Wing Life Show Episode #8 - Foil Control

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Wing Life Podcast, where we talk about wing foiling and the lifestyles of those who enjoy this great sport. So good to see everybody. Are you ready for another episode? We are going to go over your flying, your on foil, your feeling it.

[00:00:22] You got that freedom, you're doing it. But then what? Like I got to turn around. Like how do I do that? Where do I go? What do I do? And then I got to get on flight again.

[00:00:32] So we're going to dive into it today and let's get started. Today we should probably talk about how to direct yourself because we talked about how to get up on foil or how to foil last time.

[00:00:50] But one of the first challenges like I'm up on foil but I am not in control of where I'm going. I feel like that is a common problem. I remember for me being used to even, I came from wind surfing, leaning back. I was leaning so much.

[00:01:12] I kept going so far up when I couldn't go downwind. And so you see a bit of everything. Some people don't lean enough and it's just like taking them downwind. So how do you go in a straight line? And how do you control that straight line?

[00:01:37] It's actually, I feel like a challenge. Really good point, especially with let's say if we're sticking to wing foiling here because your wing is going to pull you based on how far up the board it is, how back it is in the window.

[00:01:52] Like there's all these different factors. Damien, what do you think some good tips are when just to kind of even at least, is it like wind surfing and kiting? Like look where you want to go. Hips will follow. Shoulders will follow. That kind of thing or?

[00:02:08] I would say everybody's going to probably go through kind of what you guys are saying. And that's you get that mass on tilt and you're starting to just cruise along. The only thing you really know is you pull against the wing, grab that power.

[00:02:23] It's up on foil and it'll always kind of creep you higher into the wind because you're more efficient usually. And you're going to do it and then I probably fall and I turn the other way and I do it again.

[00:02:34] And now I'm like upwind and I'm like can't go downwind because what do I do? Like I need to be on this angle, right? This is like a common thing. We used to call it because in kiting you used to do the walk of shame,

[00:02:48] which meant you went downwind and you walk up. With foiling it was like a joke, but you'd go upwind and then you had to like walk down because you're like same concept, but you were going upwind instead of downwind.

[00:02:58] Actually, Damien, right now what's very popular is like downwind. But tell us about how, what was the hard thing to do before was an upwind there? Yeah. Oh man. Yeah. I mean, well that was the thing is open the door to go upwind. And upwind was hard.

[00:03:19] So, you know, that's why foiling is so special. It gives you the opportunity to take any body of water and just explore beyond. We speak about wing foiling and we kind of cover bases of other types of foiling in this, but I would say, you know, wing foiling

[00:03:34] is a passion and, but there's so much more to any type of foil. Once you get into it, you're going to get into everything. That's just how it goes. But coming back to this episode, I would say some really key points are

[00:03:45] that I think are very helpful would be when you're riding and you're feeling that and you're locked in and everything feels good, if you just always are in line with that mass, which your comfort is to be a little bit edging against it.

[00:04:02] The easiest way to start bleeding off or to go downwind or gain movement down would be to either slowly bleed off your wings so that you can lose the power and your board is going to kind of come off

[00:04:18] foil and you'll start kind of pointing downwind and you may be off foil and you'll just kind of trudge downwind and kind of get towed downwind. But I would say in general, if you can really picture when you're

[00:04:30] up riding and you're up on foil, if you can consciously think of like taking your eyes, because when you first started, you're staring like right here. You're like straight down here. Everything's happening right in front of you.

