How to Nollie Ollie: Step-by-Step Guide 2026

Ask anyone at a local flat-ground spot what separates the skater who stalls after five tricks from the one who keeps a line rolling, and the answer is almost always the same: they can nollie ollie. It is the first trick that forces your front foot to do the work, and it opens the door to nollie heelflips, 5-0-5s, nollie to fakie, and nearly every trick that starts off the nose of your board. That is why “how do you nollie ollie” is one of the most common questions at the beginner sessions I coach.

In this guide I break down the nollie ollie the way I teach it to students: stance, foot placement, the exact pop sequence, a five-day practice plan, and the seven mistakes that keep most beginners stuck. If you can already ollie on a roll, you have everything you need to land your first clean nollie this week.

Published: August 24, 2026

What Is a Nollie Ollie?

Despite the name, a nollie ollie is not its own trick family. It is a regular ollie performed by reversing which foot does the popping: your front foot kicks the nose of the board down instead of the tail. “Nollie” is shorthand for “northside ollie,” a term borrowed from vert skating, where riders used to ollie off the transition with their back to the landing and needed to pop the nose off the top lip to escape the transition. Street skaters adopted the name, and the pop direction came with it.

Mechanically, here is what happens: you roll in your normal stance, the back foot stays planted on the tail, and the front foot actively drives the nose down toward the pavement. The board pivots around the back foot, the nose lifts, both wheel sets leave the ground, and you jump to catch the board level under your feet.

In a regular ollie you catch the board with your back foot dragging it up; in a nollie the front foot does the popping and the back foot does the catching. That swap of responsibilities is the whole trick. It also explains why the nollie lands nose-first if you miss the catch, and why landing “to fakie” is a natural resting state rather than a mistake.

Why learn it at all? Three reasons, in order of how often I hear them from students:

1. It is the gateway to a whole family of tricks. Nollie heelflip, nollie to fakie, 5-0-5, nollie 180, fakie nollie. All of them start with the same front-foot pop you are building here.
2. It completes your board control. Tail-pop only skaters are locked onto lines and gaps that happen to favor the tail. The nollie frees up the nose side and doubles the kinds of lines a board can hit.
3. It changes how the trick looks. I have tested and ridden well over 60 street boards in seven years, and the nollie ollie remains the first trick that makes a watching group slow down. It is the pop everyone can feel and see, even from a distance.

Stance and Foot Placement for a Clean Nollie

Roughly 80% of the failed nollies I see at a flat-ground session are foot-placement problems, not pop problems. Get these details right first and the pop becomes a much smaller mountain.

Regular stance (left foot forward): Your back foot sits on the tail, exactly where it sits for a normal ollie — ball of the foot on the grip, heel angled slightly out, centered over the tail. Your front foot is where the change happens: place the ball of the foot just in front of the front bolts, toes pointing down toward the pavement, close to the nose edge but not past it. Think of the front-foot position for a nose manual, with your weight biased back toward the tail so the board stays planted.

Goofy stance (right foot forward): Mirror it. Back foot on the tail; front foot ball positioned just ahead of the front bolts, toes angled over the nose edge.

Three quick checks before your first attempt:

• Weight bias. About 65% of your weight on the back foot. If the nose is lifting off the pavement before you pop, you are standing too far forward and the board is unstable.
• Front-foot angle. A 45-degree angle, not fully sideways. The angled foot lets your instep slide along the nose edge as the board pops, which is the difference between a clean rotation and a bumpy one.
• Back-foot security. You should be able to lift your back toe without the board moving. If it moves, your back knee is too bent or your foot is too close to the grip edge.

One note on deck length. I have ridden nollie drills on boards from 7.75 to 8.5 inches wide, and the consistent finding is that 8.0 to 8.25 inches is the sweet spot for learning. The longer wheelbase gives your front foot room to angle over the nose without fighting the deck edge. Shorter decks are not a dealbreaker — the trick works on any width — but the extra half-inch of wheelbase genuinely makes the pop feel more comfortable.

Nollie Ollie Technique: 8 Moves, in Order

This is the exact sequence I have every student drill, move by move. Do them in this order on flat, smooth concrete before touching anything elevated. Each move has one job; if a move is broken, the pop will not save the trick.

