...with a revert out.
You have, by now, of course seen Albee Layer’s latest very epic air. There he drops on a wedgy right, one pump, two pumps and then up the wave’s face and into the ether spinning clockwise. His nose comes around once and then his tail comes around and… how many spins? Oh I lose count so quickly but it seems the consensus amongst the masses is 540 degrees of spin.
Right?
“Wrong!” says one of surfing’s great voices Mr. Chris Cote. “Albee’s air is a 360 with a revert out.”
The masses howl. “Are you retarded or something? Are you like… retarded? Or something?”
“No.” Chris calmly retorts. “And I’m basing this entirely on what skate or snow would call this. If Albee would have landed with the nose of his board pointing to the beach then it would have been a 540 but what he did is a nice 360 and a revert out. Look, there are so many different types of airs out there and types of rotations. It is super confusing, to some I guess, but I don’t understand why people keep wanting to add spins when they’re just not there. I’m part of a vocal minority and the debate gets heated but it’s fun to have heated debates about something that isn’t Trump or politics. But really what I would love to see in surfing is beautiful straight airs, or somebody to do a really boned out method over a section, land it and ride away. I have seen pictures of guys doing methods but I’ve never seen a proper clip. What I want to do is encourage beautiful airs.”
So?
What do you think?
I agree with Chris but not because I understand spins. I failed Nature of Math in college. No, I agree with Chris because it really bugs me when 5’10 men claim they are 6’0. I don’t know how tall I am but tell everyone 6’0, when they ask, just to throw shade on the 5’10s.
Here’s Albee’s amazing 360.
…with a revert out.
Mathematics itself doesn’t have this much discussion.
For the nimrods who think it’s a 540 on a surfboard because you take off going “down the line”, you’re describing the equivalent of a BS alley-oop 360 revert (which this technically is) on a quarter pipe, but never a 540. – Dr. D
Get Todd Richards to give his input. imho, you could most compare surfing airs to a SNOWBOARD half pipe where the riders are also going down the line and launching both horizontally and vertically. They also unintentionally land on the lip, land high or low in the transitions and overshoot landings in the flats. Halfpipe snowboarders would probably be best suited to give their input over halfpipe and street skaters.
Albee’s wave is clearly a 360, i think the only debate is cote calling full rotes 540s. In that respect Todd Richards seems to agree, but the way dudes do airs off a snowboard halfpipe is still pretty different from surfing. I also can’t come to terms how someone who takes off into the air with there nose going down the line, rotates and lands with their nose again going down the line is somehow doing a 540, although that’s what cote and todd richards claim.
I still have to disagree on the snowboard halfpipe being different from surfing. Most times snowboarders don’t even come close to vertical on exit. They’re clearly going “down the line” and launch at pretty similar angles. Take a look at what they call a 540. If you have a mirror, put it against the video and you can clearly see Filipe toledo’s Backside air in Rio.
https://www.redbull.com/us-…
This is a fucking 540! It’s not skateboarding it’s surfing and he spun a half more than a standard alley oop.
True. But a standard alley-oop is a 180. Regardless if you spin 274,1 degrees.
yeah the fucken cunt is right.
Tragic when surf media have no clue what tricks they are talking about.
Double-oop? Double what? Double 180? Double 270. Double 360?
Surfers and surf media in particular need to learn basic trick terminology.
Especially now when airs will become more common. And because the surfers deserve to be captioned correctly when landing airs.
Like when Kelly Slater explained the Gorkin Flip like this:
“Backside flip without the revert out”.
That makes no sense and leaves so much room for interpretation. Same goes for this “Double Alley-Oop” and dozens more… tell these descriptions to 10 different people and you’re without a doubt painting at least 5 different pictures in those heads. Why not just adopt the trick names that are already out there?
The rotation debate is just one part of the problem.
Comprehending alley-oops is another one.
This air (alley-oop backside 360), and all other alley-oops spun this way are called backside alley-oop.
It’s an alley-oop version of a backside spin trick. The fact that the surfer is approaching the lip frontside is irrelevant. Frontside alley-oops are done on waves approaching the lip backside.
Surfers (Kelly Slater included unfortunately) call this frontside oop / frontside alley-oop which it is not.
Imagine if/when Albee grabs this air on his toe side with his rear hand, then what do we have?
An Indy version, since he’s spinning backside (Indy can only be done rotating backside).
In surf / Kelly Slater terms that would have to be called an alley-oop frontside 360 Indy… a trick that can’t exist.
