The First Tricks in Wakeskate To Learn: Ollie, Shuvit and Varial

Sooner or later, after learning to start and control the board, there comes a time when simply going back and forth is no longer enough.

In wakeskating, the first questions arise: which trick should I start with? Should I try a shuvit right away? An ollie first? And when is the right time to attempt a pop shuvit or a big spin?

The answer is not to learn tricks in random order.

Some moves become the foundation for later ones. Learning to lift the board out of the water with an ollie, controlling a 180-degree rotation, or understanding the movement of a shuvit allows you to gradually build the foundation for more complex tricks.

In this guide, we'll look at a possible progression to start building your wakeskate trick library.

Before you start trying tricks, you should feel comfortable enough while riding.

It doesn't mean you have to be perfectly technical, but at least you have to be able to:

• feel stable and loose on the board;
• check toeside and heelside;
• change direction in an agile way;
• manage the board even when it picks up speed;
• have good control of the balance.

The first tricks inevitably require a lot of falls.

If you still have to focus entirely on simple balance, adding a technical movement can make progression much slower.

Once the board starts to feel natural under your feet, you can start playing.

READ ALSO: What is wakeskating and how is it practiced?

The ollie is probably the first fundamental trick to learn.

Not only because it allows you to lift the board out of the water, but because it introduces a concept that will continually return in the progression of wakeskating: pop and control of the board through the feet.

Unlike wakeboarding, wakeskating isn't connected to the board via bindings. This means every move must be performed while maintaining contact and control of the board with your feet.

How does ollie work?

The movement starts from the back foot.

You need to lightly load the back of the board, letting the nose lift out of the water. Then, your front foot will guide the board upward.

The theory is simple. The practice, much less so.

At first, it's normal to simply pop the tail, without actually lifting the entire board out of the water. The key is to try to coordinate the movement without overdoing it. When the board starts to rise and the tail comes out of the water, it's time to start and rebalance, shifting your weight from the tail to the nose.

A clean ollie isn't born by trying to jump as high as possible.

It comes first from understanding how to make the board rise together with the body.

Common mistakes

Among the most frequent errors:

• pushing too hard with the back foot;
• jump without accompanying the board;
• to stiffen;
• shifting your weight too far back;
• immediately look for excessive height.

At first, even a small ollie is enough. The goal is to understand the movement.

Why is the ollie so important?

Because it will become the basis for many other tricks.

Once you learn how to generate pop and keep the board under your feet, you can start adding more complex tricks.

Once you start getting comfortable with the ollie, a natural progression is the 180.

The concept is simple: rider and board rotate 180 degrees to land in the opposite position.

You can start learning these rotations even with little pop, focusing mainly on body movement and board management.

Frontside 180

In the frontside 180 the rotation occurs towards the front of the body.

It's a good trick to start understanding how much the shoulders, torso and barbell pass influence the rotation.

Don't just think about turning your body. Your body can rotate 180 degrees with the board, even with proper use of the balance bar.

Start with two hands and perform an ollie, trying to open your shoulder slightly. At the same time, release your front hand from the bar and rotate slightly with your gaze, maintaining control of the board until you land. After a few attempts, it becomes clear how proper bar management and switching hands can facilitate the body's movement towards a front 180, especially when you're still learning the basics. 

Backside 180

The backside 180 instead requires a reverse rotation, towards the back.

This trick is definitely more complicated than the frontside and requires more time and skill to pull off. It may initially feel less natural because you more easily lose your visual reference of the direction you're going.

Again, there's no need to immediately go for a high ollie.

At first, you can focus on the movement and learn to complete the rotation cleanly, simply by sliding on the water. This gradual approach allows you to learn to manage the back pass of the bar without having to hang back on the water with every attempt.

The real goal of the 180

Learning a 180 isn’t just about adding two new tricks to your list.

It teaches you to:

• rotate the body while maintaining balance;
• control the board while moving;
• land in the opposite position;
• continue to turn on switch.

