Did you catch it, yesterday? How in the hell did the term “chop hop” get associated with a completely different wakesurf trick than what is commonly used in the ocean? 
You may need to review yesterday’s post on a new wakesurf trick the chop hop aka ollie 3 in the flats
Here is that one frame from the sequence shot.
One of the things that seems to happen with any new sport is the rush to “colonize.” Sometimes ignoring history or other relevant nomenclature. Anyway, we have a new wakesurf trick where James is tossing an ollie 3 out in the flats, a chop hop for our surf friends, and that wakesurf trick opens up some new territory doesn’t it?
We’re going to share an external link to a UK website that documents the “how to” of the chop hop, but remember in competitive wakesurfing the chop hop is this little ollie off the table down to the face or maybe the flats. So if you can visualize, climb up to the top of the wake, like you’re doing a floater and then hop off the wake down the face.
Here is the link to the UK how-to for a Chop Hop. Pretty much what James did in the picture above and that we detailed in yesterday’s post, right?
What’s funny is the Chop Hop is literally hated by “rail” surfers. Airs were literally disdained by the the older rail surfers. Here is one quote we found from the old schoolers:
“Ultimately, a chop-hop shows nothing but pathetic insecurity. If I could do one, I totally wouldn’t.”
Actually isn’t that the best tongue-in-cheek commentary on the situation? When you can’t, of course you’ll degrade.
James Walker mostly continues to push his limits and bring new tricks to his riding. Maybe there are those reading this that say “If I could, I totally wouldn’t”. Really, those air tricks out in the flats offer a new format, don’t they? In this ollie 3, a natural progression would be a big spin, like we’d see on a wake skate. So that sort of thing, that location of the trick is a different format and brings to wakesurfing a rather exciting variation. Above the lip is killer and certainly rail focused surfing is good too, but lets use the entire wake and the area outside the transition. As we reviewed that trcik and the video, we started to think that there are those three areas of the wake or maybe environment is a better term, that can be wakesurfed.
Those are
1) Above the lip
2) On the wake face
3) Out in the flats
We’ve seen tons of surf style tricks in catgeories 1 and 2 but out in the flats has been limited to skim style spins and a bottom turn.
We hesitate to call it a new frontier, but certainly it’s an area of the wake that hasn’t been used to full advantage. If you review the video you’ll see a few things, one is that once that wakesurf board hits the water on the 180 rotation, there is no forward movement is there? The water out in the flats is stationary, and the momentum of travel is sort of changed mid air. James is coming down the face out towards the boat, but in the air, as he rotates, there is a slight change caused by the rotation, sort of muting that forward momentum. Once the board hits the water, there’s almost none and the balance of the rotation is coming from the “huck” into the air. Needless to say that having the fins backwards to the momentum is NOT helpful to reducing drag.
There probably won’t be much in the way of combination tricks performed out there, but certainly frontside and backside rotations are in order and perhaps air and surface rotations too. We’re sure that once folks see this video and the sequence pics we’ll see more trick done out in the flats. Just remember where you sw it first!
We also think this area of the wake or the wake environment dictates slightly different board design. Obviously the rider will want and need speed coming off the face, but the board will need to carry that speed. Some of that is a reduction in drag, but also a little extra weight wouldn’t hurt in creating momentum. We doubt that you’ll see an entire specialty, but wakesurf boards will meed to be able to manage riding revert and doing tricks out in the flats also, like you see here with the Flyboy Wakesurf board, under James Walker’s feet.
Also, the lack of a trough is something that’s needed. So all of those overweighted boat wakes that generate a ridiculous trough make this sort of trick significantly harder, if not impossible.
One more look at the video, it’s intriquing, isn’t it? New frontier? Maybe not, but it definately opens up new possibilities:
Thanks so much for listening to our editorial and following along.
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