Unit 9 · Ollies and Flip Tricks

Learning the ollie means falling many times, so gear comes before the first try. A helmet should sit level on your head, about two finger-widths above your eyebrows. Buckle the chin strap so only one or two fingers fit under it. Shake your head side to side. A helmet that fits stays put and does not slide back to show your forehead.

Wrist guards matter because wrist injuries are among the most common skateboarding injuries. When people fall, they reach out with their hands. A wrist guard has a stiff splint that spreads the shock along the forearm. Knee pads and elbow pads let you slide on hard plastic caps instead of skin. Pads that fit snugly stay in place when you land on them.

Shoes matter more for the ollie than for most first tricks. Choose flat shoes with a grippy rubber sole and no raised heel. Running shoes with thick, rounded soles make it hard to feel the board. The ollie rubs the side of the front shoe across rough grip tape, so a sturdy shoe lasts longer. Many skaters see a worn patch on that side of the front shoe after a few weeks.

Gear works best with a plan for falling. If you feel a fall coming, crouch low so you have less distance to drop. Try to roll onto your shoulder or slide on your knee pads. Keep your arms bent and loose. Locked, straight arms send the whole shock into your wrists and elbows.

The best ollie spot is plain and boring. It is flat ground: level, smooth and dry. A quiet basketball court, an empty lot closed to cars, or the flat section of a skatepark all work. Wet pavement can make the wheels slip out without warning. Cracks and sand can grab a wheel. Walk the spot first and kick away pebbles, because one small stone can stop a wheel and throw you forward.

Stay far from streets and driveways. A board that shoots out from under you can roll into traffic, and you might chase it without looking. Pick a spot where a loose board stops on grass or against a wall, not in a road. Skateparks are built for practice like this, and many post their own gear rules at the gate.

Your very first ollie practice does not need pavement at all. On thick grass or carpet, the wheels sink in and cannot roll. That lets you learn the motion while the board stays right under you. The board will pop lower on a soft surface, and that is fine. The goal on grass is to learn the order of the moves, not to jump high.

Every ollie starts with the feet in the right place. Look at the top of the deck. Near each end you will see four bolts, the screw heads that hold the trucks on. The tail is the kicked-up end behind the back bolts. The nose is the kicked-up end in front of the front bolts.

Your back foot goes on the tail. Put the ball of your foot, the padded part just behind the toes, near the middle of the tail. Your heel can hang slightly off the edge. Do not stand on the tail with only your toes. The ball of the foot lets you snap down hard and then lift off quickly.

Your front foot goes just behind the front bolts, pointing across the board or angled slightly toward the nose. Leave a gap of about a hand’s width behind the bolts, so the foot has room to slide forward. If you ride with your left foot forward, you are regular. Right foot forward is goofy. Both are normal, which is why skaters say front foot and back foot instead of left and right.

Check your stance by standing on the board on grass. Your feet should be about shoulder-width apart, with your weight even between them. If the nose lifts while you stand still, your back foot is carrying too much weight.

Before you pop, you crouch. Bend your knees and lower your hips as if you were about to sit in a chair. Keep your back fairly straight and your head up. Your shoulders should line up with the board, pointing toward the nose and the tail. A twisted upper body tends to twist the board too.

The crouch is where the jump’s energy starts. A jump is a push against the ground. The lower you bend, the longer your legs can push before your feet leave the board. A longer push sends your body higher. Nobody can jump high from straight legs, and the same is true on a skateboard.

Do not crouch so low that you lose your balance. A good crouch feels springy, not stuck. Your weight stays over the middle of the board, between your feet. If the nose lifts while you crouch, you are leaning back. Move your hips forward until the board sits flat again. Keeping a steady stance in the crouch makes every later step easier.

The pop is the sound and the move that start every ollie. From the crouch, your back foot snaps the tail down hard and fast so it strikes the ground. You hear a sharp clack. Right after the snap, you lift off the back foot and start to jump. The snap and the jump happen almost together, like one motion.

Here is the science. The board acts as a lever, a stiff bar that turns around a point. The back wheels are the pivot, the point it turns around. When the tail goes down, the nose swings up. When the tail hits the ground, the ground pushes back up on it. This is Newton’s third law: when you push on something, it pushes back on you with an equal force. That push bounces the tail up and lifts the whole board into the air.

