We want to talk about a sweet trick that James Walker has pioneered in the surf style arena. It’s a surf style 1080. Now you may hear folks that have no idea how it’s done say it’s a skim board trick, but we’ll show you what’s actually happening so you can ignore those folks. We’ll show you a few pictures with the areas that need to be highlighted and then a short unedited clip that shows the full 1080.
The entry into the surf style ollie 1080 is a normal ollie into the rotations
Here is the critical part within the first 360 of the 1080. You’ll see that James has his fins out of the water, now this can be done by quads, thrusters, etc, it might be a little tricky sliding down the wake, but once the fins are out of the water, it doesn’t matter if it’s 2 or 6. The other part of this that is key, is that James is riding the board backside switch revert slightly forward. Not a huge amount like the rotation is stalled, but the rotation is somewhat in place or has an elongated rotation that allows the wakesurf board to actually come forward towards the boat. This is a different rotation that is done on a skimboard, because those boards can virtually rotate in place in the flats, here the board has to be surfed forward, on the backside of the rotation in order to keep the rotations fairly tight.
This picture makes the backside switch revert surfing really evident.
Can you see where James is guiding the tail of the board? He’s bringing, the tail forward, placing it into position for the next rotation. This might be tougher on a quad, probably toughest on a thruster as the trailer will want to spin the board, in a much wider arc and that’s what we want to conclude this topic with, the twinzer/C-5′ish fin pod that is in use on the Flyboy Wakesurf board.
Here is a short unedited video clip that shows the surf style ollie 1080, plus a few other tricks.
Ok, so back to the fin pods and completeing the rotations. As you saw in the video, it’s not a bunch of 180′s strung together, the rotations are smooth and continuous and the rotations are harder than a bunch of 360′s strung together, because there is forward motion within the backside of the rotation. A 720, very possibly can be done using the length of the wake, but the 10, depending upon the length of the wake, probably not. You can see, though, that what James is doing with his stand-up, no handed rotations is a slight forward surfing of the wakesurf board forward, while he is backside swicth and the board is revert and in so doing that gives him the ability to spin a much larger number of rotations. This is a very different manner of rotating when compared to a skim style rotation. The skimmers, crouch down and keep the board flat, almost in the flats and spin principally in place. NOT what’s happening here with James.
The wakesurf board is being surfed backside switch revert and with any sort of spread fin pod, that’s going to be the case. Skimmers typically have a single trailing fin of not much depth, but virtually all surf style boards have multiple fins with some significant spread between them. That spread and depth has a significant impact on the diameter of any spin, or can if the fins are engaged. If the fins are OUT of the water, like when James was sliding down the face at the beginning of the rotation, of course they have no real impact. As the speed of the rotations slows down, as in the third rotation, it’s hard to surf the wakesurf board backside switch and revert without it becoming separate 180′s strung together, so you’ll see James at the end using his hand to bring the board around as quick as possible and he finishes up that spin.
Cool, huh?
Thanks so much for following along!
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Michael Haseck
July 25, 2012 at 7:19 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Huge, very slick indeed
Author
July 25, 2012 at 8:54 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Thanks Michael!
CHRIS W
July 25, 2012 at 10:24 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
how do u get the wave that big
Jay
July 25, 2012 at 10:56 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Please don’t stop this blog. I have been wakesurfing for a few years and I have never come across anything on the internet this good.
Wakesurf contest the NWWSA open
July 26, 2012 at 4:31 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
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