Really early on, the vertical roller skating scene in Japan was flourishing though widely unrecognized by the western world. The distance, language barriers and no internet played a big role here. But this does not mean that information did not make its way around the globe. After Yasutaka Takamine saw a video of Fred Blood competing against Duke Rennie and Greg O’Neil he immediately got himself a pair of quads. “Roller skating in Japan hit its peak in the 1970’s. I began a little late in ‘79,” Yasutaka recalls. This did not stop him from achieving a high level of skill in no time. In 1982, there was a national tournament for the first time in Japan. “I entered and won,” he says. Watching old video footage which Yasutaka saved and digitalized is pure pleasure and fun; his inverts, flips and laybacks are brilliant.
