There can never be too many wakeboarding instructional videos. For most people, wakeboarding is a difficult sport, and finding good coaching is hard to do unless you live near a wakeboard camp. Therefore, the more instructional videos we can get out there with a wide variety of coaches helps people excel at the sport.
The latest wakeboarding instructional DVD to hit the market is Waketrix. How does it stack up?
Concept
The primary concept of Waketrix is to be a detailed instructional video focusing on the basics and intermediate skills of wakeboarding. There isn't much free riding mixed in, and they take the basic concept a bit further with the DVD format by allowing you to click "Enter" on your DVD remote to get more detailed instructions about the trick.
Riders in Waketrix include:
Darin Shapiro
Dallas Friday
Danny Harf
Loren Levine
Cobe Mickacich
John Nadolski
Josh Sanders
Zane Schwenk
Chad Sharpe
Jeff Solei
Daniel Watkins
Cinematography
The entire video was shot on location at Shapiro's Ride the Spot wakeboard camp on Lake Mary Jane in Orlando, FL. So, the scenery isn't terribly exciting being a standard Florida lake, but each trick is shown in multiple angles with a good focus on the rider.
It's safe to say it isn't exciting cinematography, but it definitely gets the job done well when the focus is on instructional content.
Length
Waketrix is over an hour long with no "off the water" footage. It's entirely devoted to teaching you how to wakeboard.
Music
The music in Waketrix is mostly instrumental, and is an original soundtrack featuring:
DJ Ethos
Darin Shapiro
DJ 3RDI
Ezra G
Circle of Chaos
Josh Marcy
Instructional Content
Waketrix breaks down each trick into three sections.
Fundamentals - What tricks do you need to know or skills do you need to have before attempting this trick?
Mechanics - What is your body position like on approach for this trick? What type of edge do you use? How do you pop off the wake? What do you do with the rope? How do you start the rotation?
Progression - What can you add to this trick for style? How can you do it differently? What advanced tricks can you learn from it?
This format makes it easy to think about the trick in the correct ways.
At any time during the trick, you can press "Enter" to get even more details on performing the trick from expert coach Mike Ferraro. Ferraro has coached Darin Shapiro and Dallas Friday, among many other riders.
Waketrix only focuses on beginner and intermediate tricks. This gives it a lot of time to spend on each trick covered. The full list of tricks are:
Getting Up
Board Control
Cut Back Drill
No Air Wake Cross
Ollie
Hop In, Hop Out
Riding Switch
Surface 180
Boardslide/Lipslide
Ollie 180
Heelside Wake Jump
Toeside Wake Jump
Grabs
TS/FS 180
HS/FS 180
TS/FS 360
HS/FS 360
Backside 180
Back Roll
Roll to Revert
TS Back Roll
TS Back Roll to Revert
Front Roll
Scarecrow
Tantrum
Raley
The tricks are performed well, and the drills at the beginning are something I hadn't seen mentioned much in other videos. It's a mistake for riders to go from getting up right to wake jumping, but that's what most people try to do without proper instruction. They'd be much better off following the advice of Waketrix.
Bonus Features
The bonus features on the Waketrix DVD include:
A look at the Ride the Spot Camp
Driving Instruction
The Trixionary
Sidewayz Trailers for other videos
A section of bonus footage
Overall
The downside of Waketrix is that it stops at 360s and basic inverts and doesn't provide much of anything for higher level intermediate and advanced riders. It also doesn't contain much freeriding footage, so it's not the type of video to pump you up to ride.
However, I was impressed with the technical detail and focus on fundamentals in Waketrix. The extra time for each trick really allows for a lot of detail and many examples of the trick to be shown. It's definitely a great learning tool for those who are just starting wakeboarding or learning to do basic spins and inverts.
