20 June 2011

The Grind

Scott Oster by Dante Ross.

There are two schools of approach to a frontside grind. I've heard people say it is not a grind unless you are completely on top of the lip/coping, essentially standing up. The other approach is arse below the back truck, slashed the fuck out with your weight completely inside the transition. About 80% of my grinds are slashed, because I'm old and grew up studying photos of Scott Oster and his ilk. Also, because it feels almost the same as a frontside off-the-lip on wave.

I spend an inordinate amount of time in pursuit of that micro-second of slash. Fins through a feathering lip or trucks blasted across pool-block... doesn't matter...

Why does it feel so good to violently scrape a piece of aluminium across concrete or force fiberglass through a breaking wave? I don't have an answer but my aching shoulders and bruised palms, over grown lawn and unwritten poems are demanding one.