How-To Skateboarding: Ollie with Aldrin Garcia

Notice how your arms swing up in front of the body? now check out how this world record holder uses his arms. [VIDEO] Some skaters swing them sideways, and some go diagonally behind the body. Aldrin is the latter case. I'm not an expert, but I guess this is due to the arm swing direction affecting the body posture, and it sure as hell had helped me get over 4 decks after being stuck ollieing 3 for a long time. One more thing I can point out is how the lower body is not really straightening out much as you ollie. Little more knee bend could help that. And Ollie is a jump, then a pop+slide. Not completely separate, but most of the jumping has to be done before the pop. That means the knees should straighten out a good bit, then the pop should happen with the back leg pretty much straight.

Aldrin Garcia [VIDEO] took a year to learn how to ollie, and he has the world record highest ollie. You don't have to learn X amount of tricks in Z years, just go out and have fun and the progression will happen. A year isn't that long, just find what you like and continue practicing it. If you want to just huck ollies over everything for a year, go do it. Your body will tell you when it's time to learn something new. As far as powerslides & 180s, can you revert? I find doing a revert to be a bit easier than powersliding, and can get you used to throwing your board out in that motion, and also gets you used to landing the 180 since you know what it's like to spin and roll in the opposite stance. And for manuals, try going for distance rather than time. Try manualing between two cracks in the street, parking lot lines in a parking lot are also a decent starting point. Just go back and forth until you can manual that little gap consistently, and reduce your speed gradually. After you do them a bunch of times, you'll find your balance has a sweet spot where the manual is locked in, you want to just hold that spot as long as possible. As you get better, you'll learn how to balance long…

Great commitment, bro. Two things: 1.You are only using maybe 20% of the range of motion to jump. You gotta start jumping well before you do the pop motion, and the body should be pretty much straight from left shoulder to left ankle by the time the tail hits the ground. 2.When you get to the bottom of your squat, swing the arms out sideways and up forcefully to help you jump higher. You can see what I mean in this video of the WR holder [VIDEO]

Okay, I'll give you a rundown on some of the tips I've ~~stolen~~ come up with, and learned in the short time I've been skating! Trick tips: * Learn to Ollie, it's the basis behind a lot of flip tricks and without it, you'll be left helpless when you find a three inch curb you want to jump up onto! Although the Ollie definitely is an important stepping stone to skating, don't let it take over your life like cocaine does, try other things at the park! Whether it's a shuv-it on flatground a no comply bs 180 to fakie shuv, you'll have fun trying! * Don't get angry, if you get angry while attempting a trick over and over again, take a second to cool down, maybe listen to your happy song or try doing something you know you can land to build up some more confidence, if you're angry you're not going to have a good time! And that's what its all about... * WATCH VIDEOS. Yes, watch videos on skateboarding. A lot of people have told me that that's stupid or lame but trust me, and when I say videos on skateboarding I mean the resource videos that show you how to ollie or how to kickflip. A good website I like to use is The Ride Channel. [LINK] They have great how-to videos that will show you s…

I'm not a believer in "the one true way". Different people have different bodies and figure out different ways of achieving the same result. If opening your hips a little is what it takes for you then who can say it's "wrong"? The guy in your video definitely has a very open body when he does these ninja kick ollies. I would suggest you look at it as a personal difference though, not a "thing pros do". I wouldn't call what he's doing subtle at all, I'd say that's more like one extreme end of how turned your body can be and still make it work. His upper body is at about a 45 degree angle to the deck. It also looks like he's sliding up the board with his toe, which is definitely not the normal way of doing it but hey, it's working for him. If you look at some of the other videos that come up when you type in slow motion ollie you'll see stuff like this [VIDEO] is also in the results. That's pretty much the opposite extreme, his style is near perfectly square/closed. And you mentioned Kyro, in his ollie vid [VIDEO] his hips are very square as well, although his shoulder is a little rotated. And here's Aldrin Garcia's style [VIDEO], he won a highest ollie contest a few years back (whic…

Also this guy high one of the highest ollies on record. Check it out [VIDEO]

Try putting them to the side a bit and then open up your shoulders. Because it’s as if you are having your shoulders closed too much. trick tip for ollies [VIDEO]

[VIDEO] this should help tremendously just really focus on each leg as it’s own thing and your arms should be folding like this guys for proper air time