Taka Inoue

Welcome to Taka's surfing world! ・born in 2000 ・Japanese surfer ・Instagram ' taka.pro.official’

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First JPSA match of this year  

This year's JPSA (Japan Pro Surfing Association) tour was cancelled due to COVID-19, but a special match was held the other day last month.

Sawakami Foundation, which sponsors "Sawakami Cup" at the end of August every year, decided to hold a special event because they thought it would be worthwhile to give the opportunity to pro surfers to show people how earnestly they are working even in this tough time.

I bet not only surfers but also the audience looked forward to such an opportunity.

To prevent COVID-19 spreading, the competitors took every precaution to disinfect their hands, take their temperature before entering the event venue, and bring an umbrella to use as a guide for social distancing.


The game started with the longboard division.

Heats were arranged without taking seeded rights into account unlike the usual games, and the seeded players started from round one.

Therefore, seeded players, including I, started from Round 1.

That made the games more interesting to see than usual.

The last heat of Round 1 was the first heat for me.

The next heat for me was the last heat of Round 2, which was the last heat of this day.

Now, I'd like to give a brief commentary on today's ride with the photos.

You can also check the riding in the video.

Click this⇓

R1

Hangten

To get a high score, you can't avoid hangten like the one pictured here, with your weight forward and your hands down, relaxed.

This hangten is the specialty of 2×world champion Piccolo Clemente, who shaped my boards, and I'm good at it, too.


Roll in.

Scoring can change quite a bit depending on how tightly you decide on the end section, so I'll make it even when I land.

Even if you knew you were going to break the fins by landing on the beach, it would be better to complete the last maneuver at the end section in order to get a high score.


Backside off-the-lip.


You don't get a high score if you hit the wave coming from in front of you after you run.

In other words, if there is a place to run, you can do something there and you have to do something other than running.

That's why I hit the lip soon after coming back from the nose, without running.


R2.

Turning on hangten

Doing a 180-degree turn while doing a hang ten is so difficult that only a handful of athletes in the world can perform.


Hangfive

Accelerating with tighter hangfive and sole arch in order to go through the fast section.


Roundhouse Cutback

People thought you had to be big enough to make roundhouse cutback well.

That image was dispelled by me, because I did such roundhouse cutback as you can see in this picture, even I am a small guy, only 64 inches and 119 pounds.

This was especially appreciated by Asian surfers, who gave up making it well because of their small body.


Layback carving

This is a technique often seen in shortboarding but not so common in longboarding because it is difficult to do with a 'long' board.


Air

I used backwash to fly.


Bottom turn

Longbords can gather speed so quickly that you are very likely to miss a good section, but I didn't.

That's because I am also a shortboarder and I know the right point to turn.

I took advantage of being both a shortboarder a longboarder.


That's all for today.

Stay tuned for tomorrow!




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