WARRIOR FEET
HOW TO ‘SHIFT & SWITCH’ DURING GYBES, TACKS & HELITACKS
YOU COULD BE AT THE
APEX OF A CLATTERING
GYBE, TEETERING HEAD TO
WIND MID TACK OR HELI,
WINDSURFING OFTEN
REQUIRES US TO SWITCH
THE FEET AT THE LEAST
FAVOURABLE MOMENT.
SIMON BORNHOFT
EXPLAINS HOW TO GET
YOUR WINDWISE
FOOTWORK SYSTEM
WORKING FOR YOU!
WORDS COPYRIGHT:
SIMON BORNHOFT
WINDWISE
PIX: PHOTOCEAN
Shifting and switching
Changing your feet for Gybes, Tacks and Helicopter Tacks.
Who’s it for?
Beginner to pro, we all need to keep practicing these skills!
Windwise core principles:
Vision and opposition
Core touch points:
Inside rail for gybing, mast base for tacking and helis.
Relevant to:
Next stage of Unhook Holding feature in February 2017 issue
Warrior Tack feature in July 2017 issue
We’ve all hesitated, stumbled or become unbalanced during a tack, gybe or
helicopter tack. We can blame the wind, sail size or wrong wetsuit, but poor
vision, no opposition and misplaced feet account for many a dismounts! This
month’s Windwise feature, ‘Shifting and Switching’, uses our Windwise Touch
Point concept to train a more dependable foot change.
What exactly is shifting and switching?
Shifting and Switching a specific hip and foot movement to swap feet mid
transition. It’s easy to watch a gybe, but harder to identify which Touch Points
and forces are being applied.
First, try this exercise. Stand with your weight evenly distributed on both feet.
Look ahead, lean forward slightly and try to take your right foot off the floor –
tricky? Now, try Warrior – ‘touch’ your chin on your left shoulder, look to the left,
lean left and shift your left hip over your left foot, heavily flexing the left knee –
should be easier to lift your right foot off the floor? Now imagine for a gybe
levering the rig to the right (as in photos) and pulling down on a boom would
enable you to exaggerate Warrior and help move the feet gybing at speed!
uk
WIND
SURFING
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