How To Ollie

Ollie's are a fundamental skill that may seem pretty straight forward but mastering these will give you the foundation in which your freestyle skiing can be built upon. Through learning how to Ollie, you'll be able to use this skill to jump onto features through the park along with safely jumping over various obstacles anywhere on the mountain!

(Narrating/Riding: Dean Bercovitch Filming/Editing: Vince Emond. Filmed At: Whistler Blackcomb)

An Ollie is where the pop is made off the tails of your skis rather than by jumping directly upwards. This is also the opposite of a Nollie. Different to popping directly upwards, an Ollie is created through a wave like flow - Lets break it down!

The Motions

Step 1: Find a flat area that is out of the way of skier traffic to practice this skill while stationary.

Step 2: Push your weight forwards into the front of your skis and keep your feet close together. This might sound like the opposite move to what you're aiming for but this is just building the momentum for your pop.

Pushing your weight forwards initially helps to build momentum for when you roll back.

Step 3: Reverse this motion by rolling back, dropping your hip over the tails of your skis. While doing this, keep your knees bent so that you're able to load pressure into the tails of your skis.

Weight is moved back in order to pre-load the tails.

Step 4: Now it's time to take off! Start to slide your feet forwards to transfer your weight over the back of your skis. Once you feel the pressure is loaded, begin to push off the tails through extending your knees, leaning shoulders forwards and using your arms to help the motion of the pop.

Time to take-off!

Step 5: Prepare for a centred landing through pushing your hip forwards once your skis have left the ground. When popping from the tails, the rebound will also likely mean the tips of your skis will hit the ground first.

Notice how the tips touch back down first.

Time To Hit The Snow

A good & fun starting point which will help you to stomp this skill is to practice your wheelies! This is because through doing so, you'll be able to finesse your balancing along with developing your skill with loading weight over the back of your skis.

Practice wheelies to get used to pressuring the tails.

Once you're feeling comfortable with this, you're only one small step away from the finished product. Following all of the steps that you learned when stationary, work through the motions while travelling at a slow speed. As you feel more stable and comfortable, you can begin to increase both your speed and height!