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anyways, yeah. ollie’s.
mine are wack rn, because of skating slow, lack of flexibility. my vertical is ok. i can maybe scrape the backboard (5’8”), but i lack the hackey-sack flexibility to bring my back foot up. i struggle with a traffic cone. like imma get there, but it’s gonna take a bit. so depressing.
i need to get into shape, gain some strength. little less typing, a lot more exercising.
That resonated a bit, feeling limited, for a brief period of time around my third or fourth year of skating I remember focusing on high ollies in particular (peaked at tennis net high) and loving how new 'heights' of my city suddenly could be read as possible spots. Then I went through years of flipping my board around more and I only realized it a little late that my ollies had gone to shit, probably due to new timing and posture habits. So it was frustrating I could still see all the high spots everywhere but could only look at them anymore due to my current body. I've been doing ollies again since but even the good ones I do get nowadays scream 'this guy used to have a good ollie' louder than they scream 'actually good ollie' which I can accept and think is funny.
I think switch ollies are a great way to mix it up, a few years ago I went through a phase of their own where I started doing them over flatbars first and then cones and then street poles, it was pretty surprising how quick the progression was I think due to them being easier to tweak and already being so familiar with regular. For a bit I had become more confident on them over stuff than on normal ollies (which felt strange) and then I slept on those too, lost the ease a little and underwent the same frustration phase but switch.
i looooooooove the idea of feeling more confident switch. that’s so sick.
tennis net was always the goal. i didn’t ever get regularly confident with that height, here and there, but not on the regular. a big part of this was my skating so slow.
that feeling of things that are not funny, becoming funny, is really familiar. that is an excellent way to hold those moments. i was at a park for the first time in a long time, and decided to jump straight into it after construction work, no warmup (excuses). i hung up in back to back switch ollie’s up a curb height obstacle. it WAS funny.
just spending time doing them, as you all are mentioning, is the way forward. maybe it’ll help me increase my skating speed as well. i’ve toyed with the idea of setting a goal of a tennis net ollie out there, not sure how delusional that is at my age/ability. i think flexibility might be the greatest inhibitor of my ollie, that and 10 pounds, constantly switching setups/skating little tiny ass boards, and not being willing to spend a few days a week trying to blast off.
the way i do flip tricks, is very muffled. meaning that my flicking foot is often on the bolts, so i’m initiating flick mode, earlier, getting less height, and hopefully more consistency. this too has somewhat smothered the ollie for me.
20 years of muscle memory IS hard to break up. possible tho.
that notion of feeling so confident switch had me excited. i would love to get switch ollie confidence, even just curb height, with speed