WtF man. Will I ever learn transitions...?

[Kamikuza]

Forget switching feet for now. It'll come naturally later.

What exactly is happening? Maybe grab some line mount video of yourself...

[Peter_Frank]

Hey Macster - what you experience is very like most others, so you are not alone, and you WILL learn, eventually.

But it could take some years, dont despair, it is soooo different from the timing from surfboard jibes, besides a huge amount more sensitive to errors, and simply takes a really long time to learn.

For starters youi will suddenly make a few flying foot switches, and you might think "I got it nailed"

Great feeling indeed, but you havent got it nailed, it is from here the long journey to be able to do it every or almost every time, comes.

A bigger wing is easier indeed so could be a training wheel yes, but depending on your liking and preferences, it can also be extremely dull.

For some reason, most writing in this forum seem to nail it very fast, and you often read "I learned to switch feet in 10 sessions" and similar.
Will happen for some, but for most it takes years to master, and will even still fail sometimes

Keep going at it, there is so much timing required that you are NOT used to, that when you make it, it is by accident and you dont know why really, and can often not duplicate later.
Because it is muscle memory, the full timing between wind and kite and foil and feet and water.

So time and time and time, and it will come

PF

[OzBungy]

My tip, stop practicing transitions.

Seriously, if you're going out and practicing transitions and crashing a lot then you're probably missing out on a lot of riding time. It's the riding time that gets you in tune with the foil and lets you feel what is happening.

My normal session starts with about 30 minutes of upwind blasting. Usually only 1-2-3 transitions for 4-5km upwind. It sounds counter-intuitive, but blasting upwind at speed lets you encounter a huge number and variety of situations that your body has to react to automatically. It doesn't take too many of these before your body gets really tuned in to the foil.

Be warned that the ride downwind can be quite technical and feel a little slow. Riding fast downwind is much harder than riding upwind. You're constantly balancing the trajectory of the foil, the flight of the kite and the resulting line tension and stalling issues.

I strongly prefer the long upwind legs because it gets me out of the local area. People tend to get stuck "mowing the lawn" in their groove of water at the local beach. I prefer to tack about 10-20 lawn mows together into an upwinder.

As for gybes, everything on a foil is almost the same as a TT or surfboard it just takes time before you can feel it and apply it smoothly. That's a bit of an understatement but the general principle is true.

Foot swapping is a little problematic. I think everyone watches race foilers doing the strap to strap foot swap and thinks that is how you do it. People forget that racers are a) really good at it, and b) they're being held up by hyper powerful, hyper efficient foil kites. For the rest of us (and freeride/freestylers) there's a little bit of difference.

What you need to do is to explore the zone of stability on the board from the front of the mast to about 3/4 of the way to the front foot position. With a little practice you can put your feet inside this zone and stand around quite comfortably in almost any stance. Once you can do that then foot swapping is almost effortless. With time and power you can morph into strap to strap swaps and a whole range of other fun stuff (swooping, diving, carving foot swaps)

PS If you want a real exercise in persistence wait until you start to learn to tack. The legendary "1000 attempts" is pretty accurate. I think I've done way more than 1000 attempts and have reached the stage when I am pulling of several in a session. More importantly I can finally tell the difference and the reason for successful ones and fails and the different styles of tack.

[Pedro Marcos]

Hey gang

I have this dream of cruising around up on the foil doing smooth carving turns, zig zagging through swells and other kiters, big smile on my face and the wind in my hair, the only time my board touches the surface is when I water start at the beginning and come in at the end.

Reality, my sessions are a series of left and right tacts with a few turns and pauses in between tacts as I swim back to get my foil after another failed gibe and start again.

I've been foiling for about 18 months now. To be fair I get out once every 2 or 3 weeks but still, Ive been foiling for quite a while in relation to not being able to gibe still!

I'm on a Moses Fluente T60 with the 550 front wing. I use the flysurfer soul 8m and 12m.

On a surfboard I can do gibe turns sweetas with or without a downloop depending on wind strength. Stance swap before or after the turn.

Get on my foil and it all goes to pieces. For the last 6 months I have been stuck in a rut where I can do about 50% surface gibes (touch down) and maybe 1 in every 30 transitions I fluke a gibe up on the foil.

Recently I decided to go strapless cause I kept doing minor ankle and knee twists when stuffing up the gibes. This set me back a bit with water starts but has made the foot work easier during the gibes, though strapless has its disadvantages when the power comes on during the turn if you have no straps to anchor your stance against...

I know there's heaps of useful videos out there that I've watched already. I know it will eventually happen, but seriously, did anyone else struggle this long to get transitions locked in?!

Feeling deflated...

Just because you dont have much time on the water per week, i would say you should get a onda 633, this will make your life much much easier, that will also mean you will have to install tracks on your board because the hole position of the t60 does not suit the onda. If you had more time on the water, i would just say keep trying, i learned in the exact same setup as you.

[mr_daruman]

Big wing, no straps (started with just front strap), small thick board 3'6~4'6. 6 months now riding and gibing no problem. Always using 70cm mast due to how shallow it is, but this I believe also helps in turns. Easier to snap around the foil quickly. I'm so hooked: kite days x2
Glad I wasn't learning on these crazy long race-type boards and small wings. Guys on these are still learning to turn toeside after over a year of foiling...

[oregonkiter]

Get a 633 from Slingshot, or Moses.--same wing Seriously, just do it.

I went from 25% flying gybes on the 590--which took hundreds and hundreds of attempts--to 90% on the 633 in about the first 45 minutes of owning the 633. The 633 is just such a fun wing! Sold the 590 after a few months because the 633 does everything the 590 does, but is so much more stable and fun to ride for me. Do know that the 633 will need to be mounted 5cm+/- back from the 590, though. The 633 fuse is that much longer, besides the wing being bigger.

[eddiemorgs]

Bigger foil will certainly help.

For me ... I gybe first and go toeside

My focus is then on getting comfortable , level out the board , kite high but not much line tension , fairly upright body, feet pointing in same direction as the board ...
and step off the BACK foot to the front from above the mast
Do not step off the front foot as this makes you lunge forward and points the board downwards ... this gives the foil a small pump off the mast so it rises while I land the old front foot back on top of the mast to regain the back position on the new foot.
Even try giving it some test pumps with your back foot to get a feel.
It needs t be done at a comfortable foiling speed so that the foil is flying well, not stalling ... this sometimes takes balls.
This needs to be a quick swap of feet.

Also have a look at kailani Drexer excellent video , it’s kinda the same principle.

[matanshapira]

Large wing.... LF Impulse
Made me nail flying switch in 2 sessions.
Try to start it from very low height. Practice on land a lot without changing COG. Initiate upward foil movement right before you switch.

[Slappysan]

I recently switched to a big surf wing and Peak 4 and also recently nailed my first true no splash under control foiling gybe.

Coincidence?

I do find that my wing is a bit too stable laterally though, or maybe I need to adjust my foot positioning to get it to carve a bit more.

[Macster]

My dad always said a poor workman blames his tools... I got out on a liquid force impulse foil today with my 12m Soul. Wind was barely enough to keep the kite I the air.

Did 5 out of 6 gibes up on the foil I.e. without a touch down until the wind died and I had to call it quits.

What a difference a big wing makes...