Wakeboarding
Learn how to ollie on a wakeboard: A step-by-step beginner's guide
Nailing an ollie on a wakeboard takes a delicate mix of timing, balance, and an intuitive sense of how your wakeboard moves and responds.
You’re comfortable standing and staying up on your wakeboard, and you’ve practiced your turns to the point that they feel like second nature. Now, you’re ready to move to the next stepping stone of your wakeboarding journey: ollies.
The first time you successfully ollie on a wakeboard is a momentous occasion. After all, ollies are one of the best foundational wakeboarding moves for creating more boundary-breaking tricks, like wakeboarder Felix Georgii is known for achieving. But perhaps more importantly, mastering the wakeboard ollie is an incredible thrill all on its own. If you want to learn how to land this essential wakeboarding maneuver for beginners, here’s a guide on how to ollie on a wakeboard.
Felix Georgii in Germany in 2022
© Steffen Vollert / Red Bull Content Pool
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Benefits of learning the ollie
If you have experience with skateboarding, you’ve probably heard the term “ollie” before. The steps for wakeboard ollies are incredibly similar to how to ollie on a skateboard, where you pop, catch air, and ride away. But, of course, you’ll be doing all of this on the water, connected to a boat via a rope handle. Naturally, this introduces lots of differences — but just as with ollies on land, wakeboarding ollies are fundamental to nail before moving onto more exciting and complicated moves.
As with most wakeboarding tricks, good balance is essential for a proper ollie. Wakeboard ollies also require well-timed footwork and good weight distribution and control. It also might be one of the first times you’ll practice controlling your board in the air and landing on the water’s surface. Building wakeboard skills through ollies is the first step to preparing for elaborate tricks such as the heelside frontside 180.
Step-by-step guide: How to ollie on a wakeboard
Stance and positioning
To begin wakeboard ollies, get yourself parallel to the inside of the wake. Ride in your normal stance, with your back straight and your knees bent. Keep your shoulders parallel to your knees throughout your ollie. Hold the rope handle at about hip level, either holding with both hands or with just your dominant hand. Sometimes, putting an arm out can help with stability. Your hand position preference is all about what feels most balanced to you.
Brian Grubb during Wake Skating at Wadi El Hidan in Jordan in 2018
© Daniel Deak Bardos / Red Bull Content Pool
Approach and timing
Once you’re in position, you’ll cut out away from the wake so you can initiate your ollie. You don’t want to wait too long after this to start your ollie, or else too much tension could build up in your rope. Achieving proper tension from the rope — an essential wakeboard ollie technique — can only happen shortly after you cut away from the wake.
Compression phase
At this point, you’re almost ready to pop. To start your ollie, you’ll push on the board’s tail, which helps to create a sort of ramp for your board. This shouldn’t be a hard push, but a gentle rolling of your weight toward the tail. You should retain a nice bend in your knees for flexibility.
Pop and jump
The pop and jump technique for wakeboarding involves shifting your weight to your back foot while simultaneously raising your front foot at the board’s nose. To get a powerful snap, you’ll push off with your back foot as soon as you feel some resistance at the tail from the water. Do this until your board gets parallel with the water at your highest altitude.
Popping and jumping is a super swift motion, so it can help to watch videos that cover ollie tutorials for wakeboard beginners. This way, you have a good visual in your head before trying ollies out for yourself.
Leveling the wakeboard
After you initiate the snap, your board should lift up out of the water and level out evenly once it hits peak altitude. You can slide your front foot up the board to get parallel above the water. Once your board is even in the air, keep your foot placement and weight distribution even.
Brian Grubb during Wake Skating at Wadi El Hidan in Jordan in 2018
© Farras Oran / Red Bull Content Pool
Bringing the board down
As your board descends back toward the water, keep your knees bent to absorb the impact of your landing. If you can engage your core, you’ll find it easier to stay balanced as gravity pulls your board back down. Try to look forward in the direction you’re going rather than straight down.
Riding away cleanly
For landing the ollie on a wakeboard, you’ve got two options. You can keep your board parallel to the water, but some experts will tell you to land on the tail, not totally flat. You’re trying to avoid a nosedive, and landing parallel can put too much pressure on the front of the board. Once you’ve landed, you can cut out from the next wake and keep practicing until you feel comfortable.
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Common mistakes and wakeboard ollie troubleshooting
If your ollies aren’t landing quite right, here are some common issues you might be experiencing, along with some wakeboard ollie tips.
- Getting the right momentum. Picking up speed for a good snap doesn’t happen overnight. If you need to warm up, try some small hops on your board before you try a full ollie. This is a great ollie training exercise for wakeboarders — you’ll get a feel for how your board moves in a low-stakes situation.
- Lifting instead of popping. It’s common for new wakeboarders to try to lift the board out of the water with their legs. However, this isn’t the same thing as popping. The momentum of pushing down on the tail — popping — is what gives you air. The more you practice, the more this becomes muscle memory.
- Not getting enough air. Starting low is ideal as you refine your popping and landing technique. As you move to the next phase of your ollie trick progression for wakeboarders, though, you can start using your arms for leverage. Namely, pulling the rope handle toward you as you ollie can give you more air.
Ride on to your next wakeboarding trick
Landing your first ollie is much easier said than done. Nailing it takes a delicate mix of timing, balance, and an intuitive sense of how your wakeboard moves and responds. But once you get that pop right and land clean, you’ll feel an unmatched sense of accomplishment. And from there, you’re ready to learn your next wakeboarding trick.