Aggressive skating

Aggressive skating is an extreme sport, performed on inline skates that are specially designed for stunts - jumps and grinds. Aggressive skates are a kind of roller skates, but unlike speed skates or fitness skates, they have smaller wheels, some of them only have two wheels on each boot, and the area between the middle wheels is reinforced with an "H-block" or grind plate.

Aggressive skating developed in the early 1990s as a reaction to the more mainstream fitness and hockey skating promoted by companies such as Rollerblade. The sport was pioneered by skaters like Chris Edwards (US), [Arlo Eisenberg] (US), Brooke Howard Smith (NZ), Chris Mitchell (US) and Brandon "B Love" Hardin.

Tricks in aggressive skating can be performed on street obstacles or on ramps. Street skaters perform more grinds and slides, whereas ramp skaters have more air-time and therefore can perform other tricks. Many of the aggressive tricks are similar to those done by skateboarders, although larger, an example being a double backflip, or a 1440 degree spin.

Aggressive skaters can perform grinds by using the soul plates, frames and H-blocks on the bottom of the skate. Grinds are usually done on rails and ledges although they can be performed on any obstacle which slides.

The most basic grinds are soul, acid, mizou, pornstar and royale. Spinning in different ways into these grinds can produce different variations. When you spin away from the object you are grinding it is called a true spin and when you spin towards it, it is called an in-spin.