Surfing airs are rubbish - discuss

[brendo]

personally i dont see anything wrong with em. they are functional....remember...you surf to have fun right? i used to do a few of em in the 90s, no spins involved, and they arent that easy, so when you pull one off = super stoked. gives better appreciation of whats going on now. i cant see how you can bag something youve never done.no offence. if you snowboard and can throw 3s , 5s, or 7s youll appreciate it even though its a diff sport. i guess its a generational thing. what was futuristic in the 80s was being bagged by old school 70s surfers.

[Wink]

I reckon that people should include, along with their opinion, an honest answer to the question "could you do an air if your life depended on it?" My guess is that those who have done an air or two will like them a lot better (and have a lot more respect for them) than those who have no chance or have never tried.

I can't land airs all that often, but when I land even a little one, I'm stoked. I reckon the feeling is second only to getting barreled. I love watching Dane, Slater etc do airs, even if it's not 'functional' on a wave.

So... who's tried airs first hand, maybe landed a couple, and still doesn't like them?

[Trev]

personally i dont see anything wrong with em. they are functional....remember...you surf to have fun right? i used to do a few of em in the 90s, no spins involved, and they arent that easy, so when you pull one off = super stoked. gives better appreciation of whats going on now. i cant see how you can bag something youve never done.no offence. if you snowboard and can throw 3s , 5s, or 7s youll appreciate it even though its a diff sport. i guess its a generational thing. what was futuristic in the 80s was being bagged by old school 70s surfers.

I'm not bagging them just saying they're too far removed from my vision of surfing. To each his own.

[jimmy]

personally i dont see anything wrong with em. they are functional....remember...you surf to have fun right? i used to do a few of em in the 90s, no spins involved, and they arent that easy, so when you pull one off = super stoked. gives better appreciation of whats going on now. i cant see how you can bag something youve never done.no offence. if you snowboard and can throw 3s , 5s, or 7s youll appreciate it even though its a diff sport. i guess its a generational thing. what was futuristic in the 80s was being bagged by old school 70s surfers.

Fair point. I do one every month or so and usually by mistake when doing a re entry and my fins pop out.. It is a great feeling when you land one..
My problem is with the young guys who try them on every wave with no style and not enough speed..
To be honest I see them fcuk up a lot of waves in the process when there was more sections to be had down the line. If only they could keep their dick in their pants...

[mustkillmulloway]

I was watching some footage of Honolua Bay and some older guys were getting big barrels, doing big snaps and basically taking the place apart.Other guys were going for these more radical stunts and blowing every wave. I don't like the fact that the wave is just a platform to launch a move. If the question was would you prefer to get mega pitted on a monster barrel or do a few aerials on the same wave I'd rather get pitted any day.

The fact that on shore winds are seen as favorable and little close outs are often prefered means it may become a sub sport. Allready is I reckon. That event at Bondi, the surf actually looked way better on TV. It was woeful.

I reckon it will go the way of nose riding. Really skillfull in its own way and occasionally functional but a bit of an add on in real surf. Chippa Wilsons pretty good though. I prefer his style to owen wright or ozzie for that matter.

great post

i for the most part find watching it boring...they never land em

they look good in photos and sell stuff....plus are easier do than a lay back snap


so we are sure see lots more them

[Skipper]

^^^^^
agree
smart slacks will never go out of style.
if you look good in skinny black jeans, make the most of it while you can.

[Quangers]

personally i dont see anything wrong with em. they are functional....remember...you surf to have fun right? i used to do a few of em in the 90s, no spins involved, and they arent that easy, so when you pull one off = super stoked. gives better appreciation of whats going on now. i cant see how you can bag something youve never done.no offence. if you snowboard and can throw 3s , 5s, or 7s youll appreciate it even though its a diff sport. i guess its a generational thing. what was futuristic in the 80s was being bagged by old school 70s surfers.

Fair point. I do one every month or so and usually by mistake when doing a re entry and my fins pop out.. It is a great feeling when you land one..
My problem is with the young guys who try them on every wave with no style and not enough speed..
To be honest I see them fcuk up a lot of waves in the process when there was more sections to be had down the line. If only they could keep their dick in their pants...

It's like the story of the old bull and the young bull looking over into the cow paddock, where the gate is open... the young bull says "lets run over and fcuk a cow NOW!", the old bull replies, "nah, lets walk over and fcuk all of them".

