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| Progressive Heelside Edge |
The setup for a progressive edge is to casually cut out about 10 to 15 feet outside the wake on your heelside edge. You want to stand tall and just ride straight while waiting for the boat to begin to naturally pull you back towards the wake. Resist the urge to begin your edge earlier then that. Stand tall, and keep the handle in tight as the boat begins to drift you back in. As the boat starts pulling you in, lean back and begin to put pressure on your heels. You want an even amount of weight on both feet, and really focus on keeping the handle low and in tight to your body. Stay relaxed. Continue to build a harder edge by leaning back harder, and applying more pressure to your heels. How much you crouch down is up to you, just make sure you keep the handle in tight and keep edging hard. As you approach the top of the wake, this is where you need to stand tall. Standing tall and keeping the line tight is what generates your pop. You don't want to ollie, or physically jump. Just stand tall and keep your weight even over both feet. If you stand tall and keep the rope in tight after edging progressively into the wake, you should get good pop. To help control it, continue to keep the rope in tight and get your eyes on the horizon. Now you're ready for a whole new world of tricks. |
| Riding Switch |
Visualize It Just like any other sport, visualization helps in wakeboarding. When going to bed at night, driving to the lake, sitting in class, or sitting at work, visualize how your body feels when you're riding normally, then visualize how it feels when you're riding switch. Think about how your weight is distributed on your feet, how your knees are each bent, how you hold the handle, where your shoulders are, and how you hold your head. Think about each body part in your normal riding position, then map it over to switch. Visualize carving, doing grabs, or whatever tricks you can normally do, and then visualize doing the same things switch. The more visualization the better. Practice On Land Grab your handle and tie it to a tree, wall, door, or some other object. Practice standing in your normal riding position while holding the handle and take note of your body positioning again. Now pretend you're riding switch and mimic your normal body position. Pretend you're doing some heelside and toeside edging and mimic your normal body positions for those as well. If you've got a trampoline, skateboard, or balance board you can practice riding switch on all those as well. Riding Switch If you don't have surface 180s or ollie 180s down, the easiest way to start riding switch is to just slide the board that direction as you get pulled up out of the water. When you're riding switch, do the same thing as we did in Steps 1 and 2 above, and think about how you have your weight distributed on each foot when you ride normally. Copy that while riding switch. Do the same thing with all your body parts. It's easiest if you can do an ollie 180 so that you can actually compare your body positioning with your normal stance quicker. After you're comfortable with how you have your body positioned, start carving around on your heelside and toeside edges, and again compare this with your normal stance. Like anything, it takes time and practice to get good at it, so a good way to make yourself ride switch is if after a few falls, make yourself get up and ride switch until you fall again, or for 3 minutes, or something of the sort. It's also good to do if you're not riding very well and just feel like working on something else, or if the water is rough. Switch Tricks After you're very comfortable riding switch, it's time to do some tricks. What tricks you do first is up to you, but we recommend doing tricks that you are really comfortable with in your regular stance. Some easy things to try at first are switch ollies, butterslides, switch ollie 180s, switch wake jumps (with grabs of course), and half cab 180s (switch 180s). Just like with all our previous steps, visualize the switch trick first, practice it on a trampoline if you can, and mirror how your body works when you normally do the trick. It's usually much easier and quicker to learn a switch 180 compared to how hard it was to learn a regular 180. Fear The most common excuse we hear from riders about not riding switch is that they don't want everyone in the boat to just watch them ride around and do easy tricks while learning how to ride switch. Don't worry about it. If the people you ride with don't want you to have fun and improve then you need to find some new riding friends. Switch riding is easier then most people think, and it can really improve your wakeboarding. As you advance, so many tricks involve switch riding like 540s, 180s, Roll To Reverts, Scarecrows, etc. that it's essential to be a good switch rider to become a good wakeboarder. It also is an easy way to add more tricks to your arsenal by adding switch versions of the tricks you can already do. So have fun, and switch up your riding today. |
| Learning 180's |
Learn To Ride Switch Spend the time to learn to ride switch (backwards) just as well as you can ride in your regular stance. It may seem annoying at first to spend a lot of time riding around backwards, but it will help you a great deal in the long run in your quest to become a better wakeboarder, as well as helping you learn 180s. Learn Your Wake-To-Wake Jumps After you're comfortable riding switch, spend the time to learn your wake-to-wake jumps both from your heelside and toeside edges in both switch and regular stances before you try 180s. You're better off to learn how to do the switch version of the 180 you're learning at the same time you work on the regular one. Learn Surface 180s We recommend learning the Surface 180 first, because it teaches you the rope control needed for normal 180s. It's easiest to learn right as you get pulled out of the water when the boat is not up to full speed yet. The slower speed will allow you to slide the board around easier without catching an edge. Practice going back and forth from regular to switch. The key to the surface 180 is to switch your weight from one foot to the other on your heels while bringing the handle from one hip to another to change which foot is forward. Ollie 180s After learning Surface 180s, it's time for the Ollie 180. Try cutting out on your heelside edge into the flats, then simply ollie straight up into the air, let go with your front hand, and pull the handle to your back hip just like on a Surface 180. Make sure to try and land edging out on your toes and looking at the shore. Work on ollie 180s both switch and regular. After mastering the heelside Ollie 180, do the same trick but do it on your toeside edge out in the flats to simulate a toeside 180. The only difference is taking off from a different edge, and when you land from your toeside Ollie 180 you'll be edging out on your heelside edge. Inside-Out 180s After you have the heelside and toeside ollie 180s down, it's time to do "inside-out" 180s. Start on the inside of the wakes, and edge out on your heelside edge and do a heelside 180 off the top of the wake into the flats. This will allow you to get more air then on your Ollie 180, and it will give you a sense for landing in the flats coming from the wake. Do this switch and regular, and then do the same thing for a toeside 180. One-Wake 180s Now that you've got the Inside-Out 180s down, you can start trying the One-Wake 180. This is where you take a gentle cut in like a normal wake jump and do a 180. Except you're going to land in the middle of the wake instead of trying to go wake-to-wake. This will give you the feeling for popping off the normal wake and doing a 180. Do this regular and switch, heelside and toeside. Wake-To-Wake 180s Once you're comfortable with all the versions of the One-Wake 180, it's time for the Wake-To-Wake 180. |
| Back Roll |
Cut outside of the wake about 10-15 feet and wait for the boat to start to naturally pull you back towards the wake. When this happens, bend your knees a bit, put the board on the heelside edge slowly, keep the rope in tight, and lean away from the boat. As you approach the wake, your edge should be getting harder and harder. This is very important for this trick. As you hit the wake, you should still be edging hard with the rope in tight, but you now should be standing tall. Also, people tend to leave early when learning a backroll, keep edging hard and standing tall and the wake will kick you up into the roll without you having to do much work. As you take off, look over your front shoulder and up to initiate the rotation. While in the air, you can control your rotation speed by your rope position. If you're underrotating, keep the rope in tighter, if you're going to overrotate, then let the rope out a little bit as you spot your landing. You can usually see the water pretty early on this trick, so get your head up and spot your landing. Some people find it easier to let go with their back hand to make sure they don't do a roll to revert. |