ZOLTAN HAS LANDED.........

Skateboarders have been doing them for more than 30yrs. What am I talking about?? I'm talking about surf history being written, I'm talking about the first ever surf KICKFLIP. Yes, a kickflip and it's just the beginning of the many flip tricks that will be stolen from the skate world. It took surfers years to get the skate grabs down, but now Mutes, Liens, and Stale Fishes along w/ pop shove- its are standard moves. The kickflip opens the door to a whole new world of surf progression. Soon we will start seeing heel flips, frontside flips,etc. Don't expect it to happen over night, but it will happen and when it does, you can say I told you so.

I spent two years trying kickflips and I never rode away from one. I made the decision early on to stick to my regular short board which makes it much harder than doing it on a board that's a little bigger, but I felt if I couldn't do it on my everyday board what good was it.

As you can see Zoltan and I have the same approach when it comes to attempting kickflips. We both cruise down the line and as we come out of the pocket we pop and kick. This type of kick flip is the same as riding down the street on a skateboard and doing a kickflip. Our approach is a natural transition from pavement to water.

If you look at this video of Josh Sleigh you can see he is turning his board up the face of the wave and launching above the lip before kicking. I feel it would help getting used to landing kickflips like the one Zoltan did before starting to do them above the lip like Josh.

It's only a matter of time until kids will be able to bottom turn on a big day come up mid face, stall, and as they start to accelerate bust a kickflip as the lip pitches over and they get shacked and spit out. It sounds crazy but after trying thousands of kickflips I understand how it works and it's just a matter of time till kids can do kickflips as easy as they do them on a skateboard. Doing them above the lip will always be a struggle due to wind but they will go down.

Congratulations to Zotlan for pioneering the first kickflip.

PROGRESSION.. You can't stop it

Were in the shop till 5:00pm today. Surf is waist high and junky but I still found some fun ones this morning. Should be surf all week so keep an eye on it.... Steve