where do we start with Twiggy? There's so much that he does right in and out of the water.
Something that's quite impressive, for me at least, is how well balanced he always is. This photo is awesome, but isn't unique. We've seen him air-drop colossal waves like this before. He sticks them most of the time. He shrugs when he doesn't. That's impressive in its own right.
But something that's striking is that he always has his arms close to or by his sides. This pic shows his trailing elbow up, but it's still only level, maybe even below his shoulder, and that's about as high up as i've ever seen it go. His leading arm is low, down keeping that centre of gravity down near his hips or below. He begins well balanced, and so is able to keep that balance through-out and I think that's one his secrets to being able to ride waves like this.
Of course, the real trick is keeping that control from the start. But, you will see a lot of other guys in similar situations with arms out wide trying to find that balance. They're a league behind. Make no mistake, they're still right up there, but it's composure like this that allows Twig, Dorian and Greg Long to be the stand-outs when others are just trying to survive.
In a way what these guys are doing is like a very finely tuned feat of engineering. Everything has to the just right, slight flaws here and there are magnified to the point where the whole system fails. This begins with lining yourself up right. No small feat. The take-off zone is the size of a sports field and you probably have about a 10m bracket in that for a given wave. And on the bigger days I've surfed in my life, the amount of water moving around out there is terrifying by itself. Just something else to up the ante.
Then there's board speed. We know this is about fitness - obviously. But, like a swimmer will spend hours with his coach refining his stroke, I wonder if Twig and his crew do the same... It would be interesting to hear from the man himself about this. The fitness itself needs little explanation. It's of a very high standard. Need I continuea?
Then there's the boards. A mate of mine said the other day that length is not what you want on a board. I was about to contradict him, when I realised he's right. What you want is volume and planing surface. Unfortunately, the by-product of this is length. Also, another mate of mine went down to DVG - go-to guy for guns in Cape Town to add some heat to his quiver. He asked Dave about Twiggy riding shorter boards in bigger conditions. Dave just shook his head. "Don't worry about that. That's just Twiggy."
Like I said, another league.
photo via quirarte
Something that's quite impressive, for me at least, is how well balanced he always is. This photo is awesome, but isn't unique. We've seen him air-drop colossal waves like this before. He sticks them most of the time. He shrugs when he doesn't. That's impressive in its own right.
But something that's striking is that he always has his arms close to or by his sides. This pic shows his trailing elbow up, but it's still only level, maybe even below his shoulder, and that's about as high up as i've ever seen it go. His leading arm is low, down keeping that centre of gravity down near his hips or below. He begins well balanced, and so is able to keep that balance through-out and I think that's one his secrets to being able to ride waves like this.
Of course, the real trick is keeping that control from the start. But, you will see a lot of other guys in similar situations with arms out wide trying to find that balance. They're a league behind. Make no mistake, they're still right up there, but it's composure like this that allows Twig, Dorian and Greg Long to be the stand-outs when others are just trying to survive.
In a way what these guys are doing is like a very finely tuned feat of engineering. Everything has to the just right, slight flaws here and there are magnified to the point where the whole system fails. This begins with lining yourself up right. No small feat. The take-off zone is the size of a sports field and you probably have about a 10m bracket in that for a given wave. And on the bigger days I've surfed in my life, the amount of water moving around out there is terrifying by itself. Just something else to up the ante.
Then there's board speed. We know this is about fitness - obviously. But, like a swimmer will spend hours with his coach refining his stroke, I wonder if Twig and his crew do the same... It would be interesting to hear from the man himself about this. The fitness itself needs little explanation. It's of a very high standard. Need I continuea?
Then there's the boards. A mate of mine said the other day that length is not what you want on a board. I was about to contradict him, when I realised he's right. What you want is volume and planing surface. Unfortunately, the by-product of this is length. Also, another mate of mine went down to DVG - go-to guy for guns in Cape Town to add some heat to his quiver. He asked Dave about Twiggy riding shorter boards in bigger conditions. Dave just shook his head. "Don't worry about that. That's just Twiggy."
Like I said, another league.
photo via quirarte
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