got this advice from my bro he's a much better rider than i am hope he dont mind me sharing it with you. it's for railey to blind but will help with the blind judge.
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Raley-to-Blind Trick Tips
Raley to blind is one of the simplest powered handle passes, and is part of the progression leading to the blind judge and BJ3. Anyone who can do a nice powered raley can progress to the raley-to-blind without too much problem. However, if you just look at the progression video and try it yourself, you will likely make a few major mistakes that will have you insanely frustrated and scratching your head after you get yanked onto your back over and over and over. This post is about giving you a few handle pass pro tips, which fix those mistakes and making learning this trick much easier.
First, it’s good to watch this video to get an idea of what the trick looks like.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdLhH4N-5so
Looks easy right? And in fact, it is easy once you get some basic handle pass tips into your head. Already in this video they cover 1 of the big mistakes: not pulling the bar to hip with BOTH hands. I’ll talk more about that in a bit.
This post will go in 2 parts:
i. The trick sequence
ii. 3 common mistakes, and how to fix them
The trick sequence:
a) Load and pop hard into the raley. However, unlike a regular raley where you extend your arms a bit and focus on getting the body super extended and board over head, forget about all that. The only reason you are doing the raley here is to SET UP THE PASS. What do I mean by this? When you do a powered raley, you are loading the kite lines really hard. After the peak of the raley, you fall straight downwind TOWARDS the kite. This creates SLACK in the lines. This slack is essential to do doing a handle pass. So think of the raley as loading up the lines for the purpose of later creating slack!!
b) Here are some differences between a regular raley and a “set-up” raley:
a. Don’t fully extend legs, keep your knees bent a little. This means you don’t have to pull your legs all the way back under you as far, it makes it easier to tuck them into the pass later on. Remember, this raley is only to load the lines hard to later create slack for the pass.
b. Don’t extend your arms. Keep your elbows bent, and bar close to your forehead. This keeps power in your arms and allows you to crank the bar into your hip much easier.
c) Pull the bar into your front hip WITH BOTH HANDS. This is the biggest mistake made in all handle passes: not pulling into your hip hard with both hands. Think of it this way: as soon as you let go with one hand, 2 bad things happen.
I. First, now you only have one hand on the kite, and so the bar is no longer balanced between your hands. The kite will start to move and power up. This eliminates any slack you just created!! Also, if you do manage to land the trick, your kite will be headed straight into the water. Boom! No chance of riding off and looking cool.
II. You need to pull the bar into your hip HARD!! I like to grunt “Hunnnnngh” when I do this. Partly because I like to pretend I’m a crazed kite monkey. As soon as you let go with one hand, you have just lost half of the power in your arms, and it will impossible to really pull the bar close to your hips. So pull hard with BOTH HANDS all the way into your hip.
d) Obviously you need to rotate your body. You really need to spin more than you might think for a raley 2 blind. Think about it, you are going from a raley, back to heelside, then another 180 to blind, and then ANOTHER 90 degrees to get your board pointed downwind for the landing. So you are really spinning at least a 270. So here’s some advice: bend your knees, when you are compact you spin faster. Think of a figure skater pulling in their arms. Turn your head and shoulders in the direction of the landing. Your body follows your head, and this allows you to spot your landing.
e) Put it all together: after the raley, you will simultaneously yank the bar to the front hip with both hands, while also bringing in knees and looking over your back shoulder.
f) PRO TIP 1: Don’t let go of the back hand too early. Crank it in with both hands, hold it hold it hold it! Bring the bar all the way in.
g) Once your knees are brought in, your head is cranked around, and bar is all the way in, only then let go of back hand and let your body rotate to blind. At this point your body will be so torqued up that when you let go of back hand your body will quickly wrap into blind.
h) PRO TIP 2: The 2nd biggest mistake in handle passes is not turning your hand over. This is HUGE. Think about it: the bar is attached to a kite that isn’t going anywhere. You are the one rotating around the bar, not the other way around. It’s like the bar is attached to a rope tied to a tree. The only way you can spin around the bar, is to turn the bar over, catch it with the other hand, and the turn the bar over again. So the bar ends up doing a full spin. That’s just how your anatomy works. If you forget to turn the bar over while spinning, your arm will not wrap around your back properly, your arm will instead extend backwards and you will eat shit. You want your arm to wrap around our back during the pass, this keeps the bar close and makes it possible to catch it with your other hand. So turn the bar over and let your arm wrap around your back on the landing!!
i) Spot your landing and land blind. You aren’t done yet!! Quickly reach for the bar with your new front hand (you are now toeside technically) and finish the pass. You still aren’t done!! After the pass, get your 2nd hand on the bar!! Once you get your 2nd hand on the bar, congrats! You just landed a raley 2 blind. Hook back in and look around to see if anyone saw your radness.
Common mistakes:
You think you do everything right, but you just can’t rotate the last 90 degrees, your arm extends and you get yanked onto your back. Slam!! What the hell just happened?! You get frustrated and say “it’s too hard!” and quit. There are 3 common mistakes that cause this.
1) PRO TIP: You didn’t pop hard enough and/or upwind enough on the raley. Remember, the raley gets you the air for the trick so you need to get some height.
a. Don’t cheat too much by putting the kite higher, it’s really hard to pass when the kite is close to 12. This makes it more like a dangle pass which is a totally different trick. Keep the kite at 45 as best you can.
b. Pop upwind!!!! When you do a good raley, you land straight downwind towards the kite. This creates the slack. If you find yourself still having some horizontal speed after the raley, this will make it super hard to create slack. So pop straight up in the air, upwind, and do the handle pass going straight downwind towards the kite. Maybe do some regular raleys and make sure you don’t have any horizontal speed after the raley.
2) You let go with the back hand too soon. This is probably the biggest mistake. Remember, if you let go too soon you lose the ability to get the bar close to your hip AND the kite starts to power up and loop towards the water. Double whammy.
3) You didn’t turn your hand over. You can do everything right, good raley, pulled bar to hip with both hands, but if you don’t turn the bar over your arm will not wrap into your back for the pass. Instead, it will extend backwards and completely stall your rotation. Result: you land heel edge and get slammed. Turn the bar over!!