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By the way, this is Texas Surfer’s 100th blog post… and it isn’t even about surfing! You gotta see this, though …
Also, as of today, you viewers have clicked on enough ads to keep the website alive for another year! (Oh, what have we done?!) It’ll only get better from here 
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The Indo Board is a product used to improve balance for surfing, skating, and snowboarding. It’s a durable, high quality product that does what it’s designed to, so I hate to see the company have to deal with things like this.
Some people think they can get away with anything. Mimic Skateboards was allegedly selling a product similar to the Indo Board called an “Orbit Board” which even came with an unauthorized copy of the Indo Board instructional DVD.
Mimic Skateboards also was allegedly using Indo Board’s trademark to send people to a website that said the Indo Board was sold out, and then redirected them to a sales page for the Orbit Board.
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A lot of people come to this website looking for used surfboards, used surfboard tie downs, old but useable wet suits, and more types of surf gear. I also see people coming to this website searching for condos, hotels, and beach houses that are for sale and rent all over south Texas. The towns they usually went to buy, rent, and surf in are Galveston, Surfside, Port Aransas, Corpus Christi, and South Padre.
If you happen to have something that’s surf related that you want to sell, you can now list it on TexasSurfers.com for free. You can type in a full description, add pictures, and remain completely anonymous. You don’t even have to register and your ad is placed in minutes.
If you have beach real estate, such as a beach house you want to rent out or sell, you can list that here, too.
Listings expire after 30 days, but you can always repost your listing for free at any time.
Here are some things you might want to list on the Beach Life For Sale Board:
Surfboards, surfboard bags, wet suits, fins, leashes, tie downs, old surfing photos and prints, beach houses and condos for sale or lease, skate boards, and pretty much anything else that’s related to surfing and beach life. If you have something to sell that fits into a category that doesn’t yet exist, send us an email and we’ll create the category just for you.
Post a free for sale ad right now!
View the Beach Life For Sale Board.
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I found this homemade rasta indo board on Craigslist. I have no idea how it compares to the real thing but hey, it’s only $20. These things really do improve your balance for surfing and skating, by the way. It makes it much easier to learn tricks, too. In a perfect world, the natural progression would be learning first to indo board, then skate, then surf.
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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — With no wave in sight, nearly a dozen landlubbers carefully climbed on their boards.
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Looking as though they were ready to hang 10, they struggled to keep their poise as they listened for instructions.
But there was no ocean in the basement of the Crunch Fitness in Union Square. Members of the Manhattan gym class were there to learn how to use the Indo Board Balance Trainer.
The exercise board works the body’s balance control systems. It can also help users train for sports like surfing and snowboarding, which require core strength.
Fitness instructor Terrell Pruitt took his class of 20- and 30-somethings through an hour-long session that works the entire body and provides an aerobic workout. Gym-goers did squats and lunges while trying to balance on boards perched on air cushions, which create an unstable platform.
Keeping the board from touching the ground is the challenge and the goal. As people progress, they can balance longer.
Crunch has been offering Indo Board classes since August. Participants in the Indo Winter Boarding class will go on a skiing and snowboarding trip Feb. 28 to Hunter Mountain in the Catskills.
“It’s getting them aware of the leg strength that’s required, the core strength and just being able to hold themselves up on something that’s not stable,” said Pruitt.
Those are some of the reasons why Dena Wallerson has been attending Indo Board classes.
“It’s helped me take my skiing and running to another level,” said the athletic Manhattanite. “Normally on the first day of skiing for the season, you’re rusty and stiff and not conditioned to do it. Now, I have the stamina.”
Off the slopes, Wallerson has seen improvement in her running form and ability to log more mileage.
The idea for the Indo Board washed ashore in 1965, when fledgling surfer Hunter Joslin used a homemade balance board to learn to surf. He started the Indo Board Balance Trainer company in 1998 after many years of working in the surf industry.
Around 2000, the board started gaining hype as core fitness started receiving more attention. “That’s the majority of what the Indo Board is, a core trainer,” Joslin explained by phone from the company’s Indian Harbour Beach, Fla., headquarters.
The circular shape of the Indo Board lends itself to be more user-friendly, Joslin added, since it’s wider than a rectangular balance board, giving the user more surface to stand on.
“By putting the board between the ground and the person, it’s a different mental aspect,” Joslin said. “It’s more challenging and interesting to the mind.”
Indo Boards come in several different models. Some, Joslin said, are more targeted toward tricks or movements, others accommodate a user’s height. The most popular board is the Indo Original, which is the easiest model to learn on. Prices range from around $100 to $200.
Each board comes with an accompanying roller. Many instructors, like Pruitt, use the IndoFLO cushion which helps prevent falls (but is sold separately) when working with novice boarders. The company suggests having a partner spot you in the beginning.
“Balance begins with core engagement,” Joslin explained. You also need correct posture, he said, which also benefits from the Indo Board.
