My name is Aaron Kyro.
I'm a sponsored skateboarder from the San Francisco Bay area.
And today I'm going to teach you guys how to ollie higher
The first thing I'm going to go over is the steps of the regular ollie
So you guys can see the difference
Notice my front foot just down from the front bolts
And my back foot with the ball of my toe just on the edge of the tail
So that's the foot position just for a regular ollie
And the first step you're going to do to practice a regular ollie
Is just clacking your tail on the ground just like that
So just stand still and just lift up your front leg
And slap your tail on the ground for a little bit
That's the first step of learning how to ollie
The second step is actually this motion of your foot right here
So notice how my sole of my shoe goes into a 90 degree angle
And then I slide my foot up
It's actually that slide that gives your board the lift. Nothing else.
It is that slide that brings your tail up off the ground
Because the front of your board is already off the ground
So you just have to level your board out in the air bringing the tail up
And it's that slide of the front foot which does that
So that's the basic ollie
I'm sure many of you guys have already gotten the ollie down
But if you haven't, you can just practice those steps
And you'll get it down
So the difference between a regular ollie
And when I'm trying to ollie higher or ollie over something
Is that I put my front foot further back
Notice how much further back my front foot was on that one?
Instead of being up near the truck, it was down towards the middle of the board
And what that does, is it gives me more room on the board to slide my foot up
So instead of having it right there up near the front truck
I'm going to slide that front foot back about half-way
Right in the middle as you can see there
And then I can have a little more room to slide
And power the ollie a little bit higher into the air
So yeah it's just that motion right there
You can even hear my shoes sliding on the grip tape
You also need to be able to jump high
And you actually have to be able to jump
And bend your knees up into the air when you do the ollie
Because obviously when your board goes up into the air
Your legs are going to crouch up
So the higher you can get your board
While crouching your legs up into the air
Is going to be how high you can get your ollie
Now it definitely helps to have a nice fresh board
Like not an old soggy board where the wood is like all damp
And it just doesn't pop very well
You'll notice that you can pop higher and ollie higher on a brand new fresh board
The other thing that helps on a brand new fresh board
Is fresh grip tape
You want really sticky grip tape
So when you do that motion of your foot is actually slides really well
And your feet catch on the grip tape
And it just pulls your board right up into the air
So let's take a look at the difference in height between
The regular ollie with my foot up towards the truck
And the ollie with my foot back towards the middle of the board a little further
So you can see I get a little more height on it
There is the height of the regular ollie from my foot forward
And there's the height with the ollie with my foot back in the middle of the board
You can also see that on the second one with my foot a little bit back more
I also like was able to tweak it out a little bit more
That's another thing like when you ollie you have to lift your back foot up into the air
And then you have to push your legs out
It's a bit of an awkward feeling at first
Because there's not really anything else like it
So here we go
So you're going to pop your tail on the ground
And simultaneously begin sliding your front foot up
Notice the sole of my front foot is at a 90 degree angle to the board
And it's sliding right up
And at this point it's already on the nose of the board catching on the grip tape
Now you also have to lift your back foot up
You have to lift your back foot up in a jumping motion
And it becomes kind of a teeter totter
Now at this point right here
My front foot is going to start going down
And it's going to poke out a little bit as my back foot is coming up
And that's what I mean on the teeter totter
Like your front foot comes up and then your back foot follows
And then you get into that position right there
Where then you're gliding through the air
But your board is not like perfectly flat
But it's kind of boned out a little bit
With your front leg extended a little more than your back leg
And that's that whole teeter totter motion thing
And that's what I mean when I say it's a little bit awkward
Because it's not like just running and jumping
Where you just jump both legs in the air
But like one leg goes up and then the other leg follows
In this like smooth fluid motion
So you want to keep that as fluid and smooth as you can
And just slide your front foot simultaneous to your pop of your back foot
While lifting both feet up and then you'll get the ollie down
Now in terms of getting your ollie higher
It does help a lot to set some things on the ground
And start ollieing over it
Usually you can start with like a board
Or if you're very very first starting
You can start with like a hose
I think that's what I started with, a hose or a crack
Then yeah you can just put bigger objects up
Until eventually you are ollieing over your GoPro camera on a tripod
This was really scary by the way
I nearly hit the camera
Look at how close my wheel comes right here
I think it's about an inch away from smashing into the screen
So luckily I didn't hit that
That's another point right there
Look at how my front foot pushes down on the board
Lifting the back of the board up into the air
So there's the GoPro version of that ollie
So yeah just practice this a lot
And you will get your ollies really high eventually
So yeah just keep working on that guys
If any of you guys are still working on mastering the basics of skateboarding
Any trick from the ollie, frontside 180, backside 180, pop shove-it
frontside shove-it, heelflip or kickflip
Definitely check out Skateboarding Made Simple
It's super super detailed
And it will take you through every step of every one of those tricks
So yeah, check it out at brailleskateboarding.com
And thanks a lot for all your help and support