My hand is about 10 cm from the clip, feels really good there. So far I'm liking the rotation angle.

It seems that the more forward (in the direction of travel) the more horizontal the rotation and the more humane it feels. At least for me.

So when at the beginning we are shy about offering the rig, the rotation is more vertical and slower. Can lead to big back slaps especially when starting things off a bit back or slow.

Now working on getting more consistent landings. I'm almost forgetting about the pop and aggressively throwing the rig as far forward as possible and rotating my shoulders/back to the side. This feels the least scary of all and I'm hoping to apply this technique on my weak side.

Been getting really fast rotations and landings feel a bit harsh for my liking :D ! So need to move my hands and try slowing things down once the board comes around.

What a quest seriously, fascinating!

Manuel7 said..
Latest forwards... rear knee gets sore, although after the last session, it's better for some reason. I'm getting too many side slaps, so I'm trying to stay more tucked as you can see along these attempts.

It looks like my arms/body moves from back on the boom to forward, maybe too early? It happens so fast.

You are moving your hand back, and tucking. Now you just need to not lean back - you need to bring your body weight inboard.

Manuel7 said..
Latest forwards... rear knee gets sore, although after the last session, it's better for some reason. I'm getting too many side slaps, so I'm trying to stay more tucked as you can see along these attempts.

It looks like my arms/body moves from back on the boom to forward, maybe too early? It happens so fast.

My limit is at 0.12 in your latest video; I don't understand how to rotate with my body. or I lost my back foot , generally I felt also too pressure in my sail.
ps.
big congrats great job

Manuel7 said..
Perfect, I'm glad it was relevant. My front arm isn't straight at the pop. The rear arm shouldn't pull yet but the front arm needs to be extended, otherwise, the board isn't fully released. Then once the pop (preferably downwind) happens then we pull the rear hand to us and tuck keeping the front arm straight.

My pop is good but my sail handling isn't and honestly even though I tried, I just knew in my head that I didn't want to go with the board. I'm going to focus on only one thing to straighten the front arm at take-off for the next sessions.

If you are feeling too much pressure (so am I often) then bear off maybe more or wait! Or try and open the sail more. The thing is we need the pressure. I think I'm still popping and throwing, while the pop and throw should happen at the same time. It's the pull in with the rear hand that happens after.

So, pop sending the front arm straight forward, then pull in hard with back hand.

Thanks for your tips, much appreciated, now is winter, is difficult for me doing windsurfing, I am training in skis, but as soon as possible I will try again, can you write a checklist memorizing it could be useful doing windsurf, or a moment before entering the sea.
Thanks in advance

Hello loopers, wow what a quest. Now that the loop is understood, conf:

I've been trying to plane out of them... wow how insanely hard is it! Despite full speed, strong winds and waves, I still wasn't able to land on the board even!

But the good news is that I understood why, I need to tuck my back leg under. So first, speed up, wait for gust with ramp, bring sail across, pop, throw everything forward, then wait (weird stage), then pull and tuck.

When back forward then hope all of the effort lead to a not as wet landing!

Wow, just wow... then how much does it take to go around twice!!??

Should have some good footage from yesterday. Spot has been on fire for a month. Huge progress, feels amazing!

Manuel7 said..
Hello loopers, wow what a quest. Now that the loop is understood,


But the good news is that I understood why, I need to tuck my back leg under. So first, speed up, wait for gust with ramp, bring sail across, pop, throw everything forward, then wait (weird stage), then pull and tuck.

The graceful art of listening to advice

Latest findings... The pop is a one foot jump, it's the easiest to free up the board and set up for tucking the back leg under which facilitates the rotation preventing back slaps. I felt like the angle needed to send the mast towards is similar to the one used to place the board for backloops (let's say close reach, it's more of an apparent wind thing). Our body follows the same angle.

The back hand adjusts the sail trim to slide the sail across without upsetting the pop. It must be sheeted out. Once the front arm is fully extended, we look back as if we wish not to look and it's over! When straightening the front arm, we must also lean forward with our body. The more forward we lean, the less it hurts. Keep in mind to lift the front leg up to smooth out the rotation.

Now that the technique is well sorted out, is time to go on port tack! So far I have 1 attempt, well that's better than 0 :D !

