The ollie is the foundation to almost every trick
on the street and most tricks on ramps.
But for the street, that is the way
that you bring your board up in the air using only your feet.
Through this course, I'm going to teach you
different types of ollies, and that
includes ollying on the flat ground, ollying over objects,
ollying on ramps, and ollying vert.
And they all stem from the same trick,
but they're all very different techniques.
The very basics of an ollie are snapping down your tail
so that your board starts to go vertical.
And you've snapped it hard enough
that even your back wheels are coming off the ground.
And as that's happening, you take your front foot
and slide it forward in order to level out your board
and bring it up to your back foot.
Your legs will be bent, and then you gradually
straighten your legs to keep that friction
on your board and your feet until you land on the ground.
You can continue to improve your ollies
throughout your whole skate career.
And that's way you learn how to do kick flips.
That's the way you learn how to go over stuff.
That's the way you learn how to get onto ledges,
onto handrails, over gaps.
I mean, the ollie is crucial to modern skateboarding.
In order to figure out timing of an ollie,
my best advice is to put your foot all the way
on the edge of the tail to the point where you're actually
rocking on where it lifts up.
So your foot is not flat to the tail
as you would normally skate.
It's actually way up on top.
And then that will give you a much quicker snap.
It takes a lot of pressure, but it
doesn't take a lot of pushing.
Give it just enough pressure so that the board taps the ground.
And that sends your board straight up.
And as long as you're bending your back leg at the same time,
the board will come up with your feet at the same time.
The number one mistake people make when learning the ollie
is timing, not hitting the tail properly,
putting too much pressure on the back so that the tail just
kind of thuds on the ground instead of
snaps off the ground.
And that's just a matter of figuring out what
type of pressure to put on it.
But it just takes practice.
I mean, it's one of those things that's just repetition.
And eventually, you just realize that you're doing it.
Eventually you realize you're off the ground,
and eventually you realize that your feet
are sticking to the board.
And when it clicks, it's awesome.