Skate Culture Article #11: The Ollie...

When you hear the word Ollie what do you think of? If you ask a skateboarder the word only has one meaning. It's the way a skateboarder and their board get off the ramp or ground without using their hands. It is essentially the building block trick of modern skateboarding. It is one of those things that is very hard to learn but once you can do it, it is ridiculously easy and becomes stupidly second nature.

The ollie was invented in the late 70s by Alan Gelfand as a no-handed air out a halfpipe ramp. It was later adapted by Rodney Mullen into a flat land trick as part of his freestyle skateboarding. It now forms the basis of a huge chunk of street skateboarding.

I actually once tried show the motion of an ollie using a long exposure. Ewan can't ollie yet but I was explaining the motion to him and he actually did understand it.

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Notes of Skate Culture Articles...
This is part of a series of Skate Culture Articles I've been writing as an insight into the sport of skateboarding for an outsider. You can find the rest of the articles by entering tagged skateculturearticle by tractorfactoryphotos into the BlipSearch.