VANCOUVER ISLAND WINDTALK

Just reading through the Loop Motivation and realized how much it reminded me of trying to figure out Sbends on a kiteboard. I've never seen a WS throw a forward loop in person, or another kiteboarder on VI throw a decent SBend, although I know they're out there. But one of the most important factors for both moves seems to be the one that's resulting in all these half way stall-outs.

I'm a kiteboarder (obviously), but I draw from many sources when trying to learn: wakeboarding, snowboarding, surfing, cats falling in slomo... So listen up windsurfers and maybe you'll learn something.

Unlike backrolls/backloops you can't just carve into the wind and hold still, letting momentum carry your petrified ass the other 180. You have to muscle this one around. It's what I call "throwing your shoulders."

Start by practicing in your living room. Imagine holding an ax straight out in front of you and there's a tree to whichever side (or down for front flip) of your shoulder you wish to rotate. You want to look at it then hit the tree as hard as you can starting from a dead standstill with no backswing (lower treestump for ws). Then try it on a real tree until you develop huge abs for torque and heavy shoulders for continuing the momentum.

If you're a kiteboarder, that's all you need to snap a quick front roll or (assuming you can raley) throw a big sbend. For learning frontrolls, try not to send the kite past 12, just pop straight up, and hit that tree just as your reaching the apex. For your first Sbends, throw a medium pop raley and wait till you passing through horizontal to throw the shoulders. Do not try to initiate with a different carve or your legs. Fully laid out looks and feels better anyway. If you're still having trouble, try it with an unhooked sent jump first.

For the windsurfers, one of the biggest challenges I see is that you're pulling the boom toward you with your back shoulder while trying to throw yourself forward and down. So pulling with you back hand is actually bringing your shoulders out of the rotation. Which means you have to throw even harder (the commitment) to counteract this. I know, I know, there's a bunch of other stuff going on with the sail and the board (that a kiteboarder couldn't possibly understand). But hey, there's guys that can throw front flips on snowmobiles and motocross bikes, all initiated from throwing the their shoulders, so no excuses.

That's it, it's just balls and shoulders. Do whatever you have to with the kite or sail, then commit to a hard throw, hold the tuck and I bet you'll be surprised how fast you can rotate.

A front loop in windsurfing is deliberately iniated with the sail, and the sail remains somewhat powered throughout the loop almost like a propeller. If you iniate it with your shoulders it's called a Cheese Roll, and most people just don't do those for whatever reason. For me, I am used to initiating 360's on a Bike both directions with my shoulders, and a cheese roll feels far closer to that then a front loop, which is probably part of why I tend to initiate the Cheese.

Good post, Smartang. I always learn tons from reading technique threads and watching videos from multiple sports.

The forward, done correctly, is less about throwing your body forward and more about throwing the rig and holding on. You can get a surprising amout of shoulder and hip rotation in a good forward so that the head, hips and shoulders are rotating as if you are trying to turn toward the clew. The body gets positioned back by the clew and over the tail of the board. The rotation ends up more sideways and the move gets initiated off the wind. If the rotation gets stalled, it is usually because the sailor has sheeted out, hasn't thrown the rig aggressively enough, or has opened their body position/sheeted out.

A cheese roll has little to do with powering up the sail and more to do with hurling your body in between the mast and nose of the board on take off with a more upwind take-off. The rig follows your body instead of the other way around. I may have to revisit the cheese roll seeing DownwindDave ripping them with style!

"listen up windsurfers!"
i hate to sound ungrateful, but it is pretty clear that you don't have a clew. my feeling is you should stick with to kite instructing. or chopping trees.

Punny.


Here's some tips on wood chopping. Skip to 2 minutes in if you want to cut straight to the technique... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3W_bbo4 ... re=related

Excellent. Just need to convince some of the locals here in PA that their logging skills are an excellent prerequisite for hucking loops

I learned a thing or two there.
Thanks for the chopping link.