A quick snap works better than a slow push. A slow push only tips the board up like a seesaw, and it stays on the ground. A fast snap makes the tail hit the ground and rebound. Think popping, not pressing. If the board barely leaves the ground, snap faster and make sure the ball of your foot strikes the tail.

The trick is named for Alan ’Ollie’ Gelfand. In the late 1970s he popped his board into the air without grabbing it while riding the curved walls of ramps and bowls. Skaters began calling the move the ollie. In the early 1980s Rodney Mullen showed it could be done on flat ground. His flat-ground ollie is the version you are learning now.

Right after the pop, your front foot slides forward toward the nose. Roll your front ankle a little so the outside edge of the shoe, the little-toe side, brushes up the board. The foot moves up and forward at the same time. Picture dragging your shoe up a steep hill.

Grip tape is the sandpaper-like sheet stuck to the top of the deck. Its rough surface creates a lot of friction, a force that resists two surfaces sliding across each other. As your shoe drags upward, friction pulls the board up with it. On a smooth deck with no grip tape, the shoe would slip and the board would drop. That drag is also why the front shoe wears on its side.

Timing matters. Start the slide as soon as the tail pops, not before. If you slide too early, the nose never comes up. If you slide too late, the board rises and then falls back toward the tail. Slide until your front foot reaches the start of the nose’s curve. Then get ready to push the nose down.

The board can only rise as high as your feet let it. So after the pop, jump straight up and pull your knees toward your chest. The back knee comes up quickly so the tail can rise. The front knee comes up as the front foot slides. Your feet stay light on the board without stomping on it.

Jump up, not forward. When you are rolling, you and the board both move forward. Your body keeps that forward motion through the air on its own. This is inertia, the way a moving object keeps moving the same way unless a force changes it. If you also jump forward, you land in front of the board.

While you are in the air, gravity pulls you down the whole time. Your center of mass, the balance point of your body, rises and then falls in a smooth arch. Each move must happen fast, because an ollie lasts only a fraction of a second.

You can work out how long. For an ollie of height h, time in the air = 2 × √(2h ÷ g), with g = 9.8 m/s². For a 0.30 m ollie: 2 × 0.30 = 0.60. Then 0.60 ÷ 9.8 ≈ 0.061. The square root of 0.061 is about 0.247. Finally 2 × 0.247 ≈ 0.49 seconds, about half a second.

After the slide, the board is tilted with the nose high. To level it, press your front foot gently forward and down on the nose. At the same time, keep lifting your back knee so the tail can rise. The board flattens out under you like a table top. The best ollies level out right at the top of the jump.

Leveling is another lever action. The front foot pushes down near the nose, in front of the front wheels. The back foot rises and gets out of the way. The board turns around its middle until it is flat. If the front foot pushes too hard, the nose dips and the board lands nose first.

Picture the board’s path from the side. First the tail goes down and the nose goes up, a steep tilt. Then the whole board rises. Then it flattens. Then it falls with you. That order, crouch, pop, slide, jump, level, land, is the whole ollie.

Aim to land with both feet over the bolts. The bolts sit above the trucks, the strongest part of the board. Landing on the middle of the deck can crack it. Landing on the tail can make the board shoot out. Landing over both trucks keeps the board balanced and the wheels rolling straight.

Bend your knees as you land. Your legs work like shock absorbers, the springy parts that soften bumps in a car. When you land stiff-legged, your body stops in a very short time. When you bend, it stops over a longer time. Stopping the same motion over a longer time takes less force, so your knees, ankles and board feel less of a jolt.

Here is a worked example. A 50 kg rider drops 0.30 m from the top of an ollie. Speed at landing is about √(2 × 9.8 × 0.30) = √5.88 ≈ 2.4 m/s. Stopping in 0.05 s with stiff legs, the deceleration is 2.4 ÷ 0.05 = 48 m/s². The force is F = ma = 50 × 48 = 2,400 N. Bending to stop in 0.20 s gives 2.4 ÷ 0.20 = 12 m/s², and 50 × 12 = 600 N. That is one quarter of the force, on top of the rider’s weight.

After you land, stay low for a moment and roll away. Keep your shoulders over the board until it feels steady. Rolling away cleanly is part of the trick. If the board wobbles as it rolls away, check where your feet landed. Feet near the middle of the deck make the board feel tippy, so aim for the bolts next time.

