PETER HART MASTERCLASS | ALL IN GOOD TIME

Harty this month suggests that improvement may lie focussing not so much on ‘how’,  but ‘how long.’  It’s all about time and timing.

Words Peter Hart  //  Photos  Hart Photography, Radical Sports Tobago & John Carter

Originally published within the May ’19 edition.

Over-thinking, or just thinking for that matter, in a technical sport like ours where you’re trying to link movements quickly and at speed, is death to a satisfying outcome. But for those with a logical, analytical brain (and that’s most humans), thinking is a hard to break. For those who are stuck, there is a very simple rule that everyone knows but few obey – and that is the insanity avoidance scheme of doing something different. You need to upset the established order; and not just think outside of the box but destroy the box altogether. One slightly left field approach I employ to help lift people out of ruts is to get them to focus on time. I’m not trying to carry on where Stephen Hawking left off, but time in its various guises, in a windy context, is a vital and oft ignored component.

Time
Mention ‘time’ to a recreational windsurfer and the words that tumble miserably  from his or her mouth are inevitably ‘not enough.’ Sadly the solution to finding more of the stuff to allow meaningful practice is less the remit of the humble tipster and more one for the life coach. However, in a technique context, time has three meanings.

Time. The length of time needed to complete a move (spoiler alert – most people take too long).

Tempo. It’s the rhythm of the move – the time between elements –  too long, too quick, speeding up or slowing down.

Timing. It’s the hardest to express in words but is the key to power and
efficiency. It’s not just when you perform each element (like the rig flip) of the move – but also how the end of one action can be the platform and trigger for the next.

JUST GET ON WITH IT!
Good habits start with the basics and there’s nothing more basic than leaving the beach and getting planing. If there’s one area where people take too much time, this is it. If you’re not on the board within two seconds of launching, in most circumstances you’re guilty of faffing about. The key to early planing is to land powered up and moving so the board has no chance to sink and needs less drive to pop it onto the plane. The element lacking in so many starts is that of hooking in immediately. If you power up the harness, you naturally drop the hips back, straighten the front leg and adopt your planing stance. In a decent wind, if you’re not planing within 20 metres of the beach, see a doctor!  PHOTOS  Radical Sports Tobago.

1, 2, 3, Go! Treat every start like a race. A little effort now, so you jump on driving the board forward, will save a lot later.

Do everything faster and sooner. The harness is your biggest source of power so aim to land hooked in.

Time – the amount of … (it’s not on your side)
How long it takes you to complete a move or skill – getting planing, a gybe, tack, loop –  is a reliable barometer of standard.

Out there and available for purchase is a DVD I made with Dave White called ‘10 steps to gybing’ (sorry for the plug … but a man got to eat). The step which seems to have resonated most deeply with the windy public is the one where we pose the question how long a gybe should last. The correct answer is about 4 seconds. For many people it’s twice that. In a regular powered up situation (i.e. not on the edge in slalom), your fastest point of sailing is only about 15° off the wind – not  a broad reach as is so famously misquoted. So the longer you linger downwind of that course, the more speed you lose and the greater the chances of a trip. So the general and highly technical advice is:

^{BLOODY GET ON WITH IT!}

Being in mid transition, like halfway through a foot or rig change, when the wind is about to pass from one side of the sail to the other, sees you in your least stable, most vulnerable state. So the longer you stay there … Here are some examples of how and why you can improve a skill by changing nothing but the time-frame.

Launching and beach start
If ever there was an arena where people love to ‘faff’ about, it’s in the shallows waiting to beach start – pushing and pulling, waiting waiting waiting  … but for what? ‘I can’t get on,’ you cry, ‘if the board is lined up wrong or there’s no gust.’ Well it’s usually lined up wrong because you’ve dumped it in the water casually. Having the goal to beach start quickly is an incentive to launch properly. That is to say hold board and rig clear of the water as you wait for the gust. As it arrives, turn downwind and throw the board downwind of you, so it lies across the wind away from you – and you have the space to step on immediately.

