How high can you ollie? This is a question many skaters ask each other when they’re trying to find out who the better skater is. What if you can’t ollie though? Keep reading, I’ll teach you as best as I can through text.

Before teaching you how to ollie, I should explain what an ollie is. The ollie is a trick that was invented by Alan “Ollie” Gelfand, around the late 70s. The performer of the trick pops the skateboard into the air using only his or her feet. It’s a lot of fun.

Now that you know the history of the ollie, your ready to perform one. Sort of. You should wear pads and a helmet before trying anything described here. Also, I’m not the one you should complain to if you get hurt and you aren’t wearing your pads. So pad up, then keep reading.

Once you’ve got your pads on, you should prepare your mind and body for this new trick by doing some light stretches. The ollie is a pretty intensive trick if you’ve never done it before. It requires that your body is perfectly synchronized. Doing some stretches will help you prepare yourself.

Since the ollie requires that you are perfectly synchronized, you may not be prepared to try it on pavement. The board could slip out and that would be bad. I recommend trying the ollie on some grass or soft carpet. The deck can’t roll away from you here.

Now you need to set your feet up for the ollie. Put your front foot about half way up the deck, and place your back foot on the tail of the deck. Crouch down a little bit, to help balance yourself out while you get used to this new position.

When you’re ready, simultaneously push down your back foot while sliding your front foot up the deck. At first, this will seem odd. You will probably fall off a bunch of times, and probably not get any air time, but after a while you’ll start getting small amounts of air and you’ll only get better from there.

It considerably improves your chances of performing an ollie if you do the aforementioned steps as quickly as possible. The ollie is not a slow maneuver. You have to train your feet to be quick in order to pull it off properly.

Try not to flick your front foot to the right or left. If you do this, you’ll end up spinning the board left or right, and doing a kickflip/heelflip depending on your footing (goofy vs regular). There’s nothing wrong with doing a kickflip, it’s just that you probably want to start off with the ollie, and work your way up from there.

As I mentioned earlier keep practicing. The more you practice, the easier the motion of the ollie gets. After a while, you’ll be busting out huge ollies. This is when you get creative and throw in some cool tricks. Don’t forget to wear your safety gear, and good luck with those ollies!

The Creator of this hub has been skating for quite a long time. He loves longboarding, trickboarding, and everything in the middle. If you're looking for an online skateboard shop after reading this article, please check out http://www.the-skateboard-shop.com/