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Wakeboarding/Surfing advice


martinarcher

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martinarcher

Just thought I'd post up a video of me surfing and wakeboarding. I've been wakeboarding for the end of last season and this season. We have been surfing for about a three-four weeks now (not so much in the last week since we got hassled for surfing on our lake). I just thought I would see if I could get some advice on riding technique and form from some of you guys who have been doing this for a lot longer than I have. I want to work on getting more air on W2W jumps and eventually try a back roll or tantrum. Landing one of those two is my goal for this season. Thumbup.gif

Not sure if these details are needed, but....

Boat is our 88' Skier with 1000lbs of ballast set up for surfing, and then rearranged for wakeboarding

Surfboard is a CWB Ride

Wakeboard is a Hyperlite Murray with CWB lever bindings

Any advice? Thanks!

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i will give my $.02 im sure others will have more info

surfing, Fist off get rid of the extra rope before someone gets hurt. Im sure you are making circles to try and build a better wave but it makes a soup bowl. Strait lines are much better to ride. You are doing really well with no more wave then you have, do you have ballast in the boat? wedge?

wakeboarding, again looks pretty good, when you edge out you always go as far as you can and then come right back.

Try to not cut out so far and pause a second to let the boat get back to speed, Then on your cut back dont just point at the wave and go. pick a angle and start your edge. After your angle is set and your building your edge sit back a bit and increase the line tension all the way to the wake. you should be at the greatest tension at the wake. At this point stand tall and feel the pop, geeping the rope closer to your hips.

Right now you have the rope out infront of you and cut hard to the wake. When you do this you build up more speed then you can handle and flatten off at the wake. Keep your edge all the way through the wake with strong legs and you will feel it.

good luck

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martinarcher
i will give my $.02 im sure others will have more info

surfing, Fist off get rid of the extra rope before someone gets hurt. Im sure you are making circles to try and build a better wave but it makes a soup bowl. Strait lines are much better to ride. You are doing really well with no more wave then you have, do you have ballast in the boat? wedge?

wakeboarding, again looks pretty good, when you edge out you always go as far as you can and then come right back.

Try to not cut out so far and pause a second to let the boat get back to speed, Then on your cut back dont just point at the wave and go. pick a angle and start your edge. After your angle is set and your building your edge sit back a bit and increase the line tension all the way to the wake. you should be at the greatest tension at the wake. At this point stand tall and feel the pop, geeping the rope closer to your hips.

Right now you have the rope out infront of you and cut hard to the wake. When you do this you build up more speed then you can handle and flatten off at the wake. Keep your edge all the way through the wake with strong legs and you will feel it.

good luck

We'll trash the extra rope. I can see how that could get caught on a limb.

We'll try a straight ride. I think I have got the ballast placed a little better now and we probably don;t need to do circles anymore. Your right - it was to make the wave bigger. Yeah we have 1000lbs of water. I wish we could use a wedge!

I see what you mean - I was kind of doing a ski, "cut of and then arc right back in". We were out this afternoon and I put your advice into practice. The pause in the flats before edging back really seemed to help me to load the line more before hitting the wake. It certainly seemed to get me a bit higher. Also it seemed the harder edge seemed to make my landings a bit more consistent.

So should I have my handle on the other side of me? My backside hip?

Thanks! Keep them coming - I love trying new techniques that will make me a better rider!

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Im sure better riders then me will chime in but the placement of the rope really depends on the body position that you want. The rope is your friend, it is your power, and your steering wheel. Where the rope goes the body will follow.

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When you're approaching the wake, make sure to stand tall. Your knees are taking a large portion of your potential pop. Be sure to edge hard on your approach and keep that angle.

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Handle in on the lead hip. Think of it this way: it's much easier to let the line out if you have to than it is to pull it in if you need it when you're in the air. This is important for any trick, but where it really pays off for you is when you start to do rotations & inverts. You need that handle on your hip.

Don't put so much weight on your rear foot. Right now it looks like you're really riding the board tail heavy, & on a couple of those wake crossings it made you come up with your lead foot really high. So try a more neutral weight balance as you're coming into & up the wake. If you grew up slaloming & are converting, that will be hard to learn.

Tx is right about the cut. You need to think opposite of a slalom skier. No big cuts on the outside, just coast when you get out there, slowly building your edge & loading the line as you approach the wake. Think to yourself, "don't charge the wake!" Your hardest edge should be as you come up wake, right now you're really flattening out right as you get to the wake as you get ready to "jump" it, which is the worst thing to do. I've found that learning fundamentals like that are best in 2 scenarios - 1) take the line all the way out & do little 1-wake hops as you get used to how that feels, that way you don't have to worry about a wake crossing; or 2) shorten it all the way up to give yourself a better shot at actually making the crossing as you're learning that progressive edge.

