The mute grip, in which a rider uses her hand to grip the top of the skateboard between the rider’s feet as they turn backwards, is changed into the ‘Weddle Grab’ in Tony Hawk Pro’s upcoming remaster Skater 1 and 2.
The change is made in honor of Chris Weddle, a deaf skater who Hawk said was the first to do the trick.
He said that around 1981, shortly after the Indy airstrip was created, one suggested that a similar movement that grabbed the forehead should be called the ‘tracker air’. Others, however, pointed out that Weddle was the first to pull off the move, so it would have to be named after him.
“They called him the ‘quiet, dumb boy.'” Hawk wrote. “So that became known as the dumb air, and we all went along with it in our naive youth.”
Hawk wrote that although Weddle was “very gracious in his reaction” when asked about the trick, it was obvious that another “name would have honored his legacy.”
“I asked him last year because I dived into trick-or-treating, and he said he’d rather have called the ‘dove’ than ‘Weddle’ flu if given the choice,” Hawk said.
“His exact quote for me was ‘I’m deaf, not dumb.'”
While Hawk believes it will be “challenging to break the habit of saying the old name,” he believes Weddle deserves the recognition.
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