In regards to rotations:
The biggest disconnect when discussing this is that many surfers (most?) consider the wave a moving launch ramp instead of a moving quarterpipe/bank and that’s why there’s debate regarding 360s, 540s etc.
The surf term “full rotation / 360” means you land forwards and is a 540 in skate/snowboard terms. Since riding a wave resembles a snowboarder going down a halfpipe or a skater riding a hip/bank/quarterpipe (more than riding a launch ramp) the logical thing would be to use the trick which have already been used for decades.
Think of an air reverse (landing backwards) as a 360 even though you might only spin 271.3 degrees.
So on regular rotations when you spin say 380-490 ish degrees and land forward = 540.
On an alley-oop you also do a 360 when landing backwards, just like Albee did in this clip regardless of spinning 374 or 418 degrees. Had Albee spun another 180 in the air and landed forwards (and likely spun around 570 actual degrees) it’s an alley-oop 540.
A regular alley-oop (landing forward) is a 180 by default, even though you might spin 263,8 degrees.
Just like a regular air is a 180 by default even though you only spin 41,6 degrees in the air.
This video will help with the rotations debate:
https://vimeo.com/111215545
Albee’s Indy 540 from about a year ago compared to skate/snowboard Indy 540s:
https://vimeo.com/223448909
Mikey Wright’s McTwist compared to skate/snowboard McTwists:
https://vimeo.com/207498981
Yes!
Surfers will never understand the frontside Alley-opp.
Was always a fan of the Robot Food Movies.
just call it albeey-oop…
Answer me this…. if you’re calling a standard air reverse, which is about 180 in the air and another 180 on the wave, a 360 (on this we agree), why does the exact same amount of rotation (Filipe’s full rotation from Brazil) warrant another 180 degrees in the name?
Not sure I follow. If you do an air reverse and land backwards it’s a 360 and if you spin another 180 and land forwards it’s a 540.
https://vimeo.com/111215545
an air reverse is 180 degrees in the air. you land tail forward, and then rotate on the wave to a 360. Easy.
Now, go to JJF’s full rotation from Brazil, which started and ended in basically the same exact same spots as a standard air reverse, but landed nose forward. There’s no additional spin after that. Both moves were just a 360 degree board rotation. Are you saying that JJF’s is a 540?
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Yes.
Just like 2:40-4:40 in this clip:
https://vimeo.com/111215545
what’s the difference between the air at 1:51 and the few starting at about 4:15?
1:51 he lands backwards.
4:19 he lands forwards.
So you’re talking a matter of 20-30 degrees or so on the landing. How does that get rounded up to a 180 degree difference in the name, particularly since neither rotation really goes past a single 360 rotation anyway? And I’d also note that on each of the airs you’re calling a 360, they’re not “landing backwards” compared to their take-off angle. Almost all of them are about 3/4 of a rotation in the air at least. In fact, the backside 540 at 3:22 hardly looks different than the frontside 360 at 1:51.
Again, the numbers you’ve got on the skate and snow moves seem to match the actual rotations going down. But you’re adding a ton to the surf moves. Even Martin Potter knows the truth (at 4:28)!
The guy at 1:52 lands backwards, fins first.
3:22 lands forwards, not with fins first.
Two entirely different tricks.
The air at 3:22 also lands fins first. In fact, all but 1 of the airs in the 540 section land fins first. The airs at 4:10 and 4:15, for example. The only one that looks to land flat is the one at 4:20. JJF’s at 4:20 clearly has fins grab first.
And like I said, you’re not using backwards properly since you’re not comparing to the angle at takeoff.
Regardless, neither of these things has anything to do with the total amount of rotation. All of the skate/snow airs make sense – you measure the rotation and it matches the name you’re giving it. Not even close in the surf.
All this aside, why does a snowboard guy from Sweden think he’s fit to name surf moves?
Why I’m fit to name them?
Because myself and all skate/snowboarders knows Albee does a backside alley-opp while Kelly and the surf community thinks it’s frontside.
I’ve corrected skate/snowboarders for decades and now surfers are starting to get into the air more and not comprehending what they’re doing up there.
It’s like if Tiger Woods would measure his shots in feet instead of yards.
you’re not wrong on the albee air. You are wrong, however, on calling a rotation that goes no further than 360 degrees a 540.
The air at 3:22 doesn’t land backwards.
He lands forwards. 180 degrees more than an air reverse where you land backwards.
