“We’re on threshold of a new era of super moves!”

Throw flowers at John John Florence's Crossbones Lien Air!

It hasn’t been John John Florence’s year at all. His ice cubes have been nervously rattling in his glass all season. Correct me if I’m wrong, but five heat wins in five events, a heat average of twelve.

And you would’ve presumed that the Hawaiian with the skin that looks like an ad for Johnson’s baby powder would’ve owned Keramas.

He didn’t.

Contest are like that. Some days you clap to the rhythm of the Bazouki, the crowd standing on the beach hollering and clamouring for more; other days you’re denounced by every critic in town.

A few days ago at Keramas, however, John John almost landed a Crossbones Lien Air that the snowboard announcer, former Olympian and skater/surfer Todd Richards describes as “more impressive than any spin done to date. I feel like we are on the threshold of a new era of super moves.”

Background.

One week ago, Richards appeared on The Grit with Chas Smith and “explained why surfers are culturally appropriating assholes. How surfers take the blood, sweat and tears of the skateboarders and snowboarders before them and laugh and mock and then call things that happen above the lip of the wave Gorkin Flip and Bologna Sandwiche” instead of their proper nomenclatures born in the Fires of Mordor.”

Chris Coté, the sometime WSL commentator, a Joe Turpel type but with the gravitas of the skilled skater-surfer, says, “It’s the year of the air!  I think this is the most we’ve been talking about airs since Christian Fletcher won the Body Glove Surf Bout and the ‘established’ pros revolted and tried to ground his air superiority, and I love it!

“Instagram is going to play a huge part in progression because the clips are becoming instant. There’s no more ‘saving shit for a video part’. I hate to keep bringing up skating but in skateboarding some kid can film a crazy trick in Iowa, send it to @metroskateboarding or @theberrics and a million kids will see it and instantly start trying to learn that trick. Surfing is harder cause you need lenses and stuff to see what the person is doing, but, filmers and pros and companies are getting faster at dropping clips so this hyper-fast learning curve is going to start happening more in surfing.

“In the case of John John’s latest air, if anybody names it, it has to be followed by *attempt until he makes it. I don’t think John posted it cause he never posts things he doesn’t land as far as I know. Cool looking air, for sure. Photo is probably mental, but you can’t (shouldn’t) print it if he didn’t land it. All that said, I watched that air 27 times and will watch it 25 more times cause I loved it, please land that thing JJF.”

What’s next?

“I want to see that landed,” says Richards. “I want to see a backside air pulled across snowboard method style. I feel like we are right there. All it takes is for John squared to land one and some eight-year-old sees it says, ‘Oh that’s possible!’ and does a full-scrotation with a boned out front leg. It’s coming for sure.”