[alakaboo]

exactly the sort of discussion i was hoping to kick off...

of course, i'm incapable of doing airs, so i can only comment on the visual aspect. no offence taken Brendo. I also said that I have great respect for those who can. I could have said "Surfing airs look rubbish, when it's the main objective and detracts from the overall flow of the wave", but that's not going to get many visits.

for what it's worth, i'm a pretty reasonable snowboarder and can land 5s off hits and drops, even done a few backflips, but i've never had the desire to try a double mctwist. i've got no interest in sessioning kickers all day, i'd much rather try and link stuff down the mountain. which i guess is my problem with surfing airs, it seems like they are often set up from so far down the line that they muck up the whole ride (visually).
i suck in the halpipe too, because when I get up to the lip i just want to smash it like i'm doing a tail waft on a wave, and i destroy the trannies for everyone else, which isn't all that popular!

Fong, I reckon most airs look rubbish. An indy grab off-balance punt to show off the stickers on the bottom of the board has got nothing on a full rail carve.

[Skipper]

Easy Kaboo. Now, while I'm 'down wit' some of lingo you use above, and unashamed enough to confess to being friends with a few trannies round the Cross, that last sentence in the second last para has got me baffled. :?

[alakaboo]

Well it doesn't help that I used the totally wrong term...

in a halpipe the transitions (trannies) are the curvy bits that link the flat bit to the vertical bit.

I should have said the lip. though I also tend to try and stay on the one wall, which stuff the trannies. (obviously context is important for that last sentence...)

[jimmy]

Well it doesn't help that I used the totally wrong term...

in a halpipe the transitions (trannies) are the curvy bits that link the flat bit to the vertical bit.

I should have said the lip. though I also tend to try and stay on the one wall, which stuff the trannies. (obviously context is important for that last sentence...)

Fark me Kaboo.. If I didn't know any better I'd have thought you've been spending too much time around William St..

[Skipper]

Well it doesn't help that I used the totally wrong term...

in a halpipe the transitions (trannies) are the curvy bits that link the flat bit to the vertical bit.

I should have said the lip. though I also tend to try and stay on the one wall, which stuff the trannies. (obviously context is important for that last sentence...)

fair'nuff.

[brendo]

jimmy, good point. nothin shits me more than guys tryin to run before they can walk.
ala, youd agree with this, ...down the snow, the parks are full of kids blinged up, all the new burton gear, trying to do airs/rails etc, yet when they ride they can barely link turns makes em look even kookier than they are and when are they gunna realise you need to pop off the kickers, not jump
trev, each to their own is spot on. and watchin guys do airs over and over can get boring, they need to be mixed up with big hacks, like dane does.

[Natho]

Nothing beats good old full rail power surfing. Lets hope it doesn't die out to all this flicky tricky stuff.
Nothing wrong with an air here and there,but the power stuff will take the cake any day for me.

[chrisb]

A shortboard air is similar to a longboard "skeg at the front takeoff" in that many are stuffed up by the perpetrators resulting in a wave gone to waste.... that's a wave that someone further down the line could have taken had they known that the egotist was going to wipe out.
Disclaimer: I have never tried either stunt, and most certainly couldn't do an air anyway, but it's a free country. I suppose that in uncrowded (yeah right!) conditions or onshore slop that they are acceptable, albeit seldom functional.

[Grooter]

Nothing beats good old full rail power surfing. Lets hope it doesn't die out to all this flicky tricky stuff.
Nothing wrong with an air here and there,but the power stuff will take the cake any day for me.

Love this stuff too

[Grooter]

YEE-HAAA!!!

[oldman]

Am I alone in thinking that airs on a surfboard are, for the most part, completely boring to watch and non-functional?

No grasshopper, you are not alone.

My problem is with the young guys who try them on every wave with no style and not enough speed. To be honest I see them fcuk up a lot of waves in the process when there was more sections to be had down the line. If only they could keep their dick in their pants...

Exactly.

they are functional..

Yep, functional as tits on a bull, as a cup with no handle, as a coherent thought in your mind.

The only place for an air is on a close-out when functional surfing has ceased as an option.

Pop crap for the those whose concentration levels don't allow for two successive moves on a wave.

I reckon that people should include, along with their opinion, an honest answer to the question "could you do an air if your life depended on it?"

Can't exactly imagine such a scenario, but thanks for that descent into irrelevancy Wink.

So... who's tried airs first hand, maybe landed a couple, and still doesn't like them?

I land 6' airs every time. The problem with airs is that you aren't drawing lines.

Nothing beats good old full rail power surfing. Lets hope it doesn't die out to all this flicky tricky stuff.
Nothing wrong with an air here and there,but the power stuff will take the cake any day for me.

In a nutshell.

But don't get me wrong, I don't care what other people do while they are surfing. They can shove bricks up their arse while taking off, they can even go skeet surfing, whatever turns you on. I do hate seeing someone waste waves, but that's their business.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaXOHCNgYrc