Revealed: How to Beat Filipe Toledo!

Because, right now, the Brazilian is untouchable in sub-four foot waves… 

Last night you should’ve had your eyeballs glued to Filipe Toledo’s quarter-final with the New Zealand rookie Ricardo Christie. If you didn’t, you can dive into the heat analyser here. 

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Game changer? Yeah, he is.

The great generational change we thought was going to be wrought by Jordy or John John or Dane is being delivered, on our screens, in dramatically increasing increments by a surfer who was still in his teens a few weeks ago. (Filipe turned 20 on April 16.)

Three years on tour and, despite the occasional huck, it wasn’t until Snapper Rocks in March that the  full breadth of his ability was finally revealed to the world. Watch the final here.

When the Oi Rio Pro wraps up some time tomorrow, Brazil time, unless Filipe is suddenly blinded by God, Filipe will win and he’ll slide into a tight second-place on the tour ratings, just behind Adriano de Souza.

Look at his results. Snapper, he wins. Bell… Bells… a fifth. The QS at Lowers. He wins it. And now, a guaranteed third or better. Heat averages of nearly 16 points or an eight on every scoring ride.

One great surfer, a former pro turned coach, who adores everything about Filipe (and who was rated #1 in the world on tour when he was the same age) is the American Brad Gerlach, a former world number two and world title contender.

“I watch Filipe so I can teach my students how to be the best,” says Gerr. “I watch him to learn and to confirm all the things I’ve learned.”

Personally, I wanted to know, how does the tour solve a problem like Filipe? I’d asked Jeremy Flores and he said, “Uh, hope he makes a mistake.”

Gerlach, I knew, would at least have some practical ideas.

BeachGrit: So tell me, in your opinion, why is Filipe unbeatable?

Gerlach: Why? He’s technically superior. And then, he’s not thinking. He’s surfing so spontaneously you don’t know what he’s going to do. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do. And that’s fucking awesome. What surprises me about a lot of the guys I watch is they’re confident but they look conservative on the wave. Filipe’s excited to be surfing! And his posture’s good, but his front foot is the biggest reason he’s so gnarly. He uses his back foot but not like a Bede  Durbidge or even Conner (Coffin) for that matter. Slater is too. Dane’s front-footed but he knows how to use his back foot. And so does Filipe.

BeachGrit: Okay, so this is the big thing… we’ve seen four generations of surfers on their back foot. All power, with a little air. Why is the front foot so important?

Gerlach: Front foot is acceleration. You have to have your weight and hips over your front foot to accerlate. When you’re too heavy on your back foot there’s a delay as you shift your weight to your front foot. Filipe’s whole momentum is going through his front foot so he’s not getting that delayed, stuck-at-the-top feeling and the reason he’s landing so many aerials is he knows where he’s going to land before he leaves the water. He has a clear picture in his mind where he’s going to land. He’s not up there in the air going, “I’ll see where I am when I’m up in the air”. The better surfer you are, the slower the wave appears to you. With Filipe, the wave looks slow and he has plenty of time to see exactly what he’s going to do. It’s a beautiful thing to watch.

BeachGrit: At Snapper, in the final against Julian Wilson, the difference was stark. Julian seemed almost… heavy.

Gerlach: Julian uses his front foot a lot but when I watch Julian surf it looks like he’s thinking all the time. He lets it go occasionally, like on a video he’ll go up and do one of those beautiful backside wafts, but, generally, he’s thinking too much and there’s a disconnect between your head and your body. But, fuck, Julian’s incredible. His surfing is absolutely smooth and beautiful and critical so I’m not writing it off. I’m talking subtleties and the difficulty of an opponent like Filipe. In that final, it looked like Filipe didn’t care about winning. He was excited to be on the waves and doing what the wave called for. And that’s just a natural thing he’s doing right now.

BeachGrit: What advice would you give Kelly re: Filipe?

Gerlach: Same thing. I feel Kelly could try less. I think Kelly loses power when he tries too hard, we all do, I do, and I don’t surf good when I’m trying hard. But it’s hard to switch that off when you’re in competition. In order to score you need to do certain things. But, Kelly could position himself more radically with less force. Kelly’s capable of so much flexibility, if he turned it down half a notch and focused a little more on how radical a position on the wave he could get… Kelly thinks he needs to throw a lot of water around to get the score. Kelly can do traditional and he can do progressive so he’d be way better if he turned it down a little. I was talking about that with him South Africa years ago, and I said, be less statement oriented. Can you be positionally radical? The guy is so fucking good all you have to do is give him a clue and he’ll be on it. You know what? He’ll… read this… and I hope he does because I’d love to see him take it to Filipe. It’s not an ageing thing. Surfing isn’t about muscle. The power is all in the wave. Nobody has more power than the wave.

BeachGrit: Let’s imagine you were 25 again and surfing against Filipe. What’s your strategy?

Gerlach: I would surf more positionally radical than him. He’s doing turns where the wave isn’t especially hollow ’cause he can blow his fins out and he can fly in the air. I’d use the bottom of the wave and go straight back up at the pitching lip and do redirected turns slightly under the lip, keeping the rail in the water. I mean, it wouldn’t be easy. But I wouldn’t be trying to go and blow my fins bigger than him or do bigger airs. I’d try and be more creative. To beat Filipe as an older guy you would need to train to initiate your rail turns earlier and position them more vertically. Rail surfing but in the super critical part of the wave. That’s what I train my students to do. People can feel those turns. Conner does some mental ones at J-Bay. At that level, if you get 10 per cent better it could be the difference between an incredible career and an average one. Rail game out on the shoulder is outdated, by the way.

BeachGrit: Where do you think performance surfing is going?

Gerlach: Everyone will be doing big airs, yeah we know that, but they’ll be used more fluidly and it’ll come down to what you can do on the wave face as well as what can be done above the lip. Eventually, it’ll be how you put it all together, not just turns or airs in isolation.

BeachGrit: What else y’got?

Gerlach: Well, I don’t want this to sound like I know it all, it’s just that I see a lot of stuff. My dad was my coach and he never surfed. You don’t have to do something to understand it. What do I do? I get on the heat analyser and watch every single wave Flipe has. It’s, like, thank fucking god there’s someone spontaneous and radical and with a decent style.