Really good boarders make it look easy, & they almost look lazy as they come into the wake.

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the main thing i see is your too hunched over on the board. try standing taller and this will come with more riding as you get comfortable on the board. your at a good level try and do some little tricks on the water, not jumping the wake and throwing a scarecrow but maybe try grinding the edge of the wake heel side, ollie on the outside of the wake, etc. it takes about two seasons of solid boarding to start feelin like not such a beginner. Rockon.gif once you start throwin rolls, maybe upgrade to a new board with better pop.. happy boardin!

CB

Edited by CBMAHBOI
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First thing I would tell you is to stop looping that rope around your hand or you might loose it or some fingers. That is the single most dangerous thing you can do in watersports. The only thing that's going to give is whatever the rope is wrapped around.

Wakesurfing- You need more weight on the surf side. Stop turning in a circle like that, if that's the only way you can get a wave you can ride you need more weight. Not only is it tough but you ruin the water for yourself and everyone else, plus you have to keep crossing your own wave.

Wakeboarding- You're doing pretty good. Only thing like everyone else pointed out is that you're only getting about half the air you could be because your knees are absorbing the pop you should be getting. Try standing tall and pushing off the wake when you reach it. Cut out about half as far as you are and practice edging in hard to the wake, your butt will be back over the heal side edge of your board when you're cutting in kind of like you are sitting down in a chair that's high.

You are using alot of energy cutting out like you are. Let the rope and line tension do the work for you. When you cut out you are almost bent over forward. Cut out like 15-20' tops and start your hard cut into the wake in that seated position. As you get to the trough of the wake stand tall almost like you are pushing off of the wake. Hope all this makes sense, it did in my head as I wrote it.

Edited by 06vlx
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Regarding the wakeboarding people have already covered some of the basics above.

For the first half of you cuts your edge was a water skiers cut all the way. Lots of edge at first, nearly none at the wake which is the exact opposite of what you want on a wakeboard. it is really easy to evaluate yourself on video for edging by looking at the spray the board generates. In vid's of really good riders, unless using a trip edge, the spray coming of their board is greatest at the wake. In your video you can see the spray is greatest at the beginning of your edge and then nonexistent at the wake.

Even if you fix your edge it's your body position at the wake that will keep your height really low. You are absorbing TONS of pop by keeping your knees bent. You need to have your legs straight as you leave the top of the wake. This is known as the stand tall position. It takes some practice to get the timing down but when you do it right you will really feel it.

To practice both of these moves together I highly recommend you lengthen the rope for at least half a set. Then only cut out maybe 10 feet from the wake. Still use the pause at the apex of your cut, but then take a very nice strong progressive edge into and up the wake standing tall. By only using 10 feet of space it should reduce your speed quite a bit and allow you to work on your fundamentals. A longer rope will really help you psychologically not have to worry about the 2nd wake but even more important IMO is that its WAY easier on your knees and body as where you will be landing will be much softer water. When you ride pretty short if you don't clear the wake then you pretty much always land in the area that slopes up to the 2nd wake and it's hard as a rock compared to landing in the mushy center that is farther back in the wake. Once you have practiced half a set or so, shorten the rope back up and take it wake to wake. You will be amazed at the difference IMO.

We never saw you TS jump but your form on toe side (TS) when cutting out suffers significantly from how much you are bending at the waist. It's like you want to edge harder so you think you are leaning over harder but in reality you are just bending at the waist but keeping your edge the same. You should be totally straight at the waist for your TS edging.

Think about picking up "the book" or one of the many other wakeboarding instructional videos. As long as you have a vid camera you can do a lot to teach yourself. The basic concepts discussed in this post are covered in detail there plus much much more.

Edited by the_dude
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Regarding the wakeboarding people have already covered some of the basics above.

For the first half of you cuts your edge was a water skiers cut all the way. Lots of edge at first, nearly none at the wake which is the exact opposite of what you want on a wakeboard. it is really easy to evaluate yourself on video for edging by looking at the spray the board generates. In vid's of really good riders, unless using a trip edge, the spray coming of their board is greatest at the wake. In your video you can see the spray is greatest at the beginning of your edge and then nonexistent at the wake.

Even if you fix your edge it's your body position at the wake that will keep your height really low. You are absorbing TONS of pop by keeping your knees bent. You need to have your legs straight as you leave the top of the wake. This is known as the stand tall position. It takes some practice to get the timing down but when you do it right you will really feel it.