Manuel7 said..
Thanks for the awesome feedback! Much appreciated :)

Yes my boom is super low because I believe I rake the sail back, especially on my jumping side.
My front arm is bent as I'm choking the rig to avoid the rotation!
So today I worked on bringing the sail forward and my body more upright, this helped get a nice pull but I didn't trust it :D !
Anyway, a bit better, got some nice ah ha moments but the conditions weren't quite there. Gusty with lots of current and few waves.
I think I'm going to try to bring my freewave out too, just to get a better pop.
If I can commit the forward motion with the climbing of a piece of swell... should be pretty close to starting to rotate.

For the past few days, I've been trying them and cannot stop myself from trying them during my sessions.

Ah ha, I got it 100% now. Trick was to hold on sheeting in until almost forever!

Process is

1. Steer the board downwind over a small ramp
2. Reach as far ahead as possible with front hand keeping the sail powerless
3. With a bent front leg, the board lifts up by itself
4. We start spinning sideways and backwards, then we can pull our gear around us

It's much easier to control the rotation this way. We decide to bring our gear around vs our gear pulling us forward. It's also much less scary and we can do it at slower with no real need to jump per se.

On port, I'm still a little slow and working out timing issue between downwind steer and sail throw. However, I'm no longer hesitating on bothered by the odd event.

It feels really weird leaping with an empty sail and hold like this but it makes complete sense.

So stoked, I hope it encourages some of you!

Congratulations on nailing the forwards Manu!, you must be over the clouds now and can't wait for the next session.

Forward loop will be my ultimate goal once i pass my rookie phase and watching your youtube videos gives me inspiration, keep them coming please :)

First overpowered forwards landed. Eeesh, it pulls hard! We can really feel the pull of the sail and where the center of effort is.

I did have a pretty bad fail beforehand where I believe I pulled too early while not downwind enough. Front flipped rapidly and landed on a thankfully partially sunk mast. Ouch!

Anyway, on Port, it's still very crappy. Yet, I am well aware of what I need to do... Ramps lack on this side, prefer to have something to lean against.

Got my first forwards today after 20+ years of sailing. Reading through this blog really gave me the motivation to do some proper attempts.

I had tried here and there probably a few each season for at least the last 15 years. Problem was I couldn't really understand exactly what I needed to do and how to coordinate it such a short amount of time. Reading through the tips here and watching the videos really allowed me to understand and feel the move before trying.

First few attempts I managed to rotate nearly all the way around but lost the board just before impact. That gave me the confidence that I was doing it right but just had to commit to tucking and not pulling my feet out. 30+ attempts, most rotated at least to my back with the gear close enough for a quick waterstart. Then five I'd really claim as good managing to water start without taking my feet out of the footsteps.

I think I'll have to dedicate the next few sessions on the water to locking in the muscle memory.

A big factor in reducing my normal fear was to watching so many of manuels attempts and understanding the likelihood of injury was little as long as you get over and Infront of your gear.
Anyway I'm totally stoked. Thanks for being the inspiration manuel hopefully more people are inspired to have a go!

Ken29 said..

Dean said..
Got my first forwards today after 20+ years of sailing. Reading through this blog really gave me the motivation to do some proper attempts.

I had tried here and there probably a few each season for at least the last 15 years. Problem was I couldn't really understand exactly what I needed to do and how to coordinate it such a short amount of time. Reading through the tips here and watching the videos really allowed me to understand and feel the move before trying.

First few attempts I managed to rotate nearly all the way around but lost the board just before impact. That gave me the confidence that I was doing it right but just had to commit to tucking and not pulling my feet out. 30+ attempts, most rotated at least to my back with the gear close enough for a quick waterstart. Then five I'd really claim as good managing to water start without taking my feet out of the footsteps.

I think I'll have to dedicate the next few sessions on the water to locking in the muscle memory.

A big factor in reducing my normal fear was to watching so many of manuels attempts and understanding the likelihood of injury was little as long as you get over and Infront of your gear.
Anyway I'm totally stoked. Thanks for being the inspiration manuel hopefully more people are inspired to have a go!

Congrats Dean. Do you have a gopro?

Nah but would help me work out what I'm doing when they go right.

This is a useful vid, the concept of being more upright when initiating I think I was missing. My second session had too many back slaps so I think this is what I was doing