Wakeboarding Tricks and Why it's Okay to Throw a Tantrum

Wakeboarding – the New Buzz for Boarders

Ever heard of wakeboarding? I have to admit until recently all I knew about the boards were to do with surfing, skating and thanks to the winter Olympics, snowboarding. As far as water sports go, waterskiing was the thing for the twentieth century.

A job prospect for article writing came up recently so I responded with my usual enthusiasm. They wanted a sample of my writings and the topic - to my absolute dread - was wakeboarding tricks. I was flummoxed. I’d never heard of wakeboarding. But, with a little surfing of my own (without a board or a net, I might add) and some ten hours later I had not only produced a 500 word article but had been introduced to the world of wakeboarding. All I can say now is - what a buzz! Oh to be twenty years younger and fitter and ready to hit the water. 

Now I get it. It’s like a progression of skills for water-skiers or as the water-skiers might see it a regression in skills. The rider is after all using both feet on one board and being pulled along by a high speed motor boat. How hard can it be if you already know the basics of skiing?

After my research, it turns out there is more to wakeboarding than meets the eye. As with water skiing not everyone gets to stand up on the first go, but some do and are attributed to having a natural ability. It seems these are the ones to follow.

There is probably no better way to explain the sport than to show you - so click on the link below that will take you to the ‘YouTube’ video for the ride of your life. This rider has had in excess of 400,000 views so he's either really good or has a lot of friends!

See? It’s awesome or whatever phrase they’re using in this decade for ‘far out’, or that’s ‘unreal man’. But to get to this level you’ll not only need to know the basics but you’ll have to learn a whole new language. In otherwords, in wakeboarding it's okay to throw a tantrum.

I discovered - in my research – that once wake boarders have mastered the basics of getting off the boat and standing on their board, they will then have to learn how to ‘get air’ and ‘do an invert’, so they can master a ‘tantrum’. Once these lessons have been mastered they can move on to serious wakeboarding tricks. The tricks are named in competitions by the rider that performs them first so there are some quirky phrases out there such as a ‘tantrum to fakie’ or a ‘spiderman’ (which is really just another term for a whirlybird).

The mind boggles but the feet are ready to learn the next wakeboarding trick to be performed to the sounds of Korn or Jay-Z.... A pre-requisite of wakeboarding as it turns out. Check out any of the videos and they all have that heart thumping beat that you only find in the top money spinning nightclubs – or at your local traffic lights.

The wakeboarding movement is here and probably not just a passing fad. In the few hours I spent surfing the net I discovered a sport that looks like it’s here to stay. It will be up there with the greats of surfing and water skiing for a long time to come.

Copyright © Karen Wilton 2010