Hans Hedemann Surf School English Blog

SurFitness have worked up a great back circuit, that can usually get done in under 15 minutes!So, you are sick and tired of being tired when you paddle out. Well we have got the answer that may help some of your pain. This workout is really going to work those paddling muscles, and help get you ready for your next surf session. What we did was string together a series of four pulling exercises to help improve your paddling speed and endurance. All you need is a set of exercise bands and you are ready to go. You want to talk about a real burner!!!

Okay, you are looking at four exercises that you have never seen before, and they may look a bit strange. We would like you to master each exercise before attempting the entire circuit. What we mean by master is that you show good control throughout the movement. This is key to achieve optimal results! When you have done this, you are ready to get down to business!
Exercise 1 The Row
This is a great exercise that helps the body with its pulling mechanics. Start in a hip width stance, knees slightly bent; belly tight, shoulders back and chest out. Pull your hands towards the armpits, and remember to keep your wrists straight. Let the arms return to the original position ands repeat for twenty repetitions.

Exercise 2 Bent over Alternating Pulls
Keeping with the same foot stance, bend over at the waist. You are going to pull your hands towards your shoulders in and alternating fashion. Remember to keep the midsection tight! Perform twenty alternating pulls (10 per arm).

Exercise 3 Pull With Step
Okay we are going to go back into the upright position and we need to get ready for our pull with a step. Basically it´s just as the name states; we are going to step back as we simultaneously pull. This one gets a bit tricky, so make sure it is mastered before doing it in the circuit. Perform twenty alternating pull steps (that is 10 per leg).

Exercise 4 The Stroke
This is the killer right here! I am sure you are feeling it by now, and this is the time you need to kick it up a bit. Imagine a cleanup set is coming in, and you really need to paddle you´re a$$ off. Well this is the money right here. Starting in an upright position, with your arms straight out in front of you, pull down and back towards the ground, remember to keep your midsection tight. When you are in the finished position, the band should be touching the shoulder like in the picture. Return back to your upright position and perform 19 more of these monsters!

When you finish this circuit, you will have done 80 repetitions, usually in less than 90 seconds. A keynote here about this circuit is to perform it with speed! What is speed? Speed is as fast as you can perform an exercise without breaking down or losing control of the movement. So speed for one may look extremely different to another.

When to do: Whenever you want to blast your back, and you have minimal time, or as a warm-up to your traditional back routine.

How many: Start out with one set and work your way up to three sets, when you are feeling good you can do four.

Questions: Feel free to contact SurFitness any time regarding this or any other workout at the address below.

Check out Surfitness Circuit Training

Chuck Inman and Tiffany Rabacal : photo Rob Santanello

TANDEM SURFING FROM THE BEGINNING

Tandem surfing started at Waikiki as the early Hawaiian surfers frolicked for endless hours on their surfboards.  Both men and women surfed then and it seems natural that they also rode tandem.  The first photographic record of tandem surfing was in the 1930’s.  The Waikiki beach boys would take the tourist women out for rides on their boards.  To give them a more exciting ride and to show off for those watching on the beach, they would pick the gals up into a shoulder sit and probably even do shoulder stands.

Another reason to do “lifts” on a tandem board is that while tandem surfing with an untrained girl, it is actually harder to turn and control the big tandem board with her standing on the deck.  As soon as she is hoisted up on to his shoulders, the guy can ride and turn the board as though he were surfing alone.  .

Two California surfing legends, Pete Peterson, considered to be the best all around surfer-waterman and tandem surfing champion of the 1960’s, and Loren Harrison, a surfing pioneer and outrigger canoe paddler, first went to Waikiki in 1932.  There they learned tandem surfing from the beach boys and brought it back to Calif.  They both tandem surfed in the ‘30’s through the 1960’s.  There were small tandem events at the early San Onofre Surfing Club contests, but the first big tandem contest was at Makaha Hawaii in 1954.

In those days, only the top male competitors tandem surfed.  The elite of the sport was entered in the tandem event: Pete Peterson, Rabbit Kekai, George Downing, Walter Hoffman, Tommy Zahn and Black out Whaley.  At that time, the tandem lifts were very basic and relatively easy, so normal size girls were ok.  Now, 46 years later, the lifts have evolved into complicated routines with intricate balance that requires small athletic women or girls.

Tandem finalists practicing : photo Anglet Surf Photo

By the late 1960’s it became quite an advantage to find a very small female for a tandem partner.  Since the guys are all different sizes, a “weight rule” was adapted that required the female partner to be no less than one half her male partner’s weight.  The 1960’s were an exciting time for tandem surfing.  Many of the biggest names in surfing participated in tandem surfing.  Pete Peterson brought many new lifts that he learned from a famous place called Muscle Beach where acrobats and weight lifters used to work out.

Steve and Barrie Boehne invented some of the most popular lifts used today.  The list of tandem lifts grew from the basic 6 to over 25 by 1970, making the sport much more interesting to do and watch.  For years, a beach girl or your wife could be your partner, but recently in competition it has become necessary to find a girl with professional gymnastic training to do the difficult arm to arm variety of handstands that are now popular.  Even so, nearly every lift that is being done now had been done by 1970.  In the early days, teams only did one lift on each wave they rode.

To get an edge in competition, Steve and Barrie were the first to combine several lifts on one ride.  They specialize in transitioning from one lift to another while Barrie remains in the air without restarting from the board.  This Style of tandem surfing has become the standard for competition, but creates difficulties for the judges who seldom have knowledge or training in tandem surfing.  Inexperienced judges usually miss the technicalities.

