Something to try

Post links to cool kiteboarding or windsurfing sites with photos, videos or technique.
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Russian Dood
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Something to try

Post by Russian Dood »

Cool article about front loop

Something to try when my wings :wink: grow up big enough
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winddoctor
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Post by winddoctor »

Keep this thread going. If we can jump, we can hate, er, I mean huck! All of those wannabe huckers out there including myself have run out of excuses to sheet in and spin. How about some incentive? Any ideas to really push each other into hate-filled glory?

In the mean time here's another good article:

Stay Straight But Get Looped

Reprinted from the June 2002 New England Windsurfing Journal

By Frederick Vetterlein

Looping doesn’t hurt like a lot of other things. Remember playing tackle
football and getting hit hard enough to feel the ground shake? It doesn’t
hurt like that. Or agro belly flops—that hurts more, too. Or hitting the
pavement from a skateboard, or catching a snowboard rail, or tumbling down 100
feet of eastern skiing slope—they hurt more. Looping, when you feel it, is
like a back slap. Not even like the adolescent punch you used to give your
friend in the arm. No, just a back slap. A back slap goes away—it’s not
there even as long as a sunburn. In fact, it could be thought of as a kind of
shiatsu—the Japanese deep massage technique, when they use elbows and
knuckles to get at the deep muscle—not a bad way to get a massage if you can
waterstart away.

If you can jump, you can loop. It’s that simple. The back slap just lets you
know how well you are doing. If you feel the slap in your shoulders, then
you’re not really sheeting in. If the middle of your back stings—that’s
because it’s flat—then you’re doing better. But if you feel the lower
back hit or butt, you’re doing great-you’re almost completely rotated. And
there’s no slap, because that part of your anatomy is not a flat surface. The
Forward Loop—Getting Around When the season starts every year, we’re back
to the problem that’s been on our minds since our windsurf beginnings, to
throw, to chuck, to launch, and my favorite, to huck, ourselves, our gear, our
minds into one complete rotation. I loop therefore I am. This is as far, in
windsurfing, as we need to go in school. At this point, the board hats are
given out, and the alumni can stride away, knowing, in this small way, they
have found Truth. How many times have you read those articles, stared bleary
eyed at the photos, readying for the next perfect day when you would launch
that one, the perfect one, the never-to-be-questioned true one, into air, sky,
and mind. Well it happened to me. Late last spring, before the big winds
disappeared till fall, knowledge happened. I looped. Well, really, I went
around. That is, I sheeted in mid-flight and prayed. When I opened my eyes from
my watery landing place to survey the damages—I had gone around! The board
wasn’t on my feet, and I had to swim from under the sail, but I was all
right. I wasn’t trashed. My equipment was fine. Really I was no worse for
wear than in the hundreds of beginning efforts at jibing.

Then in the Fall as the winds picked up, I was definitely going all the way
around, and sometimes landing in waterstart position. I began to think about
what had happened, and thought, this isn’t how the mags or videos described
it. And I went back to my own ignorant beginnings and saw some advantages to my
dumb method.

Almost everyone who jumps goes for max show by throwing the body back and the
board up, but for looping you should begin to practice almost nose first
landings. That is-keep your body centered over the board and pull up the back
foot and tail close to your body. The jump is more like a pop. You push down
with the fin as you launch and then, quickly-pull up the tail. Get comfortable
with this because the most important focus of the loop is sheeting in with the
backhand—hard. If you have to think too much about getting the air, then you
won’t concentrate on the sheeting in. It’s natural instinct. Remember,
jibing or even downhill skiing took the learning of many steps. And unhook.
Many sailors jump hooked-in because it gives them maximum power. But you’re
going to have to get used to finding your ramp and unhooking quickly unless you
have arms of steel and can sail unhooked fully powered. With a good ramp you
can time the unhooking. With the sailors I know, we needed a ramp at the
beginning stage so we didn’t spend all our focus energy on the jump. You want
the best ramp you can find. The more side shore, the better. Remember, you want
to get in the air and then focus on sheeting in-nothing more. The point is to
get around at the beginning, so you know you won’t be hurt. Don’t worry
about staying in the footstraps, that’s easy-after you know you can ride
around. Contrary to what many articles say, your first loops won’t happen on
flat water and going off the wind. The problem with flat water looping is
coordinating so many things and then missing emphasis on the most
important—sheeting in. It’s true that you need very little height to
rotate; the fin just needs to clear the water, but all that concentration on
getting out of flat water distracts from the critical effort of sheeting in. So
do yourself a favor and sail into a ramp, even if it’s a bit upwind, you’ll
sooner be floating high and ready for the next step.

You’ll hear all about rolling into the loop, as if you’re forward
somersaulting over one shoulder, and that this is important to sailing away.
But don’t even think about this concept until you’ve learned the sheeting
in, because somersaulting will do just that—somersault you into your rig. The
power of the loop is initiated in the sheeting in, and the roll comes after,
with the movement of keeping the body compact and looking back. That’s about
it. Oh, and forget about intuitive, this won’t be intuitive because the human
intuition is to be on the ground. What you’ll be doing will feel all wrong.
Think of your movement as pelican-like, and the effort a flail. You weren’t
born to fly. But after a few times around, you’ll begin to get the idea. Use
a 5.8 sail or smaller. My suggestion, once you’ve jumped unharnessed and felt
this centered jumping motion, of being more over your board in your jump, is to
aim for a spot just around the mast, downwind of where you can see, a spot on
the water just 10 feet from your airborne location, and pull in the backhand as
if you were steering to that spot. If I’ve really psyched you up and you pull
with all your God-given might, you may pull off a sail-away forward. But more
than likely, you’ll pull like an uncertain believer, and go around flailing,
and land confused, but dumb with the satisfaction that you have done the before
impossible. You’ll be speechless, but proud, with the words, "I loop,
therefore I am," forming on your lips.

