Anyone who learns to skateboard must master the fundamental techniques and skills before they move on with some basic tricks. One of the most popular tricks that are also the foundation of further advanced tricks is the ollie. 

Although the techniques are not quite difficult to perform the ollie, it usually takes months so that a beginner can be proficient at getting higher ollie. You may feel disappointed when you can not perform it for the first couple of weeks; however, every skateboarder starts at the same point as you. 

With enough practice, all skateboarders are able to perform the ollie excellently. The best way to learn the ollie is to ask for help from a skateboarding instructor; however, not all skaters are able to afford one. Therefore, this post will be a helpful guide for all riders when they need to improve the ollie. 

If you haven’t known what an ollie is up to now, you had better visit SkateAdvisors to get the basic concepts and steps to practice. The instructions there are established by experienced skaters so they will be a correct tutorial for beginners to follow. 

To analyze in detail which factor affects your ollie, I would like to break down the whole process in each little step. When you can understand clearly the analysis below, I bet you will be confident to conquer the ollie with just a bit more time for practicing. 

The goal of practicing is to build up muscle memory and this can be easily obtainable by repeating the whole process over and over again. To begin with ollie, you first need to keep the back wheels in a crack in the pavement. 

THE POSITION OF YOUR FEET

This is the crucial point in deciding whether your trick is successful or not; therefore, you first need to consider whether you have put your feet in the right position or not. The front foot had better stay down from the front bolts and ideally close to the center of the board. In order to get a nice drag, you can keep it at a 90-degree angle to the deck. 

About the back foot, the center of the tail is in the right position and your feet had better hang off a little from the edge. Ideally, your body should be on the ball of your foot so that a powerful snap can be performed and the board can propel into the atmosphere. 

Getting familiar with the position of your feet is not only bounded in performing the ollie but in many skating tricks. Since the purpose here is to get higher ollie, you should put your front foot a bit backward than the normal position. 

POPPING

Now, we are done with the foot position and you should move one with the second step of popping the tail. The idea of doing this is to snap the tail of the board to the ground and make a popping movement. 

Hence, the consequent motion is the board dragged up into the air. If you are having difficulties with your back foot, you probably can not get things done. Remember the key thing here is to use your ankle to pop the board up and do not cause any prevention for the motion of the board. 

DRAGGING THE FRONT FOOD

The front foot drag is always questioned by new skaters as it is basically like when you are dragging your toes down by the bottom of the skate shoes. One of the best ways to practice dragging that I learned at SkateAdvisors must be putting the tail on the ground and the other foot in the air.

The drawback of this technique is that your shoes are more prone to wear out than ever. If you pay attention to the period that a skate shoe can support the riders, the lifespan is quite short. All skateboarders are able to check their shoes by just looking at the edge and the bottom of their shoes. 

THE BOARD’S POSITION

The two above steps are the major in doing a complete ollie; however, in order to perform the perfect ollie, you should learn how to keep the board almost parallel to the ground. As you may notice, pro skaters always try to bring their knees as close to their upper bodies as possible. Since it significantly increases the efficiency of your motion by eliminating the unnecessary air resistance, skaters should try to mimic what the pros do. 

CONCLUSION

Learning about these may be good to go; however, for the best performance, I suggest you should learn how to land properly after doing the ollie. Skaters are advised to practice these steps independently and then put them together to get the perfect ollie from the techniques to the beautiful motion.