Drop Knee Tribute
D rop knee master 4: Kevin Miske
With an interview with Kevin Miske
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In the way that you can compare Wingnut with earlier surfers like Dewey Weber and Phil Edwards and see how he builds on the classic stylists, Kevin Miske starts with a Robert August drop knee bottom turn and adds some power and other elements. This turn I think of as being the most modern of the drop knees I studied, because types of body lean and carving technique that Kevin uses are as up to date as what you might see in snowboard techno carving, or telemark ski racing.
Kevin Miske on the origins of his drop knee turn
KJ You were starting to tell me that you actually started doing the drop knee on a skateboard, or a home made skateboard.
KM Yeah. When I grew up, longboarding had just kind of faded out. And shortboarding was what everybody did. But I still had this longer skateboard 'cause I wanted to skateboard down this big hill. And to turn this big thing, I just had to go back to the tail and do a, you know, either a kick turn, or kind of a, think I just developed the turn from there.
KJ Yeah, a wheelie turn huh? So you lifted the front wheels up and swung it around?
KM Yeah. It's kind of a, almost like a drop knee cutback.
KJ Was this in Santa Cruz?
KM No, San Diego. And then, you know, I start surfing. I rode a, I was shortboarding, and in the summer time I'd ride a longboard. And just to turn that big heavy longboard, at Malibu, I'd just. . . I wanted to make something of the wave. It was only knee high. I wanted to get one turn in and then go straight along the wave. I would do that little fade turn, and it just seemed to be the way to. Just seemed the way to turn a big board. Um. I don't know if there's any other mystery behind it. I mean it wasn't like I saw Phil Edwards do it and go, oh ok, I want to do that.
KJ You kind of figured it out yourself. Or it was just something that almost you had to do by necessity, you're saying.
KM It was just something by necessity, it just evolved. I mean, that was what you needed to do to turn that big board. And then, once I met Wingnut, and he's like "whoa, god that's great, I love the way you do that turn. And then he's got the same turn. Then we just talked about it. We'd talk about, oh, he'd tell me I'm doing it way too low. And "get your hands up", you gotta be a little more stylish. And you know, you give eachother a bunch of shit when you do it.
But we talked about, where's the best place to gain speed out of the turn. And for a while I was doing the turn a little high but if I would go lower I could get more speed out of it. You know, good friends, we would kinda rap on how to make it a better turn.
KJ 'Cause yours was typically a bottom turn on a right going wave.
KM Yeah. And I surf rights all day long, and I'd get to do this turn all day long. Just start off every wave. So, it's something that now is, you just do. And it's kind of fun. When I shortboard it's tough to, uh, to get rid of it. But it's something I'm working on with skateboarding, and not doing a drop knee turn.
On the technique of the deep drop knee
KJ When you do the drop knee turn, are you just essentially just pushing down on the rail? It looks like a pretty stripped down turn.
KM I'm pushing on the inside back rail. And it's interesting, like in one photograph you can see that I'm on the inside edge of the stringer with both of my feet. Like I'm not on the other side of the board at all.
KJ Interesting.
KM I've got both of my feet on the inside stringer doing the turn. The back one's kind of directly on the stringer on the tail and the other one's you know, on the stringer toward the other, the in--, the wave side.
KJ Your whole body's kind of offset.
KM Yep.
KJ When I analyze these things I think about the body lean. You kind of lean the other way, like away from the turn. Which is something that skiiers do.
KM Uh huh.
KJ It's called counterleaning.
KM OK.
KJ I'm sure it's just natural for you, but you get all that weight on one side, and then you're actually leaning the other way with your shoulder so the board carves really deeply.
KM Yeah.
KJ Are you pivoting? Do you feel a twisting too, or is it pretty much. . .
KM I, I notice my foot pivots just a little bit, but it's almost so automatic. It's uh. When you talk about skiing, you know, how you automatically set your skis and your knees are following. It's all repetition. I mean once you force yourself to do it correctly it falls into, you know, the repetitive nature.
KJ I mean, are you sort of twisting your upper body to whip the board around at all, or do you feel like it's mostly just pressing down?
KM You know what? I would never want to do something like, you never want to force your upper body to do what your legs are doing. It's kinda like, keep your upper body quiet and do it with the bottom. I want, of course you lead with your upper body. With your hands and your torso, but I don't use the upper body to turn the board.
KJ That's what it looks like. It looks like you're pressing down and letting the board do the work of the turning. Somehow the turning surface of the rail is just carving it.
KM Yeah.
KJ One thing I find is hard to do on the drop knee is to get your foot really pointing down so that it's not a flat foot turn at all.
KM OK.
KJ That's one thing it seems like you're really doing really well. You're turning your foot in. So it's like that heel is sticking straight up.
KM Yeah, the heel is up, and that's just a second nature gig. You know, I go to do it, and it just pivots up. And I still think that's from early skateboarding. Where the tail of my board didn't, I didn't have room to put it. So I didn't put it flat footed, I (chuckles) put it up. You know I had this little pin tail. But then it just comes from surfing Malibu on that big heavy board. So, it all just kind of evolved. And then, you know, then once it it was working I was like, "hey I love this fade turn." That was the cool thing about longboarding, it gave you fade turn in on a one foot high wave, or knee high wave, that, you know, on a shortboard you weren't going to be able to do at all. Cause you had this initial speed that you could paddle into a wave, whip a turn, and then go. And that was just a fun way to start a wave.
