SUP surfing lessons from the ISA World finals

by RSPro Admin November 21, 2016

The finals day of the 2016 ISA Worlds at Cloudbreak will be remembered for a long time for the epic conditions and epic surfing. Having a look at the final day pictures, we extracted some lessons and wanted to share them with you:

1. Founder Position. Watch below Zane Schweitzer position while paddling back to the lineup. This is the founder position from Foundation Training, or what Erik, from the Paddllewoo calls Gorilla Butt: flat back, long spine, open torso.

Zane Schweitzer with perfect Foundation training posture

Photo: Sean Evans

2. Front side bottom turn: Watch below Giorgio Gomez perfect posture bottom turn on his toe side. Flat back posture like showcased in the foundation posture of point 1. Very low center of gravity, rail and paddle totally engaged, and last but not least eyes on the lip he's about to destroy. 👍

Giorgio Gomez perfect bottom turn frontside

Photo: Ben Reed

3. Back side bottom turn: You probably know the theory for the bottom turns on your heel side ( I suck): get low, twist the hips, look at the face of the wave, engage the rails, but next time try to get as low as Benoit Carpentier, RSPro ambassador, (look again at where are his hands, almost touching the water, the super low crouching position), try to compress as much as he's doing. Try to twist as much.

Benoit Carpentier, team RSPro executing perfectly a bottom turn

Photo: Ben Reed

And if this was not enough, have a look at another angle: Perfect back side bottom turn defined. Rail totally engaged 🤘. Thanks for the show Benoit.

Benoit Carpentier, RSPro ambassador perfect bottom turning

Photo: Ben Reed

4. Pedal to the metal: When the tube is closing, or basically when you need to accelerate in a section to gain speed, what do you do?. Put the pedal to the metal, that is, in surfing, putting weight forward. Notice where the front foot of Zane Schweitzer is: much ahead of his pad (luckily he had HexaTraction RSPro installed)

Zane Schweitzer accelerates into the tube with the HexaTraction RSPro

Photo: Ben Reed

5. Extremely low volume boards. Those guys are on very, very small boards, almost surf boards. They don't even have handles in the middle. Why to have a handle if they can carry them as a surfboard? Notice how low in the water Mo Freitas is in the photo below. Knees below water 🙀

Photo: Sean Evans