Dane vs. Jordy: Who Does Higher Surfing Aerials?

The biggest 2010 surfing event in the US was recently completed in perfect 6 foot waves at Trestles in Southern California. The surfing was innovative and exciting with technical and high flying performances, elevating surfing to a mesmerizing and progressive spectator sport.

This was the first surf event to use the new competition format, pitting the worlds top 32 surfers and 4 qualifiers against each other. If you want to find out more about the surfing World Championship Tour check out this video or head to the ASP Surfing website. The new format and fantastic waves brought the best out of many surfers on the tour.

Dane Reynolds and Jordy Smith were stand out performers, particularly in the air and that's where we want to go in this blog. Just like basketball slam dunk competitions, the higher the aerial maneuver the more exciting and better it is. Of course if the surfer does not land and ride out then it cannot count (similar to a missed basket in an attempted slam). The surfing judging criteria do not specify height in an aerial move as a criteria, but height above the wave definitely makes the move look more difficult.

In the video we have Dane and Jordy performing aerial moves at the Trestles Hurley Pro. Dane is first up and we will look at his first air. Jordy is third surfer up and we will look at his "Superman" air when his feet come off the board.



To compare these two aerial moves we will measure height above the top of the wave at the peak for the air. We will do this because the camera footage allows us to see both the surfer and top of the wave in the same image for both surfers.

To measure their height above the wave we have to make some assumptions. Firstly we need to estimate the length of their surfboards. We will use this length to scale the video and allow us to measure height.  We will assume that the board Dane was riding was 6 foot 1 inch (73 inches) Al Merrick Proton that he refers to in this video. We will assume that Jordy is riding a 6 foot 2 inch (74 inches)board as he talks about here.

Take a look at the images below. First Dane and then Jordy.





To compare their aerial heights we measured the height of their hips above the wave. Dane and Jordy both get their hips just under 5 foot (60 inches) above the top of the wave. Dane may be a little higher, an inch or so, but as the video of these aerial moves was taken from different positions and with different fields of view, we need to allow for  some error. So we will have to say that both got about the same height above the wave.

So who did better? The judges scored Dane's wave with this aerial in round 3 of the event as a 9.33 out of 10 and Jordy's wave with his "Superman" air, also in round 3, as a 9.60. A wave is not judge only on one move though(unless its the only move) and Jordy did bigger moves on the rest of his wave than Dane. So maybe height of an aerial move does factor into the judges scoring and in this case the judges scored both waves high because of the incredible amplitude that both surfers reach.

Of course surfing is not only about being in the air above the waves but also about the movement, flow, power and combinations on the face of the wave. The 2010 Hurley Pro at Trestles was not won by either Dane or Jordy, but rather by the master of surfing, Kelly Slater.

Kelly is currently leading the World Championship Tour ratings going for his 10th title, but Jordy and Dane (2nd and 4th respectively) are right in it to. We expect the surfing will continue to be as exciting as it was at Trestles with these three athletes pushing each other to greater heights and hope to be seeing and analyzing the first aerial move 6 foot above the wave.

Progressive Surfing Needs Analysis

The Surfing World Championship tour is currently in the middle of the second event of the season held at Bell's beach (made famous in the movie Point Break)and by now many surfing fans will know that the judging criteria for 2010 have changed.

If you are a surfer or simply a fan of competitive surfing and the likes of Kelly Slater or Mick Fanning then you will know that the Surfing World Champion is determined by the overall points winner of a 10 event world championship tour.

Each wave in a man on man competition in surfing is scored as the total of points for 2 waves. Each wave is scored out of a maximum of 10 points. Judges now reward progressive and aerial maneuvers with more points. So one extremely progressive, difficult move can potentially score a surfer 10 points if he performs it perfectly, lands it and rides out. Surfing judges use the following criteria to determine the surfer's wave score:

• Commitment and degree of difficulty
• Innovative and progressive manoeuvres
• Combination of major manoeuvres
• Variety of manoeuvres
• Speed, power and flow

The new judging system obviously wants to see surfers try different and risky tricks and combinations of tricks and will reward them for landing these tricks. Although from our casual observance it seems surfers get some points for trying progressive maneuvers, they definitely get many more points when they punctuate the trick by landing it and flowing back into another move or back into the wave itself.

The video below has some excellent examples of progressive aerial surfing, at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, by some of the Worlds best surfers.


The importance in the judging criteria of landing moves such as those seen in the video, means that surfers will need to spend time working on their technique.

With the help of video analysis they can assess their aerial maneuver take off positions, the height they attain and other factors during flight such as rotation. Landing positions that will allow the surfer to ride out of the maneuver and into the next one, require excellent balance and technique. All these factors which will lead to progressive moves can and should be analyzed.

The analysis can then help them to add height or variety to their moves, impressing the judges further and blowing the competition away.

Most pro surfers have hours of video footage of themselves to analyze. However many of these are shot for cinematic effect and may not give the best angle for analysis. With the new criteria pro surfers will also want to get video that will give them the best analysis possible.