Through the 1950’s and early 1960’s the Makaha International surfing championship was the unofficial world contest of surfing and it always included a tandem event. For years it was the only surfing event shown on U.S. national television. Teams from Hawaii, California and Australia would enter.  Hobie Alter, Mike Doyle, Bob Moore, Don Hanson, Hal Sachs, Rabbit Kekai and Leroy Achoy would compete.

Twirl : photo Anglet Surf Photo

In most cases, except for married couples, the guys had so many different partners through their careers, that when referring to the early teams, usually only they guy’s name is mentioned.   It’s a shame, because it’s the girls who are the real show.  Their courage, poise and balance make tandem surfing fun to watch.  In the early years no team ever won the Makaha contest more than once until Steve and Barrie (the first married couple to compete) won it six times in a row.  The prestigious Makaha International no longer exists; the only tandem event at Makaha now is the locals, Buffalo long board contest.

The wonderful thing about tandem surfing is that you can take a girl who has never surfed, out to ride waves. She can instantly get rides that would ordinarily take years of practice to achieve.  For the guy, who has probably been surfing for many years, the extreme excitement of his first ride has long been forgotten, and being a guy, he probably doesn’t get real emotional about it or express it so openly.

Only the very few guys who do tandem surf can marvel at the very emotional and verbal response that women have in their first experience surfing.  It is such a pleasure to share this experience and their excitement is a reminder of what a wondrous sport surfing is.

There are so few sports that men and women can participate in together where each is an equal partner, the skills are learned together and nether can perform without the other.  Now that the lifts have become so difficult, the girls’ special skills are absolutely essential.   The great reward in tandem surfing comes from the years of learning and practicing the tandem lifts.

That great feeling of accomplishment when you put it all together: take off, bottom turn, trim for speed and leap into some radical overhead lift.  You have confidence in each other, and together you achieve what used to seem impossible.  The lifts have evolved since the 1950’s, some borrowed from other arts as ice-skating and adagio dance, and they have been passed down through three generations of tandem surfers.

Training for tandem : photo Dimulle/ASP Europe

There was a brief period in the late 1970’s when the sport actually died out.  No teams were tandem surfing and there were no tandem contests.  Only Steve and Barrie did it alone at San Onofre and in Mexico.  They decided to actively recruit new people into tandem surfing.  They have spent the last 25 years teaching new teams all the techniques and secrets that they developed to do the many fun and varied tandem lifts.

Their coaching has been given freely all over the world. “We help anyone, even our competitors, because once there were no competitors and we have learned that it is better for the sport to grow than to keep our techniques a secret just so we can win contests”.

Because of the efforts of Rell Sun and Jericho Popler, in 1979, 1981 and 1982 the Makaha International Contest was brought back and the television coverage gave tandem a rebirth. Several teams started in Hawaii and by 1995, there were a dozen teams in California.

In France, Alain and Dominique Rousseau as well as Christophe Reinhart and daughter Valentine were the first. There are several new young teams now in France.  They are led by Rico Leroy and Sarah Burel who have a strong background in Adagio style gymnastics and who are quickly becoming competitive on an international level.

These teams have formed a French tandem surfing federation who practice together and help train new members.  Rico has also invented some of the most popular lifts used today and he created the ITSA (International Tandem Surfing Association).  He developed new rules, computerized scoring system and coordinated a pro tandem tour (WTT) in many different countries.

In 1996, Steve sent an instructional tandem video to Australia to help develop the sport there.  In fact, Chris de Aboitiz and his partner Merideth Saunders, of Australia, surprised the tandem world by winning the 1999 world title.  Danny Cortazo with his Olympic gymnast, partner, Svetlana added a whole new dimension to tandem with their variety of arm to arm lifts.  Tandem surfing remains a very elite sport with perhaps only thirty teams participating world wide.

Tandem demo finals : photo Cunninghamphotos.com

For a decade, the most prestigious event for tandem was the Biarritz Surf Festival.  It was considered by all the tandem teams around the world to be an honor to be invited.  Europe and the beautiful city of Biarritz were a dream for us to visit.

The surfing community is so warm and welcoming.  No event was more fun.  The whole atmosphere of the tents, bands, night surfing and surfing legends was fabulous to be a part of.  Robert Rabagny set an example for the surfing world that the sharing of our surfing culture, heritage, and pageantry is as important as competition.  Everyone envied the style of the Biarritz Surf Festival.

Now, the most prestigious events for tandem surfing are the ISA World Championship and the ITSA World Tandem Tour.  Those events were conceived and organized by Bear Woznick and Rico Leroy.  The venue of the ISA world title is the Queens reef at Waikiki Beach, Hawaii.  This event has caused an explosion in tandem surfing in Hawaii.

Teams around the world practice for months to perfect their routines for this competition because everyone wants to compete in Hawaii, the birth place of tandem surfing.  The first winners of this new event were Brian Keaulana and Kathy Terada, both from Makaha.  The next winners will also be able to claim the title of World Champions for one year.

In 2007 the World Tandem Tour took place in 5 different countries (Hawaii /Maui, Australia / Noosa, France / Seignosse, USA / Huntington, Spain / Santander) and saw the victory of the greatest team of the year and the come back from THE lady, Blanche Yoshida & Kalani Vierra. They also won the ISA World Title in August in Waikiki (Queens).

In 2008 the World Tandem Tour will take a new dimension and will allowed more competitions. A specification book has been created and coefficient (stars) will be given to contest who give good price money and professional judging. The results of the tour will be given with a minimum number of contests participation. Events 6* (50%) +1.

ITSA is now recognized as the reference for the Sport and each major country get is own representative. The main goal of ITSA is to develop the activity of Tandem surfing, promote it and professionalize it.

www.itsatandem.com