One of the most impressive things during our recent trip to Jericoacoara was being able to see Edvan Souza, one of the local freestylers, in action. He displayed a level of control in his moves that was unrivaled.
Now ContinentSeven has posted a video of Edvan doing a Shifty. You know what a Shifty is, right? It's a Shaka with a Push Loop at the end. Carve upwind into a wave, fall onto the sail for a backwinded jump, turn the nose of the board through the wind in the air, then through the sail around towards the water for a radical rotation. Still don't see it? Watch Edvan doing the Shifty on ContinentSeven!
I know that some of my dear readers have not followed every heat at the recent PWA freestyle competition in Fuerteventura, so let me give you a bit of context. The Shifty has roots dating 15 years back, but was made popular only recentl by the super-creative (and some say crazy) Swiss freestyler Balz Müller. It is one of the hardest move that is currently done in competition. In Fuerteventura, several freestylers tried to do Shifties, but only one (or maybe two) of the competitor actually completed one. You can watch Nicolas Akgazciyan's Shifty on ContinentSeven; they also have a video and interview with Steven van Broeckhoven. Nicolas took 3rd place in Fuerteventura, and Steven was PWA Freestyle World Champion in 2011. Watch all three Shifty movies! Do you understand why Edvan's Shifty is so impressive?