KJ So for you, it's a left go right, and then you fade and then do a drop knee.
KM Yep. Well the-- it's a fade, drop knee turn at the same time.
KJ Oh, the whole thing is a big, like, change of direction.
KM It's a fade, yeah, fade going left and whip it right, and then it's a big drop knee turn. It's just a fun way to start it. You know I'd see these guys, you know, regular foots, go in and do this neat fade turn and whip around and be frontside, and I'm going "hey, I want to do the same thing." So I'd look into the wave and fade, and do this big turn coming back. At Malibu you do it a hundred times, for a whole summer, each day. It was just a fun way to start the wave.
On analyzing tapes and copying the masters
KJ So, you did mention that you'd seen the Robert August tape. Was there ever a point where you sat down and tried to analyze what you were doing, like seeing yourself on tape? Or is it all kind of by feel?
KM Oh yeah, No, no, no. Once you know, I felt like "this is just the natural fun way I start waves." But when I saw, then I would look at it. Oh, I saw Nuiieva on this videotape, and I'm like, ok. Wingnut and I would rewind it, and then we'd watch him, we'd watch Billy Hamilton, and then we'd watch, uh. We'd just sit around and we'd go, "ok, now that's, that's what we're trying to copy." And, "look at that, look how smooth that is." And we would just rewind it and watch it a few times and go "ok, that's what we're talking about. Look at the way he set's that up." And here's somebody twenty years before you doing it, you know, what you're trying to do.
KJ When was this that you and Wingnut were watching these tapes?
KM Oh, you know, probably right before he went on an Endless Summer stuff. You know that time frame in our. . .
KJ Early nineties I guess.
KM That time frame when he was twenty something and I was twenty something. You know, we're just starting to hang out and surf and have fun. You know, we'd sit back and talk about it, and just go, "hey, check this out." That's-- And he would find one of those and go, "this is what I'm talking about. Look where he starts the turn and where he finishes it."
KJ Yeah, it's interesting, you wound up with two very different styles.
KM Mm hmm.
Photo sequence 4: Kevin Miske: deep drop knee bottom turn
followed by roundhouse cutback
In frame one I set up the turn with a push. I like to get up some speed for this turn because it's so great for carving.
In frame two I've dropped down into a deep drop knee. I actually press my back knee past the rail. The way I do this is by crossing my thighs a bit as the drop knee deepens. Kevin holds his arms out like Robert August, although he seems to hold them a little higher. Sometimes he brings his outside arm (his left, my right) up as if to throw a football. This styling I use on the Kevin Miske turn seen on the contents page.
Kevin mentions in the interview that his feet are both on the inside edge of the rail. You can see that I do the same thing, so the rail is heavily weighted.
In this frame you can see the counter lean principle in action. Since my hips hang so far over the rail to the inside of the turn, my upper body must reach toward the outside rail to counter weight. This makes it appear as though I'm leaning slightly away from the direction of the turn. Pushing with the outside (right) hand helps this weighting.
In frame three I raise up to a normal drop knee stance. I'm thinking about starting the next turn, although the old turn still has a ways to go. This "anticipation" is essential mental work in putting turns together. Here you see at the same time the finish of the first turn and the full windup for the next.
What will shortly follow out of this finish is a roundhouse toeside turn, where the heavy board will be swung hard to the right. As I've seen Kevin do in the videos of his drop knee followed by cutback, I reach forward with my right hand to wind up the next turn. In one of Wingnut's surf videos, you can see Kevin wind up after his drop knee bottom turn on a right breaking wave, then unload on a big roundhouse cutback that cuts the top off the wave's shoulder.
In frame four I release the windup and cut back. I throw my right arm back to lead the turn. The turn is a right or toeside kick carve. The nose swings around slowly, a little faster than if the trucks alone had done the turning. It's not a fast change of direction like a kick turn on a ramp, it's a smooth carve turn done while balancing on two wheels. A little toe dragging is used to aid the balance on the tail.
Frame five shows the finish of the roundhouse. In order to get the board farther around, I reverse the direction of my shoulders. I had rotated rightwards to initiate the turn, now I'm pressing leftwards to end it. This is a "checking" motion that both stops the turn's rotation and pushes my hips and the board 1/8 turn or so farther. Now I'm reaching across my body once again with my left hand, to add some strength to the check.
If you look at the last three frames you can see that the board made a complete 180 degree turn while my upper body stayed facing forward. Although I used some rotation and force to do that roundhouse turn, I didn't move my upper body much at all. I let my hips swivel underneath me, and I kept my upper body in the position that would allow the board to move the most below. I have developed some stretch in my waist and ribs from conditioning and practice. It's actually kind of complex to learn this action of linking turns by rotating the upper half of your body opposite the lower half. Once you can do it smoothly, it feels simple and relaxed, and leads to the feeling as Kevin says of having a quiet upper body.
