Matt “Rocky” Rock­hold is one of surfing’s most “Freak-uent Fly­ers”. Work­ing with Xanadu for more than ten years, things started to get costly for both rider and shaper. With every air attempt, his boards were quickly dis­in­te­grat­ing. Here Rocky enlight­ens us on how to stomp a 360 air with­out stomp­ing your foot through your board.

“Why would I sac­ri­fice good waves on shitty boards when I don’t have to.” — Rocky

Rocky, what advise do you have for a surfer want­ing to learn to land airs?

It’s all about prac­tice. The key is com­mit­ting to the air and stay­ing over your board. And if you can’t afford to buy a new board every two months, you need to be on a Tuflite. Before I was rid­ing Tuflites I was “demo­ing” a lot of boards. The decks of my boards looked like the craters on the moon after about a week.

What do you think is the best surf­board con­struc­tion for doing airs?

Tuflite is hand’s down. I ride my Tuflite boards every­day and prob­a­bly do 50 airs a day. Why would I ride a board if it doesn’t per­form right? Why would I sac­ri­fice good waves on shitty boards when I don’t have to. That’s why I ride these boards, they per­form well and they hold up. Who wouldn’t want a board that works insane, lasts for­ever and when you do finally need a new one, you know it’s gonna work just as good as the last one.

Photo: Nelly

Air 101, walk us through a frontside air 360 from take-off to landing.

Step 1 — You need to get as much speed as you can down the line. Usu­ally I know if I’m gonna do a 360 or not before I hit the lip.

Step 2 — You need to do a steeper bot­tom turn so you hit the lip more ver­ti­cal and time your take-off so when the lip throws, you pop off it and into the air.

Step 3 — As you leave the lip and your tail releases, kick your tail out so it rotates around toward the flats, and make sure that you stay on top of your board the entire time.

Step 4 – Try to really get that tail around in the air, then just stomp your land­ing and look for the next section.

Step 5 — When you land, make sure to absorb the land­ing by bend­ing your knees. A few years a go I broke my leg and dis­lo­cated my ankle on a straight legged landing.

“Oh, and you don’t have to be 6’4” and 205 lbs to ride my mod­els. We built them in five dif­fer­ent
sizes so every­one can ramp out on ‘em!”

Shane Dorian & John Carper’s 19-year board design devel­op­ment is one of the longest stand­ing surfer/shaper rela­tion­ships in pro surf­ing today. After eight years of work­ing with Surftech to re-produce Shane’s favorite boards in Tuflite & TL2 con­struc­tion, we caught up with them to hear how the boards are work­ing out.
While Shane is no longer chas­ing around a world title on the WCT, he has been able to con­cen­trate on chas­ing big­ger and bet­ter waves, which truly puts his equip­ment to the test. From fin­ish­ing # 4 in the world on the WCT in 2000, to win­ning the Bill­abong XXL award for “Ride of the Year in 2008, few surfers are as well rounded & diverse as Shane.

“The best 2 boards I have had in the last 2 years were TL2s. I filmed my whole part of “Stranger Than Fic­tion” (steele’s new movie) on my TL2.” – Shane Dorian

Shane Dorain boost­ing on his JC Tuflite

Hey John, how many years have you been work­ing with Surftech and how’s it gone so far?

JC — About 8 years. It’s been good. There is a dynamic ten­sion between us that really chal­lenges us to pro­duce a bet­ter prod­uct. We have learned a lot about com­pos­ite tech­nol­ogy dur­ing these years.

Shane, what did you think of the Tuflite boards after you had rid­den them for a while?

SD — I was blown away at the strength. I’ve rid­den the same orig­i­nal board every year on Tavarua since I got it maybe 6 years ago. The thing is still in per­fect con­di­tion. I don’t know how many days of epic Cloud­break that thing has seen!

Was there any ses­sion that stands out in your mind where you really had the chance to put your Tuflite boards to the test?

