Deaf skateboarder’s trick formerly called "mute," now called "The Weddler Grab"
About two weeks ago, a famous skateboarder Tony Hawk, apologized and recognized a deaf skateboarder named Chris Weddle on Instagram. In the Instagram post, Hawk explains about one skateboard trick that has always been called the “mute” air/grab because it was named after a deaf man (Chris). After forty years, the name has finally been changed to “The Weddle Grab” to honor Chris and his invention of that trick.
(Picture of Chris Weddle doing “ The Weddle Grab” on Tony Hawk’s instagram)
Hawk also thanked another deaf person named Darrick De La O who is also another skateboarder for being an advocate to change this name. The Daily Moth reached out to Chris and Darrick for an interview.
INTERVIEW
Renca: Your name is really getting out there from Tony Hawk recognizing you for your skateboarding move. How do you know Tony Hawk?
Chris: I know him from competitions from when we were just kids, we were young. We were in similar circles and always saw each other, but we never really talked much. We’d just see each other around during competitions. The move was coined after a competition in ‘81. So now, to have Tony Hawk reaching out to me was a shock! He got in touch with me through Zoom with an interpreter. He got an interpreter for the conversation. It was really nice! And the interview went really well. In 1981, he knew me as “mute”. That disappointed me. It feels like it is not “my” trick but it is really my trick. I have to thank Darrick De La O, he’s deaf too. He was telling this to Tony Hawk for three years about this and I had no idea. He was really persistent about making that change. Barking like a dog, to change the name! Because it wasn’t appropriate…
Renca: So Chris mentioned that you played a huge part in contacting Tony Hawk about this, I’d like for you to explain what that was like contacting him, and for how many years? Had you met Tony Hawk before? If you wouldn’t mind sharing the story of your persistence.
Darrick: I formally met Tony Hawk at an event for Brandon White’s movie, “We Are Blood”. It’s a big skateboarding film. So I was there and I met Tony, there was a lot of conversation going on. When I met him, I explained a little bit about Deaf culture and we started a friendship… Four, five years ago. Ever since then we followed each other, knew each other, and we'd chat occasionally. It was never anything serious or intense, it was just casual stuff about other Instagram posts related to skateboarding like grabs, and so on. I kept giving him tips. explaining over and over again about the change, and I didn’t stop. I kept going and going. Giving hint after hint. Then it was about a month ago, it was announced that Tony Hawk’s new Pro Skater game was coming out, and that there would be one small change. The “Mute Grab” was being changed to “The Weddle Grab”. Easy as that. Tony Hawk Pro Skater is a video game that’s coming out soon. I’ve always loved the game, I love gaming. When you do different tricks in the game, the tricks pop up on the screen. Yeah, so with combo tricks and everything and then you make that grab, that name shows up on the screen. You see all the tricks listed, which is really cool and everything, but you give it a second thought and it’s like, there’s a better, more appropriate term for that move. Right. So it honors my deaf friend, the originator of that move which is why it needed a better name. And he agreed with me, so I made a big call for change. And this change happened at the right time. We’ve all been calling for change recently, and Tony Hawk supported that just like he’s supported BLM. I let him know that “mute” is not the appropriate term to refer to a deaf person, you know? It’s not correct.
Renca: How did you know that Chris was the inventor of the mute grab? Well, the Weddle Grab now, how did you know about that?
Darrick: Yes! Well, back in the day I started at a mainstream school at University High School then I went to Riverside (CSDR) for three years. When I got there, most of my friends were around four, five years older than me. And Chris was like 10 years older than me. But all my friends would always talk about Chris and how he invented that grab trick. So at that time I was like 15, 16...everyone was talking about that and I thought it was so cool, but I hadn’t met him yet. Until I was...let’s see...I was 25 or so when I finally met Chris. We talked and he told me so much about what happened, it was awesome! And he was talking about how people don’t do the trick right, and Chris actually taught me the exact right way to do the move. I want to see a video from Chris teaching us how to do it the right way!
Renca: How did you feel when you learned that trick was called the “Mute Grab” because of you? How did that feel?
Chris: Eh...I knew it was my move, but I accepted it as a trick. And it just stuck for so long, almost 40 years. Skaters and competition was such a small circle. People didn’t know. But now, everything is wide open and it’s great.
Renca: And what was the response like with Tony, and how did that feel? Was he really apologetic, or...how did Tony respond to that quote you said, “I am deaf, not mute”, what did Tony say about that?
Chris: You know...it just wasn’t something he thought about. But he looked into it and he realized it was best to change the name. He felt a little embarrassed and he was sorry. Then he told me that the new name should be in his game and he asked, “Is that alright with you?” I mean, that was mind blowing! To the Deaf community, now you know who I am! I support you all! Remember, no more “mute!” Thank you to Darrick, and Tony Hawk!
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Thank you Chris and Darrick for your time. Two interesting topics that were also brought up with Darrick during our interview. One is that Darrick says that studies from a various places including University of Southern California (USC) show skateboarding help fight against racism. The most recent one was published from New York Times. We included the links to these articles in this transcript.
The second one is that Darrick brought up of wanting the idea of adding a sports category of skateboarding to the Deaflympics. He believes that it will bring more diverse people with different talents to the Deaflympics. I think that is a cool idea!
We asked Chris to send in a video to teach us how to do “The Weddle Grab.”
(Chris showing how to do the Weddle Grab)
If you try this trick, go ahead and upload the video and tag Chris, Darrick, and Hawk! You can follow Chris and Darrick on Instagram. Information is in this transcript.
I personally cannot skateboard. I tried once and I fell down and hurt my elbow. However, I feel so inspired by this so perhaps I should give skateboarding a try again!
Articles:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/18/us/usc-skateboarding-study.html
https://www.optimistdaily.com/2020/06/fighting-racism-on-wheels-skateboarding-and-racial-justice/ https://pullias.usc.edu/blog/groundbreaking-study-redefines-skateboarding-culture/
Instagram usernames
Chris Weddle: @muteyweddle
(https://www.instagram.com/muteyweddle/)
Darrick De La O: @darrick_delao
(https://www.instagram.com/darrick_delao/