The History of Fingerboarding | Part 1 1960s-2013

Hey #fingerboarders! I decided to compile as much of my knowledge of #fingerboard history into one video. It's difficult for me to include everything, mainly due to the fact that I had little to no interaction with the European fingerboard scene in the early 2000's. Hopefully, some of the old fingerboarders like Martin Winkler, Afrobi and Manu Oberle can help me out and make a sequel video from the Europe point of view!

When did fingerboarding start? I know I've asked that question in the past.

#fingerboarding as a hobby had its origin most likely in the 1960s and 1970s. Skateboarders would remove the keychain from a miniature skateboard keychain and ride them with their fingers. While no one knows for certain who first started to perform tricks on the boards, we can imagine that there were people who removed the keychain from the board and used the mini-skateboard as a fingerboard. Fingerboarders quickly realized they could mimic skateboarding and perform fingerboard tricks!

In the early days of fingerboarding, a fingerboard could be a skateboard keychain with the chain removed, could be a piece of plexiglass or cardboard with toy car axles glued on, and could even be built from wood using popsicle sticks with hot wheel axles glued on.

As you can imagine, the early days of fingerboarding required ingenuity, creativity, and a passion for skateboarding.

Later on, as the scene began to build, we start seeing some epic meetups happen, where people from other countries and continents began to make pilgrimages to Germany and Massachusetts for fingerboarding. Let me know if you've enjoyed this video on fingerboarding history. There will be more videos to come!