Snowboard Ollie Tutorial

The Ultimate Snowboard Ollie Tutorial

Have you ever tried a snowboard ollie tutorial online and found it to be missing some vital key points to performing the ollie correctly?

For some reason or another, things never seem to be as easy or smooth as when you watched it?

Many of my students have had this same problem and today I am going to give you some different analogies and technical skills to help you understand the difference between the ollie and how to jump on your snowboard.

Another important point, a lot of beginner snowboarders aren’t quite sure of when to use each technique, so I will outlay different situations where an ollie or a jump (pop) should be implemented.

This quite frankly can be the difference between landing a successful jump and not!

After you have been through this snowboard ollie tutorial, you should be able to understand how to do an ollie on your snowboard, how to perform a jump on your board, where to use an ollie, where Not too, How to increase the height of your Ollie on your snowboard and common mistakes that throw you center of balance off its axes while moving when trying to Ollie on your snowboard.

How to perform an Ollie on your Snowboard.

I want you to take your time and practice this tutorial on a flat (stationary position) ground.

Step 1:

Standing in a stationary position I want you to imagine your Ollie like loading a gun and then firing it.

Step 2:

Start by shifting your weight forward over the front foot and loading up pressure through our snowboard. (This is what we call loading the gun)

Step 3:

Once you have shifted your weight forward, I then want you to shift your weight to the back of the snowboard. (This is what we call, clocking the gun)

Step 4:

Then at the same time lift your front foot and jump off the tail of the snowboard.( we call this firing the gun).

Practice this technique until it becomes a smooth fluid motion.

Where:

Flat land then while snowboarding down the hill.

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How to Jump on a snowboard.

So what do I mean when I say how to jump on a snowboard?

I definitely don’t mean how to Ollie…

You wouldn’t Ollie off a 50ft Jump for example?

When I talk about how to jump on your snowboard, I am am referring to popping off one of your snowboard edges, preferable your toe edge!

You can jump off your heel edge on your snowboard but this would be a more technical skill set, used by mostly advanced snowboarders.

When you ‘POP off your edge, you’ll quickly find out if your basic stance needs some alignment. In most cases, it’s a simple adjustment to get your pop sorted correctly.

How do you pop (jump) on your snowboard correctly?

Lets try this jump technique on in a stationary position, standing in your basic stance

Feet, ankles, and knees slightly flexed
Hips in alignment with the snowboard
Straight back
Arms relaxed and to the side
Head looking in the direction of travel.

Step 1:

Standing in this position, I would like you to flex down into your snowboard with weight slightly forward over our toe edge of the snowboard.

Step 2:

Once you have reached your maximum flexion, I then want you to explode up like a volcano erupting…

Have even weight on both feet and keep your arms out for extra balance once your snowboard leaves the snow.

Step 3:

As you snowboard leaves the ground, try and suck your legs up at the same time.

Step 4:

Land with even weight on both feet and imagine yourself being soft and relaxed in the knees.

Practice this jumping technique on your snowboard until you have mastered your weight distribution correctly.

Should you use the snowboard ollie or snowboard pop technique when jumping?

It’s not always a clear cut decision when you are in the learning stages of how to snowboard…

In most cases, when you are going to launch yourself off a jump in the terrain park, you will use the pop technique…By using this simple technique you are able to carry more speed into jumps, without the fear of losing control by performing an ollie with speed.

This is why most resorts have a terrain park crew, Jump features have been calculated with distance, vert, takeoff and landing so people have a greater chance of not getting hurt.

Not to say you won’t, but trust me when I say, most kickers have a well planned vert map.

You can ollie off jumps but it is much easier to lose control and balance when you add speed into the equation.

Where should I use the Snowboard ollie technique?

Situations where it would be ideal to use the Ollie method would be General jumping while snowboarding around the mountain…

For example:

Off banks
Over banks
Onto Rails and boxes
Into the halfpipe
Over small features like rocks, fallen trees or little babies.

Just remember that there are 2 different types of snowboard jumping technique and choosing the correct method will be vital to your success as a good snowboarder.

It all come pretty natural after a while so just keep practicing and soon everything will fall into place!

How to Ollie on your snowboard while moving?

So now that you can perform an ollie while in a stationary position, it’s time to add a little bit of speed.

Start by finding a nice flat trail that has plenty of space in case you mess it up…Remember the analogy of the gun, load it, lock it and fire it….

Ever so slightly you will be on your toe edge and slightly broken at the waist to help with projecting your energy up.

Keep practicing until you can ollie without losing balance when you leave the snow!

TRICK TIP: Imagine yourself being super light in the lower body!

How to ollie higher on your snowboard?

This comes down to mindset and a little bit of added speed. If you are struggling with getting some decent height out of your ollie while moving on your snowboard, it might be a case of just adding a little more speed to help with your balance.

In most cases, speed isn’t really the problem, most of the time I find people generally need to use more exaggerated body movements when performing ollies.

Try this: Just before you try an Ollie on your snowboard, Imagine yourself being super light like a feather…

Just before you release all of the stored energy in your ollie, Imagine your legs are exploding like a volcano erupting….

Pure energy when snowboarding …this mindset alone will help you Ollie higher on the snowboard!

Mistakes that can throw you off axis when you ollie…

Ollie on a snowboard Basic stance:

Keep your lower and upper body aligned when jumping, if either one is not in alignment, you will naturally try and spin once your snowboard leaves the snow!

Alignment is key!!

Broken waist:

I know I have mentioned a couple of times that it’s alright to break at the waist and that’s fine, but use some caution, don’t over do it, if you break at the waist too much, you will fall forward over the toe edge when you leave the snow.

Test the extreme and find your sweet spot to stay balanced!

Not lifting the front foot first:

Some snowboarders get confused when learning how to Ollie correctly, they lift the back foot up first, this will cause you to nolly and in most cases, unless you know what you’re doing, you will eat sh@t!

Remember to lift your front foot first when learning how to ollie on your snowboard!

More snowboarding tutorials?? click here…: Snowboarding Tutorials

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