Glitch Glide

submitted by Socks Clawtooth, Senior Furry Correspondent

The controls of a standard SSI surfboard are pretty basic. Forward, left, right, a little reverse as well. Then it doesn't take much to find the next few moves like the flip and the crouch. But I want to take a few moments to tell you all about one more move that has been "standard" on surfboards for a long time and is probably the best kept secret of many pro riders. I should know, I've been using this myself for a long time before I realized that not everyone knew about it.

Some things first that we all know about surfboards in Second Life (SL), at least the standard SSI model. You don't stand on the board until you've achieved enough forward momentum. When you lose your momentum, you fall, or "belly out". The flip and crouch moves are pretty basic, but it wasn't until months into my surfing in SL that I found, quite by accident, the second crouch move. When you press page down ("C" out of keyboard chat mode) and the up arrow ("W"), you can produce an arms-out crouch as you surf. However, and this is the true secret, you don't need to be "standing" on your board to initiate this move. You can perform this move on dead calm water or even on land.

So how is this a secret? Over the seasons I've been in the SLSA events, I've noticed a lot of the top pros seem to belly out and miraculously pop up into the "arms out" crouch stance. They glide across the wave, stand up, and turn back into the wave. Most people think this is a controlled maneuver but it's not. What they've just done is use the scripting to their advantage. Since the arms-out crouch does not require forward momentum to start, you can belly out on a wave and pop back up in this stance.

The long glide that follows is, in reality, gaining momentum to regain a true stance. It's why they pop up from the arms-out crouch to the full standing mode.  They're technically going from a "belly out" to a normal stance, they're just hitting the key combo of page down/up arrow to appear that they're remaining on their feet the whole time. In fact, it's happened that a rider has gone off the wave in this stance and simply glided backwards to catch another wave. In truth, they bellied out, but since they remained "on their feet", it was allowed and rewarded with a full ride.

So do you need a special board? No. Stock SSI boards all do this trick, you only need to make it reflexive to hit it when you belly on wave. 5.1 scripts have an advantage in that they don’t' submarine when you do this, so you can stay on the surface and appear to be in control. 5.2 scripts DO submarine, but they also do the trick quite nicely if you're high enough on wave.

You also need a lot of running room. On a 4 panel epic, you can usually pop back up from the "belly crouch" in about 1-2 panels. On a pipe wave, you need about the same. If the edge is too close, your best bet is to swallow your pride and slam the brakes. Hit reverse to stop your momentum forward before you sail off the side. You'll stall on the wave, but going high enough will get you back on your feet properly.

I've seen many past Second Life Surf Association (SLSA) champs use this technique, but I've also seen a lot of people who didn't use it at all. The ones who don't use it, for the most part, don't know about it. The advantage is that it appears that you only belly for a microsecond, possibly a lag spike or a server glitch in the eyes of the judges. But it's simply a way to look like you are in control when, in reality, you're not. And if it's good enough for some Hall of Fame surfers, it's good enough for me.

And, if there's demand, in our next installment, we'll describe why in SL surfing, you should remain in a crouch for 80-85% of your run, even though in real life surfing they never do.

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