Skate 4: How To Perform A Crooked Grind

Be it in real life or in video games, the Crooked Grind simply feels satisfying when landed smoothly. It’s one of my favorite grinds in skate. alongside the Lipslide. The crooked looks clean, flashy, and is worth adding to your arsenal of tricks.

So, here is how to crooked grind in skate and add variety to your grinds. The crooked also works great with other tricks if you want to add a bit of flair to your lines.

What Is A Crooked Grind?

So what exactly is a Crooked Grind? It moves in a way that you lock your front truck onto a rail or ledge, and twist the board at an angle so that the back wheels hang off the rail or ledge.

And no, it’s not a nosegrind, it’s a little more slanted and kind of off-balance, but still close enough. It turns heads fast enough, and real-life skaters among gamers love its versatility just as much. Much like other grinds, you can also break out of it any time, allowing you to add other tricks to your lines.

If you ask me? It just looks aggressive, and when done right, you get that sharp scraping sound and a visual lean that makes the trick feel so appealing. 

How To Perform A Crooked Grind

Follow these steps to get a full grasp on how to perform a Crooked Grind neatly:

• Come into the rail/ledge at a slight angle and pop an Ollie.
• When airborne, simply hold the Right Stick up-left or up-right diagonally as your front tuck makes contact with the rail/ledge. This registers a crooked (backside/frontside).
• When in the grind, hold the stick in that direction until you’re ready to pop out.
• To pop out, I recommend flicking down for a quick nollie pop out, but you can also just let go of the stick and ollie off into the exit. There are no limits to creative lines.

If you are struggling to get the input down, I’d suggest finding a shorter rail. It’s easier to ollie onto a rail that’s short in height. I’d also recommend keeping your speed slow, just one or two pushes.

How To Combo The Crooked

The Crooked Grind is a great trick on its own, but skating is all about hitting cool combos. Here are a couple of cool lines you can try.

Crooked Into a Lip Slide: Both the Crooked and Lipslide are one of the coolest grinds you can do. Find a spot in San Vansterdam with two rails separated by a small gap. Start on the first rail and crooked grind it, then ollie onto the next rail into a Lipslide. Looks clean and flashy.

Manual For A Clean Exit: You can extend your lines and get more combo points by simply landing into a manual after the grind. You can then Manual Revert into a Powerslide to complete the line.

Grab Into Crooked: If you are jumping over a ramp onto a rail, then try a couple of different grabs when you are airborne.

Kickflip Onto The Rail Instead of Ollie: Once you are consistent with the inputs for the Crooked Grind, start using a flip trick (Kickflip, Heelflip, Laserflip, etc) to get onto the rail. It’s much flashier and cleaner than doing a simple ollie.