The Best Wing Foiling Article for Beginners Part 4- Wingin' It Now!

Welcome back to the article on wing foiling for everyone session-4 & more specifically the just winging it series in this episode which is the number four tack development on a wing. Thanks for watching as this Lahoma Winds is helpful for us in keeping me intentional and accountable in our development.  We aspire to progress past just being a winger please consider subscribing to the Lahoma Winds and leaving a comment every little bit of interaction does help. We hope that this playlist can offer some benefit. So, let's jump into it now with some nuggets that we have gathered in our journey to learn how to tack under a handgun let's begin briefly by taking a look at gear considerations personally. 

We have found the attack to be more difficult than the winging. One of the most problematic issues early on which become less imperative with progression is having a wing that is efficient at breaking the pivot point between windwards success and leeward oblivion. It is easier to get the wing to the other side of the wind window with a more rigid hand wing especially early on when you're lacking this skill development many times. You will hear to just sound the wing overhead when attempting to carve upwind for the tech. 

Our experience has been that this just isn't extreme enough to complete the task at hand. And also using a hand wing that is smaller in size can be easier to maneuver early on in the transition. You want to have a sufficient amount of wind as in the lightest of winds your technical preciseness will need to increase to perform the tech. Staying in the flattest of conditions will decrease your frustration and progression. As well from a hydrofoil perspective a high aspect front wing that excels in glide is going to give you more time to initiate and complete your tech. 

We also find a benefit from using a wing stick to connect between the handles. This comes in handy when you are blindly reaching for that handhold coming out of the tack or when you want to trim your grip width throughout handles without having to re-grip every time duotone had the early boom set up on their wings. We are excited to try their new duotone slick because we think it will also offer these same benefits without losing.

Let's just be honest you're probably not watching this channel. If that's you then we would recommend you borrow at least a volume neutral board for a couple of sessions to get the spills out of the way. It's just so much easier in our opinion to get dumped and restart over and over with the board that will float you a little bit. Then once you get comfortable with those initial tacks on air go back. 

Pointing the board more downwind will throttle your power coming out of the tack obviously there are many different methods and nuances to complete the air attack on the water. These are just some of the personal points that we have documented with my struggles. We had more success if we built up speed crosswind or maybe even a little off the wind a bit before bringing. They prefer to switch front hands before they reach across but we found personally that we needed a larger distance of separation to break over the winds.

To avoid the leeward pull back off of our board initial focus was only about riding the board flat not carving but getting the wing to our upwind hand as far as possible facing it to the wind. This beginning stage movement offered us repeatable success in breaking that wind axis without a highly technical maneuver with the wing in our front upwind. We still tried to leave the board pretty flat by just applying pressure through our front heel and rear toes turning the board into the wind. So there was no heavy carving occurring for me there is a point where the outstretched wing will aid in this angle and break the axis and begin to pull.

If you start touching down going into the wind just apply a little bit more back foot pressure with the maneuver.  When reaching across for the front handle with the opposite hand your pelvis will rotate more bringing you to the other side completely. Now with both hands briefly on the front handle, your trail arm needs to be efficient in regaining a handgrip almost blindly for a second at the rear of the wing and this is the position.

Your wing and your upper body are more outside of your center of gravity but once you pull it on the backhand to exit the tack that will be re-centered. You may feel that this is more of a pivot at times when powering the wing through the backhand. Usually just leaves you in this slow-controlled descent with your board trailing but you can still approach it in the same manner progression.

As we stated above for the heel-to-toe tack so that is all for this episode thanks again to Lahoma Winds. We are very appreciative of their commitment to this channel and if you get a chance please check them out and consider them for your wind and board sports needs. We'll see you next time on the Lahoma Winds.

Video credit & lesson Credit from Kyle Oklahoma.