How to Ollie on a Fingerboard: A 40-Year Veteran's Guide
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How to Ollie on a Fingerboard: Step-by-Step Guide from a 40-Year Skating Veteran
I've been skating since before most of you were born. Forty years on boards — full-size, mini, and everything in between. And in all that time, the ollie has never stopped being the foundation. You don't skip it. You don't get around it. If you want to learn how to ollie on a fingerboard, you build it right the first time or you spend the next six months unlearning bad habits.
Let me walk you through it properly.
Why the Ollie Is the Only Trick That Matters First
I know, I know. You want to kickflip. Everyone does. But the ollie teaches you everything: timing, pressure, balance, and the feel of the board under your fingers. Every single trick you'll ever do — grinds, manuals, flips — has the ollie baked into it at its core.
Get this right and the rest opens up fast. Rush it and you'll plateau in a month.
Finger Placement: Where Your Fingers Go and Why
Start here before you even try to pop.
Your middle finger sits near the tail — roughly over the last bolt. This is your pop finger. It does the heavy lifting. Your index finger (or pointer) sits in the middle of the board, closer to the centre. This is your level-out and balance finger.
A common beginner mistake is putting the pop finger too far back on the tail. You'll get a tail slap but no height. Another is placing both fingers too close together. You need that gap so each finger has a distinct job.
Practice placing your fingers at rest. Look at the board. Don't guess. Before you pop anything, you need to feel comfortable that your fingers are in the right spots without looking.
The Pop Mechanic: Generating Height
The pop is a sharp, downward snap with your middle finger on the tail. It's not a press. It's not a grind. It's a snap — quick, controlled, deliberate.
As soon as the tail hits the surface and the nose begins to rise, you start the second motion: the level-out.
Here is where beginners stall. They pop well but then do nothing. The board rises at one end and just falls back down. That's not an ollie — that's a tail pop. The ollie happens in the moment after the pop.
The Level-Out: The Part Most Guides Skip
This is the secret no one explains clearly enough.
As the nose rises from the pop, your index finger slides forward along the board — not lifting, but dragging slightly upward toward the nose. This motion levels the board out in the air. It's a simultaneous pull and glide.
Think of it like this: your middle finger fires down, your index finger answers by moving forward and up. They work together. The pop creates the vertical energy. The level-out translates it into a horizontal, even pop.
When you get this right — and you'll know when you do because it feels different from everything before it — the board will be flat in the air for a half-second. That flat moment is the ollie.
Common Mistakes I've Seen a Thousand Times
The crooked ollie. Usually caused by uneven pressure. Your middle finger is slightly off-centre or you're applying pressure at an angle. Fix: slow down, check finger placement, practice the motion in slow motion first.
The board flying away. Your pop finger is releasing too early or with too much force and no follow-through. You're exploding, not snapping. Fix: think control over power. A smaller, sharper snap beats a big loose one every time.
No height at all. Your index finger isn't moving. The board is popping but not levelling. You're doing a tail slap, not an ollie. Fix: deliberately exaggerate the forward slide of your index finger. Over-correct until it becomes natural, then dial it back.
One-sided landing. The board is tilting on landing. This means your level-out is slightly off-axis. Fix: check that your slide forward is straight along the board's length, not diagonal.
Drills That Actually Work
The slow-motion drill. Do the full motion at half speed. Not practicing tricks at slow speed — physically moving your fingers through the pop-and-level in slow motion. Feel each stage. Your muscle memory is built through repetition, but it needs the right pattern first.
The stall drill. Pop the ollie and just try to hold the board flat at the top for a beat. Don't worry about landing. This isolates the level-out motion and forces you to find the flat moment.
The height ladder. Set a small obstacle — a coin, a pencil — and try to ollie over it. Once you can clear it consistently, raise the stakes. Progress markers keep the practice session purposeful.
A Note on Boards and Surfaces
I've been making fingerboards for years and I'll tell you straight: a warped or badly built board makes the ollie ten times harder to learn. If your tail is uneven or your deck has too much rocker, your pop will be inconsistent no matter how good your technique is.
Practice on a smooth, flat surface. Not carpet — that muffles the pop and gives false feedback. A desk, a table, a flat floor. You need to feel the snap clearly.
If you're ready to level up your setup, browse our complete fingerboard setups — every board is handmade and personally inspected before it ships.
Final Word from the Workshop
The ollie took me a while to really understand, even coming from full-size skating. The scale is different. The feel is different. But the principle is exactly the same: it's a pop and a level, and those two motions have to work together.
Give it time. Do your drills. And when it clicks — and it will — you'll understand why I've been doing this for forty years.
Questions? Reach out on the contact page. I answer personally.
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