From the board hitting the water, give yourself 2 seconds to get on. In a shorebreak, the stakes are higher. Whitewater and rips drag it off line. Worse still, wind and currents rarely pull the board upwind. It’s a depressing activity chasing the tail downwind, knowing you’ve lost ground even before you’ve started sailing. To start quickly is to stay upwind.

Waterstarts
I don’t have the official figures, but I estimate that for every minute you hang around in the water, you and your rig gain at least a kilo in weight, as water ingresses into your luff, the pockets of your shorts, your boots, wetsuit, nostrils etc. As you get heavier, the challenge gets harder – and you get colder and more knackered. Fall in and pop back up – that must be the aim.

In the rig recovery it’s not a case of just pushing up violently, more in hope than expectation. Instead start the thought process earlier. The moment you lose balance, think of how and where you’ll land and what you can do, by twisting or just thrusting the arms up, to keep the rig flying. With the rig flying, just as with the beach start, nothing gets better if you hang around. The board gets knocked off line, waves shelter the wind and the rig collapses; you drift in towards the board. Imagine a circling shark if you must, but make it a habit to get a foot on immediately to control the board and power up straight away.

^{That the pros seem to have loads of time is an illusion. They do everything more quickly.}

Planing – just do it!
The topic is huge, but the premier fault of late planers is, once again, ‘faffing’ (or farting if you prefer) around.

If you have planing wind, you should be planing within 20 metres of the shore or within 5 seconds of launching. If not … what are you doing?!! Playing safe is what.

This is the sequence. Beach start with a little forward motion. Hook in and power up immediately, front foot in, back foot in, bear away, plane.

From the beginning … if your board is moving, it lifts and gain litres. If you power down and stop, you lose litres; it sinks beneath you, pushes more water and requires an even bigger gust to lift it up – which is why it’s key to jump on sheeted in and moving forward.

Hook in straight away because it’s much easier to hook in before you’re
planing (less pressure in the sail).

Commit 100% to the harness within a second of hooking in because that not only powers the sail up, but also forces you to drop the hips back, straighten the front leg and adopt a planing stance immediately.

Get into the straps before or as you’re starting to plane – primarily because it’s less scary, and secondly because it allows the nose to rise and the board to release onto its planing flat; and thirdly having your feet in the straps anchors the feet and gives you the confidence to commit against the power; and then use the feet to drive the board forward and up on the plane.

^{Just having the aim to plane immediately encourages good technique}

IN A HURRY (but not rushed)
That the pros appear to have heaps of time, is an illusion. They do everything quicker and never more so than when waveriding. Only on the biggest waves will you see them running on a edge for more than 2 seconds. Most of the time, it’s half that, so the act of gouging the edge to bottom turn, is the trigger to release into the top turn. The curse of the amateur rider (and gyber), is staying too long on an edge. PHOTOS John Carter.

Such a powerful sight, Kai Lenny bottom turning. Sadly that glorious, super compressed, committed position lasts barely a second before he releases the edge and initiates the top turn.

Same deal in the smaller waves of Pozo, but an even quicker tempo.

The tack
The smaller the board, the quicker you have to be. Speed is not only your friend, it’s your indispensable companion. With bare feet you can run across a bed of red hot coals and not feel a thing … (I did it once and alcohol was not involved) so long as you run very fast with light feet and don’t stop mid way for a breather. That’s tacking. It’s all about the outcome. Get your feet from the centreline on one tack to the corresponding positions on the other like lightning. If you do it very quickly, you can tread in all the wrong places and the board doesn’t have time to misbehave. I state without fear of contradiction that taking too long is the number one cause of tacking misery – not just slow feet, but the dreaded pause before you go for it – during which time the board stops and sinks and you start thinking. There are loads of tips and tricks to smooth out tacking, but without speed they are meaningless. Four seconds is the recommended time to complete a planing gybe – knock a second off that for the tack.

Calmly urgent
“But …” shout the hecklers in the audience, “I’ve been told by instructors to calm down, relax and don’t rush the moves. And what about the pros? They always seem to have so much time …? Correct. Rushing is bad. It means you’re reacting to pressures rather than predicting them and so are a step behind what’s going on, constantly playing a game of catch up. What we’re talking about is speeding things up in a positive way by anticipating every step. In something quite basic like the helicopter tack, it means exactly that, stepping the feet earlier and quicker so they’re in place and stable before the rig whips around.