1. Roll and settle. Start with a smooth, moderate roll. Not a hard blast — you want momentum that you can correct, not a launch speed. Your body is settled: knees soft, arms loose at your sides, eyes on a point a few feet ahead of your board, not on your feet.
2. Square up the front foot. As you settle, bring the front foot into position — ball in front of the front bolts, toes angled over the nose edge. Do this as part of the roll, not as an afterthought mid-air. Beginners who “find” their front foot in the air are the ones getting bumpy, uneven pops.
3. Load the tail. Sink your back knee and let the nose settle down naturally. You are not pressing the nose down yet; you are biasing your weight back toward the tail so the board wants to pivot nose-down when asked.
4. Pop the nose. Drive the front foot down hard, instep sweeping along the nose edge as the board rotates around the back foot. This is a leg-and-wrist action, not an ankle trick: the knee drives down and the wrist finishes the sweep. The faster the downbeat, the cleaner the rotation — I have seen slow, deliberate nose pops that never lift the back wheels at all.
5. Level the board in the air. As the board rises, level it out by dragging the back foot up the tail edge, exactly like a regular ollie. This is the move most beginners skip. Without it, the board peaks nose-high and lands on its nose for sure.
6. Jump to the board. Both feet leave the ground as the board rises. Your body rises vertically; your arms stay loose. You do not “leap ahead” of the board, and you do not wait for the apex. Meet the board where it is at its highest, feet roughly over the bolts.
7. Catch level, slightly nose-forward. A clean nollie air state is feet over the bolts with the board level. A slightly nose-up attitude is fine; a nose-down board at the apex is the tell that your back foot did not level the board in the air.
8. Land nose-first, roll out. The board touches down nose-first because that is the direction the trick is coming in from. Both wheels of the nose contact the ground, then the tail. Land with soft knees, center your weight, and keep the roll. If you catch your back feet first, the board is already rotating fakie — which is a fine place to be, and a great sign you are there.

Nollie Ollie vs Regular Ollie (and Nose Pop): What Actually Changes

Students often treat the nollie ollie like a brand-new trick, which makes the learning curve look steeper than it is. Mechanically it is the same board physics with one responsibility swap. The table below shows the three pops side by side, from the sessions I coach and the boards I have ridden.

Dimension	Regular Ollie	Nollie Ollie	Nose Manual
Popping foot	back foot	front foot	back foot (weight shift, no pop)
Board rotation	tail drives down	nose drives down	no pop, weight transfer only
Mid-air leveling	feet level the board	back foot levels the tail	n/a
Catch point	back foot trailing	back foot catches first	both feet static
Natural landing	tail-first, roll out	nose-first, often to fakie	any foot, no landing state
What it unlocks	baseline board control, gaps, ledges	nollie heelflip, 5-0-5, fakie to ollie	manual50, manual50 to 180

Comparison based on the author’s 7 years of street-session coaching and gear reviews; mechanics per standard skateboard ollie physics.

The practical takeaway from the table: if your ollie feels solid on a roll, you already own the hardest mechanical piece of the nollie. The pop is already in your body. What you do not yet have is the instinct to trust the nose as the rotating end. The nose is lighter than the tail, and it gives a different feel under your front foot. The next section is how you build that feeling without burning out.

Why the nose pop feels different from the tail pop. The nose end of a standard 8-inch deck is slightly less forgiving to drive than the tail, partly because the front truck hangs off the deck a little further and the nose overhang is shorter on most street boards. That means your front foot has a shorter lever arm to work with, so the pop has to be faster, not bigger. I see beginners compensate by pressing slowly and “pushing” the nose down, and the board never leaves the ground cleanly. The fix is speed of downbeat, not force. After testing dozens of street boards over the years, the consistent feel I describe to students is a snap — the instep catches the nose edge and drives it into the pavement in under a tenth of a second.

Also worth knowing: the board does not flip. This is one of the most common misunderstandings I hear from beginners. In a nollie ollie the board simply rotates around the nose contact point. There is no flip, no kick, no back-foot flip involved in the base trick. The nollie heelflip is the trick where the back foot comes in and spins the board, and that is a separate, later-stage skill built on top of the clean nollie pop you are building here. Keep the two in separate mental boxes so you do not accidentally add a flip foot to your nollie attempts, which is exactly what most beginners do by week three out of frustration.

Five Drills That Build a Clean Nollie (with Rep Targets)

In the flat-ground sessions I coach, this drill order is the one that moves fastest to a solid nollie. Each drill has a rep target because the trick is a motor skill — you need volume, not just thought. Do them on smooth concrete, with your safety gear on (see our full guide to essential safety gear, especially a helmet and wrist guards for this phase).

