Can Filipe Toledo teach Lakey Peterson how to nail a full-rotation air in four days? Watch!
If you’ve followed this four-part Girl Goes Into Orbit series you’ll know where we’ve been and what to expect in the final episode.
In case you’re new to the game, here’s the story: one month ago, BeachGrit, took the pro surfer Lakey Peterson to Mexico with one goal – to land a four-foot-above-the-lip full-rotation air.
Call it a 540 if you want. Call it an air 360 if that thrills too.
It’s been a pet project of mine to push women’s surfing beyond what is, mostly, a series of often stylish, often not, top turns and cutbacks. Why don’t girls do airs? Why should they? Only reason the men are doing ’em in competition is because of Gabriel, Filipe, Jordy, Julian, Josh Kerr and John John.
My theory is girls surf alongside boys until their early teens, and since it takes a fair bit of guts to get out there among the boys, the girls are usually among the best. Then, instead of improving alongside the boys as they get older, they plateau as they surf in girl-only competitions.
List the excuses you hear about girls and airs. They don’t have the physical strength. They don’t have the ability.
It’s all one big misconception.
Kids do ’em. Kooks can do ’em.
Why not girls?
My theory is girls surf alongside boys until their early teens, and since it takes a fair bit of guts to get out there among the boys, the girls are usually among the best. Then, instead of improving alongside the boys as they get older, they plateau as they surf in girl-only competitions.
And, since being a pro is such a thing, they train with coaches, but instead of growing into great surfers they turn into great competitors.
So let’s work on it.
To accelerate a process that John John says takes a couple of years, and compress it into four days Filipe Toledo and Brett Simpson joined Lakey as tutors. She’d surf. Come in. Swipe back and forth with the Hurley Surf Club app that gives a split-screen, side-by-side comparison with two surfers. In our case, Filipe’s airs and Lakey’s air attempts.
Cruel? Not as much as you’d think. Because Lakey can surf.
How’d it play out? Watch!
And, if you missed the other three episodes, watch those here.
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Your mom loves a full rotor.
The general consensus is this: women pro-surfers come in two camps; those who can surf but are essentially bikini models and those who don’t give a shit what they look like and just love to surf well. Unfortunately, it’s much easier to get, and retain, sponsorship if you fall into the former category (and that’s a whole other story). This holds women’s surfing back from progression because the women in the latter category need to be constantly proving themselves and if, god forbid, they injure themselves, then more often than not they’re dropped by their sponsors (a la Silvana). So, rather than attempt anything innovative and, quite literally, risk their career, they stick to the top turn bottom turn combo that gets them through heats. So yes, there are a lot of pressures to stay within certain boundaries.
Well said, no girl is gonna buy more Hurley bikinis because of Lakey’s air revo…then you have your Alana Blanchards.
No offense to you, Derek, Lakey/Felipe/Hurley(Surf Club), or Brian Conley’s Mexican petrol spewing PWC’s, the experiment was to complete a “Full rotation above the lip air”. I still found the entire series to be very engaging and well produced!
its not a 540
Each of the three degree measures–90, 180, or 270–will shift the coordinates of your original point to a different, calculable, position on the graph. If rotating counterclockwise (a positive angle of rotation), you can use these rules to find your new coordinate points.
by landing in the same direction of take off and only fully rotating once you have performed a 360.
this is a rule that applies to all disciplines (skate, surf, now, walking)
I am a fan of ladies surfing and I too would like to see progression but I think that more power in the turns is the answer. The top 5 ladies on the CT have drastically better style than the rest. Do they not have coaching because it’s just about modeling and selling product?
She has nice shoulders and back..
That was good. Nicely done all around. You too, Donna Summer.
Oh yeah! For sure, women also have a bad habit of policing each other and reinforcing cultural boundaries. Totes agree, wrote that kinda quicklike.
congrats to Lakey, and chas and derak.Thanks for the series..the waves were pretty fucking amazing.
That was fun. Thanks for doing this series. Totally enjoyed. And respect to Lakey for being willing to do it.
What Lakey said in the opener is very, very true. There are a ton of pressures on women to stay within certain boundaries and, whenever a woman tries something different, a loud chorus of men will show up to cut her down. Surfing is not unique in this, by any means, but it’s definitely more intense in surfing than in other spaces. You aren’t the hot, skinny girl on a long board? What are you even doing? Every last thing gets criticized. And then you wonder why more women aren’t out there taking risks and trying new moves. Well.
I disagree with your comment, not because you’re maybe a woman, and I’m not, but you’re trying to marginalise yourself for sympathy. That’s all in your head.
Everybody can marginalise themselves. Stop waiting for a hand out and go take what you want. That’s the difference between normal and great.
you don’t get to tell people that they’re marginalizing themselves for sympathy when you’re not in the same position as they are. how would you know what it’s like to be a woman if you aren’t one?
Actually, we do. This isn’t an echo chamber, I don’t agree that a loud chorus of men shows up to cut down women every time they do something different. That’s a nonsense statement marginalising women and men, plus it’s not 1950.
In this day and age, I’d believe more readily that “whenever a woman tries something different, a loud chorus of men appear to lift her up”.
You’re missing the point. As a man you’re spectacularly unqualified to speak about what’s it’s like for a woman in the water.
I so love the smell of gaslighting in the morning! So good! So wholesome!
Awwww brah, you don’t know anything about me.
You live in an episode of Mad Men?
“There are a ton of pressures on women to stay within certain boundaries….” Bullshit
more like pressure to spill out of the boundaries of their swim wear
So we’re counting that huh? Better than I can do, sure. Legit 540? Questionable at best. Also anyone else notice that board ditch around 4:15? Maybe learn to duck dive before this whole full-rotter nonsense
Modestly impressive. It had the look of a stinkbug-hold-on-for-dear-life-Adriano air circa 2006…
mate it looks more like a stinkbug-hold-on-for-dear-life Silvana Lima air circa 2006. I’ve seen footage of Lakey pulliing that nose-pick reverse or whatever you wanna call it. Rad that the Grit supports women innovation tho!
Well, Silvana Lima has air reverses on lock for many years.
I think this was about getting a white girl to do an air. For like, reader interest and all that
lolz
Fun experiment/Hurley Surf Club advert! One of these days some gal will stick one- hopefully captured on a RED camera