As for the pros – that they appear to have time is an illusion created by making space, by being in balance and always looking and projecting towards the end of the move, which in turn gives a sense of calm control and not being rushed. They actually do everything  more quickly.

On one of my Irish wave clinics recently, one of my team, a really good rider, was seeking the next level – but he wasn’t sure what else he could do technique-wise. I told him, all we need is a stopwatch. Happily on that day, Timo Mullen was sailing the same  wave. Bare stats revealed that the time between my man initiating his bottom turn and his top turn was 3 seconds. Timo’s was about half that – and how much more exciting and dynamic it looked..

Knocking seconds off such moves doesn’t just happen by accident. It comes from being more energetic, carving more steeply … basically trying harder. So why not just say “commit more!” Well that may work … but it’s a bit nebulous; whereas washing off seconds is a solid target that automatically encourages commitment of the right sort.

TEMPO AND THE TRANSITIONS
Watching a dodgy move, you’re painfully aware of separate sections – there’s a turny bit, a flip, a foot move and then a grasp and a grapple as the rig is found, brought to heel and heaved into shape; whereas the best moves appear to be one flowing whole. Timing is once again key. Mentally and physically you should be projecting toward the next element. For example, driving the rail is the trigger to change the feet; and immediately turning the hips to follow the opening of the sail, makes sure the feet turn swiftly under the body. Anticipating the changes helps with timing, makes the transition look effortless and creates that illusion of time. PHOTOS Radical Sports Tobago.

Half way through the gybe, but already the head, shoulders and hips have turned to face the exit – it’s much earlier than you’d think.

From that position it’s natural for the feet to turn under their hips and keep the board carving with the heels.

Love carving … but not too much
Back to our man who was taking too much time between bottom and top turns. He was confused. I’d told him endlessly that speed on the wave was the key to dynamic riding and he countered saying that surely by drawing out the bottom turn (or gybe) you generate more speed? Yes and no. In a slalom gybe where you’re driven by a huge rig, yes you do widen the entry for speed. But on a manoeuvre based setup (smaller rig), that’s not the case. As you bank over and displace water, you get rocketed in the new direction, but that momentum soon dissipates. The longer you stay on the edge, the more it sinks and slows down and the greater the chance of a stall.

In big waves, the good guys gouge to get the acceleration towards the lip, then flatten off to get the glide, (because the board goes faster when flat), and then immediately  gouge again on the heel side to complete the top turn. In smaller waves, they gouge the bottom turn and that gouge is the trigger to release the edge and rock onto the heel side. It’s the sudden drive and the reaction of the rail as you release it that produces the wild redirection.

The basic difference is that the good guy starts his top turn as he’s still accelerating; whereas the not so good guy, because his bottom turn is too long, is slowing down as he hits the top, whereupon he flops rather than boosts.

It’s the same in gybes – the longer you run an edge the more you’ll slow down. I was coaching a guy whose gybing arcs typically took in a couple of postcodes, I was  trying in vain to make him commit more to the rail, when on one run in, a holidaymaker on a jet ski shot out in front of him. Necessity being the mother of invention, he avoided it by dropping over the rail like Naish in his prime and carved out of the way with the board tilted over at right angles. It was the change of focus that unleashed the instinctive beast in him. Without time on his side, he suddenly did exactly the right thing.

But actually what decides whether a moves appears controlled or rushed, is sometimes less the amount of time taken and more about the tempo.

^{The longer you stay on an edge, the more it sinks, slows down and the greater the chance of a stall.}

The tack is the one move that probably best encapsulates the concepts of time, tempo and timing. On a small board, if you’re not into it after a second, it’s already too late. And above all, the act of bending the knees and carving is your cue to spring into it. Imagine the timing of a standing long jump and you’re there. To delay is to plop!  PHOTO Hart Photography.