[00:04:42] If you can lift your eyes up and look at the horizon and kind of get a general idea what's going on, maybe you're coming back to the beach. But the best thing I would say is whatever the wind direction

[00:04:52] is, if you can be edging along and if you just release your edge pressure, I would say when I say releasing your edge, you're not... All I'm doing is taking my front foot and if I just steer this movement like this, so I'm taking my front foot and

[00:05:12] I'm just going to steer it downwind. That just takes the board completely turns it not edging into the wind and it'll take the power away from your foil because you're not angling into the wind as much and that

[00:05:26] can help you slowly glide, lose power and work your way downwind. I would say it's minimal movements, but these will help you a lot with learning and guiding your direction when you're riding. Now the tricky part is depending on the wind, how much you

[00:05:43] have in your wing, there's a lot of factors there because you can use your hand, your backhand by opening and closing the power in the wing. But I would say play with your feet and your board and the direction of where it's going will really help you increase

[00:05:59] your ability to go up and down. I would say it's very important again to always try to stay in line with that mast because even when I start to turn it off downwind, if I'm standing completely straight up

[00:06:13] on top of it, then I can have that wobble of any direction. But if I can really keep a little angle on it and I'm just steering that downwind, I still have pressure against it, but I'm steering it more downwind.

[00:06:27] I will have more control than if I just completely go flat on that board. Then it's, Gwen said in last episode, it's a unicycle going all four directions. But I would say that's one thing that I think if people

[00:06:41] were to really take a good look at and it's important to show up at your spot and watch if there's somebody doing it. Look at their angles and look what's going on. You're going to get a lot from people just by looking

[00:06:55] going, okay, that was kind of his angle. If I'm out there and I'm edging really hard, you're going to be going straight up and you're going to realize that maybe I'm edging too hard and I can relax a little, let a little power out of the wing.

[00:07:07] You're going to learn with just little movements with your board, you can change a lot. Yeah, to me, I think the biggest impact of directing your board once you are up on foil is how much you edge. If you edge more, you're going to go more upwind.

[00:07:25] If you edge less, you're going to go downwind. That's why what I see is when people are getting up on foil, you have that release and that increase of speed. You are not familiar with that. A lot of people feel like they are going super fast now.

[00:07:48] The first reaction is to de-power your wing. Now, when you de-power your wing, what you also do is you edge less because you can't de-power your wing and keep edging. Otherwise, you fall back. There is nothing to hold you. From that point, people get up on foil, they

[00:08:10] feel like they are going too fast. They de-power the wing. Now they are standing straight on top of the burn. They have nothing to edge against. Now they are going straight downwind. Now, if you are not used to that, you are going

[00:08:26] to get that wobble side to side because you could go any other way. Again, if we compare it to snowboarding, if you snowboard downhill and all of a sudden you go flat downhill, you could catch an edge anytime. You always go from edge to edge to edge.

[00:08:48] I feel like it's the same with wing foiling. You always need an edge. As long as you have a wing in your hand or you have some sort of power, you need an edge. If you want to go downwind, you are going to edge less.

[00:09:01] If you want to go more upwind, you are going to edge more. You kind of have to play with that. The safest way to start experimenting with that, to me it's better to edge more because falling back is always safer than falling forward.

[00:09:26] So when you get up on foil, when you fall forward, that's when you get the sketchy fall of maybe you go over the rail and that foil is you kick the burn and that foil is coming up and now you might meet the foil.

[00:09:40] If you fall back most of the time, it's fine. You just edge too much and now you fall back in the water, no big deal. I always feel like it's better to edge more at the beginning until you get comfortable enough to edge less.

[00:10:01] But the downside is it's a normal reaction that once you get up on foil and you feel like you are going too fast, you want to depower and when you depower, you lose your edge and then that's when things get tricky.

[00:10:14] I was just going to say keeping in mind your offset foot position will really make a big difference there. And especially for edging, it's just like a little bit more pressure on your heels, a little bit more pressure on your toes kind of stemming onto what you're

[00:10:28] saying, Gwen, because it's like that most dangerous position which I learned trying to tack, which is a further episode down the line was that windsurfing, I was very disconnected from my feet. I didn't pay attention to them as much. But now when you're starting to do these

[00:10:44] baby s turns, you're going to start to realize that I have to really figure out where my feet are in relation to what's going on. Like I really have to have my whole body connected to itself, which is something that in kiting maybe twin tip, even

[00:10:58] wakeboarding, I didn't really pay attention too much. Like I just whatever you just jam your heel and you're always edging. But all these different degrees now matter with foiling. So that's one thing that I noticed, which was kind of scary. But OK, those are all pretty good points.

