CJ Collins skates in El Paso, Texas, USA on 7 February, 2020.

Skateboarding

Tracing the art of the Ollie Grab

Join some of the greats for an excursion through the art of grabbing your board mid-flight!

By Niall Neeson

5 min readPublished on 03/21/2019 · 6:33 PM UTC

Tom Penny has a lot to answer for. Arguably the only skater other than Alan Gelfand for whom there was a pre and post phase, Penny ushered in a new era in skateboarding, where minimalism reigned in body movement. Everything was measured, controlled. Speed did most of the work now. No need to grab your board.

It is only now, more than 20 years since I watched him film his pivotal Wheels Of Fortune section for 411 Video Magazine at Radlands that the many-splendoured Ollie Grab variations have found their way back into modern skater's repertoires again – purely because they feel amazing to do. All of them. This is a paean to the Ollie Grab in (almost) all its variations and the colour and culture it brought to skateboarding.

Purists will tell you this version or that offends their exquisite tastes, but pay them no mind. Those dudes aren't the kind of cats you'd want to go to a party with – let's put it like that.

Nosegrab

The mother of them all, a grab which was all about vertical reassurance that the board has, in fact, come with you. Like a mariner on the prow of his ship, the Nosegrab was borne out of practicality in trying to eliminate margin for error in do-or-die situations, like spine transfers. As with Tailgrabs and Nosebumps, the Nosegrab's familiar spirit was the reassuring tailtap – as seen on Body Jars and the timelessly burly Madonna.

Masters: Neil Blender, Javier Mendizabal

Tailgrab

Now here's an interesting fellow: the Tailgrab was the last to come along in the trick evolution in skateboarding, quickly became ubiquitous, and just as quickly vanished again.

Whereas Melons and Mutes at least provide some practical benefit – in that at least you're hucking your crate with you – Tailgrabs are purely for aesthetics and don't help secure the board to your feet. If anything, grabbing it too hard can pull the nose away from your leading foot, which is why they sit well with One-foots and Nosebumps.

Tailgrabs are easier than almost any other grab – you only really have to touch the sole of your foot in mid-air – but can be 'boned' by over-levelling and dipping your front foot beyond horizontal. Nice to see Jaws doing his bit to bring them back.

Masters: Salman Agah, Andy Howell

Melons

Pedro Barros Tweaked Melon
© Gaston Francisco

Sometimes referred to as a Sad Grab, Melons are a bastardisation of Melanchollies (melancholy/sad, natch) and are among the most functional of Ollie Grabs, because if you catch it, the board isn't going anywhere.

This is the reason why it's the grab of choice for hucking over drops and distance. Turn your memory to Jamie Thomas's Leap Of Faith attempt by way of illustration.

Melon's are difficult primarily because you have to teach your body counter-intuitively not to throw your leading hand up in the air as you spring up out of the Ollie crouch.

If you can master that, the Melon is one of the best grabs to swing around and put some style into, because the grab between your feet creates a fulcrum you can rock any which way airtime allows for.

Masters: Matt Hensley, Alex Moul, Donny Barley

Stalefish

Primarily a transition trick, because the tail is thrown up by Frontside Ollies on curves, making it slightly easier to reach down and grab behind your trailing ankle.

Stalefishes are fiendishly difficult grabs and as such a real indicator of that innate and unquantifiable metric known as style. The front arm shapes a defensive arc, as the trailing hand tames a wayward Tailbone in textbook versions.

Masters: Tony Hawk, Danny León, Tommy Guerrero (search out his Independent ad on the mini ramp at Half Moon Bay for a masterclass in style)

Indy

One of skateboarding's great ironies is that the simplest looking things are often the hardest, such as carving frontside in a pool.

The Indy Grab is another deviously difficult clench, with your trailing hand between your toes, and like the reverse of the Melon, the struggle is how to jump away from the board to shape an Ollie while simultaneously heading back down towards it to grab that rail down there.

Vert bores will tell you that the term Indy only applies to the trick when going backside on vert, but on street it largely seems to have become known just as an Indy Grab regardless.

However you choose to name it, proper form is to fold into it, rather than fight it, and channel your inner Natas Kaupas all the while.

Masters: Chris Miller, John Cardiel, Chet Thomas (check his ender in Santa Cruz’s Baggy Pants, Small Wheels online)

Mute

For my money the chunkiest grab of them all, few moves in skating say confidence in your landing abilities like a fat Mute Grab. Leading hand grabbing between the toes, the blessing and the curse of Mute Grabs is that you can kind of keep an eye on it out of the corner of your eye. The blessing part is that at least you can see if the board came with you. The curse part is that there's a natural temptation to sit out the back of them in the air, making it probably the biggest cause of broken tails in the entire pantheon of skateboard tricks.

For all that, the first time you land one it makes the most satisfying bang and they are supremely tweakable.

Masters: Alex Moul, Justin Strubing, Tony Cox (head-height Transworld cover)

Crail

The rarest of all grabs, the swashbuckling Crail Grab – effectively just a Nosegrab, but with your trailing hand instead – began life as a liptrick and is rarely witnessed because although it produces a shape not far off Renaissance sculptures of angels, it's very easy for the grab to lever the board off your back foot with all manner of unfortunate consequences. Done well, they're a thing of beauty, but require a featherlight touch to avoid turning into a car wreck on impact.

Masters: Kevin Kowalski, Alex Hallford.