WARNING: This article is for surf nerds only. And it should be mentioned that when I address “surfers” in this article, I mean the ones who are in the contra camp of this debate. Not the ones who agree (and there are plenty). And especially not the ones who don’t care, as this might be the majority, which is totally cool with me.
Since my first article on whether Kelly Slater’s ridiculous air in Portugal was a 540 or a 720, the debate has been raging on. A few days ago, a guy by the name of Pierre Wikburg, a world-renowned skate and snow filmmaker, dropped an excellent video that shows pretty clearly how rotations work in skating and snowboarding. He places them in a side-by-side comparison with surfing in another attempt to prove that surfers have it wrong. Some nice old school footage in there too. Watch it above.
Chris Cote also posted up the video and wrote an excellent pro article on Grind TV. It nails the overall situation on the head and speaks my mind. Todd Richards, amongst others, posted it on his Instagram and Coco Ho commented that she learned, if that adds any weight.
People went to town in all the discussions calling Pierre all sort of things. To everybody who called the video wrong, dumb or whatever, you are exposing yourself as someone who has little knowledge of how rotations are called (and have been called for decades) in skate and snow. If you disagree with these facts, then that is a lack of education on the topic – but if you disagree that these should be applied to surfing, then that is an entirely different story.
Even though many surfers’ claim that surfing is different and you can’t compare it, the side by side comparisons look eerily similar don’t they? Which brings us to the nitty gritty of this stuff: the exact reasons people think that surfing should be viewed as different.
The two main issues that I can see:
1. A “straight air” accounts for 180 degrees.
For the record, nobody in skate or snow calls an air on a transition a “180” or a “straight air.” It’s simply called an air, with grabs and frontside or backside direction added in, i.e. slob air, frontside air, stalefish, mute air, indy air, method etc. Everyone understands that an air on a transition is inherently a 180.
Nothing done on a curved wall situation (a transition), a quarter pipe, a wave, should ever be labeled straight air, because they are not straight. You fly a curve and you turn to reenter that same surface facing forward. In surfing, that curve isn’t always 180 degrees, but the principle of it accounting for 180 degrees should be applied. Otherwise every rotational air would have a different degree number, which would be pretty impractical.
Some keep bringing up the fact that the nose points down the line or the board is parallel to the lip. This is simply not true. How do you get above the lip if your nose is NOT pointing above the lip. Here’s a shot of Kelly’s 720 at launch: note the nose of his board.
Nose pointing above the lip. Photo” Jose Leal
2. A wave can’t be viewed as a quarterpipe. It’s more like a kicker.
That is the other persistent argument. But if you look closely at the reasoning, it doesn’t hold much water. It intertwines with the points above. Just because it looks like they launch off a kicker it doesn’t make it one. The wave is one object, one wall. Surfers penetrate the water because it’s water. That might make it look like they launch off a kicker, but the surface of the wave still faces the shore, and a wave is a curved surface on which we go up and down on, even if that surface is constantly changing.
There is huge variety in takeoff angles, landing angles, and how vertical the air becomes. All the more reason to apply the established principles. Once these principles are understood and applied, it becomes unnecessary to analyze each air by itself, as if these tricks were brand new.
Of course, if surfers actually want to stick with the “surfing is different” argument –which is a totally valid alternative – they should be open to get educated first before making a call. The ASP should put together a committee (boardsports experts, leading aerialists, ASP surfers, judges, commentators etc.), should come up with a standard.
Until then, I keep believing that it is not so different – certainly not enough to call tricks differently. Surfing should give some credit to skating and snowboarding, because after all, many of the tricks that are being thrown around now have roots in both of them. In either case, debate is good and progression is awesome.