[00:11:14] Yeah, I mean, and that's how you change direction to me. We would cover the drive in the next episode. But when you go from one edge to the other, that's how you turn. That's how you would drive. You would be riding on your heel.

[00:11:33] So you think hillside, you are leaning back against your wing. And now all of a sudden you shift and your bond is going from one edge to the other. You engaged a turn and now that's going to become your new edge. Always you always an edge just like

[00:11:49] snowboarding. You go from edge to edge to edge to edge. So we are trying to find the same thing. Always have an edge. Now, when you are riding a wave, when you are doing a downwind and you put the wing down, you kind of like now you

[00:12:04] don't have that edge. You go downwind, you ride the wave. If you ride the wave and you want to do turns, you still going to go kind of like edge to edge to do those turns. But if you go straight down, down downwind and you just glide, you

[00:12:17] would have no edge. You would be flat. You would have your wing down and then you would go downwind. But if you have as long as you have power in your wing, you're going to have an edge. And whether you edge more or less,

[00:12:32] that's how you're going to go more upwind or downwind. But even when you go downwind with a wing, you still kind of have a tiny edge. Unless you are totally de-powered, then you can't really have an edge. Now otherwise you would fall back. But that's something that you

[00:12:57] kind of have to play with on your first few flights and it's going to take time. But often you go from the issue of not being able to stay upwind and do the walk of shame upwind to now you are always on foil or you are

[00:13:14] getting success on foil and now you find yourself way upwind, you don't know how to come down. The good thing is in that situation you sit on your bone and usually you end up downwind. You don't always have to do the walk of shame downwind.

[00:13:28] Yeah, I would say real quick, I would say something that's important for everybody to know that I think is really cool eye-opener is no matter how good you get kite foiling, wing foiling, anything with that tension behind the boat, there's a tension, there's an added tension that all

[00:13:45] of us and I say this within reason, but I would say myself 1,000%, when you put me for the first time on a wave without anything, it felt weird. Like I was struggling to like, I'd get locked and fall over because I didn't have anything

[00:14:03] to pull against or push against or edge against. It was me now standing there. Reason why we say the E-Fall is pretty cool way to learn because it gives you the ability to have to figure that out which helps you in learning that and then you have something

[00:14:19] that I can kind of lean against or pressure against or edge against and it definitely is something that's very noticeable, especially your first times if you take a wing away or you take a kite away and you just get towed into something and let go,

[00:14:33] you're like, well, it's like you can be, it's hard to be on edge because now you do have to be over it. But something that's important as we lead into that, I'm on foil and I may be going to go into that turn or where do I go?

[00:14:46] The jives will be in the next episodes, but don't know that when I'm up and I'm going like Gwen saying you're edging along I just slowly roll that edge like Gwen said to the other side. Don't hesitate one bit to put a little more weight forward,

[00:15:01] put the nose down, touch down, shift your feet on the water and maybe go into the next direction but there's no reason why you have to fly on foil in your first experiences going into anything. Like put it down and take that, it can totally,

[00:15:18] you can bleed it off and touch down and you're already going downwind to make the turn. It's a really good way to kind of get comfortable with the next step into the turning. That's a pretty good point. Now where about should my wing be through this process?

[00:15:34] Should it be like helicopter style right above me? Am I bringing it further down in front of me pulling? Because one of the first things that I went through my learning progression as soon as I could go up and down, I started on my baby turns

[00:15:48] and when I was able to do my baby turns I started bringing the wing back up over my head and then practicing foot switches and then starting the whole process all over again and trying to figure out switch stance. Now, how do I get riding straight?

