Intermediate Wakeboarding Tricks

How to do a Heelside Backroll

Synopsis: A walkthrough of landing one of the most basic wakeboarding inverts, the Heelside Backroll. Land a flip, impress the girls (or boys.. if you're into that).

Let's face it, we all know inverts are cool. Everyone in the boat wants to see someone do a flip. And not only does it look incredibly cool, it's loads of fun. Despite what you may have heard (or just intuitively "know"), doing a flip on a wakeboard is not that hard. With the right instruction, anyone who knows how to clear the wake can learn to do an invert.

Among the base inverts, two stand out as being especially easy to learn. The one that was easiest for me was the Tantrum, but many others find the Heelside Backroll to be easier. It all depends on your mindset. Does it seem more natural to you to do a cartwheel like rotation (the backroll) or a backflip-like rotation (the Tantrum)? Whichever sounds more natural to you should be the trick that you try to learn first. if you have trouble with it, go ahead and try the other one.

What you want to do is take a nice progressive edge towards the wake just as you would if you were just doing a big wake jump. This trick depends on line tension to spin you around, so be sure that your hardest cut is at the top of the wake and that the line is taut.

It is very important to ride all the way up the wake so that you get some pop. This trick will be much easier to land if you take it wake to wake rather than casing the second wake.

When you reach the top of the wake (and not before; people tend to throw this trick early just like the Tantrum), look up above your front shoulder. Pretend you have a kink in your neck that you are trying to crack. As you do this, pull the handle with both hands toward your back hip. Your hips should pop forward automatically initiating a cartwheel-like rotation.

It is important to hold on with both hands for the duration of the trick (make sure both palms are facing down on the handle rather than a slalom-ski-like one-hand-up one-hand-down grip).

As you come around, you should be able to clearly see the water. You should look for the water to "spot" your landing. This will help you slow down your rotation and land the trick.

If you have trouble getting all the way around, make sure that you are waiting long enough to throw the trick (ride all the way up the wake) and make sure that you are using a good progressive edging technique.

With a little practice (and hopefully not too many hard falls), you'll have this trick down. And then you can move on to learning the Tantrum or if you've already got that down, the Toeside Backroll.

Need help on this trick? Visit our wakeboarding discussion board.