For the rest of us, watching video of pros and capturing video of ourselves for analysis will allow us to improve our technique and general surfing. Please browse our site for suggestions on cameras and how to get great footage to do just this and contact us to let us know how you are getting on.

Performance Analysis of Surfing: Rodeo Clown Flip

Anyone who has seen a surfer or skateboarder pull off a flying aerial move is amazed that a human can do such an incredible trick. Although we are all completely dumbstruck by the performance of these maneuvers, these sports often have an unfair reputation of not being truly professional. We often consider these athletes to simply be kids who have spent too much time playing around on the beach.

Surfing and Skateboarding are no longer sports dominated by athletes with talent only. These professional athletes spend many hours training. Professional surfers now spend almost as much time out of the surf, working out (often with trainers) on balance balls, with weights, and in the gym and swimming pool. They do thorough warm up sessions before going out to compete and often also have cool down routines for after a surf.

The use of scientific analysis in surfing has been long in coming. There are a number of reasons for this and I won't give you a history of soul surfing, but the main reason is the difficulty of doing any physiological or biomechanics testing on a surfer. Because surfers do their sport in water and shifting, changing waves (size, direction, steepness...), it is very difficult to test them in the same conditions and obtain relevant scientific results.

Recently, for the first time a team of scientists joined some professional surfers in the Mentawais and recorded their paddle speed, surfing speed and heart-rate during surfing sessions. They also took blood samples to monitor lactic acid build-up and hydration data. These scientists were able to provide the surfers with some physiological and performance data which will surely help them to train better for competition.

Using video to analyze surfing is another way in which these athletes and other non-professional surfers could improve their performance. The professional surfers get lots of video of their performances from all different angles and we hope they use this information to make improvements. Of course, because of the changing waves and the 3 dimensional nature of surfing (moving up and down, forward and sideways), it is difficult to make comparisons with video.

As we looked through some of the video from the surfing trip to the Mentawais, we found one of Jordy Smith of South Africa, performing a Rodeo Clown Flip. We won't try to describe the move here. At about the same time at a competition in the Maldives, an American surfer, Patrick Gudauskus was completeing the first ever rodeo clown in competition. We have decided to look at both these videos and compare their performances. Jordy's wave is the first video and then Pat's wave is the first part of the second video.





Once you get over being completely amazed that surfers can do such things on a wave, take a closer look.

The first thing you will notice is that Jordy is on a much bigger wave than Pat and this can make comparison difficult. We can still look at the technique though and we will do this in stages.

1. The Setup: Jordy launches into his rodeo clown with his board facing almost vertically up at the sky, while Pat's board is about 30 degrees from the vertical when he launches. This may be because of the size of the wave. However, what is obvious is how this affects the height of the flip. Jordy's vertical entry helps project him higher into the air.
2. The Take Off: Here both Jordy and Pat transfer their weight onto their back foot. This helps them launch the board out of the water, bring the board up to their hands for the grab and creates the rotation by pushing on the back of the board.
3. The Grab and Spin: Once again they both use a similar technique here. They both grab the board quickly once they are in the air and begin their rotation. Some of their rotation has come from the back foot pushing on the board but once they are in the air they both use their heads to complete the spin. Watch how they both turn their heads to their left (the direction of spin) . If they did not use their heads to turn they would not be able to complete the spin.
4. The Top of the Flip: As they spin around both surfers actually travel upward to their high point. The high point of the flip is determined by the surfers maximum height above the wave. It is obvious here that Jordy is much higher than Pat throughout the flip. At the top, Jordy's body and board are well above the wave (we can see sky and clouds between him and the wave). Pat's board and body are at just about the height of the wave. Although in this case it does look like Jordy is much higher we need to clarify this by pointing out that Jordy is on a bigger wave (this is not controlled by the surfer) and the camera angle filming these two flips is not the same and therefore the camera angle used to film Jordy's flip may be making it look much higher than it was.
5. The Landing: The landing of course is dependent on all the other factors that occurred before, including the take off, spin and height. Jordy has rotated further and is still above the wave as he prepares to land. He therefore needs to stretch out his legs to find his landing and ride out of it. Pat, on the other hand has not been able to rotate as far, because he did not get the same height above the wave. He is forced to land low down, but by landing with knees bent and hands still on the board he too is able to ride out.
   

So both of these flips were spectacular and although they looked different they were actually performed with similar techniques and there is a lot to learn by analyzing the videos.

Unfortunately, those of us who surf for fun and do not have sponsors, do not have too many opportunities to see ourselves in action. You can however set up a camera on a beach or get someone to film you from the beach. Try to get video looking straight out at the wave from the beach. It is difficult to analyze your performance when studying video that was filmed at an angle to the wave. It is also useful to have some sort of calibration scale that can be used to measure height (as we did in a previous post on Measuring Jump Height). Of course if you can get more than one camera setup you can really take a look at your technique from multiple views, which makes sense for a sport such as surfing.

We love to hear your comments or suggestions. Let us know what you think or what you want to see posted.