Lessons
25.Throwing the fins out
26.Chop Hop
27.Grab Rail Turns
28.Carving Reverse
29.Off the lip Reverse
30.Backside Reverse
31.Backside Tuberiding
32.Frontside Air
33.Backside Air
34.Air Grabs
35.Alley Oop
36.Frontside Air Reverse
37.Backside Air Reverse
38.Superman Air
39.Rodeo Flip

32. Frontside Air

This is the destination of where surfing is at right now. If you turn on any modern surf flick at least half the moves you see are aerials or some form of an air. They aren’t going to go away like some of the older generation might wish for, they are here to stay and when you land one it will feel like nothing you have ever felt in surfing before!

Lets run through a couple of things you have to expect will happen when you are learning airs. If you haven’t already broken a board you have to expect it is going to happen now you are trying airs.
You will end up face planting into the sand at some point as well as landing on your board in ways you really wish you hadn’t. Airs can be painful when you get them wrong and they are without a doubt one of the very hardest things you can do in surfing. When I say how hard they are im sure you probably have mates who think they can nail them but in reality they are just doing little credit card sized airs, these don’t count as airs! If you are willing to sacrifice your boards and your body to get the feeling of flying down the line, launching out the lip, flying through the air and landing cleanly back on the wave then welcome to the class.

What we are going to teach you here is a standard straight air, so many people in the world are amazing at these, to be on the top 44 these days you have to be but guys like Nathan Fletcher are ridiculously good when it comes to these kind of airs.
A straight air is one when you launch out the lip, take to the skies and land back on the wave with the nose of your board facing the beach. An air reverse, which we will teach you a little later on in lesson 36. Is an air with a spin where you land backwards on the wave with your tail facing the beach and as you drop down the wave you spin out of it so you are riding the right way again.
If you happen to do an air reverse by accident when you are learning straight airs don’t worry about it…. Really, I know so many guys out there who can nail big straight airs but cant do air reverses. On the other had there are other guys who find air reverses easier to do than straight airs. We are going to try and teach you straight airs first though as most people find these easier than air reverses.

What you’re really looking for as perfect air conditions is a sucky little beach break with light onshore winds. If you can find one where the wave height on the takeoff is bigger than the end section where you are going to be launching then that’s even better. The main things are a beach break so you don’t slam into a reef when you fall and a light onshore wind.

A perfect section to launch off of is one that is just about to crumble or a section that is peeling towards your, the section that is peeling towards you is probably the best place to start because they tend to offer more consistently perfect launch ramps. When you’re going down the line the more speed you have the better. It is very rare that you will have too much speed to try an air; you will have to be going Mach10 for this to be the case.
When you see the section that you want to punt off you don’t want to do a hard bottom turn and head too vertically at the section. If you come off the bottom really hard like you are going to do a massive Reo you will loose a lot of precious speed that is going to get you to the lip and then propel you out the top of it.
An ideal bottom turn will be one where you thrust up towards the lip at slightly more than a 45 degree angle, remember you don’t want to be too vertical but you also don’t want to hit that lip too flat, if you do you won’t be able to get much height.

So as you hit the lip you want to launch yourself and your board out of it and take to the skies. Its good to really launch out a few times to get the feeling of coming off the lip in that way but when you do it like this you will be completely out of control and have no chance of landing the air. Once you get the feeling down of launching its time to take a step backwards and launch smaller more controlled airs. Everyone can do big throwaway airs, not many people can land them. By launching airs with the intention of landing them this is the only way to properly learn them. The higher you can get the better but as you launch off the lip you want to concentrate on staying over your board, this is a very important part, the more centered you stay over your board, the greater chance you have of sticking it and at this stage this is more important than getting a lot of height.
For now don’t worry about your stance, an ugly air is better than no air at all, especially if you are landing them, but sooner or later you are going to want to get someone to film you so you can see exactly what you look like when you do them, only here will you be able to make improvements on your style.
When your in the air its entirely upto you if you grab your board or not. If it happens it happens but generally it is a bit harder to get a grab in as its another thing to think about, although if you do get a solid grab in it can help you keep centered over your board and in control. We will talk more about Grabs a little later on though.
The most important things to remember are commitment, because like most technical difficult manouvers in surfing commitment is a key factor, if you don’t really want to bust out and nail an air you never will. Also control, without control you have no chance of landing an air, the sooner you learn how to control your airs the sooner you will be landing them.