Origins: The Photo That Named the Japan Air | Tony Hawk’s skate history lesson
Without the stories and the history, skateboarding is really just rolling around on a piece of wood. But it’s become so much more. Behind every grab and trick is an entire culture.
Let Tony Hawk explain how the Japan Air came to be. Unfortunately the Japanese skater who was first published remains unknown to this day. The mystery continues…
Tony Hawk explains: “There was a TWS article with a feature on Japan around ’84. The first spread was a huge picture of a Japanese guy doing a tweaked mute air with the headline “JAPAN” above it. We had never seen an air like that and immediately started calling it by that name because the magazine layout almost named it by default. Someone should find that issue.”
Click over to Transworld SKATEboarding for the origins of the Japan Air with Tony Hawk.
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