Last spring, on a green wave in the Mentawais, a chain of islands off the west coast of Indonesia, Jordy Smith performed the most sublime aerial in the history of surfing, a back flip while spinning one and a half times. Video of the flip, known as a rodeo clown, went viral when Yahoo posted it in June.
With soaring tricks adapted from action sports like snowboarding, BMX freestyle and especially skateboarding, Smith, 22, of South Africa, has been at the forefront of the young surfers entering another realm. An international group in their early 20s, they were raised on watching radical maneuvers in free-surfing films. They have begun vaulting barriers between free surfing and contest surfing.
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