This is another manoeuvre that has been labelled as simply a “trick” and “not a functional manoeuvre” in the competition arena.  However, Joel Tudor frequently pulled them off in competitions in good sized surf with no leash – just because he could!  They are a fun manoeuvre to try and probably one of the first “tricks” you will attempt on your longboard.  Photo above courtesy of www.jamiebottphotography.com

There are a number of ways to perform this manoeuvre, but they all involve the same key elements:

• Early wave entry – by paddling as fast as possible.
• Staying relaxed and light footed.
• Keeping your head up to maintain balance.
• Lying further back on the board than normal for the take off, (to keep the fins out of the water).
• Assuming a slightly wider stance than normal.

Method 1 – The Traditional Method

Start paddling for the wave when it is at least 3 board lengths away, as you need to get into the wave well before the wave starts pitching.  As you feel the approaching swell lifting the tail of the board, angle the nose slightly to one side depending on which way you want the board to rotate.  As soon as you feel you have caught the wave, jump to your feet but stay low in a crouched position for balance.  

As the board travels down the face of the wave, put 50% of your weight on your inside rail.  The fins should lock in the wave face and your board will naturally turn itself 180 degrees (It will turn very quickly, so be ready and stay light footed).  The board will now be facing the correct way, but you will be facing backwards to the beach and be slightly disorientated as you will be standing in the opposite way to your natural stance.  All that is left to do now is switch stance and continue on your way.

Method 2 – The Switch Foot

This is essentially the same as method 1, however instead of jumping to your feet in your normal stance, you pop up with your opposite foot forward, i.e. if you are natural footed, you jump up in the goofy foot stance.  This saves you switching stance once the board has rotated and stops you losing time and speed, as you can get straight into your bottom turn without breaking the flow.  However, trying to force yourself to pop up in your unnatural stance is a lot harder than it sounds when you are looking down the face of a large wave!

 “All you do is hang on and go with the flow.”–Jye Byrnes.

Method 3 – The Shove It

This method is more of a skate board manoeuvre and requires a modern lightweight longboard to pull it off.  Paddle into the wave as before, and as the board starts to travel down the face of the wave, put 50 % of your weight on your toe side edge and set the rail.  Next, put all your weight onto your front foot and lean forward.  As soon as you do this, the board will start rotating.  With your weight slightly over your front foot, you need to “shove” the tail of the board around behind your back by first lifting your back foot up in the air, and then your front foot in quick succession as the longboard rotates underneath you. 

This method requires you to assume a more upright stance than the previous methods, so stay very light on your toes.  This is by far the hardest method, but looks the most impressive if you pull it off!

“Make sure you keep some weight on your front foot so the fins stay in the water – otherwise you will look like a goose just going straight.”  –Jared Neal.

Lee Ryan – Photo sequence: Jamie Bott www.tubeframe.com

Tip:  The Fin First take off is easier to accomplish in a 2-3ft wave than a 1ft wave, as the longboard has more face to rotate in and therefore, there is less chance of you catching a rail.

Jenny Smith making it look easy – Photos: “Moonwalker” www.moonwalkerphotos.com

Want to learn more great manoeuvres from the world’s best longboarders?      Then surf to www.shortcuttolongboarding.com to download some more free chapters of the best selling instructional guide to longboarding

It’s delicious. Nice show of how things get done at Moonlight Glassing. Drooling.

Location: Heading north on PCH, Zuma is just after Heathercliff Rd., at the bottom of a large hill. The entrance to the parking lot is on the left.

Setup: From the cliff at Big Dume all the way to Broad beach, Zuma is one large beach break. The sandy bottom is constantly shifting with the tides, winds, and waves, so the lineups are always moving and rather spread out.

Swell and tide: Whatever the swell direction, it will most likely break here. Swells from the south or southwest tend to do better, but wests, northwests, and windswells can often work there way in was well. Honestly, Zuma is exposed to everything Neptune can throw her way. However, as with most beach breaks, she will do better with a higher tide, and as much offshore wind as possible.  Most of the time, the waves here are small mushy close outs, but with the right tide, swell, and bottom conditions, Zuma can be downright epic. Keep in mind though, anything overhead (without the ideal conditions) will pretty much close out.

Access: Well, you can pay to park in the parking lot, or you can park right on PCH. Most of the year there is more parking here than at Disneyland. Summer time though, is a completely different story. Once the Valley heats up to a million degrees, everybody heads over to Zuma to cool down. So, if you’re planning on visiting Zuma during the summer, just be prepared for every vehicle registered in the greater San Fernando Valley to be parked there.

Pros: When its good, Zuma can look like a mini Pipeline. Moreover, there’s plenty of parking, and the line-ups are so spread out that you rarely ever have to share a wave.

