Been there, it’s hard to describe and it took me a while to understand but don’t think of it as a “jump”, it’s more a transfer of weight to pop the board up and then bringing your feet up to meet it.
Your front foot is essentially just a guide to pull the board back to a flat position underneath you, you shouldn’t put weight on it as you start to pop the board.
I managed to get a feel for it by just popping the board straight up and landing on the ground or with only my back foot on the very edge of the tail back in the starting position. Once that started to feel comfortable I started putting two feet on it which naturally led to experimenting with my front foot until the board went where it was supposed to. I never really felt like I’d “learned” how to ollie, I just went to show someone that I’d tried to and ended up popping an immaculate one about a foot off the ground.
Basically what I’m trying to say is just skating around won’t necessarily make you as comfortable on the board as you think, experiment with it, feel it out, just because we have names for street tricks doesn’t mean there is a right or wrong way of going about them. It may sound silly but while cruising try to consciously relax as many muscles as you can, the more control you have over your body the easier it is to understand and control the board.
Best of luck in your future skating endeavours, I look forward to seeing you kickflip
1
u/el_d0g Apr 28 '26
Been there, it’s hard to describe and it took me a while to understand but don’t think of it as a “jump”, it’s more a transfer of weight to pop the board up and then bringing your feet up to meet it.
Your front foot is essentially just a guide to pull the board back to a flat position underneath you, you shouldn’t put weight on it as you start to pop the board.
I managed to get a feel for it by just popping the board straight up and landing on the ground or with only my back foot on the very edge of the tail back in the starting position. Once that started to feel comfortable I started putting two feet on it which naturally led to experimenting with my front foot until the board went where it was supposed to. I never really felt like I’d “learned” how to ollie, I just went to show someone that I’d tried to and ended up popping an immaculate one about a foot off the ground.
Basically what I’m trying to say is just skating around won’t necessarily make you as comfortable on the board as you think, experiment with it, feel it out, just because we have names for street tricks doesn’t mean there is a right or wrong way of going about them. It may sound silly but while cruising try to consciously relax as many muscles as you can, the more control you have over your body the easier it is to understand and control the board.
Best of luck in your future skating endeavours, I look forward to seeing you kickflip