This series is presented by The Island Surf Shop - Video: Juani Gayol 

A great competitor and a top free surfer, Santiago Medeiro from Punta del Este has developed a very good relationship with aerials over the last few years. It is, along with tubes, one of the maneuvers that has characterized him the most in his life as a professional surfer.

As a teenager, surfing in Santa Teresa, he was influenced by surfers doing aerials and wanted to try them. He firmly remembers one who told him it was possible and from then on began a love affair with flying with and above the waves that lasts to this day.

In the more than 20 minutes that this video lasts, Medeiro begins the Conversations on the Island series, which has and will have several of the best and most outstanding specialists in different disciplines talking about what they know.

Some of the key points of this conversation were:

Tables for aerials
One with more area at the tip; it will generate more speed but will also make it easier to rotate and prevent the board from digging in when the turn is not complete.

Waves in Uruguay for good aerials
La Aguada is not a very big wave but it is not extremely still either. It has the ideal angle for doing aerials.

The Emir has good ramps.

Boca de La Barra is where Santiago has performed several of his best aerials.

Secrets to complete aerials
Practicing them is a sacrificial practice because, in addition to injuring yourself to generate speed, a lot of the wave's travel is wasted.

Fact: Young people throwing aerials
Uruguay needs more young people doing aerials. You see a lot of them in “competition and securing (…) I would like to see a crazy guy doing aerials and not securing. That would be my problem,” says Santi.

The personality of the aerialist
They take it more easy. They are more free surfers. All of the above, Ozzie Wright, Chippa Wilson and Balaram Stack, are free surfers.

Step by step to complete a reverse – Analyzed frame by frame
1: Watch the section already thinking that you are going to go on air
2: Prepare for takeoff and rotation
3: Press on the back of the board to take off, lift the board to bring it towards your body; feet are closer to the chest
4: Allow the body to finish the movement naturally

Key: Prepare the movement well before doing it.

Step by step to make a rodeo
1: Identify an open-faced section of a sucked wave
2: Perform a projected bottom turn
3: It's important to do the double grab. If you've generated the speed and you're coming from the backside, you go up and grab the board with both arms, which is what will allow you to do the turn; it comes out on its own, it comes out with inertia. The craziest part, the one that impresses people the most, is the easiest. The curvature of the wave itself generates the turn that follows.

Dangers of performing aerial flights
Hitting your board, flipping over and hitting your fins, breaking the fin guard on your side, injuring your knee ligaments, running someone over. Landings, especially landings… You have to know when to give up.

Matt Meola says you have to be committed to every move you make, but not all of us have Matt Meola's knees.

Council
“Watch videos of surfers doing aerials, listen to rock music and go do everything you need to do to do aerials, because it’s the best thing there is.”