THE SHIFTY
The thing with the shifty is everybody crashed air shakas from day one when
they were learning, but nobody thought that it was possible to turn those
crashes into a new move. For six years I was thinking about the shifty and
trying it on purpose. I think I was the first one to think it could be possible. I
was open to the idea at least. The first person to land it clean was Steven Van
Broeckhoven. I told him they could be done. It took me so much time to get
Steven even to the point of trying them. I knew he could land them easy. I
could not even do proper push loops back then. He was already doing push
loops off flat water. I told him the shifty is an easy move once you are going
for it. Four years ago we did the first good ones. Now in the first round of
freestyle there are a lot of guys doing them. Spectators love them; for taking
pictures they don’t look great, but in real life they look crazy. It’s a quick
rotation and the people at the beach don’t know what is going on. For me it
is like a cheese roll, which is also a flip move which goes fast, and the shifty
is the same just the other way. There are still a lot of guys struggling with
this move, but once you know the trick to them it is not that hard anymore.
DREAMS
I dream a lot about triple air rotations. I tried a Pasco into shifty shaka which
would be a triple rotation upwind. Antoine Martin was trying push loops
fully over rotated in Tenerife. He has no control on his shifty movement so
it is nice to see him trying, but I would love to see him first getting the shifty
dialled. Then he would easily land the push loop into shifty. It is not a hard
move. The first time I tried this triple rotation was two years ago. I went for
it and made a 720 Pasco shifty, then I came out of the straps and landed
from 6 metres up with my feet on the board. I had a bruised heel for days.
I am not so sure triple backward rotations will be easier than triple forward
rotations when you stop. You can always stop the shifty movement. Like a
push loop tweak into shifty should not be a hard move. The goal would be
to get it down soon.
My dream would be to go somewhere with port tack side-shore winds, two
metre waves, 4m fully stacked and an ambulance...maybe two ambulances
(laughs) or at least a doctor, with five or six of the best freestylers. I would
love to do that. It needs to be Amado, probably Gollito, Yentel and those
guys that can be a bit mental and push the limits. Not the top ten from the
PWA but ten radical guys and go to a place like Coronation in Western
Australia for example. You would need to have a hospital close by because
it would probably be bone breaking what we would try. Probably nothing
would happen, but you need to have medical people on hand. When we
landed those shifty’s four years ago we had a doctor with us on the water
supporting us. He was a windsurfer. Steven was actually coughing blood that
day. I had pain in my stomach from hitting the water. We were over rotating
shifty 720’s and going into 900 spins fully out of control. Then it gets to a
dangerous point, but having a doctor with you calms the whole situation a
bit. You never think about injuries when you are doing the moves but it is
still reassuring. I am so sure this would push windsurfing to another level.
The wave guys, it is nice to see what they are doing, but they are also
getting more involved in the freestyle moves. Freestyle wave for me is the
main goal I want to push. Why don’t the wave guys do shifty’s in their
heats? You can do a shifty forward easier than a push loop forward. Getting
height on the shifty is the only problem. I have never been to Pozo yet.
That is a goal for me. Until now I was always mentally scared to go to Pozo. I
now have a 3.3m Freak and love strong winds. With that 3.3m Freak I can’t
wait to send it. Pozo is a place to go huge. I love push loop forwards and all
that stuff, so let’s see what is going to happen! I need to find out where the
closest hospital to Pozo is first!36 JULY 2019
BALZ MÜLLER
Balz happy out. Balz sending it in Bonaire.