Jean-Marc Vaissette.

Freestylers of the world unite and take over.

This week Vert Is Dead takes a quick look back at freestyle. Freestyle was a specialized branch of skateboarding, done on smaller boards that were the forerunner to the modern popsicle shape that has been popular for the last twenty years. The tricks ranged from balancing on the rails or trucks in one place to assorted manuals and flips done while rolling. There were also handstands, 360s, tic tacs, shove-its, and more. A lot of the modern day street tricks were adapted from freestyle moves, which were often invented by trying vert tricks on flatground. Most companies in the 1980s and very early 1990s had at least one or two freestyle pros on the team. The discipline more or less vanished by 1992 when Rodney Mullen made the permanent switch to a regular street board, which was oddly similar to his old freestyle deck. I am positive there are still guys out there who skateboard this way and I hope they continue to do so. It is also interesting to note that many of the former freestyle pros moved behind the scenes to become owners of some of the more successful brands in the industry.

Jean-Marc is French. He was sponsored by Tracker and had a pro model from them, in addition to riding the trucks.

Transworld - August 1989 Volume 7 Number 6