How To Frontside Air Reverse | The Ultimate Tutorial (Pov Footage + Skate Simulation)

Hey legends, welcome back to my channel. Today I'm going to be teaching you how to perform the frontside air reverse. This is one of my favorite moves and one that every Grom wants to learn. I'll be walking you through step by step showing multiple camera angles including POV, follow cam and beach footage plus a skate simulation to practice out of the water. Starting with the best surfboard for airs, let's jump right into it. So the best boards are just your typical performance shortboards. You can obviously do it on other boards but I think sticking to a performance shortboard or small wave board like a grubbler will be much easier as you'll be able to get that speed and that's the most important part. Also make sure you're waxing up to the chest as your front foot will be sliding up during the air reverse. So going for airs is one of the rare times where you actually want onshore closeouts. You'll still be able to perform an air reverse in glassy or offshore conditions but when it's onshore the board just glues to your feet. Here's a clip of me going for one in some offshore conditions. You see as soon as I get in the air the wind just pushes me off the back of the wave. You've picked the right wave now it's time to generate some speed. This is the most important step so I'm going to share my top tips to help you surf as fast as possible. If you've followed the previous step speed should be really easy to come by. The sweet spot for air reverses is about two to three pumps. Sometimes if you're on a wave big enough or steep enough though you can go straight into a bottom turn and throw an air reverse. Now the next tip is widening your stance. This not only helps you generate more speed it'll actually help you perform the air reverse and land it with control. You can see right here Jasper slides his back foot to the kicker and widens his stance beyond his shoulders setting him up perfectly for the end section. A lot of the time though you won't get the perfect wave so when you need to generate speed on your own it's really important you stay in the top half of the wave and utilize your upper and lower body extending and compressing. If you're struggling to generate speed I'd highly recommend jumping on a surfskate this helps me a ton. Next is your bottom turn and timing. Starting with the bottom turn you should have a slightly widened stance and the secret here is doing a shallow bottom turn. This will help maintain your speed and get the most pop out of the lip. It's also really important to compress and coil up like a spring. Also the deeper the bottom turn the more inverted and upside down you're going to get in the air so keep it shallow. Now for the secret to the rotation and this is as you do your bottom turn you swing your trailing arm behind your back so you can load it up and throw it around you. Timing is the hard part and something you'll have to pick up on your own but the perfect amount of steepness is right here. After you've hit a few sections you'll start getting a really good feel for it. If you go off a section too early your board's going to have nothing to push against and it's just going to fly out from under your feet whereas if you hit a section too late you're not going to be able to get up and Now picking the right section is one of the easier parts of the air reverse but getting that timing right is the hard part. The best sections to learn on are coming off a steep lip and landing on a crumbly foamy section just like here. Going for air revs can be quite intimidating at first. I'd only be eyeing off sections with a foamy landing to start with. After you're comfortable landing in the foam you can practice off the shoulder. These can be a lot harder though and then once your confidence is at an all-time high you can practice going into the flats. These can be really dangerous though so make sure you're not going to hurt yourself or your board. Sometimes if you have enough speed and pop you can do them off sections without a lip. A great tip to get your experience up is to practice them off the back of the wave. Also if any of you are looking for some online coaching I do offer zoom sessions where you can talk with me one-on-one or you can send through footage and get a video analysis. I'll link it down in the description below. Now we'll go through how to actually launch into the air. Now unlike a straight air where your main focus is to get up and above the wave, you're projecting up then out and away from the lip towards the beach. Also notice how flat the angle is when I'm projecting off the lip. Launching at a flat angle is key to getting that rotation. As you're coming out of your bottom turn you'll start extending and you'll see your front leg go completely straight as you're about to project off the lip. This extension will help you pop out of the lip then you'll lift or slide your front foot further up the board to land on. Now with your upper body loading up that arm behind your back and then throwing it up and around will help you get that launch and rotation. Practicing on a skateboard will help you get familiar with that sliding of the front foot and the rotation. Now let's break down what you should be doing mid-air. First we'll look at the lower body. Back foot on the kicker, front foot in the middle of the board. Now watch as he slides both feet further up the board. You can see here they're probably about 30 centimeters from where they originally started and the reason you do this is because it's easier