Start with the board on grass or carpet and your helmet buckled. Stand in your ollie stance. First, practice only the pop: crouch, snap the tail and let the nose rise, without jumping. Do it ten times. Listen for the clack and feel the board bounce. This teaches your back foot the quick snap.

Next add the slide. Pop, then drag the front foot up toward the nose. Do not worry about height yet. Then add the jump and the knee lift. Finally add leveling and landing. This kind of progression lets your body learn each part before you put them together.

It helps to hold on at first. Rest one hand on a friend’s shoulder or a sturdy fence at waist height. Learning the ollie usually takes many practice days. Short sessions of ten or fifteen minutes, done often, tend to work better than one long, tiring session.

Count your clean tries in a notebook. A clean try means all four wheels leave the ground and you land with both feet over the bolts. Watching the number grow shows real progress, even before the ollie looks high.

When you can ollie on grass and land over the bolts most of the time, move to smooth, flat pavement. Push once or twice and roll at about walking speed. Set your feet in ollie stance while rolling. Glance down once to check them, then look ahead.

A rolling ollie feels different at first. The board is moving under you, and fear can make you lean back. Leaning back sends the board out in front of you. Keep your shoulders over the bolts and your weight centered. Inertia carries you forward with the board, so you only need to jump up.

Start with tiny ollies, just a few centimeters high. Height comes later. When the rolling ollie feels steady, ollie over a chalk line, then a flat stick, then a folded towel. Each obstacle is a little higher than the last. A low, painted curb at a skatepark can come after that.

If you feel scared, that is a normal signal, and it is useful. Go back one step. Roll slower, or do a few more pops standing still. Confidence grows from many small successes. Writing down which step felt shaky shows you where to start next time.

Problem: the board barely leaves the ground. Fix: snap the tail faster and make sure the ball of your back foot hits the tail. Also check that you are jumping, not just pressing down. A light, quick pop beats a slow, heavy push.

Problem: the board shoots up and stands almost straight up on its tail, then falls back. Fix: slide your front foot farther toward the nose and push the nose down to level it. Problem: the board turns sideways in the air. Fix: point your shoulders along the board and snap the tail straight down, not off to one side.

Problem: your back foot stays heavy on the tail, so the tail drags. Fix: lift the back knee higher right after the pop. Problem: the board lands far in front of you. Fix: you jumped forward or leaned back, so jump straight up and keep your shoulders over the board. Good timing, each move at the right moment, solves most of these.

Filming your tries, in slow motion if you can, shows what your feet really do. Compare a good try and a bad try, then change one thing at a time so you know which fix worked. When a try goes wrong in the air, it is fine to bail: step off the board and land on your feet.

Watch a pop shove-it from above. The skater pops, the board spins half a turn, and the nose and tail trade places. The skater lands on it again, now with the old tail in front. The board stays flat the whole time, grip tape up. It never flips over.

A half turn is 180 degrees, because a full circle is 360 degrees. The board turns around an axis, an imaginary line that something spins around. For a shove-it, the line goes straight up and down through the middle of the deck. This is the vertical axis. Picture a pencil stuck down through the center of the board, and the board turning around it like a spinning plate.

Your body does not spin with the board. You jump straight up and keep facing the same way, and only the board turns beneath you. So the trick needs two things: a pop to get the board off the ground, and a scoop to make it spin. A plain shove-it, with no pop, just spins the board flat along the ground.

Set your feet first. Put the ball of your back foot on the tail, near its toe-side edge. Your front foot rests lightly near the front bolts. The front foot does very little in this trick. It lifts away and then comes back down.

Now the motion. First crouch. Next, pop the tail down and at the same moment sweep it backward, behind you, toward your heel side. This sweeping push is the scoop. Your back foot moves as if it were scraping mud off the ground behind you. Then jump straight up and lift your front foot, so the board can spin freely beneath it.

This version is the backside pop shove-it, because the tail swings around behind your back. Most skaters learn it first. The frontside version scoops the tail forward, in front of your toes. Many skaters find the frontside spin harder to watch and catch. Both spin 180 degrees around the vertical axis.

The scoop gives the board a turning push. A push that makes something turn is a torque. The farther from the center of the turn the push lands, the more turning it gives. That is why the back foot scoops at the end of the tail, far from the middle of the deck.

