First session in 3 weeks… all good!

Because of my right shoulder popping out, and a one week business trip to Sydney, I had not been riding for about 3 weeks! Today was a nice rainy day, and with the shoulder feeling better and the urge to wakeskate again, I decided to get back on the water.

It was gooood.

Very few people, relatively calm waters, no cable breakdown. None of “the regulars” were there (although I did catch a glimpse of Guillaume leaving, just as I arrived in a taxi), so it was a bit lonely… but loneliness is good once in a while, it allows you to focus on achieving rather than on the social aspects of the sport.

I was a bit quickly out of breath and energy… but that is to be expected when you go down from 3 times a week to once every 3 weeks (just ask your girlfriend!). Still, I did very well, in fact, everything I tried just worked!

I did 360 on the funbox ridge, straight up, 4 times in a row before I even crashed once. I landed the big kicker five or six times and only crashed twice. I did the dragon so many times, including 360 on the dragon, 3 times, without crashing, then the ramp at the far end out… the only thing I did not manage was the small kicker… because that one is so far out, that I basically can’t hit it with the wakeskate, even edging like crazy.

And because everything was going so well, I decided to have another go at the rail! That worked too! On the first run, I came off half way but managed to keep riding (yay!). The second time I completed end to end, just fine, good exit, no problem. Overall I tried 6sixtimes and succeeded three times. Not bad… especially since the failures were not complete disasters, but rather “close calls”.

I finished with a bit of wakeboarding and decided to call it a day, “quit while you’re winning” rather than “keep pushing until you injure yourself” kind of attitude.

Thoughts about competition…

You would expect these to be bitter thoughts, because I joined the 1st Singapore Cable wakeboard and wakeskate championship held on 5th January at ski360, in the “Open Wakeskate” category, and I finished last!

But it was actually quite fun, and even if I did pretty badly, I learned a lot and met new wakeskate riders.

There were only six participants in the wakeskate category, so we had a qualifying run, but we were all making it to the finals anyway (unlike in the other categories, where people had to fight real hard for a place in the finals).

I came 4th out of the qualifiers. We had two runs each, no limits on tricks etc. and the judges were adding the points of both runs for the total score. Repeat tricks were not counted.

For the qualifiers I decided to “play one round safe” by trying only “simple” tricks that I was very confident I would land, and then to go all out for the second round. For the first round I planned to do: crowd waving, slalom, touching the water, straight funbox ridge, straight dragon, then a go at the blue ramp at the end of the run. It all started well, but I failed the landing from the dragon! For my second run, I did surface 180s and wanted to do funbox ridge 360, then try the dragon again and the blue ramp at the end… but I fell on landing the funbox ridge 360.

Not very good… but I still came out 4th with that.

A few hours later was the final, and for the final I decided that since there were only prices for places one to three, there was no point in repeating what had only gotten me 4th place during qualifiers… so I decided to go all out and try my best trick, the funbox ridge 360, on the first run. I failed again. Then I tried it again on my second round, and I failed again. That’s how I ended up last.

Actually, if I had landed the funbox ridge 360 and the dragon, I suspect I would have finished either first or second place… so my tactic wasn’t bad… but the lesson learned is that my riding is just not good enough.

In a competition, you only get one or two runs, no warming up, and you only have that single shot at doing a trick. This means that to use a trick, you really need to know how to do it 100% of the time. During the competition, under pressure, I could not even land my “safest” trick, the dragon, the one that I normally do 9 times out of 10 when not competing. Of course, my 360 on the ridge is even less reliable. You never know, I could get very lucky trying these in a competition… but the more likely outcome is what actually happened: I mess it up and end up with nothing (well, sixth and last place!).

And that is the difference between riders like me and the better ones. Occasionally, you could see us do exactly the same difficult trick. I have fun trying and doing difficult tricks. The difference is that I try 10 times and succeed once. The professional rider tries the trick 100 times and succeeds 99 times. In a competition, that makes all the difference.

It was fun and I’ll try again next year, if I get a chance.

I believe I can FLY

Two aspiring photographer took pictures of my kicker raley trick.

It is super fun pulling this trick off!!

Just for the record, I landed my first invert. I was trying a scarecrow but ended up making a front roll. Lucky break I guessed …..was on Christmas Eve……miracle happened.

CWC Rocks

I landed my first raley off the kicker!

I tried another landing on my fakie but I did not make it.

I nailed my first shuvit!!

I tried everything except taking the wakeskate up the A frame. After Francois’s  accident, I was too careful not to injure myself. Something to work on next time.

  

 

The Billabong team pro riders were there that week. I collected pictures and autographs from Shawn Watson, Danny Harf, Brian Grubb, Eric Ruck, Keith Lidberg and Chad Sharpe. Shawn and Keith gave me riding tips. These guys were very friendly and totally cool!! Reuben Buchanan’s the best, he’s the person in charge of the skipark operation.

