Get Me More Air
I went wakeboarding yesterday and it felt like I hadn’t been for some time. Unfortunately for my mate, el revez, his back’s been playing up so he couldn’t do any wakeboarding but his girlfriend Amy was itching to go since they hadn’t gone since the Back 2 Skool Junk Trip. We organised it late so we ended up with an hour slot at 8 am, forcing a real early start for us. Wakeboarding as early as possible gives you a much better surface to ride on since the water is calmer and there is less traffic, especially in popular places like Tai Tam. The trade-off is usually your Saturday or Friday; at least psychologically, since all three of us seemed only to have a few hours sleep the night before.
The weather has also been quite overcast the last few weeks, cooling down the temperature somewhat. Despite the initial wind chill factor, the water and riding wasn’t all that cold. It isn’t time for wetsuits just yet but I imagine in a couple of months it might be worth getting a shortie or something.
Azumi and I both had a good session yesterday. She’s still learning how to cross the wakes confidently, and she still exclusively rides heel-side. I think she only managed a toe-side cross-over once. With the first u-turn, she rode the arch with a look of sheer terror at the rush that it produced but towards the end it, she was riding it like a proper speed demon. A few tries at riding goofy (other foot forward) were interesting and she’s still got to practice her switching.
For me, I was more than happy to practice my pop-off the wakes. I seemed to be screwing up my switching by not sitting down more into the transition. It was the first time we had actually filmed the session, and looking back on my performance, I wasn’t all that impressed with my pops off the wake. For some reason, they felt higher than they actually were. The playback showed they were actually pathetically small and it didn’t even look like I was getting any air.
Eddie, the instructor, wasn’t too impressed either and he gave me a few tips to refine my technique. The main thing here was to improve the “bounce” I get off the wake by giving myself more of a spring action using my legs. I think I need to nail down that recoil in my legs a lot more since it also will improve other tricks I’m working on.
For example, I had a try at doing a bunny hop (getting air without the wake). There I’m trying to stand straight and then bend my legs to compress the force down on the board to get a jump. The spring effect of my legs was negated by the halted, stages I was breaking down the move on. By doing the move piecemeal, you lose the momentum of a more fluid motion I suspect. That was one of the great things about filming the action since you can playback your performance. Sometimes it’s not always clear what you are doing wrong or right from your own perspective.
Anyway, I was pleased with myself during this session. I’m aching all over now and I’m ever being introduced to new levels of faceplant pain, but it’s still well-worth it. Hell, I’m even considering returning to working out just to improve my ride.