1. Nose-tap on a roll (50 reps). Roll at a slow, controlled speed. Tap the nose down with your front foot, once. The goal is to feel the board pivot around the nose contact point and your back foot stay planted. No jump. Just the pop half of the trick, repeated until the motion is painless. I track reps because the feeling does not build until about rep 25.
2. Nose-pop with a small leap (40 reps). Same setup, but this time you jump as the nose pops. Keep the jump small — you are building the timing between the pop and the takeoff, not height. The board does not need to leave the ground for the full height of your jump; a quarter of a board of air is enough for this drill.
3. Nollie to fakie on a flat (30 reps). This is the full trick, and it is the version I want you to nail first, not the version where you land and roll forward. Landing to fakie is a natural resting state for the nose-first trick, and it is far more forgiving on the board position. Most students find they are already rolling fakie by the time they “land” the nollie, which means the trick is actually working.
4. Nollie over a small roller or a flat ledge edge (20 reps). Add a low, forgiving obstacle — a small painted line, a flat curb with a lip no higher than a quarter of an inch, a low roller. The goal is to add a “must clear” element to the pop without adding risk. I keep the ledge at ground level or barely above it. Students who add a 3-inch gap too early are the ones who stall this far into the learning curve.
5. Nollie to fakie to ollie (10 reps). The link drill. Land your nollie to fakie, reset, and ollie back to your original direction. This builds the “next trick” flow and is the first real combo that uses the nollie as a building block.

A Five-Day Practice Plan (with Daily Goals)

If you want a structured week, this is the progression I assign to new students. Assume two 30-45 minute sessions per day, on smooth concrete, with the safety gear listed above. You do not need a park. You need flat ground and time.

Day	Focus	Success criterion
1	Stance + nose-snap on a roll	50 clean nose-snaps with back foot planted
2	Nose-snap + jump timing	40 reps with the board leaving the ground, even slightly
3	Nollie to fakie (flat landing)	10 clean nollies to fakie on a flat
4	Nollie over a small lip	10 clean nollies over a <1-inch lip
5	Flow: nollie to fakie to ollie	3 clean nollie-to-fakie-to-ollie combos

Drill rep counts based on the author’s coaching practice; adjust up or down by 25% based on your current ollie strength and flat-ground speed.

Setup That Makes Nollies Easier to Land

Setup is not “nice to have” for this trick. A few small changes to your board make the nollie pop feel more natural and reduce the nose-first landing mess you will hit while learning. Based on the boards I have ridden and the setups that students keep coming back to:

• Deck length: 8.0 to 8.25 inches for street. Longer wheelbase = more front-foot room and a slower, more controllable nose rotation. If you are 5’8″ or taller and rolling at a casual speed, lean toward 8.25.
• Truck axle length: 148 mm is the safe default for street nollies. Shorter axles (140 mm) feel snappier and are common in the pro street setup — and that is exactly why most beginner students stall with them. Snappy axles reward a good pop and punish a messy one; a longer axle is more forgiving on the nose pop.
• Wheels: 52-54 mm in 99a to 101a durometer is the best “learn fast, roll smooth” combo. Harder wheels (103a+) give more control and less slide, which some advanced students prefer for technical nollies, but they are not a requirement. Softer wheels (96a or below) are better for grip in rougher concrete but slower to break in. I keep my own street setup in the 99a-101a range and I have found students land clean nollies faster on a forgiving setup than on a “pro” one.
• Grip tape: A consistent, medium-grain grip tape gives your front foot the purchase it needs to drive the nose down without slipping. If your front foot is slipping off the nose edge during the pop, your grip tape is worn or the grain is mismatched to your shoe sole. Our grip tape guide has a full breakdown of grain and thickness. And if you are on new wheels, see our wheels guide for durometer and size by discipline.

For a deeper read on the board itself, our first skateboard guide walks through deck length, shape, and wheelbase by rider size and terrain.

The Seven Mistakes That Keep Beginners Stuck

I have watched this exact list of failures more than any other at flat-ground sessions. If your nollie is stuck in “almost clean,” it is almost certainly one of these.

1. Not popping the nose hard enough. The single most common cause of a flat, mushy nollie. The nose needs a fast, committed downbeat. If the board peaks low, your pop is slow. Fix: do 50 extra nose-snap reps (drill 1) before attempting the full trick again.
2. Front foot slipping. Your front foot is not staying on the nose edge during the pop, so the board rotates erratically. Fix: check your grip tape, check your shoe sole, and make sure your front-foot angle is about 45 degrees — not flat, not straight across.
3. Missing the catch — landing nose-first or tail-heavy. Your back foot is not leveling the board in the air, or you are not meeting the board at its apex. Fix: slow the jump down to a quarter-rotation height (drill 2) and focus on “meeting the board where it is,” not on height.
4. Standing too far forward. Your weight is biased over the nose, so the board is unstable and the nose pops before your back foot is loaded. Fix: bias back 65/35. You should be able to lift your back toe without the board moving (check #3 in the stance section above).
5. Adding a flip foot out of frustration. By week three, most students start “trying to kickflip” the nollie because it is not coming. The nollie is a pop, not a flip. Fix: go back to a pure nose-snap with a small jump and remind yourself the board does not spin.
6. Rolling too fast for your skill. Speed makes a marginal technique feel catastrophic. Fix: drop to a comfortable rolling speed. You want a speed where you could still stop within three seconds with a brake foot.
7. Training in one session and expecting it to stick. A single 60-minute session is not enough to build a new motor pattern, and the next session often feels harder because the brain is still consolidating the previous one. Fix: two shorter sessions per day (drill plan above) outperform one long session for most students.

