backside 180
 

My parents have my twin boys this weekend (party time!) and I'm committed to using the time to finally land a backside 180. I can do an ollie backside 180 (out in the flats - no wake) and an inside-out backside 180, but have never ridden away wake to wake. I've watched a bunch of instructional videos, but I still have one lingering question - when I land, should I be looking at the shoreline on the side of the boat that I landed, or backward, kinda down the wake that I landed on? On the few wake to wake attempts that I've tried, I always fall back, slipping out over my heels and falling on my backside. If it matters, all of my ollie and inside out 180s are done with no handle pass, and my few wake to wake attempts have been as well. I think if I knew for certain exactly where to look when landing it would give me more confidence and help me focus on riding away on my toes.

If you land wrapped. You need to spot your landing off the tail of the board. If you look at the shore or the boat, you will tend to sit down on your butt.

Make sure you are standing tall chest over toes on landing as well. Landing wrapped is tough, but very possible, just feels funky. A common tendency is to sit into the landing, fight it lol, stand up chest out.

I always passed the handle at the last second and looked at my feet, which in turn got me on my toes.

When I land wrapped, I land bolts. no edging just coasting flat in the proper direction. Edging will unwind you.

That said. I never land on an edge. Always flat and pointing the right direction. It will let you get away with murder on the landings.

One think I like to do is go out, ride cuffed/switch a little bit. Then try to mellow cut away from the boat on your switch toe. This kind of simulate the correct landing position. Look back, don't look at shore.

Thanks for the tips everyone! Life is funny. I was really hoping to post a "here's my first backside 180 - bolts!!" video tonight, but things didn't go as planned. To make a long story short, my dad's riding spot (the mighty susquehanna river) was too high and swift to boat with 6 year olds, so he brought my guys to my riding spot, the not so mighty rancocas creek, and we all went out together. But, things turned out even better than I could have imagined. Even though I didn't get to work on the 180, I did manage to get both my guys up on skis behind the boat for the first time. Here's a picture of Rip and then Maddox. I'm not abandoning my hopes of landing the 180 though . . . .

awesome - we have twins (b/g) and seeing them progress is the bomb.

check out "Snapperhead Wakeboard Crew" on facebook if keen

#twins