DukeSilver wrote: ↑Sat Mar 31, 2018 12:18 am
Thanks for the replies. Good to know others find this switch more problematic as well.
Peter - this is exactly how I do my foot switches toe to heel on my surfboard too. On the hydrofoil I have been trying them much later after the turn is completed, thinking I need to get the kite up to 11 o'clock before trying it. I will give this a go next time I am out.
Thanks again.
If you do the switch downwind before the kite is lifting, so absolutely no help from the lines, it is the most difficult, just so you know, but also the highest satisfaction of course if you succeed by accident or skill.
But when you do it on a too downwind course, you have no help at all from neither the lines, nor able to control your curve/carve, so not good and really difficult.
If you do it too late, with kite in normal position and linepull, heeled over (from toeside), you will get yanked sideways off the board leeward, and if trying to compensate when you find out this happens, you will sometimes fall windward instead - NOT easy...
Going all the way around, keeping your kite high, is what most do I think, and when learned, this works pretty well too.
The reason I do it on the way out before heeling over with more pull, is because it feels "right" in every way, just like on surfboards and windsurfers and other directionals, it has to be finalizing part of the carve and not a separate switch afterwards when going toeside on new tack.
The timing is more difficult, so it is all about trying a thousand times, to learn the exaxt moment to do it, and your kite timing in particular
Fly the kite around and up (never downloop), and opposite to what many writes, speed is NOT your friend here whatsoever, you will lose control totally
Doing it at controlled speed not too much downwind nor upwind heeled over, is key here.
The sweet spot is, when your kite starts lifting a tad up, carve almost ended, but you are not heeled over yet
Whenever you are out, end your session trying a fixed number of times, say 10 or 20 or even 50 if you are really in the mood (depending on day and physique) each way, counting, and then stop.
It will help immensely, and somehow no matter how impossible it seems - you will see some either gradual, or extreme, advancing suddenly - between lots of crashes, and you have the timing in your muscle memory when off the water now.
Of course, if you are tired, it might not be good...
Also, some days NOTHING works, other days everything is sweet - if one KNOWS this, you dont get as dissapointed, it is just the way it is.
We often decide NOT to try something we can not do, at the end of a session, but if you are fit, do it right here both for your mental health, and muscle memory.
Just my findings during the years if it can help DukeSilver
Strange thing was, that on some of my very first try's at foot switches, I actually succeeded a few when full "hops", and I thought "YEEEEEES" it is close now !
But no, it took another year till the timing got anywhere near, and it got a lot worse as I thought I should be able to do it ha haa - what a bummer
I know many thinks "what an idiot since he can not do such a basic thing"....
Maybe, but we are many that have learned to ride quite good (or bad but at least consistent) on our other gear, that changing everything to a new timing is not natural nor easy.
PF