Watch: Italo Ferreira // Just Me

Stu Nettle picture
Stu Nettle (stunet)
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Another video from Italo Ferreira, the indefinite world champ. This one is 100% shot at his home break of Baia Formosa so it's all righthanders, backside for Italo, and the clip comes with a quote from the little fella: "Training to have the best backside in the world."

As you can see, he's been working out...

Gluteus maximus aside, how overjoyed must the local groms be, watching the best surfer in the world, their neighbour, tearing the roof off the local pointbreak day after day.

Comments

icandig's picture
icandig's picture
icandig Monday, 3 Aug 2020 at 5:44pm

No amount of squats or dead lifts could ever beat Occy's sublime backside.

frog's picture
frog's picture
frog Tuesday, 4 Aug 2020 at 8:49am

The first thing I did after watching this yesterday was pull up some footage from way back of Occy at J Bay as a kid to compare. It was a trickier comparison that I expected.
- immediate gut reaction is that Occy looked better but not always by as much as I expected.
- Occy's best moves just looked more "right" - right spot, flashy and had more acceleration through the carve.
- things have sped up a lot and overall Italo looked more "advanced"
- Occy's hooks off the top often had more hook back into the pocket which looks good.
- more pauses by Occy between moves (which sometimes looked slow) but the pauses (and same with Tom Carroll on waves behind Occy) often gave the moves a punctuation point that made them look better.
- The extra effort and force by Italo at some points seemed to reduce speed and flow - Occy seemed lighter on his feet then applied power when the wave and move demanded - Italo looks heavy on his feet a lot of the time.
- the Italo spins in the air and on the wave might get points in a heat and be gymnastically clever but don't appeal much to me (Roger Federer could practice doing a cartwheel in the lead up to a backhand slice and it would be new but give few watchers any pleasure). Perhaps do them less often so they have more shock appeal.

Some of Occy's magic would be hard to replicate for Italo but if he chose he could study Occy (and my "expert" tips below) and pick up some subtle changes that would improve his surfing:

1. hook back more into the pocket when going off the top
2. not apply full power all the time - weight and unweight more
3. pause for a fraction of a second after a big move for effect
4. surf the wave more rather than always looking for that rotation move - some of his off the tops looked like he just pulled back from a rotation at the last millisecond which made the move lose flow and acceleration. You can tell his mind is thinking "rotation" all the time which has a big impact on the speed and flow.

There you go Italo, send me $5000 for the coaching tips.

icandig's picture
icandig's picture
icandig Tuesday, 4 Aug 2020 at 12:57pm

Thanks for the comprehensive analysis Frog. But I was only really interested in the physical attributes of Occy's arse.

Dan87's picture
Dan87's picture
Dan87 Tuesday, 4 Aug 2020 at 5:01pm

Hahaha. Bravo.

rothmanisatool's picture
rothmanisatool's picture
rothmanisatool Friday, 7 Aug 2020 at 5:29am

haha. you win the interweb today i can dig. now fuck off before i punch your face in.

rothmanisatool's picture
rothmanisatool's picture
rothmanisatool Friday, 7 Aug 2020 at 5:51am

occy v italo is like comparing a holden to a 918 or better yet a god damn Rimac. its not even fair. old bog rail billabong bought me a world title vs the midget cue tip on meth. italo is no yago, but honestly. its 2020 mate. paradigm shifts and all despite the 90s punk rock. your living in the past caaarnt. now f*ck off before i punch your face in.

jasper99's picture
jasper99's picture
jasper99 Monday, 3 Aug 2020 at 9:28pm

Whoa....

NDC's picture
NDC's picture
NDC Tuesday, 4 Aug 2020 at 2:10pm

Worshipped occy but think surfing has come so far it doesn’t seem fair to compare his vintage to this one - top surfing of today smokes top surfing of yesterday by pretty much any sane performance benchmark imho - diligent comparison though frogg

rothmanisatool's picture
rothmanisatool's picture
rothmanisatool Friday, 7 Aug 2020 at 5:26am

well said NDC. my response was less eloquent/empathic. always beena problem for me. would rather punch c*nts out and watch my son bog rail on 2 foot waves and charge pipe.

icandig's picture
icandig's picture
icandig Tuesday, 4 Aug 2020 at 2:48pm

To be fair Frog my facetiousness masks my absolute regard for Occy's surfing prowess. I was fortunate enough to watch him from atop the Bells 'natural amphitheatre' during the Skins event. It was a long time ago and the memory is not so great, but I have his under the lip hooks and his low centre of gravity bottom turns seared into my synapses. He walked away with a fistful of cash and a red Jeep. I also watched him from the end of the Kirra groin back in the 90's during cyclone Betsy dropping into some the heaviest heaving barrels I've ever seen. Not really comparing apples with apples - different styles / different eras. I enjoyed your coaching tips. I can't resist a double entendre though.