One of the things I love about windsurfing is that you meet amazing people. During our trip to Jericoacoara, there was one guy on the water who was truly amazing: Edvan Souza. I have watched many loop videos, but his loops are way above the norm. So are his other moves. And we only got to see him in the low-wind season.
Now, there's a wonderful short movie out about Edvan. Watch it and be amazed!
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?
If you watched the videos from the PWA freestyle competition over the past few days, you may have noticed how often the pros did a forward loop. It seemed like every pro threw at least one forward per heat. This is somewhat surprising to me, considering that everyone claims the forward loop is so easy! A few of the pros spiced the loop up a bit - Tonky Frans did some of his trademark Bonkas (a loop into Flaka combo); crazy (as in: crazy good) Balz Müller did a one-handed rail grab loop. But the vast majority of loops were "simple" plaining loops.
During our Jeri trip, one of the highlights were the freestylers that were out every day. We saw plenty of loops, including some of the most beautiful ones I have ever seen. Here is an example that Nina filmed while standing in knee-deep water:
A thing of beauty indeed. For all those working on learning the loop, here are a few screen shots from the movie, with a few notes:
Not a lot of power here
The back hand moved far back on the boom
Compressing before take off
Front arm extending, moving the sail forward-windward
Fully extended front arm and back leg; fin is still in the water
Fin leaves the water. Both arms long, no sheeting in. Nose starts turning downwind
Starting to pull himself up over the boom
Upper body above boom, nose getting pushed down
Fully up-down; both arms are bent, still not sheeting in - but the sail is getting power now
Back leg fully bent, front leg extended
Almost there - starting to extend arms to push sail up and stop the rotation
Soft, controlled landing
Planing out
The windsurfer in the movie and pictures is Edvan Souza (BRA250), a former PWA competitor who now runs Jeri 250, where you can rent gear and take lessons. Here are a couple of more videos - first a close by loop followed by a Shaka:
Another great planing loop, with a Flaka before and a Spock 540 after:
I've been windsurfing for more than 30 years, although this includes several multi-year periods where I did not windsurf at all. I got really hooked again a few years ago, after getting married to my lovely windsurfing wife, and starting to take ABK clinics. ABK also introduced us to windfoiling, which then led to winging. We mainly wing and windsurf on Cape Cod, with regular trips to places all over the world.