You-Lee Rodriguez of St. George started working out with the Indo Board about five years ago. He quickly picked up on how to use it and can do different types of pushups, kettlebell exercises and jumps with the board, among various other advanced moves. He can be seen on the Indo Trainers DVD available on the company’s Web site (www.indoboard.com).
Rodriguez, an independent personal trainer who also works at Peak Performance Sports Center in Manhattan, starts off his clients using the Indo Board and roller on a thick carpet or mat, which provides for slower movement. With practice, they move to a thinner mat, followed by a wood floor.
As clients progress, Rodriguez incorporates aerobic moves, medicine balls and strength-training exercises using 3- to 5-pound dumbbells into their workout routines.
“You get cardio training, depending on what you’re doing,” he said, noting, “While you’re on the board, you’re working your full body.”
Andrea Boyarsky is a features reporter for the Advance. She may be reached at boyarsky@siadvance.com.
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An advanced trick you can do on the Indo Board is called the Shuv-it. The shuv-it is the act of standing on the board, kicking a side of it with one foot, and causing it to totally rotate 360 degrees while you stand on it on only one foot, then land on it once it’s done rotating. It looks awesome and it takes practice to learn. Let’s get started.
First you want to position your feet about 12 inches apart, with the Indo Board positioned so that it’s off centered and so that the side rail of the board shows only one strip of the roller’s grip tape (the roller being the black cylinder the board sits on – it has two strips of grip tape). You might have to take a look at your roller and find these two strips of grip tape for this to make sense, but it’s important because positioning the board in this way will help you balance during the trick.
You’re going to use the roller as your pivot point when you begin the move. To do the move, you need to kick the board with the heel of one foot, while also rolling the ball of your pivot foot toward your kicking foot. Look at picture #2 below for a better understanding of this. What you’re doing is both putting the Indo Board into motion by kicking it with your heel, and allowing yourself to center your pivot foot over the cylinder by rolling that foot toward the foot that’s kicking. Take a moment to check out Hunter Joslin (creator of the Indo Board) below in the second picture to get a firm understanding of this.
You are also lifting your body slightly in the air during this kicking process, which is unweighting you. By placing less weight on the board, it is free to turn in a full circle. It follows that the longer you can stay unweighted, the better chance you have of landing the shuv-it. As you can see, Hunter is completely off of the board in picture #3.
You want to land with both feet at the exact same time and centered over the roller. If your feet don’t land at the same time or if they are not centered over the roller, the board won’t be balanced and you’ll probably fall. As with all Indo Board tricks, practice makes perfect!
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When you ollie, you basically stand on your board (a skateboard or an Indo Board), and jump, causing the board to flip in mid air while you are also in the air. The idea is to successfully land on the deck of your board once it has landed back on the ground. This is a basic skating move you want to be comfortable with if you want to be a skater. It’s also a great move to learn while improving your balance for skating and surfing on the Indo Board.
Learning how to ollie on the Indo Board is really simple if you already know how to do it on a skateboard because it’s the same basic move. You can still quickly learn how to ollie on the indo even if you’ve never done it on a skateboard, though. Just follow this quick guide on “How to Ollie on the Indo Board.”
Most people find it easier to ollie while wearing shoes. This is because you actually use the grip on your shoes to manipulate the Indo Board. It’s possible to ollie without shoes on, just not nearly as easy.
First you want place your feet on your board with the ball of your back foot on the very end of your board, toward the back of the board. As for your front foot, you should place it just past the center of the deck. It’s a combination of applying preasure on your front foot and using the traction of your back foot to pull the board upward that’s going to cause it to flip.
Now that you’ve got the stance down, it’s important to get really comfortable with being in this position and understand what’s going to happen next. What you’re going to do is get in a super low squat. You want to squat all the way down and be really compressed, with your knees bent as much as possible.
Next, you want to slightly roll the board forward, which means you’ll lean forward just a bit; at this time you want to pop up as high as you can.
Here’s what should happen: You lean forward on the board, with your front foot pushing it forward a bit, and when you pop up as high as you can, the traction of your back foot grips the board and pulls the back of the board up and over, causing the board to flip in the air while you are also in the air. Of course, as you know, the point is for the board to flip in the air while you’re in the air, and have the board land flat on the roller in time for you to land flat – and balanced – on the Indo Board.
You’ll learn how to make the board flip in just a few minutes, so that part isn’t very difficult. The problem most beginners have is getting the timing down so that the board and their body land at the same time, with the board flat on the cylinder. Of course, the Indo Board brings an additional challenge, as opposed a skateboard. The Indo Board demands that when you land, you also completely balance yourself on the board, which has only one point of stabililty, not 4, like a skateboard does (the four wheels as opposed to one cylinder).
The only way to get better is to practice, so get started!
Here are few example pictures of the creator of the Indo Board, Hunter Joslin, performing an ollie.
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