Jump

[Guest]

I'm practising jumping on flatwater, but I have problems with getting any hight. I would like to go high enough for practising willies and volcans. Can anybody help me to go higher?

Right now I get the fin out of the water, but I find it hard to go higher without a quite big chop.

thanks

[Russell]

On flat water don??t think of it as a jump but a pop or bounce.

To do any of the new freestyle you only have to get the fin clear of the water.

The movement of the rig once the fin is clear automaticaly makes you got higher.

The pop or bounce is generated by having a straight front leg after you have depressed the tail. You spring off the front leg. Timing is the most important thing and you can practise this very easily by going at 90?? to the wind, bring your boby over the center of the board and just bounce.

Give it a try and I bet you will spend the rest of your time trying not to go high when you are learning freestyle because this is one of the problems when you are learning.

[Guest]

Thank you for a quikly answer. I think I'll practise pops and bounces so I get confident with it and then try some freestyle moves. Am I right when I plan to start out with Willies or Volcans as my first aerial freestyle manouevers?

[GEM]

It's not new school, but I would recommend a jump jibe first. That will get you into rotating and landing the board.

Also, one thing is that FS fins are really short, mostly cut down. Helps with fin clearance and board spinny stuff...so fin up properly for FS.

[-Lampi-]

Hi!

In my oppinion the Volcan is the ideal place to start aerial freestyle because it gives you the basic feeling of sliding around on th nose of the board and sliding in reverse.

I have never really tried willy skippers but i guess they're a good place to start. I have heard people say that the Willy skipper is the ultimate board breaker though...

When i was learning the vulcan, this article really helped:
http://www.guycribb.com/userfiles/documents/vulcan.pdf

All the best!

Lampi

[Guest]

Thank you Lampi for the link, it looks great and very usefull to me - perfect to see the move from so many diffrent angles. Do you have a tip for some moves to learn before the volcan, that will make it easier to me to learn the volcan?

GEM - you are right with the short freestylefins, right now I'm using 23cm freestyle fin, but I know that it's long for a FS fin.. What size will you recommend?

[-Lampi-]

HI

You can practice swich stance, that helps you a lot when you start to land them in backwards, but otherwise i'd reccomend you just to go for it. It took me quite a lot of time to learn the Vulcan so don't give up!

The fin size really depends on the boards and sails you are using and your weight, so it'd be good to know that to tell you what size to get.

Generally a freestyle fin should be about 18-22 cm long. For me the important thing is that the shape of the fin is right (it's not too good when you are using a wave fin...).

[Guest]

yes I've heard that it's a tough one to learn.. and I think I have to be a bit more stable in my jumps before I start practising them.

My weight is 54kg. and I'll use a 90l. board for freestyling (wondered if that's the right size when I'm going to start aerial moves though? too small?).
Sailsize is normally 5.0.

[-Lampi-]

I think that you shouldn't worry about the board. Try getting a fin that is about 20 cm or maybe a little smaller.

[GEM]

A lot of people are cutting the fin at not much more than a hands width - 18 cm would be max. Taking their freestyle or small wave fin, and cutting it. I used a Dremel tool. You then need to sand / fair the leading edge and tip. in Bonaire, a lot of the kids practice finless, too. I guess the basic point is that it doesn't matter a lot, just cut it short. Weed fins work good (after they're cut), probably because cutting it doesn't really screw up the shape of the leading edge at the tip.