flying foot switch - advice needed

[Foil]

I went from not being able to do flying foot switches, to doing them all the time.

Essentially I am doing them almost exactly the same as on a surfboard. I place my back foot at the balance point in front of the mast. Move my front foot back, then move the new front foot forward into the strap. With a little practice it becomes smooth and fluent.

Sometimes there is a little bit of dabbing to get the feet in the right place. About half the time it's fluid and easy.

Before doing this I practiced just riding around in "ski" stand with both feet together in front of the mast.

I know it's not the classic strap-to-strap flying foot switch, but it's easy to do. More importantly, as I became more comfortable and fluent with the move, I was able to do strap to strap changes. It's all about developing the feel and muscle memory to be able to ride with my body and feet in any position on the board.

For strap to strap changes a big powerful kite helps. I use all surf kites between 5 and 15.5m.

One other thing helped. I went from a 155cm board down to 120cm. On the first session some things were harder, especially anything on the surface. Now everything is easier and much more fun.

that's the best advice for me, I was trying just this method yesterday but the wind died before much progress was made, but this makes more sense to me than any other method,when I try the strap to strap method I wobble all over the place and generally fall in 90% of the time.
and as you say using the the short light 120 pocket style board will help a lot,
makes a lot of sense to me.

[Peter_Frank]

I dont understand this ???

Why do you find it easier on a smaller board

I find no difference in foiling jibes, no matter what board size - IF any difference, it is not as easy on a tiny narrow board IMO.

And when LEARNING foiling jibes, where you will touch down a lot, here it is way easier to practice and learn on a bigger board is my experience

We are all different, but I am curious as to why you find the opposite

PF

[OzBungy]

...

Why do you find it easier on a smaller board

...

You shouldn't take things so literally. It was an observation not an instruction. I got better at foiling foot switches on a smaller board because I was almost forced to. It was harder to do a slow touch down because if I was too slow, or the wrong angle then I would bog down and stop. I just did them faster and ended up doing them all flying. I guess the smaller board provided an incentive to get better.

[nothing2seehere]

Thanks Peter!

Just the answer I was looking for. Actually it turns out I had read that thread but I had a bit of a progression surge in this last month so it didn't really stick in my brain as it was a little beyond what I was working on at that time.

Thanks again

[galewarning]

Re: Crashing in a Safe Way. How?

I'm crashing, crashing, crashing... but I'd love to hear how others advice on doing it the safe way... A bit off topic, but along the same learning curve.

-Barry

...The first thing you need to learn is to crash in a safe way..

[junebug]

Essentially I am doing them almost exactly the same as on a surfboard. I place my back foot at the balance point in front of the mast. Move my front foot back, then move the new front foot forward into the strap. With a little practice it becomes smooth and fluent.

Sometimes there is a little bit of dabbing to get the feet in the right place. About half the time it's fluid and easy.

Before doing this I practiced just riding around in "ski" stand with both feet together in front of the mast.

I know it's not the classic strap-to-strap flying foot switch, but it's easy to do. More importantly, as I became more comfortable and fluent with the move, I was able to do strap to strap changes. It's all about developing the feel and muscle memory to be able to ride with my body and feet in any position on the board.

Do you have any video of you (or anyone) jibing like this? I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone do it.

[oregonkiter]

For me, three things led to on-foil foot switches:

1. Low aspect wing (surf wing)
2. Small board
3. Dedicated practice

Why?

Larger surf wing are so stable--think dance floor. You have time to FEEL what your foot placement is doing and adjust before coming off foil

Small board really forced me to commit to on-foil practice, as touchdowns are not easy, or very fun.

Within one hour I went from 10-20% success on a med aspect wing with three weeks of dedicated practice, to over 90% success on a surf wing.

Stages for me were:

1. Realizing I needed to step rear foot forward, rather than front foot back--don't hop; step.
2. FEELING the LIFT from the kite and timing that with foot change. Realizing new back foot was not going far enough back
3. Learning to combine a board pump and step on upward rebound in conjunction with kite lift
4. Learning how much pump, and kite lift I need depending upon wind strength and kite size. Learning that I can send the kite 1/2 hour BEHIND my direction of travel to help get the new back foot back far enough.

Next: learn to swap feet very quickly using board momentum with very little kite lift. Wonder Foiler Fred Hope of Hood River pretty much only uses a 4m kite on any given day--literally. Everything is board speed, pumping and whipping the kite around. His foot switches seem mostly a function of board pump with very little kite support. He never hops; he steps. It's a vision to behold. Motivating.

[Pedro Marcos]

Learn where you need to have your kite, and how you should react when something goes wrong in a way you always crash away from the foil. This normaly needs a few more dangerous crashes to get the info needed to be safer on the next ones .

Re: Crashing in a Safe Way. How?

I'm crashing, crashing, crashing... but I'd love to hear how others advice on doing it the safe way... A bit off topic, but along the same learning curve.

-Barry

...The first thing you need to learn is to crash in a safe way..

[TomW]

Thanks everyone. A lot of good advice here. The balance point thing, moving rear foot forward makes a lot of sense to me, and practicing the ski stance.

[galewarning]

Re: "Learn... react... get the info..."

That's exactly why I posted my question. Just looking for more written advice to shorten the empirical learning curve. Perhaps I should just start a new thread...
[edit] I just did...

-Barry

Learn where you need to have your kite, and how you should react when something goes wrong in a way you always crash away from the foil. This normaly needs a few more dangerous crashes to get the info needed to be safer on the next ones .

Re: Crashing in a Safe Way. How?
I'm crashing, crashing, crashing... but I'd love to hear how others advice on doing it the safe way... A bit off topic, but along the same learning curve.
-Barry

...The first thing you need to learn is to crash in a safe way..