About a month back, word came over the coconut wireless from Maui that local Albee Layer had landed surfing’s first double rotation aerial. The footage was kept hidden at first, and now we get our first glimpse.

The maneuver is known as the “Alley-oop,” where a surfer hits the lip frontside, and rotates inwardly, towards his back foot. This rotation is much more awkward than rotating towards your front foot, but it allows the surfer to wind up and uncork his body during the spin, making multiple rotations possible. The trick was first invented as a 180-degree rotation, followed by a backwards landing and revert out, which has since evolved into a full-rotation maneuver, where successful landings leave the surfer in perfect transition to keep on going down the line. What Albee does here is simply add an extra 180 on the end of his full rotation, landing backwards again, making the trick a 540 with a revert out. Such a trick wasn’t even considered a possibility until Albee and Julian Wilson started posting videos of near-makes. In all, Albee rotates 720 degrees, or two full spins–something never before completed on a surfboard.

The trick can be seen at the 8:40 mark in Albee and Mat Meola’s latest webisode for The Isle.