Soul grind

The 'soul' is a grind used in Aggressive Inline Skating. It is one of the most basic sole based grinds done using both feet. The leading foot is placed on the object in the frontside position (with the toe of the skate pointing towards the object) and the trailing foot is placed in the Makio position (with a soul plate resting on the object).

Variants

There are many variants of the soul grind. They differ by the positioning of the feet.

Topsoul

Topsoul is the name given to a soul done topside.

Torque Soul

A Torque Soul is a grind similar to the Soul grind, the only difference being that the leading foot is placed in the 'torque' position, with the outside of the boot touching the object and bending inwards.

oyale

A Soyale is an alley-oop version of the Torque Soul. Alley-oop means grinding backwards instead of forwards. The Soyale was established and named by B Love Hardin.

Training Wheel

A Training wheel is normally done topside. Your trailing foot should be in the Fishbrain position while the back wheel of your lead foot should be rolling along the obstacle. Normally done on ledges or grind boxes this trick is one of the easier topside tricks and should make Topacids and Topsouls easier.

NAFU / AWOL

A variation of the Soyale (see above) where the lead foot (the foot grinding on the soul plate) is sliding on the toe end of the soul plate.

tubb Soul

The Stubb Soul uses the same back foot position, (so the foot is sliding on the positive soul plate), but the front foot, instead of grinding in the h-block, is sliding on the negative, or inner, soul plate. Trick was established by B Love Hardin in 1994. B love named the trick after a good friend, Troy Stubby who resides in Denver Colorado.

Biscuit

The Biscuit is similar to the Stubb soul, the difference being that the leading foot is twisted round 180 degrees and is sliding on the positive soul plate. This is quite a difficult grind and requires the skater's legs to be flexible.

Nine-bar

The nine-bar is a rare old-school trick that is similar to both the Soyale and AWOL. The difference is that the front/toe wheel of your soul foot should be rolling along the obstacle while the Royale foot is in Soyale position.

Byn Soul

The Byn Soul is the name given to a Soul grind in which the trailing foot is placed in the Backside Torque position. Another variant of the Byn Soul is the Byn Topsoul, which is similar to the Byn Soul, except that it resembles the Topsoul more than the Soul grind, and the trailing foot is placed in the Frontside Torque position. The title "Byn Topsoul" may appear confusing, as it includes the prefix "Top", which generally implies that at least one foot is to be placed in the "Top-Side" position, but it is actually a reference to the trick from which it is a modification: the "Top-Soul".

External links

* [http://www.xtremecentral.com/WASN/Summer2000/Laure.gifA photo of a skater doing a Soul Grind]
* [http://www.rollerblading.com.au/images/rollerblading-com-au-lillidimitrov-topsoul-bondi-wallpaper.jpgA photo of a skater doing a Topsoul]

Other Grinds

*Makio
*Mizou
*Royale
*Backslide
*Wondergrind
*Pudslide
*Fastslide
*Torque slide
*Acid soul