SD — I ride them all the time in all con­di­tions. They work really well and they can’t be beat in terms of strength.

John, what do you think are the advan­tages of the Tuflite and TL2 con­struc­tions and how do you feel about Shane rid­ing the TL2 boards all the time?

JC — They’re strong and light and they don’t get ugly when they are old. I wish I was a Tuflite! As for Shane, he truth­fully loves them and would still be rid­ing the orig­i­nal ones if they hadn’t got­ten blasted by a jet engine in Bali thanks to a lame lug­gage han­dler. I just made him a new quiver of TL2’s.

You have a quiver of Tuflite and TL2 boards in your back­yard on the North Shore. How has the feed­back been with peo­ple try­ing the boards?

JC — Every­body that rides them is stoked and since they are so strong I never hes­i­tate let­ting peo­ple ride them. On the North Shore, let­ting a friend bor­row your board is like let­ting another cow­boy ride your horse. On week­ends, when all the long­board­ers are out, I’ll ride the 7’5″ EQUALIZER. I call it “Crowd Con­trol”. It pad­dles as good as a long­board but surfs like a short board.

Shane, how about TL2, how did you get involved with that project and did you need to adjust your surf­ing at all to get used to the flex of a TL2?

SD — The Surftech guys told me what they were try­ing to develop so I got on board and tried to get as close as pos­si­ble to what I was rid­ing in my high-performance short boards. As for the flex, it’s really close. The best 2 boards I have had in the last 2 years were TL2s. I filmed my whole part of “Stranger Than Fic­tion” (Steele’s new movie) on my TL2.

Any­thing else that we haven’t cov­ered regard­ing your Tuflite & TL2 mod­els that you want to talk about?

SD — No. I love them. Been rid­ing them for years and will con­tinue to.
Mahalo, sd

The Core’s Rusty 80’s Walkoff went off ear­lier this month with a room packed full of groms of all ages! The vibe was set by Surftech team rider & DJ Omar Etchev­erry spin­ning the sound­track for the groms to strut to. Of the groovy groms who dared to floss their stuff on stage, it was Austin Smith Ford puttin some glide in his stride across the cat-walk to bring home the nights 80’s Walkoff title!

For more check out
Rusty Walk Off!!

Stop by Kaenon Polar­ized, Sat­ur­day, April 24^th for the 1^st Annual SUP for a Pup.  Help raise money for A Wish For Animals

or adopt your new best friend.  Surf Acces­sories, sam­ples and gear will also be avail­able for great prices.  Live music and

enter­tain­ment and killer grub by Wahoo’s Tacos.  What else are you doing on a Saturday!?!!?!?!?

Elite endurance ath­letes from the Olympic ranks are always look­ing for ways to add some fla­vor to their train­ing reg­i­ment. So our good friend Brent Allen USA Triathlon Expert level Coach helped coor­di­nate an out­ing on Mis­sion Bay (San Diego, CA). We sent Sales Man­ager Ty Zulim down in our Super-Surftech-Sprinter loaded to the roof with SUPs. Surftech Endurance Ath­lete, Roch Frey, head coach at www.multisports.com; took time out of his busy sched­ule to take part and clinic the ath­letes about the phys­i­cal ben­e­fits of stand up pad­dling and proper stand up pad­dle technique.

Roch drop­pin some SUP knowledge

We ended up hav­ing an impres­sive group from the Olympic Train­ing Cen­ter in Chula Vista, CA  which included: Olympic Row­ers Dan Walsh, Sam Stitt, Wes Tier­mani, Mag­gie Hogan, for­mer pro-cyclist Saul Raisin, Elite triath­letes Jen Spielden­ner, Matt Chrabot, and Ethan Brown. It was a great break for all of the ath­letes to learn some­thing new that gave them a GREAT core work-out and time on the water.

