As the rider begins to leap, instead of lifting the feet from the board, they 'pop' the tail by striking it against the ground while the rider jumps into the air, which raises the board nose-first. The rider begins the ollie by crouching and jumping directly upward. Nick Capamaggio performing an Ollie over a chair The flat ground ollie technique is strongly associated with street skateboarding mini ramp and vert riders can also use this technique to gain air and horizontal distance from the coping, but half-pipe riders typically rely more on the board's upward momentum to keep it with the rider, more similar to Gelfand's original technique.Įxecution of the flatground ollie

Rodney won the Rusty Harris contest, was afterwards asked by many riders to demonstrate the trick, and later in the year it would appear with the name 'Ollie-pop' as a 'trick tip' in the skateboarding magazine Thrasher. Mullen's flat ground ollie is now considered to have transformed the practice of skateboarding. While Mullen was not initially impressed with his flat ground ollie, and did not formally name it, he realized it opened up a second, elevated plane on which to perform tricks. Mullen used a 'see-saw' motion, striking the tail of the board on the ground to lift the nose, and using the front foot to level the board in mid-air. Both ollies were invented around the same time and it is unclear if the backside or frontside was done first, but Gelfand's frontside got the most initial media attention.Īn April 1981 issue of Thrasher notes that the vert ollie was quickly adapted to flatground use, observing that 'skaters now hop effortlessly from street to sidewalk with just a tap of the tail.' In 1982, while competing in the Rusty Harris contest in Whittier, California, Rodney Mullen debuted an ollie on flat ground, which he had adapted from Gelfand's vertical version by combining the motions of some of his existing tricks. Jeff Tatum is credited with the first person to perform a backside ollie in a bowl, which he initially named a 'JT air'. There are numerous references to Alan Gelfand's ollie, most notably pictures in the 1970s skateboarding magazine Skateboarder. In 1978, Alan Gelfand, who was given his nickname 'Ollie' by Scott Goodman, learned to perform frontside no-handed aerials in bowls and pools using a gentle raising of the nose and scooping motion to keep the board with the feet.

Ollie oop trick