Three most essential tips!
Last year, the Hawaiian Mason Ho won the Backdoor Shootout and placed second at the Volcom Pipe Pro, beating Kelly Slater in the process. The year before he owned Sunset and finished third at the Volcom Pipe Pro.
Dino Andino, father of Kolohe, has known Mason since “forever”
and says that Mason has an “uncanny ability to rider the tube, to
control the speed of the wave” and that, alongside John John and
Jamie O, “he’s the guy out there. When it’s heavy he’s just getting
started.”
Why should you even throw yourself out at the world’s best,
but most dangerous, wave? What have you got to gain, anyway?
“Well, first,” says Mason, “every little surf town has that
one spot where all the heavies go, where all the icons and all the
tourists go, and on the North Shore it’s… Pipe.
Have I sold his qualities? Now let’s hear his three tips on
how to cut yourself a slice of the greatest wave on earth,
Pipeline.
1. Don’t shoulder hop at Backdoor
“Okay, this is counter-intuitive,” says Mason.”You spend the
whole beginner years of your life believing the shoulder is safer.
But Backdoor is dangerous on the shoulder. You’re going to take off
with the lip on the shoulder. So! Kick back, wait for the best
wave, and takeoff behind the peak. A bonus is you’ll actually get
deep.”
2. How to make the barrel at Pipe
“It’s a series of connect-the-dots,” says Mason, who
admittedly, does it better than anybody. “Everybody sees different
lines but there’s always a certain line, an instinctual line.
There’s bubbles, there’s a double-up, all this stuff coming down
the wave. You need to draw a line across it all and
just… shoot. You beat off the chop, you beat down the
double-up, you ride-out the foam-ball.” Confidence? Yeah, you
need it.
3. Ride a bigger board than you think
Mason has got his act down to a point where he can ride a
larger-than-average board, in his case a six-three, and catch
anything. And not just the outer reef roll-ins, but even the
radical inside ledges. “I like to move around when I paddle,” says
Mason, who enjoys the momentum a larger board gives. “The bigger
boards make it easier to roll in, sure, but it’s nice to have a big
board to swing around under the ledge. I don’t die big boards all
the time but they do help me get to where I want to go.”
Want to get to know Mason? Watch this!
