Tips by David Ngiam
Video : Vania Lim
Photo : Guy Tanaka
The Ollie, also known as the Bunny Hop, is basically popping off the flat surface of the water. An Ollie 180 is when you jump off the water, turn and land in the fakie position.
To execute an Ollie, the easiest is to edge out on your heelside, outside the wake. You want to edge out about 10 feet to get some speed. This makes the water surface feel firmer, hence more responsive for the ollie pop. Keep your elbows bent and the handle low while edging. Once about 10 feet, flatten out your board and get ready to pop.
The Ollie pop is quite similar to jumping on a mattress. You need to push down on the water first before the water pushes you off the water… for every action, there’s a reaction… To have a good pop push down on your front foot followed by your back foot and then pull up your front foot first, follwed by the back foot. There’s just a very slight delay between the front and back foot action, but the action is the same for both. Thus, your nose of the board will peel off the water first followed by the tail to level out the board in the air.
It is important NOT to be on your edge while trying this. You want to pop straight up. If you pop too much on your heelside edge, you’ll be popping away from the boat and you’ll land back on your heelside edge, making the handle tighten very quickly and knock you off balance. This is particularly important for the Ollie 180.
However, you don’t want to wait too long after flattening out your board as well. This because you will soon lose speed and your board starts to sit deeper in the water making it stickier to peel it off the water surface for the ollie.
Its also important to keep your handle low and fairly close to you at all times.