Figure 1. The Old Coral Double Wall Surf

If you want to be a popper, Old Coral is where you start. A network of ancient thick tetra tendrils stretches between Old Coral’s greenstone hulks and their iron terraces, making it a great training ground for a nuevo popper wannabe. It’s easy to gain altitude, and easy to string wires. That’s where I earned my mask, the Marakihau tentacle tattoos on my cheeks that you kids in the vids try to copy. But a popper is not measured by the ink on his skin – his fellows judge him by his broken bones and bruises, the rope burns in his hands. Those are the marks of a true popper, and you can only get them by jumping and sliding and falling, again and again. So you might as well go to Old Coral and get started, menino.

Still, it’s too easy to think of OC as a coxo training ground. Old masters return there, too, both to show the kids how it’s done and to face off against each other. If you know where to look, there are some spectacular spots to plak – if you don’t mind the rich bastardos staring at you from the windows. Here, my colega Espiritu Lao demonstrates his famed Double Wall Tentacle Surf – somersault off the Old Hospital rooftop, a slide down a slippery tetra tentacle to gather momentum, and then rope-supported run straight up the Telerilao Church’s wall.

Of course, that last part didn’t exactly work out for him, in the plak face-off against Disturbio. Girls still cry at that brownish red spot at the bottom of the alley behind the Church. Keep in mind that just when you have outgrown OC, it can still break you.

Figure 2. The Electric Eel Dive Bomb

Some poppers like that old fart Octomon look down on the water plakkers: they say it takes no pedras to do it if you have no hard rock or tetra beneath you. I urge them to go and try the Electric Eel Dive Bomb that Electrico invented – not only do you have to time the swing from the tetra arc just right to get past the Shark Tetra Reef, you also need to avoid the maglev power cables when you land, passing right between them to avoid a nice refreshing 20,000 volt zap.

Whenever I ask Octomon to try it, he goes all red and says something about his infection not liking the salt water.

Figure 3. The Mukah Monkey Murder Leap

If you’re a born and bred Eel like me, you probably don’t like *verde* so much. But if you run the tetras all the way to the mukah forest in the border of Laoguna, there is a whole lot of popping, plakking fun to be had. Mukah vines are plenty strong, so you don’t even need ropes. Some of the best bareback plakkers train here.

I’ve heard stories that Apolo Dantés came up with this move after watching mukah monkeys leap from tree to tree. Some of his rivals say that that’s not all he liked to do with monkeys. But Apolo’s predilections aside, this is a simple but nasty move, and if you get it right, it will take your greenrock rolls and leaps to a whole new level as well.