Hey everybody and welcome back to another video
and today we are discussing bodyboard basics and more specifically the bottom turn.
As you have seen before I put out a video on bodyboard basics.
Now this video was meant to be just a basic video on bottom turns, hand positionings, body
positionings and weight distribution on the board. Today we're going to dive more deeply into the
bottom turn which i feel is fundamentally the most important move in bodyboarding.
This is the move that sets up for all your speed lines, your maneuvers, your barrels as well as just
generally getting down the wave. I'm going to be talking about three steps in the bottom turn
as well as discussing a general bottom turn. The direction in which you're going to go on the wave,
the scoop which is needed in more heavy or waves of more consequence as well as driving
after you have done the bottom turn. Let's get into it. If you haven't been able to see
the bodyboard basics video that i put out about two years ago, click the link up here and you
can go and check that out first. It might help you in just further understanding exactly what
i'm talking about when i discuss the bottom turn a little bit further. First off let's talk about
direction. The direction I am referring to is whether you're going to be paddling straight,
as if you're going straight into the beach, or if you're going to be paddling at a
different direction across the wave. Generally speaking the steeper or heavier the wave is
the more straight you're going to be paddling on the wave. When we look at this wave here in Hawaii
which is probably one of the heaviest waves i've ever surfed and the biggest wave that i've ever
surfed out at pipe. If you see exactly how straight I am paddling on this wave, and we stop it here,
there is two reasons for that. Firstly i am waiting for the barrel to barrel over me and secondly the
positioning that i need to go down the wave to stop from sliding out is straight. So I'm going
to keep going on this one and stop it again here and just to show you my leg positionings.
More specifically my inside leg. This is where you really got to push your knee down
and force that bottom back corner of the board very much into the water to start spraying off
the side. As we go further down into this clip here again I've stopped it and i'm going to show you
exactly where the outside leg would be and how you're supposed to split your legs.
This will allow you to gain as much traction on the water and allow you to stop from sliding out.
If we follow on for this video i get to the bottom here. You can see that outside
leg is bouncing wildly but the inside leg is very much planted and allowing the scoop
to actually happen. If we go further you can see, at this point here, I am straightening up and
really engaging the rail, leaning forward, getting as much speed through this big section of the wave,
and then as it blows out I go riding off the top. Secondly we're going to talk about flat
waves. Flat waves allow you to get an angle on a speed line or when paddling into the wave.
This is way better and it allows you to actually get down the line and get to where you want to
go. Whether that be through the barrel section or if you have to wait and actually get into
the barrel before and then look down the line at that direction you need to travel.
This is very much up to how you want to ride the wave and what you want to do on that wave.
Which will determine what angle or what direction you're going to face when paddling onto this wave.
I get this question a bunch of times and I'm just going to show you here a wave that I caught up
the west coast that was more of a flatter wave and allowed me to actually direct myself across
the wave, to start gaining speed down the line, and looking at that section that I want to hit. As you
can see this wave is completely different to the previous wave from Hawaii. You can actually see
the direction that I've chosen to take across the wave as opposed to riding straight down the face.
This is going to start to give me a lot of down the line speed and as you can see
it's clean lines and trimming i come up a little bit and actually engage the bottom
turn a second time here before using all that speed off the bottom to project into the lip
and do this reverse and land it. When the waves are a lot heavier and a lot bigger you're going to be
wanting to perform the scoop. The scoop is a very difficult maneuver to get but once you've
got it you will have it always. It is something that allows you to really slow yourself down
while traveling straight down the wave and then once you get to the bottom of the wave
you are able to actually engage the speed, lean forward on the board and actually travel through
these barrels. When you're riding these bigger waves the idea is to stay on the inside rail
and drop your knee into the water which will slow yourself down. Once you get to the point where you
are at the bottom of the wave, you must release all of those things and lean forward. The idea behind
that is to gain speed but remember to lift the nose up. If you lean too far forward you're going to
nose dive and the consequences could be quite serious. Whereas if you're sitting more centered on
the board, this will allow you to drive through the wave and keep that speed up the whole way through.
Now driving goes hand in hand with bottom turns and this is the fundamental behind
getting into the barrels and keeping that speed or going for those air moves with the speed.
The perfect place to explain this would be Pipeline and again as you have already seen on
that first video, this is a second video from pipe, where I will explain exactly every moment that
goes through this wave as I'm dropping into the barrel. When you look at this wave it is a straight
line into the wave as well as the leg movements which we are going to mostly focus on in this clip.
When we look at it you can see I am completely out of the water here but as soon as I land again
it is an engage of the inside knee more than anything else and again a lot of weight on that
back left hand corner. As we go further into this wave, you can actually see how much I'm dragging
the back legs here with all that spray coming off and the outside leg is kind of just hanging
there on the side to adjust if I need it. When we go further into this wave you can see the scoop
is done at this point and i'm actually leaning forward and setting up for this barrel. You can
see how little I am dragging my legs or anything else in the water and it is a very clean sharp
line off the water here and just ride through this pit and you will see as it blows out here. I come
flying out of the barrel with a ton of speed and you are able to pretty much do any move with that
much speed. When we look at waves that are completely different as in the wedging waves
these waves can actually help you and assist you in gaining a hell of a lot more speed. The wedge
will then push across and allow you to actually angle the board to bottom turn off the wedge
or come over the top of the wedge and actually get that speed line into the wave. This allows you to
go for bigger air moves as you are gaining a lot more speed and a lot more drive through the wave.
Please remember that none of these bottom turns should be done with fast jerking motions but
must rather be focused on clean smooth lines that are drawn out and allow you to time the sections
completely. This is not something you're going to get in short spaces of time but something you need
to work on over and over. Again I have included this clip from Caves which just shows you exactly
how you can manipulate yourself on the wave, riding that wedge and gaining as much speed as you can, to
hit those air moves. So again with this wave the wedge is your best friend. It is going to give you
a lot of speed and you can actually manipulate the board and your direction a lot easier when you are
traveling in that direction. I have started on the peak as you can see here and as we roll into
this one you can just see that my eyes are already on that section. I'm getting a ton of speed from
this wave that's pushing across. As the wedge comes across i'm making a very smooth bottom turn
all the way up into the lip and this is going to then throw all that speed into the air and get
that launch which we always love. Lastly I want to discuss big waves versus small waves. On
the bigger waves you're going to be wanting to control a lot more of the wave and your motion
with your legs. When we look at smaller waves, we are able to manipulate ourselves a little
bit easier and actually use our own body weight to engage the inside rail as opposed from using
your legs to drag and this will also allow you to keep your speed from paddling onto the wave.
Although the wave is going to lift you up and kind of push you forward, you're going to want
to sit on that inside rail and make sure that your distribution of weight is equal.
I did go through this before in the bodyboard basics video so if you haven't understood any of
this please go back and refer to that video on weight distribution as well as body positioning.
Please remember that the merch is available online on boogieeveryday.com. You can go
on there and check it out there is a bunch of new stuff happening this month as well as some cool
things happening towards the end of the month for that black friday and cyber monday sale. So stay
tuned to the boogie everyday instagram page as we will be uploading everything on there and you
guys can see all the available discount codes as well as any giveaways that we have to share.
If you guys enjoy this video please give it a thumbs up as well as subscribe to the channel and
hit that notification bell. I hope you guys have all learned something today about bottom turns
and how fundamental this maneuver and this setup tool is to getting bigger boosts and
enjoying longer, deeper barrels. Thanks everyone for watching and we'll see you in the next video.