This time on the Shred School, we’re going to figure out the 50-50 grind! Let’s get to it!
Prerequisites
To learn the 50-50, you need a solid rolling ollie. I think noseslides help quite a bit for the sake of getting comfortable with sliding, but they aren’t completely required. As long as you can ollie higher than the curb you’re going to grind, you’ll be alright.
How To
What we’re doing with this trick is ollieing onto the curb, riding along on the coping, and dropping off. It’s not a complicated trick, but there are two separate parts you’ll need to learn.
Let’s practice ollieing in. Set your board down next to the curb, a couple inches away. What we’re going to do is ollie forward a bit and land in a stall. This will help build some confidence when we have to do this rolling and immediately commit to a grind.
Getting the front truck on is pretty easy. As you ollie, push the nose forward a little bit. If you’re skating something low enough, it’s almost guaranteed you’ll be able to hit it with your truck.
The back truck is a little more difficult. In fact, doing it stationary is harder than doing it rolling, because you don’t have the angle of your approach to help push you up over the coping. But what you do is ollie a bit higher than you have to. When you get up in the air, start to push that back foot forward.
So the technique is kind of like taking two steps in the air. The front foot goes first, and as you get off the ground, the back foot comes with it. If you can’t do it in the air, it’s also okay to land in a bit of a nose pivot. This is a helpful strategy when grinding something that’s a little higher than you’re comfortable with.
If your back truck is on the coping, it’s a success. In a grind, it’s nice to have both heelside wheels locked against the coping, but that’ll be easier while rolling.
Once you’re up here, how do you land? It’s just a kickturn, but with a little twist.
If you casually just kickturn off, the board might roll over the edge of the curb and flip over. You need to have your back foot’s weight on the toe side of the board to keep the board flat as you do it to cancel that out. Do it quickly and confidently, and the board will stay with you.
Next, we practice the grind part. Wax the curb up a lot. If it’s metal coping, it doesn’t need much. But put a fresh coat on it anyway. Put your board on the coping in 50-50 position, and run and jump on it to get into the grind. If it grinds well, you can kickturn off and land it.
Lastly, we’re just putting it together. Get a comfortable amount of speed and roll up at a slight angle. Ollie up onto the curb, and commit to the grind. Ride it out a little bit, the kickturn off and roll away.
Troubleshooting
So what can go wrong with this one? First, not getting a great lock-in. When you practice the stationary version, it’s tough to get that back truck all the way on. When you roll completely parallel to the curb, it’s the same issue. A sharper angle will help get you up onto the curb, but you’ll lose some speed in the grind, and you’ll have to rotate a bit in the air. Experiment with some different angles of approach until you find one that you’re comfortable with.
What about the grind itself? If it’s not grinding well, try a bit more wax. If it’s a freshly waxed curb, it sometimes has to break in before it’ll grind comfortably. Try running and jumping into the grind a few more times to get more comfortable with the grind.
What about the landing? Dropping off the side requires some confidence. If you’re having a lot of trouble with it, try grinding all the way to the end and dropping off. It’s not possible at some spots, like the curb I’m skating, but if you have enough speed, it’s easy to just lift up the nose a bit at the end and ride off.
Advancement
Grinding higher ledges is a good way to push yourself. For me, there are two main differences. First, I bring my front foot back a little bit. Not too much, but it helps to get a little bit extra height.
Second, it can help to land a little bit nose heavy to help slide that back truck in. When you get up there, you can frontside shove it out, kickflip out, or backside shove it in. This is a great grind for combos.
Tip of the Day
Don’t be afraid of switch stance. There isn’t a correct time to start learning your tricks switch, you can do it at any point. If you want to redo every trick in this course switch now, you can. Most people will learn a few switch tricks as they get better.
But the thing is, most people will find that a few tricks are easier switch. It’s usually heelflips and frontside tricks. Varial heelflips, frontside bigspins, and even hardflips. But if you never skate any switch, you won’t find out if that’s true for you.
Homework
This trick doesn’t have homework, but since you’re done with the course, you have one last thing to do. As you get more comfortable with these tricks, head back through the tricks and pay special attention to the advancement section. You can learn these tricks fakie, do them higher and faster, and build consistency.
Also, make sure you show me by posting on Instagram with the hashtag #ShredSchool101. At the end of this, I’ll pick a winner to get this prize from Quasi!
Next Time
A winner will be announced on Instagram for the drawing! But this is the last trick in this course. Thanks so much for following along. If you liked the course, let me know!