How to Grind
How to GrindHow to Grind
Well you want to learn how to grind. The first thing that you need to know is how to stall. Stalls are essentially
skating up to an object, jumping onto it, holding there for a couple of seconds, and then jumping off. This can be
anything from a stair, to a curb, to a car, to the coping on a vert.
To begin learning stalls, it is easiest to do it by going straight at the object you want to stall on, lets say a stair.
Slowly skate up to the stair, and at about a foot away jump up onto the stair. Do your best to land between the
correct wheels, as that is the purpose of this exercise! If the jump is giving you trouble, you can start by stepping
up onto the stair, but keep in mind that the ultimate goal is rails!
After you get this down, you can begin practicing variations that will keep you busy for a while. You can try a
backside stall, or one in which you do a jumping 180 and land on the stair. Or you can go with a rewind after you
do the stall. Or just any combination of the above. How about a 180 stall with a 360 rewind? In any case, do your
best to learn how to stall as that is the foundation of all grinds.
Before you actually move onto grinding, you need to wax the object you are trying to grind on. It's not hard at
all, and it will only take a few seconds and a few cents to do.
First off, you need to get the wax. Though most any wax will do, I personally stick with the Paraffin wax, found in
the canning section of just about any big grocery store. Its about $1.50, and is about 4x4x8" or so.
Some other types of wax that I have heard work are candle wax, crayons, Sex Wax, Chapstick, and even soap. If
its got a waxy feel to it, it will most likely work for making whatever surface you want to grind on more slippery.
Speaking of waxing up surfaces, here are a few tips that will help you wax up your surface a bit better.
First off, make sure you have a decent sized grinding area to wax up, I wouldn't go for anything under
about 10'. Next, you bust out the wax and proceed to coat the top of the curb, stair, planter, whatever you are
grinding, with a THICK coat of wax. The basic idea is that you want your wheels and frame to slide across the
layer of wax, and not grind or catch on the curb. So as a rule of thumb, put on enough wax so that you can feel
both the wax and the curb...
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