When beginning to wakeboard, individuals will often go out and buy all the wakeboarding accessories so that they can look like a pro on the water. However, to become a pro wakeboarder, the individual would have to practice long and hard, since the skills and tricks that are mastered by the pros are complex and require strength and coordination that not everyone can master. Pro wakeboarding has become more and more popular in recent years since the sport took off. Pro wakeboarding even has its own tour, stopping in all the top wakeboarding hotspots across the nation for competitions. Pro wakeboarding is exciting to watch as the athletes perform feats that seem to defeat gravity and defy all sense and reason.
Getting Started
Pro wakeboarding requires a progression from the basics into the more complex tricks. For beginners, the most complex thing they need to think about is how to get up on the board for the first time. Often, the placement of the feet is uncomfortable and awkward to get used to, especially if they are used to water skiing. In water skiing, the skis are placed parallel to the rope that is behind the boat. When the boat begins to move forward, the individual will bend his knees and get ready to be raised out of the water as he hold the tips of the skis out of the water until he is standing. With the wakeboard, the individual starts out floating on his back with the wakeboard at a perpendicular angle to the rope. When the boat begins to pull the wakeboard, then the individual begins to straighten out the wakeboard and begins to crouch low on it, getting ready for when he signals the boat to gun it. Once the boat takes off, then the individual will stand up on the board from the crouch.
This process can be difficult at first, but once that is mastered, then the individual can begin to focus on the maneuvering skills that he needs to be able to zig zag between the waves from the boat. Eventually, the individual will be able to add tricks to his repertoire, even adding ramps and other materials to help him get more air and be able to do the flips and twists in the air. The pro wakeboarding tours show the professionals doing all sorts of tricks that amateurs look up to and try to imitate.