Backloop in the wave

On your wrong foot to send a backloop facing the waves? Send it on your way back to the beach! 😉

Side-on shore conditions are what you’re looking for to send above the lip. Illustration and explanations below.

To start, choose a wave with a rather flat shoulder that will allow you to land clean and get going again. You can also try it offshore on a big bump when coming back towards the beach. Just avoid picking a close-out breaking over a shallow reef 😉

To send a backloop on a wave, your pop must be absolutely perfect. You need speed and to carry out the pop without the slightest touchdown. Note on this sequence of Malo the speed and the perfectly executed pop. He sinks his foil and launches perfectly into the air. By putting his weight slightly further back during the take off, the board almost automatically rises to the level of his pelvis, or even higher. For it to be a legit backloop and not an FS360, the board must rise vertically (and loop above you).

When climbing in the air, you have to tweak the board by giving a big karate kick with your back foot, almost until you put it in the landing position. Remember that tweaking means tweaking. You have to twist as much as possible and therefore keep your upper body, and especially your head, in the starting position, otherwise you might be thrown off balance for the rest of the maneuver. At the height of the jump, Malo reaches a tweaked position and must now attack the second phase: coming down.

On the way down you have to turn the wing which remained pretty much in position until this point. At the top of the jump, you are still suspended to the wing which is facing the wind. In the descent you have to get through the wind. The timing must be very precise. You have to rotate the wing as quickly and as efficiently as possible to have time for the landing. So you have to make it turn on a certain axis which is the happy medium between having the wing ripped off your hands and ending up backwinded. To do this, you will first look for your landing point, which will start to put you back in line with your board (untweaked). At the same time as you turn your head, you fold your front arm towards you while lowering it to the level of your shoulder. As you slam your front arm down, you’re going to have to push into your back hand really hard as if you were doing a boxing hook. At this point of the maneuver, you have the wing almost in front of you and you continue to go down. You have to bring the wing totally in front of you if you don’t want to land in it. To do this, just lower your rear hand and raise your front hand, which will bring the wing back to the sailing position.