Wakesurf guides
Your first wakesurf tricks, in the right order
Emma Galusha#3 world ranked, pro women's skim · Elevate coachAugust 2026 · 8 min read
Once you can hold the wave without the rope, the fun really starts. These seven tricks are taught in this exact order because each one borrows from the one before it — the carve teaches the floater, the ollie teaches the air, and all of them together build toward spins later on.
One rule runs through every single trick in wakesurfing: start at the back of the wave and come forward with speed. Every trick begins with forward momentum. If a trick keeps failing, the missing ingredient is usually speed, and the fix is to reset deeper in the wave. Expect to fall plenty along the way — falling, laughing, and going again is the actual technique.
The seven, one by one
- 01
The carve
Speed forward, extra pressure on your toes, and the board climbs the wave — shoulders and hips rotating up with it. At the top, turn the board to point down BEFORE you drop, get heavy on the back foot for the ride down, then close your shoulders and re-engage your toes so the wave keeps you. Coming down without turning the board first is the classic slide-out.
- 02
The bottom turn
Climb to the top like a carve, then bend your knees on the way down and use that speed to swing out into the flats — as far as you can without losing the wave — then quickly back on the toes to re-enter the pocket. This teaches you where the flats end and the wave begins, which every later trick relies on.
- 03
The ollie in the flats
Out in the flats, knees bent, press your back foot so the nose lifts, then let the back foot follow — exactly like an ollie on a skateboard. Jumping with both legs at once keeps the board glued to the water; back foot first is the secret. Start small.
- 04
The floater
Climb like a carve, but hold the board straight along the top of the wave for as long as you can. Pointing your front hip toward the boat is the cheat code for holding it longer. Just before the wave lets go of you, turn down, heels helping you drop, heavy on the back foot.
- 05
The lip slide
Snap just the FRONT of the board up the wave while your back foot stays pressed down and behind — coaches say it's like showing your front pocket to the boat. Done right it feels slippery, because the fins release. That released-fins feeling is the exact sensation your future spins are made of.
- 06
The chop hop
Climb to the top like a floater, then ollie off the lip back down into the flats. A little heel weight mid-hop sends you further out. It stitches together everything so far: climb, pop, land, recover.
- 07
The air
The ollie motion again, now timed at the very top of the wave — that's where the steepness gives you pop. Come at it straight toward the back of the boat with speed; carving out-and-in on the approach bleeds the speed your air needs. You know a good one by the smack of the landing.
How fast to move through the list
Slower than you want to. The carve and the bottom turn deserve whole sessions to themselves, because they feed everything after them — and the lip slide is secretly the doorway to the 360. When a trick stalls, drop back one step on the list and groove the earlier one again. The list is the shortcut.