How to Crooked Grind

The crooked grind is a nosegrind with the board angled into the ledge. It can be hard to learn at first, especially if it’s the first trick you do on the nose. Once you commit to it, though, it slides really well.

Want the backstory? Here’s who really invented the crooked grind.

Before you start

This trick kind of stands by itself. You should probably be able to do noseslides, but you don’t have to. It’s its own standalone thing.

Pick the right ledge

Skate something you’re really comfortable with. If you have a choice, go for something about medium height rather than really small. On something small, you pop the nose way up and then have to pull it all the way down. You hit it harder, and there’s more of a chance you’ll stop. If small is all you’re comfortable with, that’s fine.

Foot position

I set my front foot up tilted at an angle. That’s not extremely important, but it helps. When you ollie, your foot tends to stay at the same angle. If you start with your foot completely straight, you’re more likely to turn when you land, and it won’t work out as well. Start like that, and make changes if you need to.

How to crooked grind

1. Approach at a slight angle

Don’t come at it too sharply. If you do, you’ll land and the board will pop off, and you’ll end up doing the splits. Don’t go too straight at it either. Your weight ends up on top while the board is off to the side, and you fall off.

2. Pop late

I wait until the last second. It feels like my heel is about to touch the ledge when I pop. That way you hit it more and your weight shifts on top of it. If you ollie too early, you have to work harder to get the nose up onto it, and it might slip off. I always wait until it seems almost too late, and that’s how I lock in.

3. Land on the nose truck

Land with the center of the front truck on the ledge and the corner of the nose sliding. You don’t want the front wheel too close to the edge, because that won’t grind very well.

I land pretty much straight when I first get in, and then the board tilts as I grind.

4. Come off

The simple way is to come off fakie. You just kind of fall right off, and it doesn’t take much practice. The way that looks best is landing straight. That’s where problems come in. See below.

Troubleshooting

The board stops and you step off

You ollie, hit the ledge and just step off. There are three likely reasons:

1. The ledge isn’t slick enough. Easy fix: put some wax on it.
2. You’re not putting all your weight on the nose. This is the most likely one. You pop and kind of push the nose down and step off. You’re not fully committed. It feels like putting all your weight forward will push you off, but the real problem is when you push the board down and float above it. You want to actually land on it. It’s hard to tell if that’s what you’re doing, because it might not feel or look like it.
3. You’re landing wrong. The board is tilted too much, your toe touches, or the front wheel is too far over.

Once you commit and land in it properly, you should start to grind no problem. This trick doesn’t stick much.

The board flips when you land straight

This is the main problem for me. It only happens when you’re almost stopped or stopped. With most grinds, you learn by grinding to a stop and then falling off, and it’s fine. With the crooked grind, if the board stops, it will almost always flip. It’s nearly impossible to start stationary and land with the board straight up.

So you have to come off with some speed. Not super fast, but you want to still be in a smooth grind when you land. If the board is still sliding, you just change the direction of the slide and it slips right off.

Here’s how that feels for me. The board starts to come out, and my weight is totally on the nose. I want to land with my weight in the center, so I push the nose out. Sometimes I land in a slight pivot. Keep the board sliding, and arc it off instead of shoving it straight out.

It’s probably best to come off fakie for a while, until you’re really comfortable with the slide and can do it with some speed. Then start sliding it off and landing straight.

What’s next

Crooked grinds pair well with the rest of your nose tricks. Try the frontside nosegrind and noseslide.