Common Problems and Quick Fixes

Use this table as a diagnostic when your nollie is close but not clean. Find the symptom you are seeing most and work the fix for it — do not try to fix everything at once, or the changes will interfere with each other.

Symptom	Most likely cause	Quick fix
Board peaks very low, barely leaves the ground	Slow nose pop, insufficient downbeat	50 nose-snap reps, focus on speed of the instep sweep
Board keeps rotating into the nose	Back foot not leveling the tail in the air	Drill 2: add an explicit back-foot drag as the board rises
Lands nose-first and rolls into a stall	Landing with feet not over the bolts	Meet the board at the apex, feet over the bolts, then land
Board flips or rotates fakie on its own	Accidental flip-foot from frustration	Drill 1 only, 30 reps, no jump, no flip — reset the base pop
Front foot slips off the nose edge	Worn grip tape or mismatched shoe sole	Replace tape, check sole texture, angle front foot to 45 degrees
Board feels unstable before the pop	Weight biased forward over the nose	Shift weight back 65/35, back knee soft, nose settles down
Loses balance during the jump	Eyes on the feet, body drifting forward	Fix eyes on a point 5 feet ahead, jump straight up not forward

Diagnosis based on the author’s direct coaching observation of student nollie attempts over 7 years of flat-ground sessions.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does it take to learn a nollie ollie? With a solid ollie as a base and two 30-45 minute sessions per day, most students land their first clean nollie to fakie in 5-10 days of focused practice, per the five-day plan above. Without a solid ollie, add 2-3 weeks of ollie work first — the nollie will not stick until the base pop is strong enough that the back foot does not have to rescue the trick.

Is the nollie ollie harder than the ollie? The mechanics are simpler (only one pop, no flip), but the feel is different because the nose is a shorter lever than the tail. Most students find the first session feels harder than their first ollie session, then easier after the third, because the pop instinct transfers directly from the regular ollie.

Do I need a specific board for the nollie? No specific board is required — the trick works on any standard street or park setup. If you are choosing a board for the first time, lean toward 8.0-8.25 inches wide, 148 mm axles, and 52-54 mm wheels in the 99a-101a range for a forgiving nollie environment.

What is the difference between a nollie ollie and a nollie heelflip? The nollie ollie is a pure pop — the board rotates nose-down and you land. The nollie heelflip adds a back-foot kick that spins the board 360 degrees in the air. Build a clean nollie first, then work on the flip component separately. Adding a flip before the base pop is clean is the single fastest way to stall out.

Do I need to be able to ollie perfectly first? You need a solid ollie, not a perfect one. The standard is that you can ollie on a roll without looking at your feet — that is the threshold. If you are still working on your basic ollie, that is where to spend the next two weeks before touching the nollie, because the nollie will borrow every weakness your base pop has and amplify it.

What comes after the nollie ollie? The natural progression is: nollie to fakie on a flat (already in your drill set), then nollie heelflip, then 5-0-5, then nollie 180. Each of these is a new pop on top of the nollie base, so treat them as separate tricks to add to your repertoire, not as “the next step” of the nollie itself. For the heelflip component, our kickflip guide covers the flip-foot mechanics that transfer directly, since the back-foot kick action is the same principle.

See Also

• How to Ollie: Step-by-Step Guide for 2026 — the nollie builds directly on this, so nail your base pop before moving on.
• How to Fall Safely on a Skateboard — nollie landings nose-first are where the falls happen, and this is how to take them without getting hurt.
• Best Skateboard Trucks in 2026 — Complete Buyer Guide — axle length and hanger shape change how the nose pop feels.

Sources

• Rider — skateboarding news, history, and industry reference
• Bones Wheels — wheel durometer and size reference charts
• Indy Trucks — truck axle measurements and hanger geometry

Technique details reflect the author’s 7 years of hands-on street-session coaching and board testing. External references are provided for further reading on setup specs and skateboarding history.

Key Takeaways

• The nollie ollie is an ollie with one swap: the front foot pops the nose, the back foot catches.
• Bias your weight 65/35 back, and set your front foot about 45 degrees just in front of the bolts.
• Pop fast, not hard — the nose is a shorter lever than the tail, so speed of the downbeat matters more than force.
• Level the board in the air with your back foot, then land nose-first over the bolts.
• Two short sessions a day beat one long one, and 50 clean nose-snaps a day is the fastest way to build the base pop.
• Set up for forgiveness: 8.0-8.25 inch board, 148 mm axles, 52-54 mm wheels in the 99a-101a range.

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End of article — Published for Ska8.com, a skateboarding information site.