But that’s still just 360 degrees – you are adding another 180 degrees to a move that doesn’t include it simply because the turn was done in the air rather than in the air and on the face. Maybe your mistake is calling an air reverse a 360 rather than a 180 revert.
Ok so I watched that entire video and all I can tell is that in the skate and snowboard examples, a 540 actually involves 540 degrees of spinning, whereas in surfing, 360 degrees can somehow = a 540. It looks lie if a guy does an air and lands at all on the lip/face before he finishes the full rotation, that’s only a 360. But if he lands in the flats after a full rotation, you’ll call it a 540. No difference in the amount of rotation, just where it’s landed. And backside 360’s seem to be 540’s by default.
What’s weird is that some of the surf airs that this video calls a 360 are basically identical to some they call a 540. For instance, what’s the difference between the air at 1:51 and the ones starting at about 4:15?
As if anyone cares here is my view.
Lets set up the parameters.
1. In surfing jumps are always made nose first. Nose is going up the wave face.
2. The wave is a halfpipe. Surfers take off on the wave that they land on, just like in a half pipe.
3. Rotations are only made in 180 degree steps (0, 180, 360, 540, 720 etc). There are no inbetweens.
Surfer always goes up nose first. Therefore there can only be 2 scenarios. Surfer lands either tail first or nose first going down the wave.
1. If the surfer lands nose first the rotation must have been 180, 540 or 900.
2. If the surfer lands tail first the rotation must have been 0, 360 or 720.
So what did Albee do? He landed tail first. Therefore it was either 0, 360 or 720. It sure as shit wasn’t a 0 or a 720.
2 – wave’d be a quarter pipe if so, theres no opposite wall…
That’s true. Doesn’t change my argument though.
https://youtu.be/PGNiXGX2nLU
But waves are not half pipes.
finally…
That guy is one of the best. Very well rounded.
Rather than translating the degrees of rotation of his air, could someone translate the gibberish that he says to camera walking up the cliff?
On a skateboard: If you go up a quarter pipe, do a 360, land on your back truck and pivot it an additional 180 before putting down your front truck, you have done a 540.
Wait a damn minute; we’re now trusting the visually impaired to determine how many rotations it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?
I’m agreeing with you on this and saying Cote is wrong when he calls them 540s. This he called a 360 and got it right but generally he calls regular full rotation airs 540s. His “rational” is that an air on a wave is like an air on a halfpipe in skating or snowboarding and so the rotations should be counted the same way those are.
However, generally the sections in surfing are much more similar to a kicker then a halfpipe.
pretty indisputable if you ask me. snowboarder is doing a backside 540. How does anyone look at this and say that the launch angle, amount of rotation and landings are not almost identical. So the snowboarder is not doing a 540?
The air itself is only about a 420. Angle at takeoff is about 2:00 and landing about 4:00.
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
the surf air is about a 450 or so. His nose at launch is at about 2:00. At landing it’s about 5:00. For it to be a 540 he’d need to be at 8:00.
“It’s not about YOU… you mathematical dick!” Whoever was announcing the snowboard half pipe did not overanalyze and call it as “…yeah… that looked to be about a 528.75.” It was a backside 540 end of story. Filipe and boarder are clearly doing the same maneuver. Anyone would sound ridiculous to say otherwise. And the primary discussion at hand is why Cote analogizes snowboard halfpipe maneuvers with surf ones and some are insistent that waves are not similar to snow pipes. I think they are the closest thing to compare. This is video proof and quite indisputable that they are similar. I’m not here to bust out protractors and argue exact degrees.
maybe they should have. I wouldn’t score a 480 the same as I would a full 540, and I’m guessing the judges didn’t either. So why would you call the two the same thing? All I’m gathering in this discussion is that snowboarders are too lazy or stupid to calculate this properly.
snowboarder is taking off vertically on the wall and almost landing vertically going straight back down the wall.
Filipe takes off straight at about 3 o clock and lands straight at 4 o clock, thereefore 360, unless any degree past 360 results in rounding up to a 540.
Cmon dude. You’re reaching like Stu Azole below. So the snowboarder was a few degrees more vertical than FT. But the angles of their landings are nearly identical. I get why you’re insisting it’s still 360 based upon math. But the FACT is that this maneuver is called a backside 540 in snowboarding and skating. Your true argument is with snow and skate guys rationale. It can’t be based upon math and one can clearly see that a 540 degree rotation is not executed. Perhaps the same Hawaiian surfers who call 8ft faces 3ft, 12ft faces 5ft but get face accurate sizes at 35 to 40ft can explain it to you. Ha.