And try to sail with people who loop, it gives you confidence to see others
trying, it’s such a strange ride. I give credit to Jer, Neil, and Angry for
locally goading me, and Dana Miller for spreading the KazeDo word, Trip Forman
for his always rad impulse; and Josh Stone for living the ride and teaching it.

Frederick Vetterlein sails on Worldsails and the Star Carve 99.

Reprinted from the June 2002 New England Windsurfing Journal, PO Box 371,

Milford, CT 06460, 203-876-2001,
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morewind
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Post by morewind »

How about a financial incentive. :P Those haunted by the no-loop syndrome buy into a Loop-Club with 500 bucks. The club works like this. You pay your 500 bucks into the pool and you get it back when you loop. If you fail to loop the money stays in the pot, to be shared by those that went for it.

Here's some more details. Every club member signs the "Intent to Loop" form at the back of the Boards article. You MUST try looping at least 3 times when the conditions are met. If you chicken out, even the first time the conditions are right, you lose the dough. There is no holding back. You must give hate the first time the conditions are right, or you lose 500 bucks. :cry:

Your gear is worth thousands, but yet, you know it's worth diddly if you can't loop. Maybe the entry should be an even grand?

Who's in?
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downwind dave
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Post by downwind dave »

love the photo of the dude loop walking down the sidewalk.
funny this topic came up, nov 8 1995 was the first time i spun one round and sailed on. It was on starboard tack at kook st, i was on a 4.5 zeta and my tiga 254. I might forget my wifes birthday from time to time but i have committed that loop to memory.
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Russian Dood
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hate club

Post by Russian Dood »

I like "hate club" idea, but I think money is not really such a big booster, at least not for me, and some of us can't afford it.

On the other hand having sign up "Intent to Loop" form publicly would be much more inspirational for me. I don't care about embarrassment upon shmacks on a beach, they don't have any idea what we doing anyway, but to be embarrassed upon the peers is a real shame. We even can have "Hall of Fame" and "Hole of Shame" pages on the site to glorify those who had wings to fly and to ridicule those who chickened out.
Last edited by Russian Dood on Tue Nov 09, 2004 1:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by more force 4 »

OK, Morewind has too much spare $ and obviously no family (these things are mutually exclusive). $500 is about my yearly toys budget. How about (this means YOU, Russian Dood!) adding a "goals" database to the session database? - kinda like the "toys" , you could add your goals, with the date you set them, and then tick them off when you did them in a session.

I set some personal goals earlier this year, stuck them in the comments of the session thing: I wanted to break 50 kmph, plane through some jibes, and at least start trying duck jibes this year. I've got close on the former (48.something), a couple of good planing jibes, but the duck jibes just ain't there yet - not even attempted. Shame, shame.... It is so cold now, I want Nitinat warm water for that stuff ..... But I know the speed thing really improved my sailing, I found out I could stay in control at way higher speed than I had thought possible.
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Post by winddoctor »

OK, so $ is an incentive for some but not others. A goals database is a good idea, but it's been my "goal" to huck a forward for years. I need a bigger push.

I like the idea of committing (oops - a bit of irony here) to going for a forward on the next day out. We can draw straws and watch the first guy go for it on the first reach out. Then the next guy will go out and so on. The pressure to huck it will be too much to bear and WE WILL LOOP!

The conditions have to be reasonable (no 3.5 white smoke or 6.5 glassy conditions) I like the idea of going for it at Columbia with proper waves, but I'll go for it at Kook if everyone else is in too.

Russian Dude, that's perfect: "Hate Club".

Anyone else interested? BW Daaaaaaaave? Heh heh heh.....

Gotsta Huck!
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Post by ~ pimp hand ~ »

after you doods finnish 'hucking' your 1st loops, try doing it switch so you don't get too comfortable :wink: it's good to huck with confidence on both tacks
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Tom B

Post by Tom B »

I'm in, I think that peer pressure will force us all out of this rut and take us all to the next level. We gotta be serious about it though.

Tom B
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Post by bean »

Consider this my intent to huck form. Time to add some velcro to my footstraps.
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is that a whitecap?
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Loops...

Post by Bobson »

Can I huck a loop with my big gear :?: ..?? One day....HA!! Okay, I'll give you fella's a push towards 'HUCKING SOME HATE LOOPS :twisted: ' if you can give me some hints about jumping. I'll come out and take pics and video of your Loop attempts. Video will be good humour and help the coroner confirm exact cause of death...HA(sorry, couldn't resist)!! :D
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Post by more force 4 »

I wanna know how many guys over 50 have learned to loop :?:

A year ago I would have said 'never' for me, but a couple of decent jumps and a lot more control and reading loop how-tos, and looking at a bunch of videos and... its now up to a 'maybe'. At least I can think about it now without becoming naseous or loosing my bowels .... omigod, sorry, gotta go NOW!
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Post by morewind »

there was no more perfect hucking day than last Sunday at Columbia. 5.0 conditions with small, head-on waves. just begging to be hucked.

Hey PH: are you still loopin'? you used to be a loop jedi.

Looks like the $ thing won't work out. peer pressure it is.
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Post by morewind »

hey mf4: don't worry about being over 50. there's a gorge dood named Jim that pulls wicked forwards - he was 52 when I saw him looping at the wall in 2002. give 'er.
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loop de loop

Post by tempy »

I like the momentum building here. I have been reading about looping and checking out the how-to's for a year now. Now I have a wave board and my 1st CB session under my belt, I want to join the really-want-to-loop-but-am-to-chicken-to-try club.

:D
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