In tacking, the bending of the knees to carve is your trigger to tack – it’s that quick.

TEMPO
A pro and an amateur take off the same wave, do a forward and land at the same time. That of the amateur is like a cartwheel turning over, same speed all the way through. But in the pro’s version, take off is followed by a period of calm and then a whip as he pulls on the power at the decisive moment. It was the dramatic change of tempo that made it exciting. The same two sailors pull off a carving gybe and both last 4 seconds. With the pro there was a constant cadence – boom, boom, boom, boom – and on each ‘boom’ something happened –  boom, sheet in and carve; boom, sheet out – change feet;  boom – release rig; boom – sheet in again. It’s a continuous flow resulting in a planing exit. But with the amateur, there were 3 seconds of carve, and then all the tricky bits, the rig and foot transitions, were crammed into the last second and the gybe hurried to a stop. It was as if the orchestra’s conductor suddenly had a fit and the musicians had to squeeze 3 seconds of notes into one second.

^{Some look as if they’re performing to a tune where the conductor has suddenly had a fit.}

Move to the beat
Certain sports and music are closely linked. Armies march in time over long distances because steady rhythm prompts the body to operate instinctively and efficiently. For the same reason it’s much easier to exercise to music. If I had the resources, during training sessions, I would have speakers out on the water and would change the song depending on the move we were doing. For gybing, the bass line of Stevie Wonder’s ‘Higher Ground’ is perfect. Four beats and on the third beat you change your feet.

For jumping it might be the 1812 overture, a rising crescendo ending in a huge cymbal crash on take off, to encourage that moment of  concentrated effort.

The great inhibitor in tricky moves is fear of crashing at speed; hence people like to delay and slow down before doing the tricky bits like changing the feet. But the whole transition starts way earlier than people think. Having a rhythm or a song in your head can distract your mind and allow your body to do the thing it would do naturally, if only you would let it. I used to train the military windsurfing teams. They were great to coach because they’re used to doing things by numbers – and they tend to be unafraid of crashing. They had no problem in shouting out “1, 2, 3, 4” as they gybed. Others just need to do it in their heads.

Useless commands …
There are some skills like pumping, which are ‘un-instructable’ in the regular sense of giving a series of vocal commands. The sequence of movements is so fast and precise that by the time you’ve given the first prompt, it’s already too late to perform the next bit. All you can do is explain the general aim. “Listen up – you need to produce a pulse of power by sheeting in, direct that power through feet and mastfoot to drive the board into the water; and then release it and try to bump the board over its bow wave. Repeat as necessary. Right, over to you.” It’s then all about repetition and feeling for the tempo; in this case it’s slow big pumps, getting faster and shorter and the board accelerates. The more you do it, the more you tap into this notion of power and release and how to time it, which is key to so many moves, like jumping, gouging carves and a 100 freestyle tricks. Tempo and timing are closely linked.

POWER and RELEASE
Windsurfers, especially muscly ones, are very good at powering up, but not so good at releasing. But it’s the combination of the two that produces those exciting transitions, and none more so than when jumping. Present the underside of the board to the lip of the wave. To get that essential  upwards reaction the wave must be met with tension through the legs. Then for the jump to go anywhere the board must be released by you sheeting out and tucking up. To get the timing wrong is to flop miserably into the trough. PHOTOS Hart Photography.

The moment of tension and power. Sheeted in with a taut back leg.

The moment of release. Sheeting out, lifting up and allowing the board to fly.

If you mistime your run at the wave and hit a slopey section, or soften the legs too soon or too late, you won’t be getting altitude sickness any time soon.

Timing
It’s that’s elusive phenomenon that delights and frustrates sporting folk of all sizes, shapes and denominations. We think of the stripling of a tennis player spanking a forehand with a speed and power totally disproportionate to her muscle mass – just through focussing all her sources of strength into exactly the right moment.

Timing is the key ingredient of a head turning performance.

In windsurfing it takes various forms but let’s focus on 2.

Like the tennis player, it’s that ability to produce a moment of effortless dynamism through co-ordinating all the sources of power available.

