Watch: Chippa Wilson’s Wild Spin Thing In Waco

Instagram is a dystopian wormhole, our thumbs scrolling down its mountain images as if being chased by a boulder forged simultaneously from narcissism and self-loathing. 

A reverse Sisyphus syndrome, if you will. 

But every once in a while that boulder is slowed by something truly breathtaking, giving our thumbs a rest so that we can watch, up to four or five times, one truly special post.

That’s what happened today, when we saw Chippa Wilson’s shuv it/varial/big spin thing on Perfect Swell’s Instagram. Perfect Swell, of course, being the wavepool technology owned and operated by American Wave Machines, whose first full-scale model in Waco, Texas’ Barefoot Ski Ranch has been a favorite of international surfers (like Chippa) since its inception last May. 

The air section is Waco’s real draw, and following his second place finish at the inaugural Stab High event, Chip clearly wanted to improve on his repertoire, arriving in Waco for its first swell of 2019. Among the abundance of punts that Chip almost certainly unleashed, this wild spin has given us pause. Not only for its acrobatic qualities, but also because we don’t know what to call it.

“3-shuv or 540 big spin?” read our message to Albee Layer, Stab‘s go-to guy when we need a critical opinion on anything surf. 

“Good question,” Albee laughed. “I think it’s the second one. But I don’t really know.”

Hoping for a more definitive answer, we hit up New Jersey pro Rob Kelly, who was on-site to see Chippa’s wild spin.

Stab: How many tries did Chippa take before stomping this? And what did he call it?
Rob Kelly: They were running the wave as two back to back air sections so Chippa was getting an air section every other minute. After putting down so many different airs, Chippa was in front of me in the rotation and I remember him saying, “I don’t even know what else to try now,” and then he took off and did that. I think it was his first attempt.

Holy shit! And wait, they can make air section sets now?
Yeah. Two air sections back to back, same tempo as the normal set waves.

In conclusion, Chippa is a freak, Waco is still getting better, and we still don’t know what this thing is called. 

What a time to be alive!