Let Your Fingers Do the Skating
Like most of his friends, 15-year-old Albar Maulana Mohammad has tried skateboarding. It’s a good way to impress the girls, after all. It was just all the falling off that was killing him.
Now Albar has discovered a new way to elicit oohs and aahs by pulling rad maneuvers, but without all the pain: Fingerboarding.
“Once you learn one trick, you won’t be able to stop,” he said.
A fingerboard is a miniature version of a skateboard — usually 10 centimeters long and 2.5 centimeters wide — complete with deck, trucks and wheels. Invented by well-known skateboarder Lance Mountain in the late ’70s, fingerboarding didn’t really take off until 2000, when it was taken to a new level by enthusiasts who began conducting workshops and staging competitions in the United States and Europe.
Albar’s love for fingerboarding began when he started playing with his skateboard key chain in 2008. He later discovered on the Internet that fingerboarding was a much more serious game than he had imagined.
“Out of curiosity, I started to learn the tricks from fingerboarding Web sites,” he said.
To improve his skills and widen his network, Albar decided to join Komunitas Fingerboard Indonesia (Indonesian Fingerboard Community) in February 2009. To his surprise, Albar discovered that he wasn’t alone. There were already a lot of young fingerboarders in Jakarta.
Established in 2008, Komunitas Fingerboard Indonesia is home to hundreds of members, mostly boys aged 11 to 18, who meet a few times a month to exchange ideas and practice tricks. Around 30 to 50 members attend the gatherings, which usually take place at food courts around the city.
“The great thing is that you can practice anywhere and use anything as your obstacles,” Albar said.
After picking the right spot, the boys place their miniature ramps and obstacles on the table and start practicing tricks.
“We keep changing the place every time we meet up because we usually only order drinks and play with our fingerboards for hours,” Albar said.
Some members also use the meetings to sell fingerboards and accessories.
According to Albar, the prices of fingerboards vary depending on the quality. An imported fingerboard, usually from the United States or Germany, can be purchased for about Rp 1.2 million ($130) while a locally made fingerboard can cost as little as Rp 150,000.
“If you want to be serious about this and you want to take part in competitions, then you need to get a good fingerboard,” he said. “But, if you only want to play for fun, just get a cheap one.”
According to Albar, imported accessories and obstacles can be purchased for around Rp 250,000 ecach, while local models, usually made from wood, range in price from Rp 50,000 to Rp 100,000.
Albar said that fingerboarding was similar to its more conventional counterpart, skateboarding, when it comes to the range of possible tricks.
“There is one trick that a fingerboarder can’t perform: the 360-degree flip,” Albar said, adding that this was because of the physical limitations of finger movements.
However, he said, it’s not always necessary to do tricks by the book.
“You can try to discover new tricks with the help of a wall, for instance. As a competitor, you’ll be very much appreciated if you can discover your own tricks,” he said.
Albar showed his commitment to the sport by winning Jakarta’s The King of Fingerboarding 2009 competition in two categories: best of mini ramps and best of street advance. He also won the best tricks category at Surabaya’s Finger Freak competition in May this year.
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