To practice both of these moves together I highly recommend you lengthen the rope for at least half a set. Then only cut out maybe 10 feet from the wake. Still use the pause at the apex of your cut, but then take a very nice strong progressive edge into and up the wake standing tall. By only using 10 feet of space it should reduce your speed quite a bit and allow you to work on your fundamentals. A longer rope will really help you psychologically not have to worry about the 2nd wake but even more important IMO is that its WAY easier on your knees and body as where you will be landing will be much softer water. When you ride pretty short if you don't clear the wake then you pretty much always land in the area that slopes up to the 2nd wake and it's hard as a rock compared to landing in the mushy center that is farther back in the wake. Once you have practiced half a set or so, shorten the rope back up and take it wake to wake. You will be amazed at the difference IMO.

We never saw you TS jump but your form on toe side (TS) when cutting out suffers significantly from how much you are bending at the waist. It's like you want to edge harder so you think you are leaning over harder but in reality you are just bending at the waist but keeping your edge the same. You should be totally straight at the waist for your TS edging.

Think about picking up "the book" or one of the many other wakeboarding instructional videos. As long as you have a vid camera you can do a lot to teach yourself. The basic concepts discussed in this post are covered in detail there plus much much more.

Thanks for taking the time to write this....it seems like really good advice.

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Just thought I'd post up a video of me surfing and wakeboarding. I've been wakeboarding for the end of last season and this season. We have been surfing for about a three-four weeks now (not so much in the last week since we got hassled for surfing on our lake). I just thought I would see if I could get some advice on riding technique and form from some of you guys who have been doing this for a lot longer than I have. I want to work on getting more air on W2W jumps and eventually try a back roll or tantrum. Landing one of those two is my goal for this season. Thumbup.gif

Not sure if these details are needed, but....

Boat is our 88' Skier with 1000lbs of ballast set up for surfing, and then rearranged for wakeboarding

Surfboard is a CWB Ride

Wakeboard is a Hyperlite Murray with CWB lever bindings

Any advice? Thanks!

I noticed you keep both hands palm down on the handle. I slalom ski mostly but I think you will have a much stronger pull if you turn one palm up on the rope handle. Think chin ups vs pull ups. It aligns your bicep with your elbow and down to the wrist as well as keeps your shoulders rolled in with the large muscles. From your video on the wakeboard look at your left arm/hand on your cut out to the starboard side. It is in a bad spot for strength.

One of my favorite things on the wakeboard is the far outside cut faced away from the boat like you were doing and I typically drop my right hand off the handle and move the handle way around my hip to closer to the left butt cheek. Then I can reach down and touch the glass...

Happy riding!

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No, don't do that. Keep them both palms down, the other way is for skiers. Palms down is for boarders.

Now my interest is piqued. Fill me in if ya would?

Edited by Shine
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The biggest reason is your body position in the air. If you have them "crossed" or in the slalom skier position, it has a tendency to twist you while you're in the air. Keep the palms down to stay "squared up" so to speak.

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The biggest reason is your body position in the air. If you have them "crossed" or in the slalom skier position, it has a tendency to twist you while you're in the air. Keep the palms down to stay "squared up" so to speak.

Uh oh, my loyalites are showing Whistling.gif

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When going from one to the other, it's almost like you have to re-learn everything because almost everything is so opposite. The only thing that I can think of that's similar or that they share is to try to keep the upper body neutral & "quiet", if that makes sense.

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martinarcher

Wow - thanks you all for the very lenghty and in depth posts. I really appreciate you all taking the time to help me out. I knew if I posted a video I would get some advice, but this is awesome. It is funny all the comments about the flattening of my board at the peak of the wake. That was the first thing I noticed watching the video. When I was riding it felt like I was still edging hard, but I certainly flatten way out before jumping. I also do bend my knees a lot more than I thought I did.

We are going on vacation to spend a week on Raystown Lake in PA and I will have to give your advice lots of practice since we will have lots of time on the water. Thumbup.gif

Hopefully I'll have a much improved video for you in the near future. Rockon.gif

Thanks so much!

~Matt

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No, don't do that. Keep them both palms down, the other way is for skiers. Palms down is for boarders.

Now my interest is piqued. Fill me in if ya would?

In addition to what she said about in the air the other reason is where you should hold the handle. As a former water skier I thought boarders were missing the picture too. I've learned the error of my ways since ha ha. A water skier holds the rope out in front of them. A good boarder will hold the rope at a much lower position at least for jumping and while in the air. Your forearms have a lot more natural strength at pushing down with palms facing down than they do pushing down with palms facing up.

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