So... How's Your Progression?

Hey All!

I've been riding cable for about 4-5 years now, the first two just really 2-4 times a year, while for the past 2.5 years would as often as 3-4 times a month since a world class cablepark opened up just an hour away.

Like most people, I really started out not expecting too much from myself and it took quite a while for me to launch consistently, turn/edge and make laps. A friend of mine got really into it and I tagged along until I got a board as a gift. For me initially, all I wanted was able to ride laps and not really ride up the obstacles until riding around got boring.

I eventually learned and got confident riding the obstacles within the last 2 years. Right now I can pretty much hit majority of the obstacles, though I lack style and I can't really do any spins, the most I can do is a backside or a frontside 180 on the ones I'm rather comfortable with (just rooftops and tabletops really )

I can hit hard edge and progressive kicker hits, though I can only do simple grabs (indy, stalefish, tail)...

I'm not really rushing into my progression because I do plan to ride the cable for most of my life (as long as I can probably ride perhaps), since it grew into me and I somehow became passionate about it.

My short term to-do list would probably learning blind-outs, 360 spins on a tabletop or rooftop, and probably a few more kicker tricks (kicker raley and tantrums of the kicker look harder than they seem to be)... Then probably work on surface air tricks last.

Like most people, wakeboarding isn't my primary livelihood and I do fear of risking any traumatic injury. I try not to get peer pressured by some people in the park who've been riding for just a year but are significantly better than me (though sometimes it sucks )

Perhaps my biggest hesistation in doing them is most the ones on my short term list are more prone to injury, especially 'cause I'm still working on executing and reacting faster out in the water.

ex. What freaks me out in trying out blind-outs is the risk of dislocating my shoulder with the wrong execution, or maybe stalling when trying to execute a tantrum off a kicker. Anyway, as we all know it's all in the mind and commitment once you've decided to try them out. (Any tips would be greatly appreciated by the way!)


Thanks for reading my rather long post, I hope to keep this thread alive as a sort of diary for most riders out there and find out how people keep up with their progression and how they pace it Cheers!

Sounds like you know yourself well. The mind is a funny thing. One thing i find really helps is to ride switch and jump switch. Then no matter which trick your doing you can ride it out. Because your comfortable riding and landing switch.

I've been riding for 20 years and just learned a backside 3 this year. I'm probably the king of slow progression. You sound a lot like me wrt fear of trying new things. My opinion on this is that if you are happy then you can't take it too slow. I feel that as long as you are riding you are building up your core and becoming less injury prone over time. If you are like me then every now and then you will get motivated from boredom and learn a new trick. Just keep building on that and the expectation you will be riding all your life.

OTOH, if you want to learn something new then you just have to gather up the cojones and try it. And like Robert said practice riding switch. If you are left foot forward and riding a clockwise cable then you have even more motivation to practice switch.

I find myself always wanting more as I ride. I have been doing this for about 5 years now and in the past 2 really wanting more out of myself. I always feel like something is holding me back and find that I usually blame the lack of wake, board, etc etc. But in reality I truly know it's just me, not having the sac to actually try and throw these new tricks and facing a serious wipeout. There really is a sort of fear factor involved with me. So this summer I've decided, no more excuse, time to nut up and overcome this fear. I watched a video the other day that really made me realize that I was just making excuses. Watched Danny Harf throw a front roll behind a tiny fish & ski boat with a homemade tower that had like zero wake. And the defy trailer, where he talks about overcoming his fear to master something new. I like the diary idea of this thread for riders, it can kinda give us/me somewhere to go to see how other people conquer these things mentally

Just keeping the thread alive... Thanks for everyone who made initial posts!

So I finally tried to do a BS 360 at the tabletop a few weeks ago, its soooo long overdue but I'm glad I finally tried it. It's easy as I expected-the first surface trick i learned was a surface 360 and I was consistent at it, until some time when I suddenly kept getting planted on the water for being too foot heavy.

I'm hoping to do one off the kicker next time, and probably try doing blind 180s off the tabletop too. I'm just too stubborn (bad habits that had grown) when it comes to turning my body.

That's all!