The ollie manual is a good trick to help develop your balance and ollie control. The idea is to ollie and land on your back wheels, riding a "wheelie" for a distance before setting the front wheels down. It can be done on the flat ground or over an object, but is most commonly done up onto an element, like a curb or block. It requires a fair sense of balance, and you should be comfortable ollieing. It might be good to get accustomed to manualling on flat ground before ollieing onto something, but a curb is a good element on which to learn the ollie manual. Ride at the curb at a normal ollie speed - you'll want to go fast enough to get up onto the curb and still have momentum for the manual. Pop into an ollie and get up over the curb. Instead of levelling the board in the air beneath you, keep your leading foot up and your weight centered over the back wheels. Land on the back wheels and try to balance on them in this position for a distance. You'll notice your body arched forward over your board as you ride the manual. This is how you keep your weight balanced on the back wheels. It is useful to try and manual a set distance, like to a line on the sidewalk or off the curb again. This will give you something specific to strive for until you've got the ollie manual so wired that you can just ride it for days. Then you can try variations like the ollie manual to kickflip off of an element, or even the ollie flip to manual. The options are endless.

Click here for Quicktime video clip (270k), or here for MPEG (302k)

The nollie manual, though derived from the ollie manual, is quite a different trick and requires entirely different dynamics. Beginning with a nollie, it requires that you get enough clearance to tilt the board back into the manual position before the back wheels land. You go from one end to the other, kind of see-sawing from front to back. A curb is a good element on which to learn this trick, and once you're comfortable nollieing up onto it and you've got some clearance, then try landing in the manual position. Nollie up the curb and instead of levelling out the board beneath you, swing it a little further forward - sucking in your leading leg and extending your trailing leg - until you're balance is centered over the back wheels. From there on out it's like the ollie manual.

Click here for Quicktime video clip (176k), or here for MPEG (189k)

back to trick tips