These are all things that will come in handy much later.

The shuvit is one of the first tricks where the rider and board begin to follow different movements.

The board rotates 180 degrees on the horizontal axis, while the body remains still and suspended in the air without performing any rotation.

This is an important step because it introduces the concept of letting the board move freely under your feet, letting it fly and remaining suspended for a few moments, before picking it up again to complete the trick.

How to Begin Understanding Shuvit

The movement mainly starts from the back foot, which gives the board rotation.

At first, it's normal to feel like you're completely losing control and trying to get back on the board right away, too quickly and without trying to get a hang of it.

You might find the board turning too much, too little, or sinking under your feet. It's part of the process.

The initial goal should be to learn to generate a controlled spin, finding consistency in applying the right pressure without looking for too much pop.

A common mistake: wanting to be too pop

The shuvit does not necessarily have to be huge.

Many riders immediately try to turn it into a pop shuvit, adding vertical movement before they have even learned the rotation.

Better to separate the two. Learn to spin the board first. The pop will come later.

The body varial is interesting because it completely overturns the concept of the shuvit.

In shuvit it is mainly the board that rotates under the rider.

In body varial, however, the board remains substantially in the same direction while the body changes position.

It's a very useful trick to start developing greater independence between body movement and board control.

How does it work?

The rider jumps onto the board and rotates his body 180 degrees to land in the opposite position.

The main difficulty is keeping the board stable under your feet during the movement.

Here too, there is no need to immediately look for a huge leap.

A low, controlled body varial is much more useful than a high rotation where the board is completely lost.

Why is it worth learning?

Because it forces you to understand that in wakeskate not everything has to move at once.

You can rotate:

• the body;
• the table;
• both;
• body and table in different directions.

This concept becomes fundamental when you start combining rotations.

Once you've gained some confidence with ollies, 180s, shuvits, and body varials, you can start thinking about more complex tricks.

Two natural progressions are pop 3 and bigspin.

Pop 3

The pop 3 adds the ollie to the full 360 degree shuvit.

The board doesn't just rotate on the water, but is lifted through the pop before completing the full 360 rotation.

For this reason, it is useful to get there after having worked on the two movements separately.

You need:

• a controlled ollie;
• a substantial shuvit;
• suspension and elevation, because it is a long trick that requires more time in the air.

Putting these elements together takes time, but the logic of the trick becomes much easier to understand when the basics are already in place.

Bigspin

Bigspin represents one of the most interesting next steps.

It combines the typical pop 3 rotation of the board with a 180° rotation of the body in the same direction.

This is where the work done on the first tricks begins to come together.

Ollie, 180, shuvit and body varial weren't just four independent tricks.

They were teaching you the different elements that you can combine.

The board can rotate. The body can rotate. You can add pop. You can change the direction of rotation.

Bigspin brings some of these concepts together.

There is no one-size-fits-all order, but a sensible progression might be this:

• Ollie – learn to generate pop;
• Frontside 180 – start rotating your body and board together;
• Backside 180 – develop control even in the opposite rotation;
• Shuvit – learning to rotate the board under your feet;
• Body Varial – learning to move your body independently of the board;
• Pop Shuvit – combining pop and 360 degree board rotation;
• Bigspin – start combining body and board rotations.

Of course, every rider can find more or less natural tricks.

You might learn a shuvit before a backside 180 or find the body varial more difficult than a pop 3. You don't have to strictly follow the list.

The important thing is to understand what each movement is teaching you.

READ ALSO: What's the difference between wakeskating and wakeboarding?

Ollies, 180s, shuvits, and body varials may seem like simple tricks compared to the more advanced wakeskate maneuvers.

But it is precisely these movements that lay much of the foundations needed to continue progress.

First you learn to control the pop. Then you discover how to rotate your body. Then you discover how to rotate the board.

And at some point you just start combining everything you've learned.

This is where wakeskating starts to get even more interesting.