It’s the ability to seamlessly connect the elements of a move – to the point where it’s one flowing skill

Timing the moment of power.
Two people head out for a jumping session. One manages to put half a centimetre between fin and board; the other soars 40 feet into the stratosphere. The flyer had eyes fully open to the environment and steered downwind to hit the most active part of the ‘about to break’ wave. As the lip curled over and smacked the underside of the board, she sheeted in and drove off the back foot so that force was met with tension and resistance and produced a reaction; then crucially, a micro-second later, she released the board by sheeting out, dropping to windward, turning the sail into a wing and tucking up into a ball. So many things came together to create the explosion. The one centimetre flyer on the other hand, jumped irrespective of the wind and wave. Then with all the subtlety of a doped up bodybuilder, had but one tactic, which was to heave the board from the water with feet and biceps. The difference was timing. It’s by coordinating your effort that the best soar, throw spray and turn heads. It’s a tricky concept, but one you can grasp by focussing on that most static of moves, the waterstart.

Timing and the waterstart
You know how well you’re doing by the amount of wind needed to heave you up. Improvement comes from combining and timing more and more lift devices. At the outset you just straighten the arms to expose the sail. If that doesn’t work, you wait for a weather event to lift you on. But then you learn to time that arm extension with a gust. If that doesn’t work, you drop down again and bend the arms in the knowledge that it’s the momentum generated by you rolling forward and throwing from the shoulders that creates the burst of power to lift you on. And you keep on adding layers until finally you raise the rig as you pull the tail in to bear away, as you pump the back hand, as you kick the front leg, as a gust comes and a wave lifts the upper body.  Some of the power is physical, some is environmental – the more you exploit the latter, and time your effort with the arrival of natural forces, the more effortless it appears.

Timing – connecting the pieces
Let’s take the gybe. The way to transform it from a series of stilted parts into one flowing integrated move, is to project mentally and physically towards the next phase, whereby you’re using the end of one section as the trigger or platform for the next.

Imagine you’re doing a standing long jump. You flex to the point where your legs are strongest and then immediately spring up  – down, up. It’s as if by compressing you store energy and use it to rebound upwards. If you delay in the crouch position you lose the energy and the timing and jump half the distance. As you carve, you should already be anticipating the foot change. You drop forward and bend the back knee and power the rail. Then as the knee reaches full flex, just like the standing jump, that is your cue to use it to drive into the foot change.

That timing thought process not only gets you into the foot change earlier, but the act of driving off the back foot to initiate it, steepens the carve and cracks the board through the wind. The tack timing is similar and yet even more crucial. The tack really is like a standing long jump in that the foot journey is longer and you do jump (although preferably with feet still in contact with the board). Bending your knees to power up the heel edge and carve upwind (or to resist the act of sheeting in, if you’re off the plane) is the trigger to extend the legs and jump round. If you delay a second, the rebound has gone and the board stalls.

Losing it
Being ‘in the zone’ basically describes someone whose effortless timing is allowing them to perform on autopilot. When that timing goes, very often under the pressure of competition or a stressful situation, they suddenly look mechanical. They’re completing tricky stuff, but you feel they’re trying too hard and that they’ve muscled their way to victory … a performance which is often betrayed by a pained facial expression. And there’s nothing like repetitive failure to make you stressful. One coaching technique I employ when someone is struggling with a move like the tack, is to have them imagine they’re demonstrating it to a friend, and their remit is to show them how easy it is. Without prompting, they smile; they stand more upright, relax and find ways to make space rather than lunge at the boom. They also start to move feet as if they were on dry land. That is to say, initiate the transition by twisting head and hips whereupon the feet automatically follow and just turn beneath them – rather than make random, clumping steps independently of the rest of the body.

Whenever your timing is off, the first step is to relax, especially, the grip and the arm muscles. In most transitions, the aim is to get the rig out of the way and move into the space. You can’t do that if you’re eyeballing it and holding it with a grip of steel.

In the next issue, Harty breathes fresh air over that old favourite, the helicopter tack. Free spaces are few and far between on his legendary clinics, but check out availability by going to www.peter-hart.com

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