Shamir Ali attributes his latest obsession to the lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic. Stuck inside doing nothing, he came across an old Tech Deck, the palm-sized plastic skateboards made popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
“It’s like nostalgia at this point, really rekindling my old inner self, my inner child’s sense of humor, innocence, as they say,” he told KCRW.
Ali fondly remembers his elementary school days, when he was doing tricks and squeaking with his tiny skateboards on his desk in the middle of class. His teachers always took the toys away – only for him to rush to the nearest store and buy another and another.
Shamir Ali gets some air with his fingerboard at a mini skatepark outside the Slushcult Mini-Mart in Santa Ana. Photo by Danielle Chiriguayo/KCRW.
“I feel like you have to have things that take you away from what you do in your normal day – for you to re-value them,” Ali says. “I can sit here and get away all day [with] something as simple as a piece of wood smaller than my hand.
Today, the mass-produced and inexpensive toys of Ali’s childhood have evolved into something more mature and refined: keys. They are part of a thriving international community of enthusiasts who use two fingers to perform ollies, kickflips and virtually every skateboarding trick you could think of – all from the relative safety of a desk, mini skate park or any other flat surface. at hand.
“The way I would explain it to someone who isn’t fingerboarding is this: imagine picking up a skateboard, and like a retractable ray gun, and you literally shoot the skateboard with the gun. retractable rays,” says Clayton McCarthy, owner of Slushcult. Mini Mart, a fingerboard store based in Santa-Ana.
The market sells everything from boards to trucks to wheels, all a fraction of the size of their full-size skateboard counterparts. It also hosts a monthly fingerboarding “sesh”, where fingerboarders of all ages get together to try out their latest tricks.
Dozens of skaters headed to downtown Santa Ana to try out their latest tricks at miniature skate parks outside the Slushcult Mini-Mart. Photo by Danielle Chiriguayo/KCRW.
Fingerboards have been on the scene since the 1960s and 1970s, when skateboarders made them out of cardboard and toy car parts. But many of today’s keys are handmade works of art.
McCarthy says the best ones are made almost exactly like regular skateboards, with one deck with five layers of maple wood that are glued and pressed together.
“[Their] the wheels even have tiny little bearings. They spin like a real skateboard wheel, sometimes even better than a real skateboard wheel. And they’re made of the same urethane as a skateboard,” he explains.
McCarthy adds that the best keys don’t come cheap.
“How a professional skateboard with an expensive deck, expensive trucks, expensive wheels, expensive tape can run you $120-$160 – the same thing happened with fingerboarding.
From the black market to international competition
Nash Keanu Jacquez grew up in Visalia, a small town in the San Joaquin Valley. And just like Ali, Jacquez fondly remembers playing with Tech Decks in class. He even took his love of pint-sized boards one step further – he sold custom boards to friends at school.
“[I was] sell them during breaks between classes. [They were] black market touches in college,” Jacquez told KCRW.
Over the years, Jacquez made his way into competition in nearby cities, then Los Angeles and San Diego. In his first fight, he placed third in street fingerboarding and first in the vert competition (where skaters fly their boards up a vertical ramp and attempt to land).
“For my first fingerboard event, my ego was boosted. It exploded,” he recalls fondly.
It eventually caught the eye of sponsors, including German fingerboard company Blackriver. Founded in 1999, it is arguably the largest fingerboard company in the world. This gave him the opportunity to compete all over the country, and even the world, visiting places like Dallas, Denver, Berlin and Portugal.
“I have just come back from Europe. I was on an 11 day tour for the Online World Championships. I was a judge, then I shot a catalog for Blackriver,” he explains. “Kids would tie the contest. … They were looking at me, looking at the catalog, [and] look at me again. And then be like, ‘Oh, it’s you!’ ”
In 2021, Jacquez won one of the biggest competitions of all: the USA Skateboarding National Fingerboarding Championship.
Today, he owns Sorry for Fingerboarding, an online marketplace that sells fingerboards, themed clothing and even ramps – tiny versions of obstacles such as halfpipes.
The new generation of fingerboarders
Unlike Jacquez or Ali, Sofia Magdaleno didn’t grow up playing with Tech Decks. The 15-year-old is part of the next generation of fingerboarders. After posting videos of her tricks on Instagram, she gained over 1,500 followers, enough to attract three different sponsors.
Sofia Magdaleno, 15, is one of the next generation of fingerboarders. She shows off her current board setup during a recent Slushcult Mini Mart session. Photo by Danielle Chiriguayo/KCRW.
“My creativity comes out. I touch almost every day,” says Magdaleno. “The totality [fingerboarding] The community is such a fun and diverse community made up of a bunch of different people, of all ages.
As with skateboarding, Magdaleno admits there aren’t as many women in the sport as she would have hoped. But she remains focused on pulling off her tricks and having fun in the process.
“When you’re really into a ride, you can either get really, really frustrated with yourself, or you can get this really calm feeling,” she says. “Once you land it, it’s like the best feeling ever. You have tried for so long. And then you finally get it. It is one of the most gratifying feelings.
As fingerboarding attracts the next generation of riders, it could experience something of a renaissance. Companies like Burger King and Red Vines featured dabs in massive ad campaigns last month. And recently, skateboarding pioneer Tony Hawk unveiled his own line of fingerboards.