Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Dirty Dancing


Welp, I made a Swayze (aka flaka) and I'm feeling pretty lucky about it. Not because it was a freak accident that I made one, but because it's a move that is easy to get stuck on. Fortunately, I was able to avoid a lot of the pitfalls and ultimately win the beer. There were about 10 people who took the bet, but I don't think any of the other guys sail as much as I do. I'm planning on splitting the beer with whoever gets one this year.

Many thanks to those who gave me tips in person.

Also, a huge thanks to BRENDON from ABK for giving me the hint that tipped the scale. While it looks like I'm awfully close in the last video I made, he was able to identify my issue, which was that I was leading with my feet instead of the sail. I spent the next few sessions making sure to start the sail movement earlier and suddenly I was getting a different kind of crash that involved the sail jibing itself, a rail catching during the slide or spinning all the way around and splatting on my back from over-rotation. Eventually I got the one in the video and the next day I made two more.

Brendon wins a Ballena which I'll need to deliver to him. Sure, maybe it's a little unfair since he IS a professional windsurfing instructor. I will say this: if you have the time to go to an ABK clinic, you should. It will be the best windsurfing investment you'll make, even better than a board. I've been to 3 and although I didn't always immediately start making a new move, I was given the tools and thought process to make huge strides. So do yourself a favor. Sign up for an ABK camp, then in a year, look back at today and laugh at how crappy of a windsurfer you used to be.

9 comments:

Maverick said...

Wow! Congratulations! Your progressing pretty fast. It must be a great feeling to be able to loop, spock and do a Flaka. My mission in life also :)...

Fish said...

Very nice Aaron... and a neat little vid to boot.

I don't know why Swayze never stuck. Such a better name than all the rest, and didn't Pedrick deserve the naming rights?

http://www.stehsegelrevue.com/clips/mpg/webpedrick.mov

Steve Elliott said...

You claim it in a very stylish way too.

boardsurfr said...

Nice! You make it look easy :)

So lead with the sail instead of the feet - I think I heard Brendon and Chris Eldridge say that in their lectures. But after hearing that was an issue for you, I'll look out for it.

It's cool that you made a couple more the next day. I recall Brendon saying that landing the second one took a while after the first one. Did you do as many tries per session on the Flaka as you did when you were working on the Vulcan?

Catapulting Aaron said...

Maverick -- thanks! I have progressed quickly, but I think it has mostly to do with the fact that I sail a lot more than 95% of the windsurfing population. Also, I've gotten used to basically crashing for most of my sessions and not feeling bad about it.

Fish -- We should bring Swayze back. It's a better name, who cares about the taka... this is freestyle. We call the switch grubby an eslider, not the swubby.

Pedrick apparently lives in Santa Cruz. I'd love to run into him someday and buy him a beer.

Catapulting Aaron said...

boardsurfr -- I know of people who have gotten a lucky flaka early on, but that wasn't me.

When you work on the vulcan, you give up less ground and actually can try them on an upwind-ish reach. So, I could try 2 on a tack if I wanted to and not really be getting downwind. The flaka requires more of a setup -- I prefer to do them dead downwind off of a steep piece of chop and I give up a lot of ground every time I try one... so I probably did fewer attempts per session, but that wasn't by choice.

Andy said...

Whoop whoop! What's next?

CdnGuy said...

Sweet! Dude, you will need to change your "About me" again soon. I remember when it used to say "a really bad windsurfer" or something like that. Congratulations and a great video too!

windsurfinggypsy said...

awEsome! Dude. More impressive was getting 2 more right after. Its crazy in the video how it looks as if not much is going on. I remember when I was around 18 and the move came out we all called it a swayze! we even started replacing "cool" with swayze! as in that move was F'ing SWAYZE!!!! we should totally bring it back!