I also bought a new LF Melissa 41″ wakeskate for USD 100 off Maiya who didn’t want it anymore.

On our last night, Governor L.Ray of Naga City threw a party for the Billabong team and all of us at the skipark were invited. It was excellent.

We were told that there were some brazilian models coming to the skipark for photo shoots on the very day we left CWC.

I want to go back to CWC again. I missed that place.

Half-Disastrous wakeboarding holiday

We had it all planned, a great two weeks holiday in the Philippines at the Camsur Watersports Complex, the latest and best cable ski park. Imagine riding every day 6 hours for 15 days, how excited we were!

All set at the airport!

The trip there wasn’t too bad. We took a Singapore Airlines flight from Singapore to Manila, Rebecca picked our domestic flight tickets up from another terminal while I waited with our luggage, and we then took a car I had booked to transfer us to a hotel in Manila for the night.

(In theory it is possible to directly catch the domestic Air Philippines flight to Naga when arriving on SQ, but there are only two hours in between, and with unpredictable immigration queues, possible flight delays and not being familiar with the airport, we didn’t want to take that risk.)

There is only one daily flight from Manila to Naga, the Air Philippines flight 2P 961, it boards at 6:25am. We had to check out of our hotel quite early to be there on time, but it all worked out.

I must say that the Manila airport has improved a lot from my vivid late nineties memories of wild touting, dodgy scams and blatant tourist fleecing schemes… (For example, it seems they have ripped a page from the Kuala Lumpur book and now have a ticketing scheme for taxis: you pay your fare at a dedicated counter before the ride, rather than haggling directly with taxi drivers. Of course their immigration counters still work at about half the speed of any other country’s in the region, but at least they have ethics: nobody offers to speed you up if you pay 10USD more like in Batam.)

Once arrived in Naga, we were picked up by a CWC shuttle bus and checked in to our Cabanas. Really nice. Fairly new, it seemed. Good and working air conditioning. Fifteen meters away from the ski park and 150 meters away from the cafe/restaurant/launch pad. Simple but clean, a working bathroom, with working hot water. One problem was the thin curtains that can’t really block the daylight out when the sun starts shining at 6:00am every day, but that’s really a minor point. I’d recommend the cabanas to anybody staying there… (And you should trust that I know what I am talking about, because I basically ended up spending 90% of my holiday in bed inside Cabana #34!)

On the day we arrived, after a nap, we went riding. All you have heard about this place is true. The obstacles are great. The crew is friendly, the water is flat and wonderful. I was riding for about 4 hours and tried all the obstacles (except for that one kicker on the last stretch back into the dock that seemed too dry).

The starting dock

The left kicker

The right kicker, the table and the dragon

View from launch pad

The funbox

Then I had this unlucky accident on the dragon.

I had done the dragon over 10 times already, but I don’t know what happened that time… I think had a bit too much speed while getting on, I was going too far, real close to the left edge, and I slipped, my wakeskate shooting forward, legs forward up in the air, and I landed full speed, with all my weight, my middle right back hitting the side edge of the dragon really hard. Ouch.

It was painful and I was a bit knocked out. But I didn’t pass out, and I started swimming short strokes back to shore, shaken but not worried. I didn’t realize how bad it was while swimming. When I reached the shore and tried to put my right foot on the ground I found it was so painful that there was no way I could continue riding. All I was able to do was limp back to the cafe at the dock, sit down and catch my breath… and after 10 minutes of that, I really had to go back to our cabana and lie down in bed. I had good sensation in my feet, legs, everywhere, could move my toes etc. so I thought this was just a bad bruise, and I lied down in bed, thinking I would be fine the next day.

It turned out after a sleepless night that the next day was not OK. I was in intense pain for two days, in bed literally without being able to move. The pain was strong and constant, and there was no position I could find that would make me feel better. In addition to that, even a small movement of the bed, like Rebecca sitting down next to me and causing a 1mm movement was so painful, it was just unbearable. I was a moaning mess for two days. Taking a shower in the morning was a real act of heroism, I could take me 10 minutes to cover the 5 meters from the bed to the shower, in constant cries of pain.

After two days of no sleep and no improvement, Rebecca arranged for me to be transported to the local hospital’s emergencies for X-Rays and checks.

Strapped for the trip to the local ER

The guys who helped to take me to hospital

The ambulance

They took many X-Ray shots and found that there was no bone or spinal damage, good news indeed. They gave me medication for pain and a muscle relaxant, and I was sent back to bed, with the very useful advice to “stop wakeboarding for 3 weeks”. Good advice that, indeed. I was basically hoping to walk again first… wakeboarding… next year maybe!

