Landing Your First Flip

So you’ve mastered body position, leaning against the line, the progressive edge, and wake to wake jumps, aka the fundamentals of wakeboarding. Chances are you now want to take it a step further; it’s time to try some flips on your wakeboard. There are two easy flips that I suggest you start with: the backroll and the tantrum. To do these, you will need to know how to land a wake to wake jump, and know how to do a backflip (not on your wakeboard, just on a trampoline or into a pool). If you have these 2 skills, you can conquer these tricks fairly easily.

The Backroll

This trick is done going heelside towards the wake. As demonstrated in the picture above, you are essentially throwing your board up the wake as you jump. If done right, the board’s weight will carry your body around, actually spinning you into a barrel roll until you are back upright, and ready to land. The backroll is great because it looks awesome, but really isnt that hard to do. Once you get the motion down you can land these quick and consistently. Here’s how:

Cut out about 10 feet from the wake on a toeside edge. You don’t need to go too far, or rack up too much speed.
Take your back hand off the handle and bring the handle slightly closer to your body by tucking your elbow in.
Cut in towards the wake, heelside, on a progressive edge
As you get to the base of the wake, you should be edging hard. On the base of the wake, throw your hips up, in the direction of the wake, and kind of scoop the board upwards through your leading foot. At the same time, take your head and look over your leading shoulder. This should get all your momentum going up in the same direction. Once the momentum is there, the weight of the board should carry you into a barrel roll.
As you come around and start to complete your barrel roll, you need to spot your landing. Look at about the 3rd progression from the right in the above picture. As you hit this stage, peek at where you are going to land, then get your head up and look at the near shore, this will help with your balance. Now bend you knees and absorb the impact. A tip if you are having troubles landing this would be to stomp your backfoot into the water as you come down. This will dig you in more and prevent you from over rotating as well as give you a stronger base.
Now celebrate! you landed your first flip!!

As you get this down and can consistently land the one handed back roll, you should begin to do it while keeping both hands on the rope. This is slightly harder because you can’t use that back arm for swinging momentum to launch you into the barrel roll. All you need to do is cut out a bit wider and come in a bit faster. Now that you have the feeling down in your hips, it should be easier to scoop them up and around. Once you do it with 2 hands, the landing usually becomes much more stable and comfortable.

Backroll Tips

It is pretty intimidating going for your first flip on the wakeboard. To ease the stress, I would recommend totally letting go of the rope on the first 5-6 attempts. This will help you get the feel of the scoop and spin, but eliminate the fear and pain of hitting the water at high speeds. If you want, tell the boat driver to completely kill the throttle, too, as you hit the wake. This ensures you will be landing in nice soft water, like you’re jumping in a pool.

The Tantrum

backflip tantrum first flip on wakeboard

The tantrum was my first flip that I learned on the wakeboard, and its still one of my favorite tricks to do to this day. If you can do a backflip on a trampoline, this should be relatively easy, because it is essentially just doing a backflip over the wake. Here’s how to do it:

Cut out fairly wide (15-20 feet) on a toeside edge. You need to cut out further than the backroll because this trick requires slightly more power to complete.
Cut back in on a progressive edge, coming at the wake heelside. This trick can only be done with a heelside jump.
As you get 1-2 feet from the wake, take your back hand off the handle and come off your edge. You need to to square your board up almost parallel to the wake as you initiate your tantrum. Look at step 1 to step 2 on the above picture. Notice how his board was pointed at the wake in the 1st frame, then parallel to the wake in the 2nd frame.
As you square up, take the arm that is holding the rope and straighten it. Try to straighten your back arm too. The straighter your arms get, the straighter you are going to flip.
Now just as you are about at the top of the wake, act like you are doing a backflip on a trampoline. Stand up, push off your toes, and throw your head and chest backwards. You have built a lot of momentum with your cut, so you shouldn’t need to push off too much, but just give yourself that little nudge off the wake.
Try to keep your eyes open as you flip, I know its hard, but as you come around you need to spot your landing, and you cannot do that with closed eyes! Spot the landing, then get your head up and look at the far shore, bend your knees, and ride off into the sunset.

Tantrum Tips

Just like the backroll, it may be best if you let go of the rope while you are in the air for the first few times just to get the feeling down. Also, a common problem people will run into when trying to tantrum is that their board will flip 90 degrees while in the air, and they will land with the board perpendicular to the boat. If this is happening to you, make sure to really focus in on straightening the arm that’s holding the rope. Sometimes wakeboarders get nervous and bend that elbow, which is what causes your board to turn.

Now get out there and try some flips! I recommend choosing one of these and focusing on that until you can consistently land it, then moving onto the next. This is one of the most important steps in your wakeboarding career, and also one of the scariest. But sometimes in life you just need to grow a pair and go for it. Good luck!