With every battle there are mind games. Mind games in windsurfing? Heck yeah. One of my biggest mind games was the secret of the one-footed back loop. I learned it on Maui in the winter of 2000. No one else was doing them or even thinking about them and I was landing them. I was learning them at places like Camp one and Lower Kanaha and when I went to Ho’okipa, I never busted them out.
That spring there was an event in Vargas on Gran Canaria. I knew I had them in the bag ready to go, but didn’t want to show it until maybe the semi-finals or finals because I just wanted to have it in the bag and totally wow the judges as well as not let anyone else know what I was up to and to try and start learning them. Well as the event went on we did the first two rounds and then the wind died for the rest of the event. I managed to not show anyone on the tour my new move I had in the bag and left Gran Canaria with no one suspecting it. Then as the summer event came around to Pozo, I still had it, no one had witnessed it and when I got to the semi-final, I busted it out, made it to the finals and won Gran Canaria! It was an awesome moment.