That stuff really works!

After 9 days in bed, and the medication, I was again able to get up and walk around, bent in two and holding my back. Timing was perfect, because two more days and it was time for our trip back to Singapore. So the short summary of my dream holiday: I got there, fucked up my back on day one, then recovered just enough on time for the trip back.

Now I am in Singapore and my back is still a mess. I am working, I can sit and lie down without pain, and I can walk short distances or stand for a short time, but anything more and the pain starts again. Something is still wrong, and I need to get myself some good medical help!

If you know how to read X-Rays, please tell me what’s going on!

I don’t know what I would have done without Rebecca, she took care of me, fed me and helped me for everything. I think she still had a great time, in spite of having to care for terminally moaning me. There were many pros at the ski park, and she took photos with all them, and generally made a lot of progress, just read her blog entry and I dare you not to be impressed.

I’ll wait until my back has healed, but I do want to go back to that place, it’s really the best place in Asia for wakeboarding, I think. I just hope I won’t be so unlucky next time!

New Beginning

 Muahhaha ha I landed my first dock start with a wakeskate

Date : Saturday 27th October

Equipment : 2006 Armada 43

At this moment, my technique is not polished yet so the lightness of the o6 Armada ease the wrist movement of sliding the wakeskate under my feet while I spring off the launch pad!

I may have to resort to taking up bowling to strengthen my  wrist power.

Cheese Wedge

1. Ready

2. Get Set

3. Crouching Tigeress

4. Mid-air 180turn

 5. Nail that bitch

Sooner or Later

It finally happened. I knew this day would come…..just when.

My wakeskate had a butt crack. It cuts right through the foam top. I remember the same feeling when I burst the strings on my tennis racket. I yearn to know what it felt like at that moment, that split second when it paralysed the effort. With the tennis racket, I just had to quickly cut up the remaining strings to save the frame. As in this case, I can probably recycle the wakeskate as a serving tray or perhaps to brag how I use my bare body (yes some people use their bare hands) to mangle this sturdy 9ply wood plus 15mm foam top to surrender under pressure.

I had her for  5 months. I enjoyed my time riding with her. Farewell Melissa……later. Single tear rolls down my left cheek.

Nothing like retail therapy to cope with any woman’s grief.  I can indulge in another wakeskate soon.

New trick…

I did a 180° on the small ramp with the wakeskate yesterday… Twice in three attempts! Mostly luck, I think, because I have no clue how it happened. Rebecca could already do it… and I think I have seen Phil do it too. Looks like I’m catching up?

Dragon with a twist

I have not fully recovered from my shoulder dislocations yet, but I’m well enough to start making progress again.

Saturday night was really good, I added a few feathers to my wakeskating cap by doing all the following in a single run (i.e. in sequence, without falling):

• frontside 360 on the funbox ridge (still a very difficult trick, but I noticed that my success rate goes up dramatically when the water is relatively calm. I did 5-6 of these in 3 hours yesterday, whereas there are days where the water is more choppy and I can spend 3 hours and not land a single one!)
• small ramp jump
• normal dragon run

It took many tries. In previous attempts I could only complete two of these and failed on the 3rd. I usually go for the  funbox 360 first, because that is the most difficult one. If I fail, well… back to the dock and keep trying. If I succeed, then I go either for the dragon or the small ramp. If I succeed at either of these… my heart starts beating because success is within reach… and I guess I got lucky doing all three yesterday.

A side note on dragons and wakeskates: Not many people have conquered the dragon on the wakeskate yet. It’s quite amusing, because many people can do the small ramp… and can’t do the dragon. However, my findings (after exhasting and complicated experiments involving loads of sea water, splashing and the usual dose of ridicule) show that the dragon is actually easier than the small ramp! Yep. You think I’m nuts, right? Well, give it a try, and consider what the main difficulty is for these obstacles: you have to take the jump in a correct, well balanced position, so that you can fly and land centered enough to make it.

Now, this is easy to achieve on the dragon! You have all the time in the world to balance yourself, focus and get ready while you are gliding on the flat part. By the time you reach the exit ramp, you’re steady, legs bent, body slightly pressed back, done with the dozen of other little things required to maximize your chances of successful landing.

Compare this with the small ramp. You have to edge quite hard to reach it, and the waves are shaking your board. You have no time to collect yourself and get ready for anything, it just kicks you up straight up at the end of your approach. Good luuuuck!

Anyway… those of you who have done the small ramp… believe me, the dragon is easy if you dare.

In fact… my other success yesterday was a 360 on the dragon, before the jump, with the wakeskate. It took about 6 tries. Not that difficult either, for the same reasons I explained.