Freestyle talent ! ! ! :o

[Windsurf! :D]

Hi has anyone got any thoughts on this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=se1ZS30VJcI apparently went from not having windsurfered to shakas, esliders, flakas, switch chachoo in 16 months... Seems unbelievably fast progression... i think he is now a professional/ semi pro freestyle sailor ! his rate of progression is surely the quickest EVER though! ? Faster than golitos, tonky e.t.c, possibly? :/

What would you consider an average rate of progression in freestyle, a fast rate, and exceptionally fast rate of progression?

I suppose the issue when saying for example landing shakas after 16 months windsurfing is you don't know how much TOW he spent in those 16 months. Still an unbelievable achievement.... and perhaps the sign of a future world champion. Anyone know of someone who has progressed quicker? If so whats the secret

[basher]

That vid is 4 years old.
Here is a newer one, of the same guy:

http://vimeo.com/45308731

[Windsurf! :D]

Interesting to see what he is like now... pretty good. It is more though his early progression that amazed me and was wondering whether anyone had heard of someone learning to switch chachoo and shaka within 16 months... I always thought many of the absolute top pro freestyle took 2/3 years + to learn shaka e.t.c ..

[willmort]

I think he's the guy I saw when I was out in El yaque years OK, he was tiny little kid - but you could tell he was just going to spend every day doing it - he was out all day everyday on borrowed kit, so 16 months = ALOT of time on the water

[/Vico]

Interesting to see what he is like now... pretty good. It is more though his early progression that amazed me and was wondering whether anyone had heard of someone learning to switch chachoo and shaka within 16 months... I always thought many of the absolute top pro freestyle took 2/3 years + to learn shaka e.t.c ..

The El Yaque kids learn very quickly because school finishes at midday, the conditions are excellent but also they compete with each other. Maybe a few years ago a vulcan or spock was impressive but the bar is constantly raised and they learn from each other. I think the same thing happens with the people that work at e.g. Club Vass/Dahab.

[Silicon Beach]

There are kids like that at all the good spots around the world (seen them live myself in Jeri, Cabarete, Barbados, Mauritius ...). For some reason they just seem to get better in these kind of windy warm-all-year-round places much quicker than say at my old stomping ground of Brog lake. Weird that eh ?

Then they rarely make any impact away from their local spot due to lack of financial support (of course, there are exceptions). Remember the kid from Cabarete who won an event at Ho-okipa (what was his name ? I remember sailing with him in the waves in Cabarete - he was definitely special). What's happened to him I wonder ?