Tips by Ong Kian San
Video : Carlo Dela Torre
Photo : Farnaim Yasin
The ollie on a wakeskate is similar to a wakeboard ollie. However, the snap of your back foot off the tail on the wakeskate and simultaneous lifting up of the front foot are more exaggerated. You kind of have to find a rhythm of snapping down with your back foot to jump, and at the same time, bring up the front foot to get the board out of the water. It feels more comfortable to let go with your back hand and hold on with the front hand so your front shoulder is pointed in the direction you’re going.
Feet placement on the board it pretty much up to each individual, but generally I have my back foot sitting over the tail of the board (not too far back to the edge), and my front foot is just slightly around 3/4 to the front of the board or slightly further up.
Once the board is out of the water, you want to bring up your back foot to level out the board in the air, then as you descend, slowly stretch out and absorb the landing. You don’t want to stomp the landing down too hard. On a wakeskate you wanna try to stay squatted a little longer when landing any trick, before standing back upright again. That helps to keep you stable.
It will take time to find that rhythm of snapping your back foot and bringing up the front foot, so start with small ollies and gradually snap the tail harder and bring up your legs higher as you feel more confident, to get more height off your ollies. Also, the first time you want to try this is probably about 5-8 ft out in the flats or straight behind the boat so the pull’s not going to throw you off balance. If you doing it on the flats, cut out, flatten off a little, then pop the ollie.
Almost all other wakeskate tricks are based on the ollie, so you want to get pretty comfortable with the ollie and you’ll find you’ll progress faster with the other tricks as well.