PUHI — Kalani Vierra and Krystl Apeles are looking ahead to July 27 when the World Tandem Surfing Championships open in Biscarrosse, France.
The tandem surfing combo, no stranger to titles, earned the right to the world title meet by winning the Pop’s Ah Choy Tandem Surfing Championships, last Friday on Oahu.
The Kauai-based pair finished the Tandem Surfing portion of the Oahu meet with an impressive final heat 10.33 points over the runner-up pair of Leleo Kinimaka and Lauren Oiye who tallied 5.81 points.
“The top four places in the Ah Choy meet advance to the 2018 World Championship in France,” Apeles said. “The third place went to the team of Alika Willis and Leslie Sanchez who missed second place by .13 point, finishing at 5.68 points. The final team, Jordan Patterson and Angelee Homma, qualifying for France finished at 4.37 points.”
The winning pair credits the support of their sponsors, and the help of Jack Leonard, their coach, and one of the owners of Kauai Gymnastics Academy “for being there for us every step of the way.”
Vierra and Apeles return to the Academy in preparation for their world title bid, listening to Leonard talk about “when you’re at the top, you have to change to be the same,” the wisdom drawing from old-world artists.
“I’m proud of Kalani and Krystl and their victory, last Friday,” Leonard said. “But they’ve been very busy. They need to keep their instincts alive, and always be ready, emotionally and physically.”
Leonard said the pair needs to “put a switch in their heads” because when they are in France, they’ll have long days that start with warm ups at 7 a.m. and don’t end until after 6 p.m. They need to be ready at all times.
To this end, Leonard, with the help of Bosu ball and a woodworker, created a new training regimen for the Kauai pair.
“We were really fortunate the woodworker knows surfboards,” Leonard said. “He created a special indo board using sapele, a hardwood, that has the texture of a surfboard. Combined with the Bosu balls, we can create ocean conditions from anywhere in the world — all indoors. Dry land practice is not just standing around trying things out.”
Vierra said the only thing the training combination does not provide is the unpredictable forward and backward motion of the wave.
“You’ll see us running around, forward and back, to simulate wave motion,” Vierra said. “And, Coach Jack gives us homework between the gym workouts. He’ll watch and if I need to have exercise in strength, he’ll provide some exercises to strengthen lifts. He also watches Krystl and if she needs to improve on some stretches, she gets homework on exercises she needs to do.”
Apeles said one of the keys to the pair’s success is communication.
“We need to know what’s going on,” she said. “While on the water, I’m doing the counting — you need to hold a pose for at least three seconds. You also need to get in as many poses as you are able to within a short period of time because there are some days when the waves aren’t breaking. I also need to let Kalani know which pose I’m going into so he can prepare. Communication is very important out on the water.”
On the other side of the coin, Vierra, who has the pulse of the wave under him, needs to communicate up to Apeles on what is going on with the water.
With less than 30 days before hitting the water in France, Vierra and Apeles posted on their social media page, “It’s time to train hard-errrr!”
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Dennis Fujimoto, staff writer and photographer, can be reached at 245-0453 or dfujimoto@thegardenisland.com.