When triath­letes head to the open water it is usu­ally for the first part of their triathlon swim-bike-run. When row­ers head to the water it is nor­mally to take a seat in one of the many row­ing boats. This was a great oppor­tu­nity for all of them to have a new per­spec­tive on the water and to work on dif­fer­ent mus­cle groups that they don’t nor­mally tar­get in their usual training.

The future of Olympic Ath­lete training

Many triathlon coaches are now find­ing  Surftech stand up pad­dle boards are the per­fect piece of equip­ment to teach open water swim­ming from. “It is like a mov­ing pool deck. It cre­ates an opti­mal van­tage point to com­mu­ni­cate with the ath­letes while they’re in the water and a give them direc­tion”. All the Olympic ath­letes and Olympic hope­fuls for the 2012 games where stoked and are look­ing for­ward to get­ting back out on the Surftech stand up boards for more training.

For more on the Olympic Train­ing Cen­ter SUP clinic visit; www.usatriathlon.org

Don’t have any plans yet for Memo­r­ial Week­end?  Join us Sat­ur­day, May 23^rd at Don­ner Lake for the Memo­r­ial Week­end Pad­dle­board and SUP race.  Pro­ceeds ben­e­fit the Truc­kee High “Tor­pe­dos” Swim Team.

Fresh off of knee surgery, for­mer World Cham­pion, Sunny Gar­cia stopped by the ware­house the other day to add another board to his quiver.  Sunny’s 11’6 Laird SUP will be a major fac­tor in his knee reha­bil­i­ta­tion and help­ing him get back on top.

WATERMANS:  APPLIED SCIENCE PRESENTS, “THE SURFAID PADDLE FOR HUMANITY”

A Two and 6-mile Pad­dle­board and SUP race.

Doheny State Park (May 2, 2009)  – Atten­tion all Surfers, Pad­dlers, and Water­sports Enthu­si­asts.  May 2^nd, Water­mans: Applied Sci­ence will host the first annual “Sur­fAid Pad­dle for Human­ity” at Doheny State Park located in beau­ti­ful Dana Point, Cal­i­for­nia. All pro­ceeds from this event will go directly to Sur­fAid Inter­na­tional to help sup­port their efforts in bring­ing Malaria edu­ca­tion and pre­ven­tion, sus­tain­able clean water projects, and san­i­ta­tion to parts of the world con­nected to us through surf­ing.  Please join us in our effort to raise $10,000 for such a wor­thy cause.

Whether you are a sea­soned racer or a first time par­tic­i­pant there is a race for you.  The Sur­fAid Pad­dle will include a 2-mile recre­ational pad­dle and a 6-mile com­pet­i­tive course.  Both pad­dles will include Men and Women’s SUP and pad­dle board divi­sions with prizes going to the top fin­ish­ers in each divi­sion.  Join us for a morn­ing of fun in the sun, includ­ing a huge raf­fle and silent auc­tion that will include cloth­ing, acces­sories, art­work, and boards from some of the top brands in the industry.

One great addi­tion to this race will be a demo pro­gram made pos­si­ble through the gen­er­ous help of Joe Bark Pad­dle­boards and Surftech.  Demos are lim­ited and will be assigned on a first come first serve basis.  Poten­tial pad­dlers must pre-register for a demo prior to reg­is­tra­tion to reserve their board.  If you haven’t pad­dled in the past and always wanted to give it a try this is a great oppor­tu­nity to test out a board from one of the great­est pad­dle­board shapers of all time, com­pete in the recre­ational pad­dle, and watch the best of the best bat­tle it out dur­ing the com­pet­i­tive event.  Regard­less of your level of par­tic­i­pa­tion this promises to be a fun day for all.

For more infor­ma­tion visit www.watermansappliedscience.com and click on the Sur­fAid Pad­dle icon located at the bot­tom of the home page.

For event reg­is­tra­tion visit http://www.surfaidinternational.org/paddle09. To reg­is­ter to use a Surftech demo board dur­ing the event please con­tact Pete Stir­ling at pstirling@tankfarmmfg.com or by phone: 949.596.0082