Skateboarding Tips - You Got A LOW Ollie — How To Get A Better Ollie

Low Ollie? You Need to Read This…

If learning how to ollie is hard enough, getting the height is even harder. This is the main problem of most new skaters.

So how do you make your ollie higher?

There are 3 reasons why your ollie is "low-llie".

Okay, I made that one up. Here are those reasons: (1) you are not fast enough or (2) you are not slamming the tail of your skateboard hard enough or (3) you are not bending your knees and putting your feet high into the air.

Obviously, if you are doing one of these three, all you need to do is to skate faster or slam your skateboard's tail harder or bend your knees more and put your feet higher. Right? Yes, but not exactly.

If you want to reach a good speed for a high ollie, you need to get comfortable riding fast first. Ride on smooth ground and practice with your speed. Then, if you are comfortable riding fast, pop and ollie. There is more to getting a good speed and doing the ollie though. Your shoulders should be centered, your knees should be bent, and your body should be in control. Go out and try doing these several times and then come back. If you have successfully made your ollie higher, congratulations! If not, read on.

Slamming the tail of your skateboard will make your ollie higher but since there are a lot of things going on when ollieing, you have to focus really hard. Bend your knees and slam the board's tail with your back foot as hard as you can. At the same moment, you jump. This takes practice and timing. If you can't do it the first time, it's perfectly okay. As the board slams to the ground, it will rebound up to the air. Put your feet as high as you can and catch the board when it reaches the apex. 

Getting your body and feet high, begins when you jump. Again, it is crucial to time your jump at the right moment but make sure that you jump as high as you can. You may have put your feet way up but if your body is not high enough, you end up losing your balance and control when you land.

The truth is, ollie is a very hard trick to learn. Even experts find it difficult to ollie at times. But if you know what the problem is, you can improve your ollie with practice.