Stab High Rookie Fires A Few Tail High Warning Shots
Watch Dane Henry’s West Australian Snapt5 B-sides.
Each year in the leadup to Stab High presented by Monster Energy, as we roll through the overwhelming list of possible invitees, there are always a few names that barely miss the cut — despite probably deserving a shot in the main event.
Each year, the international talent pool of world-class aerialists grows, and each year, our job gets a little harder.
Last year, Dane Henry was probably the most glaring exclusion from our chlorinated aerial showdown.
Our reasoning behind the omission?
Well, he was 18 years young, and we knew he’d get a shot this year.
And, as you can see on our entire list of invitees, Australia’s promising youngster will be departing for Japan in two and a half weeks.
Above, he fires a brief warning shot of footage filmed in West Australia. (Mind you, these are B-clips from his upcoming Snapt part.)
“That WA trip was probably about a month ago now,” says Dane. “It was before I went to Bell’s to do the trials for the CT. Just went for two and a half weeks to film for Snapt. I just got a bunch of punts and yeah, that’s about it. That’s all I was really hunting over there.”
His A-clips? Painful on the patellas and easy on the eyes, no doubt.
But, how’s Dane planning to prepare for Stab High in Japan?
“I’m actually heading down to the Sydney wavepool with the Queensland Academy of Sport and Surfing Australia to do just some work on the air section that they have,” he tells me. “Obviously it’s a different air section, different tech from Japan, but it’ll hopefully just open my eyes to what I can actually do in those pools and see how I can adapt to different types of sections.
“I’ve kind of got a bit of an idea of what I want to do in Japan. Obviously I want to go over there and go as big as I can. I want to go higher than everyone else and be willing to put my knees on the line. That McFly air section looks pretty gnarly, I’m keen to just go as high as I can and do a couple of flips on the right, and then I really want to do a McTwist twist on the left. And then there’s one air on my forehand that I don’t think has been done before — I’ve kind of been thinking about it for the last couple of years, so I’ll try that as well.”
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