to land. Think about landing on a skateboard on the bolt. That's how you want to land. This is what it would look like in POV. You can see both feet slide up. I probably could have had a wider stance but I've got a pretty narrow stance in general. Now for the upper body we've talked about swinging that arm around your body and then this was a game changer for me is keeping that arm on your outside rail. You can see here he's still got it there. His chest and body is leaning over that toeside rail and he styles his way out of it. So a big mistake is not following through with that arm. You can see here I leave my arm up and over my head and this throws my whole center of gravity off and I fall backwards. Now this does happen naturally with some air reverses and sometimes helps pick the nose. Still try to keep your arm over your toeside rail. A great way to avoid this is to pretend to grab the rail. This helps a ton. This is definitely the most important tip because it keeps you centered and over your board otherwise you're just going to fall like this. Also if you're struggling with the rotation think of the word tail right before you do the air reverse. Trying to get that tail pointing towards the beach. My online student Nick said I had to include this because it helped him so much. So if you're under rotating think tail right before you throw the air reverse. Before we even land though you have to spot the landing. From when you leave the lip right up until you're landing you should be spotting exactly where you want to land. I have another bad habit of turning my head too early but for the most part I'm still spotting my landing. Like right here I'm looking down at the foam I can't see anything. So it's better to look at your tail for as long as possible and then spin your head. Now with the lower half of your body if you followed the previous steps you would have had a widened stance and your feet would have slid up the board. Now all you have to do is land on the nose of your board, then your tail and revert out of it. Now it's important to put all the weight onto your front foot to absorb the landing. If you try to land on your back foot you're just going to poke the tail and fall into the water. I'll talk you through this three-step process. Landing on your nose, putting all the pressure on your front foot to keep that tail out of the water. Then you'll lean on your toe side rail then turn your head over your shoulder and revert out of it. Let's look at the most common mistakes surfers make when performing the air reverse. The first one is not having enough speed. This is usually in smaller waves. The second one is picking the wrong section or performing the air too early or too late. Another one is hesitating for what maneuver to do. Usually it'll be between a straight air and an air reverse. Just pick one and stick to it. Don't hesitate. The fourth is not following through with your trailing arm. This can be fixed by pretending to grab the rail. And the last one is poking your tail on landing. Keep all that weight on your front foot. You may not get many opportunities in the ocean so practicing on a skateboard will help accelerate that learning curve. The first thing you want to learn is the ollie. I'm not too good at them myself but you'll use almost the exact same technique when doing most aerial maneuvers. Then you're just combining the ollie with a 180 visualizing that you're doing an air reverse. Here's some old footage of me at like 14 years old. I used to only ride smooth stars and I just do it off the curb. That was like the best way to practice. Be careful though because concrete hurts a lot more than water. All you need is a slight gradient or a bit of elevation. Just something that you can pop off and practice that rotation. Just work on that ollie then combine the rotation from the air reverse. And please be safe guys. Don't try to attempt anything too crazy. Now let's put it all together in simple easy to follow steps. Pick the right wave with a good air section. Generate lots of speed. Widen your stance and do a shallow bottom turn. Compress. Load up your trailing arm and eye off the section. Extending just before you get to lip. Throwing your trailing arm around your body. Sliding both feet up the board. Bring your knee to your chest. Getting your tail to the beach. Constantly spotting the landing. Then landing on your nose. Putting most of the weight on your front leg to keep the tail out of the water. Staying low and compressed. Engaging your toe side rail. Then rotating your head around your shoulder and reverting out of it. And you've just landed your first air reverse. I know I've over-analyzed this but I really wanted to show every single aspect of the air reverse because years ago when I was learning how to do them I'd go to YouTube trying to figure it out and all the videos would say is, go fast, do an air and then spin. So I really hope you guys like this thorough breakdown of it because it's taken me all week. It's taken me like at least 20 hours of editing but I'd do it all again for you guys. Just one thing to take away. Keep it as simple as possible and let me know how you guys go. So I think that wraps it up guys. Thank you so much for watching. If you did find it helpful please leave a like and a comment. I'd love to hear from you guys. And subscribe if you haven't already. I post a load of POV surfing and I plan on doing way more surf tutorials so if this gets a good response I'll just keep pumping them out and helping you guys surf better. Otherwise that's it from me. Thanks so much legends.