{"id":220,"date":"2006-06-30T13:57:08","date_gmt":"2006-06-30T13:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.whenwewasrad.co.uk\/index.php\/2006\/06\/30\/lija-at-beast-manor\/"},"modified":"2006-06-30T13:57:08","modified_gmt":"2006-06-30T13:57:08","slug":"lija-at-beast-manor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.whenwewasrad.co.uk\/index.php\/2006\/06\/30\/lija-at-beast-manor\/","title":{"rendered":"Lija at Beast Manor"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Laaja<\/a><\/p>\n

“Lija gets on with what he wants to get on with. Including competitions sometimes, but not on this occasion” — that was the oblique caption to this full-page picture of a skater who deserved more coverage than he got at this time.<\/p>\n

They attracted like-minded souls. Visiting vert skaters would beg rides out to the ramp in search of their own kind and would smile when they got there and found them. And the party would rage on. Right through autumn it raged on. There wasn’t really any need for an excuse like John’s birthday — they just played on and on while a different world skated to a different tune all round them. <\/p>\n

This is the story of those sessions, of all sessions, of the forgotten art of vert skating which has nothing to do with the competitions you see so often. Some of these skaters enter those competitions, some don’t. This is the other side of vert skating, the original side — back to skating for the sake of skating and nothing else. But it’s also back to skating as something secret, underground, exclusive. <\/p>\n

Look at these pictures of Beast Manor at the end of 1989 and ask yourself what they predict for skating in the nineties. Will vert skating detach itself from the rest of skating and risk ending up like freestyle or slalom? Or will all the categories break down as minis, midis, vert ramps, spine ramps, and bowl ramps merge with banks, and banks with street, and street with freestyle in one wild scene across the world. And which do you want anyway? Is skating about skating or about status and territory, whether it’s a jealously guarded curb or a non-stop party on a back yard monster? Is skating special cause it’s special or special cause it’s yours? Cast your vote now.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Lija gets on with what he wants to get on with. Including competitions sometimes, but not on this occasion” — that was the oblique caption to this full-page picture of a skater who deserved more coverage than he got at this time. They attracted like-minded souls. Visiting vert skaters would beg rides out to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-issue-82-december-1989"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whenwewasrad.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whenwewasrad.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whenwewasrad.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whenwewasrad.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whenwewasrad.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.whenwewasrad.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whenwewasrad.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whenwewasrad.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whenwewasrad.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}