"It's the happiest I've been in my life!"
Matt Meola is the 20-year-old surfer from Maui with whom you’ve become acquatinted with over the past couple of years, mostly from his flips and tweaked spins, but also from his surprisingly strong showings at Jaws.
It’s a style of surfing he calls el modernismo. Lavishly contradictory airs that protest the sensibility of competition-style surfing, Filipe and John John excepted.
Landed two weeks ago, but released today, is Matt’s first-ever Spindle Flip 540. A Spindle Flip, in case y’aint aware, is like the ol bodyboarder el rollo, complete with double grab, except spun the opposite way. The bodyboarder rolls with the lip and towards the beach. Matt’s is the counterintuitive version. (El Modernismo, lavishly contradictory… )
And, this with its extra rotation, adds another layer of sugar. Matt says he was going to backflip but switched the rote to match the section and ended up SF540.
If your own game is rail and jam, this might leave you cold, your eyes glassing over.
I mean, those kids!
But get into the minutiae of the hit: see how heavy the section is, the size of the wave, the utter directness and intensity, the way Matt recomposes his body, and you might start to become dazzled by its radiance.
Either way, how about comparing it to Kelly’s “810” in Portugal. (Read about that one, here).
Scroll down to compare. Matt (at 5:55), first, Kelly, second…
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I find it hard to believe Matt’s just 20 years old. Is he a Cuban little leaguer or something too?
“dazzled by its radiance”
ah, to be so easily dazzled.
I’m more stoked on the near make no grab frontside five. So much sexier.
that’s neat.
That claim’s gotta be -5 street cred
…and it’s always more attractive to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.
Ain’t that the truth
At first, I disagreed with you, and then I imagined how incredibly bad-ass it would have been were it claim-free. But I can’t say I blame the guy.
Nah, that was an honest claim. I saw into his heart and love him more for it.