[00:16:04] How do I do baby s turns? Like because the wing position does a lot of stuff. It could help you stabilize up top. It could help pull you forward. It might pull you backwards. Have you guys seen that too? Before we get into that

[00:16:20] there was something I wanted to add. Something that's kind of tricky is dissociating the forward and back and the side to side again. We tend to associate both. So often that's why we tend to maybe like bridge when we go into a turn

[00:16:38] because we took that shift of edge with also a shift of back and forward. So that's something that you kind of have to get used to dissociate forward and back and side to side so that you don't link them both together because otherwise that's when

[00:16:55] you're going to start making mistakes. Personally, I wouldn't practice foot switch until I can drive. I mean, I feel like switching feet is harder than driving. To me, if you start practicing switching feet too soon in your journey you're going to crash a lot

[00:17:33] and it might be discouraging. I feel like switching feet comes a bit later. I feel like you should enjoy your drive before you start working on switching feet. But they are both linked because often what's stopping somebody to drive is the fact that they don't know

[00:17:57] how to ride toe side. And so if you could work on riding toe side before you would drive it would help your drive because once you get to the other side it's familiar, you've done it. So they are both linked. They both bring challenges that are very similar.

[00:18:22] But the switch feet is pretty difficult. I feel like, yeah. And that is why you see people riding toe side sometime for a long time is because you might not want to take that chance of making a mistake by switching feet. So when we ride waves

[00:18:59] sometimes we just almost never switch feet because we are never going for a very long time before we switch direction again. So riding toe side if you were going to cruise for 20 minutes yeah, you're going to want to switch feet.

[00:19:18] But if you're just going to go like 20 seconds to go back up and catch another wave maybe you just don't want to switch feet. So at first I would almost say you're going to practice your maneuvers going back and forth before you attack switching feet.

[00:19:43] Most people go toe side, I would say. When Gwen says it, it's you're riding heel side out and you kind of just morph around toe side. That's what I would say most people do because it's comfortable. To answer Luke's question before

[00:19:59] I would just say a general conception of your wing if I'm going in to do something or going to turn or going to do whatever just know that wherever your wing is if I have it up high above my head when I pull down on it

[00:20:14] it generates lift vertical yet if it's out in front of me and I pull on it for power it pulls sideways, right? So whenever you play with your wing wherever you're at whether you're riding tack in one direction or you're starting to make the turn

[00:20:31] you know what helps you the most is to get an upwards pull because that helps you be more nimble on your board. Maybe it can help you get light to maybe quick adjust your feet. So I would say just picture your wing when you're doing stuff

[00:20:50] you can still generate power above you your wing above you versus so far out in front of you. So just know that wing it's nice to have it further up when you do some of these things above you because I can still grab power in the wind

[00:21:06] but the pull is a little more vertical helping me keep the foil up helping me maybe get lighter versus if it's directly in front of me everything has to go right. This is just a little bit of an analogy on wing position.

[00:21:23] I found it definitely helped a lot being further up above me it helps slow down it helps stabilize and then definitely but go ahead Gwen. Yeah no I mean I was gonna say like it kind of like puts the wing a bit like out of your way

[00:21:41] I mean like a funny thing that happened not even that long ago so you know with quite a bit of experience under my belt on a downwind burn so somebody had commented on our YouTube channel that you know downwind burns can be tricky to ride with a wing

[00:22:03] because they are so long they stick out and they could go through your wing and I was like thinking like I don't know I mean I've never seen that. Literally a few days later we go to the beach with our friend John Modica

[00:22:18] he's showing us a brand new wing that's not even on the market yet a brand new Cabrinha wing you know maybe the only one in the US and so we go and we kind of like ride it and test it out and it's light wind

[00:22:36] we have a downwind burn and I'm on a fold that I'm not super familiar with I'm taking Damian's setup and I go for a drive and my wing is kind of like we are explaining kind of like you know right on the side

[00:22:56] kind of like you know lower and the wing tip catches the water and my burn goes through the wing Oh no! Oh shit! And so that's another example of like it's nice when you are going to do some maneuvers when you are starting to like

