Every weekend, 7th grader Piper Harris grabs a handlebar, holds on for dear life, and proceeds to ride rails and spin in circles. Just what would make her do such a dangerous activity? The answer is wakeboarding.

At nine years old, Harris was invited by a friend’s mom to join the Kid’s Club at the Orlando Watersports Complex (OWC). An avid extreme sports fanatic already, Harris was the perfect fit. She started off kneeboarding and moved up to wakeboarding within mere weeks of starting. It quickly became apparent that Harris had found her niche.

Harris wakeboarded recreationally until she was asked to compete in the Slider Spectacular in 2012. By April of the next year, Harris was already competing in the more advanced boat riding form of wakeboarding.

“I had only rode boat a few times and was only able to ride over the wake in my first competition,” Harris said.

Nowadays, Harris is an experienced regular at OWC. On wakeboarding days, Harris gets to the complex at 10 a.m. On most summer days, Harris rides for about ten hours.

These ten hours include the same routine every time.“I try something new, then I fall; I do this over and over again until I get tired, then I take a break, eat lunch and then go try it again.  I keep this up until it’s time to go home,” Harris said.

In addition to perfecting her own skills, Harris volunteers with OWC’s summer camp and the Knight’s Club, the University of Central Florida’s own wakeboarding club.

During the school year, Harris practices two or three days a week. She takes lessons by boat towing for 30 minutes each week. Since Harris also competes on the Varsity Diving Team, she sometimes limits her boat rides to only a few times per month.

“I have been known to ride boat at 6:30 a.m. in the morning before school,” she said.  “I love the feeling of the morning rides because you are fresh and ready to ride.”

As fun as this extreme sport may seem, it still has an enormous amount of risks. Harris broke her right leg in the summer of 2011 after hitting a specialized ramp.

“You have to have no fear because you know you can get hurt, and everything is dangerous,” Harris said.

Harris enters numerous competitions, including the National Championships. There are two kinds of competitions: cable and boats. In a cable competition, a suspended cable pulls players. In boat competitions, riders are pulled by a boat with a judge on it.

Just this summer, Harris showed her ability by finishing as a semifinalist in the World Wakeboard Association Wakeboarding National Championships.

Harris explained that work ethic makes all the difference in executing stunts.

“I have to be committed and have no fear to try new tricks.  I also have learned to listen to my coach and gut when I am ready to try new tricks,” Harris said.

Of course, Harris has some role models that she looks up to. These include Bob Soven, a former member of the Wakeboard Brothers, Amber Wing, an Australian professional and the Shred Sisters, a group started to encourage young girls to try the sport.   Amber is small like me, and she understands how difficult it is to find wakeboard stuff to fit me,” Harris said.

Harris has aspirations to compete at the professional level, but right now she is focused on improving her tricks and style. Harris hopes to one day be sponsored in order to get more equipment and the possibility of compensation.

Even though she has big hopes and dreams, Harris still loves the little things that originally drew her into wakeboarding.

“You get wet, and when you try a new trick and land it, you get a huge adrenaline rush,” Harris said.