The Rise of Grind Tricks

by Crazy Ivan

There was a time when Grinds were a technicality.  When we tried to categorize all the tricks together, we noticed that there was no category where the Dark Slide really fit.  We could have just modified the definition of Centrifugals (and to a large extent, that's exactly what we did), but this trick certainly didn't belong with moves like the Snake, the Crane, the Roller Coaster, the Vert... these moves were all about the Myachi being stationary.  The Dark Slide starts on the Elbow and ends on the back of the hand.  That's hardly stationary.  What's more is that there's no use of centrifugal force in the Dark Slide, so it's pretty inaccurate to lump it in with a category with that name.

So we created a new category and called it "Grinds".  That made sense from a skateboarding/tech-deck perspective and it sounded like a cool addition to our list of categories.  But the solution created a problem of it's own, obviously.  You can't have a "category" that only has one trick in it.  So we set about coming up with a couple more grind tricks.

The first several were pretty easy.  We reversed the Dark Slide (which is easy to come up with but pretty hard to accomplish) and we use the other obvious elbow to hand and hand to elbow slides.  We ended up with about a dozen tricks that we could call "Grinds" and we were satisfied with the idea that we were done there.

Over the intervening years, Grinds was the one category of tricks that I would constantly forget when I was trying to list all of them.  I hardly ever used any of them in my shreds (except the Dark Slide) and virtually never taught any of them.  On rare occasion, a new one would be invented.  Off the top of my head, the only ones I can think of that were created during this period were the "Wrist Twist" and the "Mind Grind", though there were probably a couple of others.

The slow pace of this categories growth really ended when Monk came into the game.  He started using a few of these moves and shortly after that Mav showed up and rolled with it as well.  These two guys (along with Animal) were really defining what was "cutting edge" in Myachi at the time so their interest in Grind tricks quickly transferred to a movement-wide resurgence.

But I don't want to overstate this renaissance.  It was still a pretty minor category and the "re-opening" of that box was so subtle and small that it went unnoticed.  Mav would come up with a new trick and I would say, "Cool, now there 26 grind tricks".  Monk would come up with two variations and not to be outdone, Animal would come up with 2 more and suddenly we're over 30.  But that still leaves it the second smallest category with only basic flips and spins behind it.

So, up to this point, the timeline of Grind tricks looks something like this:

July 2004 - Butter comes up with the "Dark Slide".

Sept 2004 - We realize we need to add "Grinds" as a new Trick Category.

Sept 2004 - Kid, Big Dog and I come up with half a dozen or so basic Grinds.

All of 2005 - Nothing happens

All of 2006 - Nothing happens

All of 2007 - Nothing happens

March 2008 - Monk and Mav get into forearm Grinds.

And over the next few years, not much more happened.  The category swelled a bit more, but even today there are fewer than 100 Grind tricks that have actually been mastered by anyone I'm aware of.  It's still a small part of a large game and I'm not aware of anyone who is really focused on that element of the game right now.

But a second renaissance might be occurring right now.  I've actually only noticed it over the last couple of months, so it could well be an anomaly.  Perhaps there are just a few new Grind tricks out there that people are excited about and maybe a month from now they will start to drop off the radar again.  Perhaps some new breakthrough in Portals or Splits will distract everyone and the cutting edge Grind tricks will be pushed aside, left unmastered for a few more years.

The fact that I'm writing this blog belies the fact that I don't believe that to be the case.  I don't think we're seeing an anomaly, but rather the beginnings of a major shift.  It's probably no coincidence that I'm seeing a rise in Myachi Masters (and a few really skilled Maniacs) doing Grind tricks at the same time that the whole world is seeing a surge in the popularity of Contact Juggling.  Contact Juggling is nothing new at the house of skills (I've been doing CJ longer than I've been playing Myachi, after all) but the reaction that people have to the grind tricks might be changing as they grow more familiar with CJ as an art form.

Whatever the reason, it feels like Grind tricks are reaching something of a critical mass.  I've seen this happen in the past with Splits, Portals, Merges, Matrices and High Body Strikes.  Once there is a sufficient repertoire of tricks in any category, everyone starts to gravitate towards it.  It becomes a fundamental part of being a well rounded Myachi player and then, as all the many talented people who play this game start focusing on their deficiencies in that one category... BOOM.  Suddenly the tricks grow so quickly that we can't even name them all.  Hundreds of extraordinarily skilled people are all adding their own flavor and what was once an afterthought is soon a major player.

But, of course, I could also be misreading the tea-leaves.  But I'm sure that even if this second renaissance isn't happening now, it will happen in the future.  This is just too broad a category of tricks to be left so unexplored.  The fact that they're all insanely difficult has been a barrier to pushing the envelope when it comes to Grind tricks, but I remember a time when the same was said of Portals and Matrix variations.  And in today's world I've met at least 3 people who could pull of a legitimate Matrix at age 7.

I guess the take-away here is that whatever the future holds, you probably need to get to work on your reverse Dark Slide...