Cons:  Well, most of the time Zuma is less-than-stellar. Any onshore wind will create close outs galore, and Zuma is totally exposed to even the slightest breeze. And did I mention that it gets absolutely insane during the summer time? On a serious note, the waves can get pretty heavy here, and people do get hurt from time to time.

Surf fact: Oh nothing really all that interesting. Well, except for the fact that the famous statue of liberty scene from the Planet of the Apes was filmed at Big Dume. Oh and thousands of other movies, TV shows and commercials have been filmed there too. All in all, nothing interesting has ever really happened there.

Thanks to Slaterade in L.A. for this post

Or is she too dwarfy?!

And what the f*ck is up with the mermaid?

The company reached its prime in the ’70s and ’80s, but in the mid-80’s the company changed ownership.  A Portuguese textile company called TMG-SA, purchased the rights to Lightning Bolt and focused on Europe.  But last year, they hooked up with Jonathan Paskowitz and “after much research and design work, the design team created a line to re-launch with, based on original graphics and silhouettes, modified with modern and trendy colorways and color combinations.” According to the company, “Lightning Bolt has stayed authentic and true to its roots by offering a quality collection of classic boardshorts; graphic tees and tanks; windbreakers; walk shorts; pants and button downs for men and a collection of unisex tees and tanks that women can enjoy as well.”

So, we asked, is the brand still a brand by surfers for surfers?  “Absolutely, Jonathan Paskowitz is the president of Lightning Bolt, USA and headed up the re-launch more than a year ago”,  they said.  “He’s made it his mission to be sure that the collection was re-launched as authentically as possible and has maintained the nostalgia attached to the brand.  The design and sales teams are also active in surf and have made it a goal of theirs to be sure that the product is not only authentic and fashionable in design but functional for surf as well.”

Lightning Bolt has re-created its original collection, and because they re-created the collection, the boardshorts are a shorter length “with a vintage feel, and they also are made from premium fabrications and rather than featuring a 4-way technical stretch, feature a quality cotton twill fabrication in some styles.”  Sounds good to us.

You can find Lightning Bolt products online here http://lightningbolt-usa.com/bolt/, and at various surf shops and retail stores across the US.   You can find the list of stores here.

DAILYSTOKE.com:  Your dad, growing up as a surfer and a filmmaker, how did he influence you?

DANA BROWN:  Bruce Springsteen once said I never thought about my parents as anything more than the furniture that came with the house, and its as you get older you think about it….but my dad loved what he did, but was never like ‘hey I am Bruce Brown I made Endless Summer’.  As I get older I’m very appreciative of that.  He was a mellow guy.  I grew up in Orange County and that place has become very much a status place, but they (his dad, his uncle Hobie Alter) weren’t that way.

My dad got me a super 8 movie camera when I was 10 years old, and for him to give me the money to buy film I had to tell him what I was going to do, and he’d say ‘just don’t go shoot nuthin’ with this.  I had a little editing machine and I made detective movies, I filmed bicycle races, whatever was going on.  So there was a big influence, but I never thought about it at the time, its just like if your dad is a plumber a maybe you hang out doing plumbing.  It’s funny, it’s never something I think about until someone asks me.

DAILYSTOKE.com:  So how did you work your way into filmmaking?

DANA BROWN:  I always thought it was a cool thing to do.  When I was 20 or 21, I didn’t want to go to L.A. to be a production assistant, so I kind of gave up the idea (of being a filmmaker).  I was writing a sports column for a paper in Santa Barbara, waiting tables, and working construction…and in my mid 20′s my dad called me and said Hey Dana, I want to put my old surf movies, the movies I made before the Endless Summer, I want to put those back together.  They were bits and pieces of stock footage.  It was an archival deal to put them back together.  That led to Search for Surf with Greg Noll, and Endless Summer 2, and halfway through making Endless Summer 2 I said this might be my job….and 20 years later I am still doing it!

DAILYSTOKE.com:  What is your advice to filmmakers, and what about equipment today?

DANA BROWN:  Today it’s so easy to make films, cameras have gotten so good for not much money.  So it’s not so much the equipment, it’s the story you want to tell, and how you want to tell it.  You look at Taylor Steele’s Momentum, you could feel they were all friends, you could feel what was going on, they’re great little movies.  I think the mistake people make is they try to be the first guy ever to have a telephoto lens with a barrel.  No you’re not, everybody does that, what context is it in?  Sometimes I don’t know how this works, but you have to feel it.  But you have to work at it, you can’t hang out all day and drink beer.

DAILYSTOKE.com:  We just watched Highwater, and loved it, why did you decide to do Highwater, and why the North Shore?