[00:23:15] you know maybe do some like small like S turns to kind of like start feeling those turns and those like shift of edge it's nice to have your wing a bit higher it gets out of your way you see you have I think you have a better like

[00:23:32] you know being able to see is going to help your balance and you know it's it gets that wing out of the way in case you know you I don't know the nose of your bone goes through your wing so sorry John I still feel bad about that

[00:23:51] That was the day Gwen purchased a wing again It went on sale too that day didn't it? No no no But I guess it's a good segue into falling because all of these things like the first falls we had it's what do you do with your feet

[00:24:13] like I've seen a lot of people kick the back of their board like for kiting for example where they fell and they would try to save it and they would put too much back foot pressure and that thing would cartwheel like there's all these different things of

[00:24:26] I related to almost like when you're falling on ice on thin ice just don't do anything like try to just fall like you're a nice block off and don't touch your board put any pressure what have you guys seen for the best kind of things to avoid disaster

[00:24:42] when you're in a disastrous situation? I think Gwen hit it pretty good in the beginning here but I think if you're always having that little bit of edge pressure you're usually the best falls or the best mistakes you just fall backwards right

[00:24:58] then there's nothing to hit you backwards you kind of just pull the wing with you I think where people get themselves into those predicaments and myself for sure one million percent in the beginning was when you were breaking at the waist and you're kind of trying to

[00:25:16] instead of staying vertical and be on that edge and that edge doesn't have to be we tapped on it in the beginning doesn't have to be crazy hard it just has to be a tiny bit of angle to keep you directly in line with that power source

[00:25:33] but the second you start breaking with your body that's when things get ugly so I would say if you find yourself with a wing and you're bent over man really before you even try to foil try to really like stand up get in line with it

[00:25:47] don't even go for foiling just get comfortable where you're in line because all that can be helped before you even touch foiling like you can ride that board back and forth a million times tapping the water without ever getting yourself into a bad scenario

[00:26:04] and we kind of call it like going over the front tacoing or vice versa if you back when I started we started with foot straps and then you would scorpion and you'd pretty much tear your ligaments your ankles

[00:26:16] and I would say that's obviously not what people are doing these days but to me if you're still struggling with that don't foil just get in line learn that first and I think you can put so much time in on the water back and forth

[00:26:36] the foil still working under water even if the board's tapping along do that until you get really comfortable with not necessarily bending at the waist and I think you're going to see a huge jump of not having those scares

[00:26:51] and I think those scares will come when you start going into turns because then you're crossing the line of edge to edge that's a tricky one we'll get into that later but that would kind of be my best advice and again Gwen said it helmet, impact vest

[00:27:09] I mean look the best surfers in the world right now and I would say surfing is a leading industry they're starting to wear helmets and they probably should have been wearing forever right? And I just feel like there's a cool factor there for sure

[00:27:25] but man there's nothing that you shouldn't safety in the beginning is important so yeah I mean I feel like the best way to avoid a sketchy fault is to not fight it to not try to save it now often it's an instinct you are about to fall

[00:27:46] you think you can save it but often it's that trying to save it that's making it making the fault worse so at the beginning if you can just like accept your faith and you are like I'm falling, I'm falling

[00:28:00] it's okay I get back up and I try again so that would be for sure the main thing and that's again when you force it that's when it happens and I mean I've had like falls where just out of frustration you kind of like kick the ball

[00:28:23] and kind of like in the air but that can get back to you but also you want to try not to kick the ball when you fall because if you flip that ball and now the ball lands let's say deck on the water

[00:28:40] foil up your wing might go through it you know you want to try to like not get that foil out of the water so even though you might be going through a frustrating time just accept the fall get back up try again

[00:28:55] and good points good points all right looking forward to talking about jiving because we're going to have to go in between edge to edge now it's going to be that weird little period where everything feels awkward it's like the board skates away from you you fall back

[00:29:11] but I'm looking forward to that next piece of the puzzle yeah thanks guys awesome love it thanks for joining and we will talk to you soon