The Blow Tail By: Brad Gurlack Wave Ki
Photo: Parker Cohn by: Bryce Cope
It was at a contest. The 1985 Stubbies Pro in Oceanside was my breakout pro event.
It was summer, I was close to home and the beach was packed. My dad was watching, my heroes were watching, and so many girls were watching. I had to do something special. I blew the tail over the lip on a runner, came down, and had no idea how to land it. I was just flying. There was no control, no understanding.
But it felt incredible.
I was hooked. From then on, if I got into a tight spot in a heat, I’d try a blow tail because I knew it would make an impression. I’d go up to the lip as hard as I could and sometimes my fins would just fly away over the lip. Every now and then I’d land one, but most of the time I didn’t. I didn’t really understand what I was doing. I was just attacking the wave and hoping something good happened that kept me on my feet.
It took a few years before I started to figure it out. The part most people get wrong - the part I got wrong - was that the blow tail doesn’t come from kicking the tail out. It comes from transferring your weight forward.
If you try to kick the tail above the lip, you end up with a weak version of the maneuver. It might feel fun because you get a little slide, but it doesn’t throw much spray, and it doesn’t look powerful. However, when you spiral your weight from your back foot onto your front foot at exactly the right moment the whole calculus changes.
As I come off the bottom, I’m using speed and projection. You need a steep section with a defined lip, not a crumbly one, because the best maneuver depends on hitting something you can feel pushing against you. Then, as I drive up the face, I load my back foot, but the key is what happens next when I spiral my weight forward.
The upper body leads. My head, shoulders, and eyes are already ahead, so when I land on the front foot, everything is aligned. That’s what allows the tail to release naturally and the board to come back under control.
The footwork is subtle but important. On a frontside blow tail, I’ll aim to get my weight over my front heel to “pick” the nose slightly as I come down. That’s what helps wedge the board back into the wave and gives me something to land on. Without that, the board goes flat, and you risk sliding out.
Getting the timing right isn’t easy, but it’s usually the difference between a functional maneuver and a great one. If you hit the lip too early or too late, or if the section is too soft, you end up sliding across the top instead of going vertical. And that’s where I see people screw up, even on tour. They go horizontal, and the maneuver loses all its impact.
The best blowtails are vertical, fast, and committed. You want height, you want spray, and you want to project down the line and not fly out the back of the wave. That projection is critical because there’s a shockwave off the lip. If you don’t get past that, it’s hard to stay on your feet.
The look of blowtails has changed over the years. Back in the ’80s, no one wanted to widen their stance during a turn. People called it a stinkbug, and it was ugly. But to do a proper blow tail, you must increase the distance between your toes. There’s no way around it. It won’t work if you don’t. Then, as you complete the turn, you bring your feet back together, so it doesn’t look awkward. The guys today do them so fast you can barely see the adjustment.
It’s a dynamic movement. At the peak of the turn, your front leg is bent with your bum close to your lead heel, and your back leg is extended. Your body is fully engaged and is twisting, turning, and driving the board. Then, as you come down, you can re-engage and flow into the next section.
Keeping that flow is what matters the most. Surfers like John John Florence and Ethan Ewing can do the maneuver and they don’t have to recover. I taught Taro Watanabe how to do a proper blow tail when he was 13 and now it’s his signature turn.
Like anything in surfing, it comes down to repetition and that’s where Wave Ki comes in. You can practice them over and over on the floor and not blow any sections. The timing, the weight transfer, and the body positioning all become second nature.
Once it clicks, it’s one of the most satisfying turns there is.
When you hit it vertical and fully committed, everything lines up. The board releases, the spray flies, and you come down with speed and control.
That’s when you know you’ve got it.
There is more detail to this turn and I go through it specifically in the blow tail Wave Ki form in Fundamentals 3.
-Brad Gurlack
