| Type | Subsidiary of Heelys |
|---|---|
| Industry | Extreme Sports Equipment |
| Founded | Torrance, California (1997) |
| Headquarters | Carrollton, Texas, U.S. |
| Products | Grinding shoes, Grindplates, apparel |
| Revenue | undisclosed |
| Employees | undisclosed |
| Website | http://www.soapshoes.com/ |
Soap is the brand name for shoes made for grinding. They were introduced by Chris Morris of Artemis Innovations Inc. with the brand name "Soap" in 1997. They have a plastic concavity in the sole, which allows the wearer to grind on objects such as pipes, handrails, and stone ledges. The company and their product rapidly gained popularity through fansites, a video game, and live demonstrations. Soap fell to legal vulnerabilities and was readministrated twice, eventually bringing the brand to Heeling Sports Limited. The act of grinding on rails and ledges specifically using soap shoes has been dubbed "soaping," with the "soaper" being the one performing said act.
Contents |
Soap shoes were essentially derived from rollerblades and aggressive skating. Chris Morris, a resident of California who worked at RollerBlade in Torrance for over sixteen years, worked to customize a simple shoe that had a grind plate embedded in the sole. The shoe was an average Nike, fitted for sliding. Concept 21 (a recently founded design firm) was called upon to design a sample so that the product could be finalized. They then formed Artemis Innovations, which would be the company the brand would be sold under for four years. In 2001, Mr. Morris lost control of the Soap license through legal problems. Activity within the company slowed down, and eventually the remaining executives sold Soap.
In-Stride, a company whose target market was primarily wrestling gear, purchased Soap. It is still debated whether In-Stride ever designed or released any Soap shoes, although evidence does suggest that they were responsible for a couple models that did not have grindplates. In-Stride went bankrupt in late 2002, and Soap was once again available for purchase.
Heeling Sports Limited, the company behind the shoes with a wheel in the sole known as Heelys, realized that the grindplate could be very profitable when paired with their wheel, and acquired Soap later that year. In early 2003, six new Soap shoes were released, each in multiple color schemes; simultaneously, HSL was designing hybrid shoes to sell under the Heelys brand. HSL has been criticized for releasing too many new models at a single time, and not supplying requested stock to retailers frequently enough. There is one model still in production from the first generation released by HSL, the Soap Express.
The sport never caught on to the mass market in comparison to, for instance, skateboarding, but the brand "Soap" does have a professional team mostly consisting of pro inline skaters. Soap's heyday was in the late 90's and early 2000s, when competing crews from across the Americas and Europe were releasing internet videos, spurring an online community of "Soapers". These crews have since disbanded along with the website forums, and now there are few proponents left. A revival of sorts was noticed in early 2006 as more people were attracted to Soaping, and HSL responded by re-releasing their Express model in limited quantities. Soap shoes continue to sluggishly regain popularity, although not without difficulty due to Heelys using grindplates in addition to their wheels.
Soap shoes can go hand-in-hand with freestyle walking to form lines or multiple tricks strung together. It is one of the few land-based extreme sports that can be easily practiced in both dry and wet conditions.
There are two schools of thought for basic frontside/backside grinding with Soap Shoes; the first using the leading leg (your right foot if you are goofy and vice versa for regular) as the leg you leap off, landing with your back foot on the rail/ledge/etc. first and subsequently placing your leading foot on moments later. The second technique is to leap off your trailing leg and place your leading foot on the rail/ledge/etc. first following it with your trailing foot moments later. You can also endeavour to land both feet simultaneously on the rail.
There is little advantage from one technique to the other; leading leg first often yields more speed but this is at the expense of control, and abandoning a trick if your trail leg fails to lock onto the obstacle proves difficult without risking injury, as your leading leg will be sliding away from you. On the other hand, the trail leg first technique is much more controlled and safer in the event of poor execution, but speed is sacrificed.
The technique used is mostly based on preference due to your natural bias. e.g. a right footed person who is of regular stance (the most common combination) will find it far easier to leap off their left foot and land with their right foot on the rail first using the trailing leg technique outlined above.
Here are the very basic tricks that can be performed with Soap shoes:
Soap shoes were featured in the video game Sonic Adventure 2, developed by Sonic Team USA in San Francisco. This game presented many billboards, blimps, and benches advertising the shoes; also, Sonic wore a custom version of the Scorcher/Nitro shoe exclusive to the title, while the darker character Shadow wears hybrid jet hoverskate/grind shoes, as grinding (or "soaping") debuted as an important new gameplay element. Grinding remains a core element in recent Sonic games, though officially licensed Soap shoes have given way to generic grind shoes. Pending the sale of Soap to In-Stride and later HSL, no actions were taken for the continuation of the partnership. However, in two episodes of the anime Sonic X, Sonic's Soap shoes are brought in to give him an advantage over his enemies.