Week 5 was a cracker on many fronts, the videos kept coming in and across the board the action was hotter than ever, we had no idea that kids 14 yrs and under surfed so good, and charged so hard.
We were inspired and stoked on so many fronts and we gave away a heap of prizes from our family of sponsors.
Clip of the week winners
Week 5 has been by far the most competitive with so many amazing videos coming our way and with such variety that the decisions were super hard to make.
GIRLS 14’s
Tayla Green 14 years old from the Sunshine Coast. Tayla’s surfing is powerful and radical so we’re sending her a prize pack from our friends at @boostaus that includes a refurbished iPhone and 12 months free coverage from Australias largest network.
GIRLS 12’s
Catalina Zariquiey from Mancora Peru. At only 11 years old, Catalina has a backhand attack that is ready to win her some big heats. We see a lot of potential in Catalina and we can’t wait to watch and support as her surfing evolves. Congratulations, we’re sending you a prize pack from our sponsors.
SPECIAL MENTIONS
Luke Tema submitted a crazy tube, we had all-round ripping from Quaid Fahrion, the smooth Brazilian Rickson Falcao, Maui’s Chase Burns flaring, the stylish Rene Galloway and Shey Halford all came into consideration for the boys 14’s and deserve honourable mentions.
Also wanted to make a shout-out to Finn McCarty, Tristan Straetz and Ben Estherhyze from South Africa you guys were amazing too and in our calculation for the boys 12’s.
BOYS 14’s
Lukas Skinner‘s video blew us all away! The airs of the 12-year-old from Cornwall in the UK are extraordinary. Congratulations mate, we’re sending you a prize pack from our sponsors. Lukas is injured and out of the water at the moment so we’re wishing him a speedy recovery.
BOYS 12’s
Boys 12’s was just too hard to split so we ended up with a tie. 9yr-old Lucas Deffenti from the Gold Coast and 8yr-old Moses Hennings from San Clemente. These two young surfers are mind-blowing with great styles of their own and a maturity that makes you think they must’ve surfed in another life. Congratulations to both you groms, we’re sending you each a prize pack from @hurley @hurley_anz
MORE PRIZES FROM LAST WEEK
One of the best things about this online form of the BL Blast Off is discovering new talent from far away places across the globe. Two groms showing a heap of potential are Cairo GarcÃa Plartus and Alejo Valido from the Canary Islands. At 9 and 11 years old, these young guys show powerful performances. We’re sending you guys a prize pack from our friends at @hurley and @sunbum
The improvement in Zolten Poulsen‘s surfing throughout our video challenge window and is exactly what we love to see and hoped for taking Blast Off online. Thank you for your froth and commitment Zolten, we’re sending you a prize pack from our friends at @spyoptic And can’t wait to see more from you.
Great to see the kids progress their surfing during this video challenge, here’s an example from Jaya Suhendra 6 years old and showing real improvement since your early video, ripping! Because we love your stoke, we’re sending you a prize pack from our friends at @ufo_surfÂ
One of the kids who has brought us stoke these last few weeks is Margaret River’s Olive Hardy. She has been in consideration for our weekly awards a couple of times now and been so very close so we wanted to acknowledge her great surfing and stoke with today’s award. At only 10 yrs of age, this young lady is going to be something big and our good friends @sharkbanz are sending you some product to celebrate your potential.
Coach Ako's Tip Of The Week
Compression. Extension. Rotation.
Here we will break CER down for you to its basic components & then you can get out in the waves to develop your CER skills.
CER is what makes your surfboard turn up & down the wave face. So it stands to reason the better we all are at understanding & using CER, the better turns we can pull. CER is complex at its higher levels yet basic in its core principle. Today we will explore the basic core principles of CER.
CER is about using your body like a “spring”. It’s about creating energy & it’s that energy which turns your surfboard. So it makes sense that the better you get at CER, the better your turns can be.
COMPRESSION = how low & balanced you crouch in your stance, while setting up your turns.
EXTENSION = how you use your body’s “spring” action coming out of your compressions.
ROTATION = how you give your “spring” action a direction to follow.
Try this experiment…
Squeeze a spring & let it go… watch it take off. By squeezing the spring you have created dynamic energy & by letting the spring go you have released that energy… BUT that energy has no direction & the spring goes anywhere… So in surfing, we compress & extend to create dynamic energy & we used Rotation to give direction to the energy our compression & extension have created.
Ok so go practice & have fun developing your CER skills.
What we learnt this week
Personally we learnt that quarantine sucks and we cannot wait to be back in the ocean but we have lived our surfing life through your videos and you guys put smiles on our faces every day, thank you.
