Power Airs

SUP on Habitat

The wave I'm on is very flat and gutless... it has no lip to talk of... it's like riding an ocean swell. One of the things that stand up offers over shortboarding, is the power that the paddle provides. I learned from kayaking that you can generate all kinds of energy (and thus moves) from the paddle. So to me its not just about using the paddle to catch, and turn on waves, but also to use the energy that can be harnessed to do things that shortboarding simply can't.

In this case, its doing airs off the "lip" when there isn't one. I'm not doing an ollie (face trick), but rather making my bottom turn with the blade feathered away from me as a guiding "bow rudder" or "bow draw" so I can guide the nose of the board to a specific point on the wave exactly (same technique used by slalom kayakers to but the kayak within an inch to navigate through the gates).

Then as I hit the "non existent" lip, I turn that bow draw into a wide sweeping stroke and put all my weight into the paddle, and then use my feet to lift the board out of the water and turn it in the air. When I land, its perpendicular to my direction of travel, so the impact with the water brings it back under my feet, and again my entire body is on the paddle (I'm going to snap one for sure) in a lay-back position. I carve the board back across the wave the other way and use this energy to get back over the board and standing back up.

It's really neat to discover moves which are truly unique to Stand Up, not the ugly cousin of shortboarding.

Here is the entire sequence below.