Highwater Trailer:

DANA BROWN:  Well, after I made Step Into Liquid I didn’t think I was going to make another surf film,  I just thought well what is there to say?  And then I made Dust to Glory which was just about one race over 3 days, and I then I realized you don’t need a giant concept, that a smaller concept can work.  Then actually someone (TV network) proposed doing a reality series on a surfing base, and we talked about the triple crown, it never happened but I was simmering on this idea.  Winter was coming, and I thought we should do it now.  Surfing is changing so much, I didn’t realize Kelly was going to hang on so long, there was all this changing of the guard going on.

It’s an interesting thing, as global is everything is now, for that 6 weeks everybody focuses on this 7-mile stretch of beach.  I thought that might not be forever, over there is Rabbit Kekai handing Jon Jon his contest jersey…..and I am thinking, that goes from Duke’s friend to now, and that’s not going to be forever.  So it seemed important to go do it.

DAILYSTOKE.com:  Let’s talk about a couple scenes in Highwater, which triggered an emotional response for us from the very beginning of the movie.  The cruise in to shore, the point of view shot with the voiceover…and then the scene showing a few sick wipeouts, and then one of the guys coming out of it.

DANA BROWN: Well, the north shore is just a circus in a way, its dramatic, its crazy, and we knew we wanted to reveal that to the audience right off the bat.  We tried to hit them with this real visceral, emotional visual impact.  We built that scene with all the different wipeouts and crowds, and then it was like how are we going to anchor this to reveal what is going on.

We had all these crazy cuts and crazy stuff going on 2 minutes into the film, so we had this one POV shot, and I said why don’t we just be on the wave heading for shore, then the audience could have time to get settled into the seats.

DAILYSTOKE.com:  What is Highwater really about and why should people see it?

DANA BROWN:  Ha, you would think!  I get asked this all the time…the movie is about this 7 mile stretch of beach and the madness that goes on.  What I hope people take away from it, is say that was interesting, and beyond that everyone comes away with something different.  It’s really for the audience to take away what they want from it.

DAILYSTOKE.com:  So Eric Haas, what did he mean to the movie?

DANA BROWN:  I wrote down in my notes, is there any more underground surf legends.  That has dissipated today, because everybody knows everybody.  So when I was there, the first week I was there, I was asking Keith Malloy or Pancho and they say Eric Haas and are telling me stories, and I said we have to find this guy!

The end scene is true, the contest was over and then he showed up and he says ‘I am going to go surf the shorebreak’ and it was a huge day, and we’re all like what?  So we unpacked a couple cameras, and off he goes without a leash.  I thought he was going to die! and we’re all going ‘geez should we go get him?’  The whole beach is like ‘murmur murmur’ and he just rides that wave, and he comes in, says see ya, and off he goes.  So then I become one of the guys, if I didn’t have a camera, I’d be like Pancho or Kelly telling stories about him.

So I had down on paper “Eric Haas: Legend?” before I got there, and then he turned out to be one.  He’s not completely unknown, there was a picture of him in Longboarding Magazine a while back, surfing Waimea with a football uniform on!

DAILYSTOKE.com:  Are you less afraid to show wipeouts in your movies, and should we see more wipeouts in movies in general?

DANA BROWN:  For Highwater, they are such a big part of what happens in the north shore.  They are spectacular, so why not show them?  You know, I always feel like you see an air, and then kind of know the guy didn’t land it.  I just try to use what’s visually interesting.  It’s kind of like a porno movie, it may be great but eventually it wears off!

DAILYSTOKE.com:  What are some of your favorite surf movies?

DANA BROWN:  I love Jack McCoy’s stuff, Taylor Steele and my dad’s, of course.

Scratching the Surface doesn’t have a big storyline, it’s pure surf adrenaline with some of the sickest surf shots you’ll see — backed up with one of the best music soundtracks.  You will be amped after you watch this movie.  The movie chronicles Julian and crew (Dane, Taj, Dusty, Mick) as they spend a year traveling around the world in search of some stoke.  They hit Hawaii, Indo, S. Africa and West OZ, among other places.  The movie was shot entirely in HD, and there is this one overhead helicopter shot about 17 minutes into the movie that has to be one of the best surf clips ever.  You get to see Julian towing into a big slab from overhead, and then watch him outrun this massive white cloud — it’s amazing because only a helicopter has the speed to get this type of shot.  Words can’t describe, just check it out.

The movie opens with interviews of Julian’s family and friends, while showing some old clips of him as a grom, when he was surfing, skating, skating some more, and even snowboarding!  Then he gets sponsored by Quiksilver at 13, conquers the world with his friends on a year-long surf trip, makes a movie, and the rest is history — or something like that….

The movie was directed by Matt Beauchesne and Irons Brothers Productions.  They also teamed up with Brain Farm Cinema, whose was behind some of the pioneering surf filmmaking you see in the movie (helicopters, The Phantom Camera, etc).

Here is the trailer: