John Ruzicka is da man

(canaday)

Hey everyone. After a few years of riding with John Ruzicka and hundreds of backroll attempts which I have painfully watched and tried to coach him through. Well on Friday, he finally landed his first invert! However, he didn't land a backroll. He landed his 8th tantrum attempt ever. So congratulations John on your first invert!

(dakid) · (dakid) **Join Date: Feb 2001** 03-13-2004, 6:38 PM

Congrats! Any pics or vid?

(zigzagsd) · (zigzagsd) **Join Date: Dec 2002** 03-13-2004, 9:41 PM

thanks for the props, sean. you've seen literally hundreds of failed backrolls, so i decided to try something else for a while. the tantrum is very cool.

thanks, joe. i do have video - i figure my first invert is a good enough occasion to produce my first video. i'm working on that tonight. maybe i'll have it up tomorrow night if all goes well. you gotta come out with us sometime.

(dakid) · (dakid) **Join Date: Feb 2001** 03-13-2004, 9:43 PM

Yeah, I know the feeling of landing the first invert...it's an awesome high, isn't it?

Nice work, man, and yeah, we need to hook up...you can help me w/ my riding, and I'll do the same for you. FYI, I'm a better teacher than I am a rider.

(kristian) · (kristian) **Join Date: Nov 2002** 03-13-2004, 10:00 PM

Congrats John!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(jarrod) · (jarrod) **Join Date: May 2003** 03-14-2004, 11:08 AM

Congrats! I landed my first tantrum yesterday too! Just to make sure it wasn't a fluke I went back out and stomped another one right after.

(wakepaula) · (wakepaula) **Join Date: Jul 2002** 03-14-2004, 2:23 PM

Way to go John!!!

Ok, there it is, Joe and I want to ride with you guys next Friday :-)

Is this possible John,Joe and Sean??

I Like how I just invited myself?

(Message edited by wakepaula on March 14, 2004)

(dakid) · (dakid) **Join Date: Feb 2001** 03-14-2004, 2:29 PM

If it's Friday, it would have to be early, so I can go in to work, by 11 or noon. Otherwise, I'm free Saturday and Sunday. (so is gf)

(deepstructure) · (deepstructure) **Join Date: Jun 2002** 03-14-2004, 3:00 PM

congrats john!! i was the same way - tried hundreds of times before i got my backroll, then got a tantrum in 6 tries. funny how some tricks just seem more natural, eh?

(zigzagsd) · (zigzagsd) **Join Date: Dec 2002** 03-14-2004, 4:30 PM

thanks, everybody! friday might be good, paula and joe. i'll let you know.

jarrod - your tantrum looked great - nice height. i'm working on that. for now, i'm just happy to present this:

http://www.wakepics.com/view_single.php?medid=10115

(pikeax) · (pikeax) **Join Date: Feb 2002** 03-14-2004, 7:19 PM

congrats John! had to have been that nice boat right! neh, good job man!

(paulsmith) · (paulsmith) **Join Date: Mar 2002** 03-14-2004, 7:22 PM

Way to go John! Although having got worked on another backroll horrible attempt this weekend these stories of "hundreds" of attempts before landing one is mighty disconcerting.

Maybe I'll just stick with 180s.

(sdboardr99) · (sdboardr99) **Join Date: Aug 2001** 03-14-2004, 7:46 PM

Okay, well now that you got your first invert out of the way it's time to nail the backroll. You were so close that day at Elsi that I'm sure you will get it soon - although Sean isn't so confident!

Let's see the video!

(blabel) · (blabel) **Join Date: Jul 2001** 03-14-2004, 8:13 PM

Nice! Congrats John.

(deepstructure) · (deepstructure) **Join Date: Jun 2002** 03-14-2004, 8:22 PM

paul still wakeboards?? ;)

(zigzagsd) · (zigzagsd) **Join Date: Dec 2002** 03-14-2004, 9:15 PM

dustin -- i've been riding better lately. i wasn't progressing very much after i first bought the boat, but now hopefully that has changed!

bill, see my post in the A/V section - i can't get the file to compress enough for wakepics. i have a finalized version - 25MB. i like the way it came out, especially for my first attempt at vid editing. now i just need to figure out how to get it online!

thanks again, everyone.

(zigzagsd) · (zigzagsd) **Join Date: Dec 2002** 03-14-2004, 10:08 PM

http://www.wakepics.com/view_single.php?medid=10126

well, i chopped it down considerably. went to mono for the audio and saved it as a .wmv file. the quality really suffers, but i'll keep trying to find that happy medium. here's my first take for now... enjoy!

deltahoosier 03-14-2004, 10:29 PM

Sweet riding and even better music... great going guys.

(sdboardr99) · (sdboardr99) **Join Date: Aug 2001** 03-14-2004, 11:28 PM

Next time select a higher quality setting - it will result in a bigger file but much better quality video. You'll probably want something between 2 and 3MB per minute of video.

Nice job of the tantrum! Looks like you had problems with the floating mulch in the lake. We rode the main lake all day and didn't have any problems at all.

(wakeripper) · (wakeripper) **Join Date: Oct 2002** 03-14-2004, 11:35 PM

Right on John Congratulations my friend now you can work on Raleys with me

I loved the music i totally felt like i was in the boat with you guys. I hope to get out with you guys soon. Keep up the good work

(deepstructure)

john - microsoft has the free media 9 encoder you can download:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=5691ba02-e496-465a-bba9-b2f1182cdf24&DisplayLang=en

and then use this tutorial from dave cervenka (kung fu wake and video on this site), to get a nice encoding scheme (it's a downloading word doc):

http://www.cervenka.net/videos/docs/VideoCompressionWME9.doc

dave knows his stuff and does a nice step-by-step walk-thru to let you know what to do.

(jarrod) · (jarrod) **Join Date: May 2003** 03-15-2004, 3:05 PM

John, Thanks for the compliment. I was hoping to see your video, but my work machine wouldn't play. I'll try from home! Congrats again. What are you going for next?

(wakepaula) · (wakepaula) **Join Date: Jul 2002** 03-15-2004, 5:40 PM

OMG!! What a treat! I hardly ever get to watch videos(I'm on dial up). John that was SO SO sweet! I love how we got another good look at it too. Was that AJ doing a 3??? I did not know he could do that?? Impressive riding from all!! :-)

Does Greg have something to do with this??

(zigzagsd) · (zigzagsd) **Join Date: Dec 2002** 03-15-2004, 8:25 PM

jarrod - i'm going to try to land another one!! i'll probably go back to the punishment of the elusive backroll as well.

paula, YES! AJ tries 3's now and then, but no inverts (he's really a trick skiier ___insert remark here___ in disguise)! yeah, greg's a good teacher - WCR wakeboard school!

on a sad note, i have an interview in poway at 1PM on friday. i suppose that's good for the ol' job search, but don't they know that friday is prime lake time?!? i was all set to be at the lake all day, but now it looks like early AM only (if at all).

(jarrod) · (jarrod) **Join Date: May 2003** 03-16-2004, 7:03 AM

Good luck on that backroll. I'm pretty close to a TS backroll, so I guess that's my next one.

buttacup 03-16-2004, 2:37 PM

Nice work John.

And it looks like Sean didn't even break his board this time either

(wakepaula) · (wakepaula) **Join Date: Jul 2002** 03-17-2004, 12:08 PM

You know I'm up for an early am run. I'll pull my son out of school if I have to, if we need to come up with a third.
Let me know

trickskisrock 03-17-2004, 1:38 PM

Paula - your dedication to parent hood truly amazes me.

(canaday)

No go Paula, I'm resting.

(wakepaula) · (wakepaula) **Join Date: Jul 2002** 03-17-2004, 5:20 PM

You're resting??

trickskisrock 03-17-2004, 6:29 PM

I agree Paula, I can't believe Sean's letting a little thing like not being able to walk get in the way of riding.