Beginner Wakeboarding Jumps

Billy Garcia: Hi! I am Billy Garcia, owner and coach of the Freeride Wakeboard School. I am showing you how to get started in Wakeboarding. Now, I am going to show you how to do your first Wakeboard jumps. Okay, your first jumps are going to be one wake jumps, which means you are not going to clear the entire wake. You are going to jump and land inside the middle of the wake. There is three basic things that make you do a jump. The first thing is edging, having spree through the top of the wake. The second thing is using your legs, coming with your knees bent and the handle by your front hip. As you approach the wake and when you are ready to leave the wake you are going to want to stand up tall and kind of straighten your legs. This is going to give you the pop that you need.

The last thing is called Loading the Line. But, really that's just a fancy term for pulling the line a little bit, and you don't want to pull a line in up over your head or even back to your back hip. You are literally pulling the rope in 1 or 2 inches to your front hip area. That's going to keep the line tight, but it is also going to keep your arms in for the landing. Okay, let's talk about the landing. Obviously, when you land, you are going to have the absorb the landing and bend your knees. After you bend your knees and absorb the landing, make sure you continue on and edge outside the other wake. Another key component to doing your first jumps is going to be the approach. What you want to do is pull outside of the wake as far as possible, sit there for a second and when you feel like the boat is pulling back you in and you are drifting back in towards a wake, go ahead and make a nice little turn.

The next thing you want to do is roll up over on your edge and make a nice progressive cut towards the wake. Another important factor in learning how to do your first jumps is going to be the length of the rope. When you are first doing your first jumps and you are not trying to clear the wake and you are landing inside of the wake, it is okay to use a longer line. That's going to give you plenty of time to land your jumps and continue on. Once you progress to do your harder two wake jumps where you want to clear the entire wake, you do want to pull a rope in and make it a bit shorter so that distance that you are jumping is smaller and narrower.

Okay, now we are going to talk about the wake to wake jump, that means that you are going to jump the entire wake, take off from one wake and land on the downside of the other wake. Okay, what you are going to have to do for this is get a lot more aggressive. Pull out as far as you can once again, but when you come back in lean as hard as you can away from the board and edge all the way through the top of the wake. You are going to have want to have a lot of speed because that's going to be the key factor in clearing both wakes. Also don't forget to use your legs, stand up tall so you get that pop and keep the handle in. Up next, I am going to leave you with some final key things to remember while you are Wakeboarding.