The Heelside 360 is one of the most classic tricks in wakeboarding. It's difficult enough to earn respect, yet easy enough for everyone to do it differently with their own style. It definitely helps you move on to other harder tricks, and can be grabbed and tweaked in many ways.

Prerequisties
Before trying the Heelside 360 you should be able to do the following things:
1. jump wake to wake well
2. have a solid heelside 180
3. pass the handle behind your back
4. The Heelside 360 can also be practiced quite easily on land with a rope handle before taking it to the water. It's also easy to practice on a trampoline.

Performing the trick
Watch this trick as an animated image (323k) or as an AVI movie (1.2 MB) or as a Quicktime Movie (823k).

	Cut outside of the wake just enough so that you can take a relaxed cut in to clear both wakes. Keep your knees bent a bit, keep the handle in tight, and take a nice, slow progressie edge to the wake.
	After you wait for a good pop off the wake by standing tall, keep the handle in tight and begin to rotate by pulling the handle to the small of your back. As you can see in the photo, the rider does not rush the spin off the wake, he's already half way across the wake when his rotation begins. Besides getting a good pop, waiting will help you stay on axis in the air.
	As you're making the handle pass focus on keeping the handle in tight to your body, and don't let go with your back hand until your front hand has the handle again. Keep your head up, and shoulders on axis. After passing the handle, start turning your head to look for your landing.
	You've passed the handle and have spotted your landing on the downside of the second wake, so now it's just easy from here. Keep your head up, bend your knees, and keep the handle in tight so it doesn't jerk when it tightens up again when you land. That doesn't look stylish when that happens.

Style additions
There are lots things to add to this trick:
1. Learn it switch
2. Grab it method, slob, mute, nose, or melan.
3. Add a shifty in the opposite direction and bring it back around.
4. Try a method shifty 360, added difficulty and style!
5. Take it off axis to make it a monkey 360 by letting the board go up and out behind you.

Moving On
The Heelside 360 helps you do the following harder tricks:
1. Heelside 540
2. Heelside 720
3. Toeside 360
4. Shifty 360
5. Shifty 540
6. Heelside Mobe
7. Crow Mobe

If you have specific questions about this trick or would like to discuss it further, talk about it in the Trick Talk Forum.

Send This Article To A Friend