With your helmet buckled and pads on, start on grass or carpet. Practice the scoop alone, with your front foot on the ground beside the board. Scoop the tail and watch the board spin half a turn. Then step on with both feet over the bolts. This teaches the back foot how hard to scoop.

Next try the whole trick on the grass: crouch, pop and scoop, jump straight up, watch the board turn, and land on it. Then try it rolling slowly on smooth, flat ground. Keep your shoulders still and facing the same way. If your shoulders turn, your body follows the board and you land sideways.

Problem: the board spins too far, past 180 degrees. Fix: scoop more gently. Problem: the board turns only a quarter turn. Fix: scoop harder and farther behind you. Problem: the board lands behind you. Fix: you jumped backward, so jump straight up. Each try is rotation practice, learning how much push gives how much turn.

A kickflip is an ollie in which the board also rolls over once in the air. Because it starts with the same pop, you need a steady ollie first. In the early 1980s Rodney Mullen worked out many tricks on flat ground, building on his flat-ground ollie, and flip tricks grew from that work. Today the kickflip is often the first flip trick skaters learn.

Back foot: the ball of the foot on the tail, as in an ollie. Some skaters move it a little toward the toe side. Front foot: just behind the front bolts, angled about 45 degrees so the toes point partly toward the nose. The foot sits near the middle of the board, not hanging off.

The angle matters because the front foot will slide up and off the nose’s corner on the toe side, the long edge in front of your toes. A foot set straight across the board tends to make an ollie with no flip. A foot set too far back leaves no room to slide. Try a few spots on grass to find the one that feels natural.

First crouch. Next pop the tail exactly as in an ollie. Then slide your front foot up toward the nose, and near the top, flick it off the toe-side corner of the nose. The flick goes forward and out to the side, past the front of your toes. Then pull both knees up so the board can turn under you.

The flick pushes down on the very edge of the board. A deck is about 20 centimeters wide, so its edge is about 10 centimeters from the middle. A push there makes a torque around the board’s long axis, the line from nose to tail. Torque = force × distance from the axis. A 20 N flick at 0.10 m gives 20 × 0.10 = 2 N·m. The same flick only 0.02 m from the middle gives 20 × 0.02 = 0.4 N·m, one fifth as much.

Why does the board roll over so easily? Most of its mass sits close to the long axis, because the deck is narrow. Mass close to an axis is easy to turn. Turning the board end over end would be much harder, because the nose and tail sit far from its middle.

A light flick is enough. Many learners kick too hard, and the board flips twice or flies away. Aim for one full roll, 360 degrees, while you are in the air. If the board keeps turning past one roll, the flick was too strong; if it stops halfway, it was too weak.

Problem: the board flips halfway and lands upside down. Fix: flick a little harder and farther out to the side, and pop higher so the board has more time. Problem: the board flips twice or shoots away. Fix: flick more softly, because the board needs only a light brush.

Problem: the board hits your shins. Fix: jump higher and pull your knees up sooner, and flick out to the side rather than straight forward. Some learners wear shin guards at this stage. Problem: the board lands far in front of you. Fix: you leaned back, so keep your shoulders over the board and jump straight up.

Problem: the board flips, but you are afraid to put your feet back on it. Fix: practice on grass, where the board cannot roll away. When you see the grip tape come around, step down with both feet over the bolts. If a try goes wrong, step off to the side and land on your feet, knees bent.

Flip tricks need air time. A 0.30 m ollie lasts about 0.49 seconds. To finish one 360 degree flip with time left to catch it, the board might turn in 0.30 s. That means 360 ÷ 0.30 = 1,200 degrees each second. A higher pop gives more time and makes the catch easier.

A heelflip is the kickflip’s partner. The board also rolls once around its long axis. This time the front heel does the flick instead of the side of the foot. Because the push lands on the opposite edge, the board rolls in the opposite direction from a kickflip.

Back foot: the ball of the foot on the tail, as in an ollie. Front foot: just behind the front bolts, pointing straight across the board. Let the toes hang slightly over the toe-side edge. In this spot, the heel sits near the heel-side edge, where it can catch the corner of the nose.

Check the stance on grass before you pop. Slide your front foot forward and swing your heel out over the heel side. If your heel cannot reach past the edge, move the foot slightly toward the toe side. The stance should feel balanced and steady, not tippy.

