Sunday 9th of March 2014
We pretty much abandoned our game-plan when we got in the sea and realised the surf wasn’t quite as good as it seemed.
The main focus of the session was just to get used to the idea of visualising our surf and seeing if it helped to improve our session and understanding of backhand tube riding.
On the positive side we got quite a few waves and plenty of tunnel vision. The minus was that we got a lot of closeouts and beatings.
In future I would like you to work more on visualisation in your own time. Ideally five to ten minutes before surfs so it shouldn’t be too onerous. Try to visualise yourself making manoeuvres from the first person perspective (ie through your own eyes). Keep the focus on the technique and moves themselves while keeping all the other stuff (wave, venue, competitor etc – basically the stuff you have no control over) secondary and blurry. You don’t have to visualise winning a comp (though you can) but you should try to imagine all the things that you will have to do in order to win a comp (ie each individual manoeuvre, catching quality waves, dominating a heat, performing a variety of manoeuvres etc)
Hope this makes sense.
Meanwhile the video is from my point of view but there are two of your waves on there – both just take offs really. The GoPro has limitations with regard to getting footage unless there is a perfect channel so I think I will only use it sparingly in future.
[youtube id=”LJl60rjSYac” width=”660″ height=”370″]
Thursday 6th of March 2014
Drill #1
A reasonable effort but not enough variety in the final turn. Conditions were dictating that any move was kept under the wind but there were still other options rather that a close out reo. Let’s make sure we work on this in future sessions.
Drills #2 & 3
One of our better sessions. Sometimes mindless repetition delivers some real dividends. You managed to fit in more air attempts than in any of our previous sessions combined. Your rotation and launching looked strong but we need to get your weight centred for the landings as you are coming down a bit nose heavy and disconnecting your back foot. Try to get lower and spread your legs and weight for a smoother landing.
Good work.
[youtube id=”_kALx94PfTo” width=”660″ height=”370″]
Monday 15th April 2013
Check out today’s video.
A bit of a slow start but once you found the lefts then you improved. Your cutbacks and rebounds were looking good (especially the one at 50 seconds). Still keep in mind the whole ‘arms up’ at the rebound goal and the ‘arms up’ to get speed. You could still get the arms a bit higher to give yourself a little more release.
Also on re-enties you need to raise your arms like in the Stokesy shots at the bottom of the page. It’s really going to help.
Fingers crossed for better waves on Thursday!
Tuesday 10th of April 2013
Here is the video of todays surfing at Seal Point.
As we mentioned the start of the cutback is pretty good. You have a good low centre of gravity, you touch the waves face and pivot around your leading arm and you ‘hold’ the turn for a long time which makes you draw out your turn.
The whitewater rebound could use a little work however. You are hitting the whitewater at a mid-wave height where you really should be hitting it at the top of the wave just like you would with a normal re-entry.
Raising your arms as you see the whitewater should help this. You do this at the 1:40 stage in the video and as you can see it does make a difference. The theory is if you hit the whitewater at the highest point you should be able to gain more speed to take into your next manoeuvre.
Wednesday 3rd of April, 2013
I thought that was a really good session today. During each segment you showed an improvement and I could see that you worked hard and committed to what I had to say. Good work. Check out the video below and then read on.
The aspect that really pleased me was at 50 seconds. You move both your arms up in unison (actually you do it twice on this wave – the other one is right on take off) and you get a decent bit of speed with which you performed an off the lip.
This is the way forward for your surfing especially in smaller waves. Once you have speed and can maintain it then every thing else is going to be a lot simpler.
So just to reiterate what we covered yesterday
- Arms up speed generation
- Resetting to maintain flow – just try to get your head and shoulders a little more over your front knee
- Arms up to un-weight when performing lip line or above the lip maneuvers (See Alan Stokes gallery below for an idea of what I’m talking about).
- Airs: Approach the lip with a more horizontal trajectory, get your body over the surfboard (practice getting the board out of the water as much as possible during your next few surfs- we will come onto landing them in future sessions)
He really does use his arms well, eh?
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