That’s a double Ollie Oop. In skateboarding an Alley Oop or an Ollie oop (depending on a grab or not) would never be called a 360 air. Surfer’s have a tough time naming tricks…like for example what most any surfer calls a “backside 360” (because one is going backside on the wave) would be a frontside 360 on any ramp skate or snow. Fun banter!
Where’s Chris Cote on this issue? I refuse to believe anyone else until Chris weighs in, regardless of logic or elloquence.
https://youtu.be/ekpM8eD3LM4
It’s a Hawaiian 360.
i thought the awards were given out to photos. but, totally agree a useless debate. there needs to be awards for best biff for first wave.
If you’re really getting into it, most snowboarders technically start their spin before they leave the ground. So if you’re gonna be annoying, this is about a 480: https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Or here is a 9 year old girl that surfs better than most of us doing another 480 according to Cote: https://www.youtube.com/wat…
I’d just call it a 540.
Except that Cote refuse to liken airs in surfing to a jump ramp, only to half-pipes: https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
not more annoying than that song.
The argument isn’t really about rotation; most half-wits can work out the numbers. The debate boils down to whether you accept Cote’s premise that waves should be equated to quarter-pipe.
Surfers travel across the wave face in one direction (left/right) with variations for manoeuvres.
Skating has a lot to offer surfing, especially grabs, varials and switch tricks, but people pushing the quarter-pipe metaphor need to move on.
this guy gets it.
So if they’re not emulating tricks done in a snowboard halfpipe or a skateboard hip they’re riding a moving launch ramp?
If so how come riding a wave resembles riding a halfpipe wall?
Launch ramps and half-pipes are both terrible analogies for a wave; they’re equally inadequate.
My argument was that surfers ride across the curve of the wave for speed, where as skaters ride almost straight up and straight down a quarter pipe face for speed.
If you think of the cleanest possible rotational air, other than those on done end-sections, they are completed so that the surfer completes the air by projecting along the wave with speed, ready for the next manoeuvre. This is at odds with a half-pipe skater, where a clean rotation is completed with the rider projecting straight down the face so that they can carry their momentum towards the opposing ramp face with enough speed to launch again (in the opposite direction).
If a surfer took a skater’s angle, they’d drift out into the flats and lose speed/flow. If a skater took a surfer’s line, they’d ride off the side of the ramp.
None of this is news to anyone even half-familiar with either sport.
My point is, surfers and skaters rotate through aerial manoeuvres with a different goal in mind. The most effective angle of rotation for each sport is different. Waves and skate ramps are different. Some people are still determined to measure them using the same criteria.
You could most compare surfing airs to a SNOWBOARD half pipe where the riders are also going down the line and launching both horizontally and vertically. They also unintentionally land on the lip, land high or low in the transitions and overshot land in the flats. They would probably be best suited to give their input imho.
it does not, you wrong…
Well someone surfing a wave and someone coming down one side of a snowboard halfpipe are pretty darn similar.
Saying they don’t resemble each other is quite amusing.
doing an air on a halfpipe snowboarding or skkateboarding is insanely different from surfing. The only person doing legit skate halfpipe style airs while surfing is Dane when he does his straight airs where he actually bottom turns and goes straight up and out, does a 180 degree rotation and lands.
Virtually all the other airs are going straight down the line off a section like a kicker in snowboarding and the degrees shoulld be counted the same way they are when a snowboarder goes off a kicker (not a quarterpipe or halfpipe).
this. I think.
except for that a snowboarder cannot perform moves in just one sidewall without the momentum brought from the opposite wall, and the fact that those walls are not in movement or carry their own energy like a wave…
Yes they can.
prove it…
Go to any pipe and ask a rider to just do frontside hits. Pretty simple.
really, you that stupid? I rest my case…
I’ll see if I can find a clip of someone doing it. Danny Davis is really good at it. Seen him do it many times.
then find someone doing it on a skate ramp.
pretty indisputable to me. the snowboarder is doing a backside 540 according to Olympic standards How does anyone look at this rationally and say that the launch angle, amount of rotation and landings are not almost identical. So the snowboarder is not doing a 540? A snowboard half pipe is most similar to surfing as both are going “down the line” and most often launching not even close to vertical so they can get trajectory and maintain speed.
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…