First crouch. Next pop the tail as in an ollie. Then slide your front foot up and kick your heel forward and out, so it brushes off the heel-side corner of the nose. The kick goes away from your toes, out over the heel side. Then lift both knees so the board can roll beneath you.

Compare the two flicks. In a kickflip, the push goes down on the toe-side edge. In a heelflip, the push goes down on the heel-side edge. Each push makes a torque around the long axis. Because the pushes land on opposite edges, the torques turn opposite ways, and so does the board.

Problem: the board shoots forward. Fix: kick more out to the side than forward. Problem: the board turns sideways while it flips. Fix: keep your shoulders lined up with the board. Problem: the board only half flips. Fix: get your heel all the way to the edge before you kick. Every flip trick rewards a steady pop first.

Skaters name flip tricks by what the front foot does. A kickflip uses the side of the front foot and the toe-side edge. A heelflip uses the heel and the heel-side edge. Both start with an ollie pop, and both roll the board 360 degrees around the long axis.

Many skaters find one of the two easier. Neither is more correct, and learning both gives you control in both directions. Watching a friend from the front shows the difference. In a kickflip, the edge nearest the toes dips first. In a heelflip, the edge nearest the heels dips first.

Flips can be mixed with spins. A varial kickflip adds a pop shove-it’s 180 degree spin to a kickflip. A 360 flip, also called a tre flip, adds a full 360 degree shove-it spin to a kickflip. These tricks turn the board around the long axis and the vertical axis at once. Skaters usually learn them only after the single tricks feel steady.

Picture three sticks pushed through the center of a skateboard. One runs from nose to tail: the long axis. One runs across the deck from the toe-side edge to the heel-side edge: the short axis. One runs straight up and down through the deck: the vertical axis. Every turn a board makes in the air happens around one of these lines, or more than one at once.

Each trick family uses a different axis. Kickflips and heelflips roll the board around the long axis. Shove-its spin it around the vertical axis. The ollie’s nose-up tilt is a small turn around the short axis. A combination trick such as the 360 flip uses two axes at the same time.

The axes also explain how hard a turn is. A board is about 80 centimeters long and about 20 centimeters wide. Around the long axis, all of its mass sits within about 10 centimeters, so it rolls easily. Around the short and vertical axes, the nose and tail are about 40 centimeters away, so the board resists turning more. Scientists call this resistance rotational inertia.

A flip trick is finished only when you catch it. To catch means to stop the board’s turning with your feet and land on it. Watch the board the whole time it is in the air. When the grip tape comes back up under you, that is the moment to put your feet down.

In a kickflip, many skaters catch with the back foot first. The back foot comes down on the tail and stops the roll. The front foot then lands over the front bolts. In a pop shove-it, both feet usually come down together once the board has turned 180 degrees. Either way, aim for both feet over the bolts with your knees bent.

Stopping a turn takes a torque in the opposite direction, and your feet supply it. When your shoe presses on the turning board, the push of your foot and the grip of the tape slow the turn. A firm, flat foot stops the turn cleanly. A foot that lands on the edge of a still-turning board can tip it and roll your ankle.

After the catch, bend your knees, stay low and roll away. Rolling away steady is part of landing the trick. Keep your shoulders over the board while you roll, because leaning back sends it out in front of you. If the board wobbles, look ahead and let your bent knees soak up the bumps.

Practice the flick standing still on grass or carpet, with your helmet buckled and wrist guards on. Hold a friend’s shoulder or a sturdy fence. Without popping, slide your front foot up and flick off the nose. Watch how the board rolls. Keep going until the flick sends the board around once, not twice and not halfway.

Next add a small pop while still holding on. Then let go and try the whole trick on the grass. Try it rolling slowly on smooth, flat ground only after you can catch it on grass several times in a row. Each step gets you ready for the next.

Slow practice helps because your brain learns a movement as a pattern. Repeating the right pattern many times makes it automatic, so it happens without thinking during the fast real trick. People often call this muscle memory, though the learning really happens in the brain. Rushing to full speed too soon can build a habit of the wrong motion.

Rest matters too. Flip practice is hard on ankles and shins. Stop when you feel tired, because tired legs pop lower and land less steadily. Ending on a good try helps you remember how it felt.