerunning is a form of urban acrobatics in which participants, known as freerunners , use the city and rural landscape to perform movements through its structures...

) is a means of self-expression and creative interaction with one's environment. Freestyle walkers use leaps and air moves, clever footwork, dance or any non-traditional walking movement. Today, many practitioners view it as the act of rollerblading or skateboarding

Skateboarding

Skateboarding is an action sport which involves riding and performing tricks using a skateboard.Skateboarding can be a recreational activity, an art form, a job, or a method of transportation. Skateboarding has been shaped and influenced by many skateboarders throughout the years. A 2002 report...

without the skates or board. Some participants use soap shoes

Soap shoes

Soap is the brand name for shoes made for grinding. They were introduced by Chris Morris of Artemis Innovations Inc. with the brand name "Soap" in 1997. They have a plastic concavity in the sole, which allows the wearer to grind on objects such as pipes, handrails, and stone ledges...

with grind plates that allow the freestyle walker to grind

Skateboarding trick

A skateboarding trick, or simply a trick is a maneuver performed on a skateboard while skateboarding. Learning and perfecting new tricks is the primary goal of many skateboarders, for whom most of the time spent skateboarding is spent on tricks....

or slide easily along surfaces such as curbs, ledges and bars. With the increase in popularity of soap shoes during the mid- to late-1990s, many newcomers to freestyle walking mistakenly began to refer to the act of grinding using soap shoes as freestyle walking.

Moves

Basic examples of freestyle walking moves include:

Broadside
Broadside
A broadside is the side of a ship; the battery of cannon on one side of a warship; or their simultaneous fire in naval warfare.-Age of Sail:...

s
Falls
- Fallbacks
- Sweetfalls - "also known as actually falling, but then jumping back up like nothing happened"
Flips
- Freak flips
Grabs
Grabs (skateboarding)
Grabs in skateboarding are different ways to hold the skateboard during an aerial usually combine aerials with rotation as the skateboarder grabs and holds the board.-Grab tricks:...

(airbound, often grabbing a part of the body such as the ankle or foot)
Hangings
Heelclicks
Hops
Jumping
Jumping or leaping is a form of locomotion or movement in which an organism or non-living mechanical system propels itself through the air along a ballistic trajectory...
Jams
Jangles
Jukes
Rolls
Slide
Slides (skateboarding)
A slide is a skateboarding trick where the skateboarder slides sideways either on the deck or on the wheels. This includes primo ..-Slide tricks:Anti-Casper SlideBert SlideBluntslideBoardslide, aka railslideCasperslideCrail SlideDarkslideLipslide...

s
- Rail slides (often sitting on a rail, or using shoes with grind plates)
Spins
- Late spins
- Sick spins
- Slim spins
Stalls
Swings
Tap
Tap dance
Tap dance is a form of dance characterized by using the sound of one's tap shoes hitting the floor as a percussive instrument. As such, it is also commonly considered to be a form of music. Two major variations on tap dance exist: rhythm tap and Broadway tap. Broadway tap focuses more on the...

s
Vault
Vault (parkour)
In the discipline of parkour, a vault is any type of movement that involves jumping or leaping over an obstacle while putting weight on it with one's hands. Parkour vaults enable the practitioner to quickly and efficiently pass over railings, tables, walls, and platforms.There are many types of...

s

Named moves

Brian Toshin' AKA Da Cockpit
Craigy Special: Named for originator Craig Mycoskie
EthanFromes
Injun (crossing the legs and making a two-fingered "war feather" gesture behind the head, in mid-air)
Jefferies
Mikey Likey
Tree-hugger: hanging onto a tree (usually the trunk)
Koala: A tree-hugger done hanging onto a branch, not the trunk
Winter Chills
Daniel Tosh: back flipping over a little person
Monty Python: front flipping over a shrubbery
Johnny Appleseed: a tree-hugger done on an apple tree
Jay Leno: a jangle that touches your chin to the surface being jangled
Flasher: a nude jangle

Related arts

Related art forms are extreme walking and trail rushing, similar in motivation but including additional elements. Extreme walking normally involves any element of danger, whereas the related art of trail rushing is essentially freestyle walking on a trail. Both of these (as well as soaping) are considered to be subsections of the larger concept of freestyle walking.

Some see a correlation between parkour

Parkour

Parkour is a method of movement focused on moving around obstacles with speed and efficiency. Originally developed in France, the main purpose of the discipline is to teach participants how to move through their environment by vaulting, rolling, running, climbing and jumping...

and freestyle walking. Although the two contain seemingly similar movements, the art forms are driven by different motives. Parkour focuses on efficiency in movement; freestyle walking focuses on spontaneity and glory in movement. There is also a correlation between freestyle walking and free running

Free running

Freerunning is a form of urban acrobatics in which participants, known as freerunners , use the city and rural landscape to perform movements through its structures...

: both focus on aesthetics over efficiency. However, free running

Free running

Freerunning is a form of urban acrobatics in which participants, known as freerunners , use the city and rural landscape to perform movements through its structures...

is oriented towards a specific destination, and moving through an environment quickly. Freestyle walking has no intended path.

Another derivative of freestyle walking is freestyle coning, in which participants confine their "freestyling" to the area around a small traffic cone

Traffic cone

Traffic cones, also called traffic pylons, road cones, highway cones, safety cones, construction cones or witches' hats or safety wizards, are usually cone-shaped markers that are placed on roads or footpaths to temporarily redirect traffic in a safe manner...

, often using the cone in the freestyle.

Equipment

The equipment needed for freestyle walking is nothing but an urban to sub-urban landscape and a person wanting to express themselves. To help with some of the more difficult moves, such as wall rides, a shoe

Shoe

A shoe is an item of footwear intended to protect and comfort the human foot while doing various activities. Shoes are also used as an item of decoration. The design of shoes has varied enormously through time and from culture to culture, with appearance originally being tied to function...

may be made to give more grip while getting rid of some of the excess weight.

For grinding without inline skates or a skateboard, shoes with grind plates are frequently used.

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Moves

Named moves

Related arts

Equipment

See also

External links