How to Do a Smith Grind on a Skateboard

Video Transcript

"My name is Shawn Connolly. I live in San Francisco, California. I'm a sponsored skateboarder and I run a program for youth called SF Skate Club. What I'm going to show you today is how to do a smith grind on a skateboard. Now to do a smith grind, what you have to do is first find an obstacle that can grind. And what you're going to want to do is be able to ollie higher than whatever you're trying to do a smith grind on. Because to do a smith grind you actually have to ollie above the obstacle and then land in your smith grinds, grind it and then pop out. So once you've found the right spot that's going to work for you, like this rail will work, you ride up to the spot or the ledge front side, that means that the ledge or obstacle is on the side that you can see, its on your facing side, then you're going to want to ollie above the obstacle, land in this position like here with your truck locked in there and then sliding on the corner of the obstacle. So its almost like you're doing a grind and a board slide at the same time. Now once you've ollied into this position, the way to hold a smith grind is to extend your front leg straight and then bend your back knee to lock into this position. You're going to focus most of your weight above the back two sets of wheels or the back truck. Now when you ollie into it, picture yourself sticking out the front leg and bending your back foot to hold it on there. Another tip is to put the tip of your toe on your tail. Now what this does is during the grind it helps you get back out because the further on the end it is, the easier it is to push it and pop it out. If your foot is here you may find that you get locked if you can't put the weight on it. Another thing you want to remember when smith grinding is that you're going to have to lean back a lot and this is going to help you lean back and poke that trick forward and ride it through. And that's how you do a smith grind. My name is Shawn Connolly, I'm from San Francisco, California and I'm a sponsored skateboarder and I also run a program called SF Skate Club for Youth at sfskateclub.com."