HOW TO JUMP TECHNIQUE TIPS – PART 1

Passion, or painful necessity, if you’re to sail with any confidence on the rolling sea, jumping is a skill as essential as beachstarting

Fresh from a winter clinic in Jeri, where getting airborne was at the top of many of his clients’ agendas, Peter Hart offers much advice on how to take your flights to new heights. In a two-part series he starts by laying the foundations. 

“Who’s afraid of flying?
I’m just afraid of crashing.
That’s why my face is whitening
And my teeth are gnashing.”

Loudon Wainwright’s musical ode to the terrors of airplane travel might as well have been dedicated to the windsurfer, keen to and, at the same time, terrified of taking their board and rig to the air. 

Not many kids are afraid of flying. They tend not to dwell on the absurdity of hurtling through the stratosphere in a cigar tube. It’s just a bit of fun and adventure.

Likewise, as they rocket skywards on a windsurfer, they register no immediate threat to their mortality, whatever that is. And if they do hurt themselves, so what? They have no job to lose, no mortgage to pay. They heal in a jiffy and go out and do it again.

This technique feature appeared in the March 2014 issue. To read more features like this first, plus the latest tests and juiciest features, treat yourself a subscription –  go on, you deserve it!

Kids jump naturally, because, blessed with ample layers of plump cartilage to cushion their landings, that’s what they do all day long on trampolines, beds and sofas.

The natural joy of bouncing and going high encourages them do all the right things on a board – like extend, explode upwards and make themselves light.

They immediately get the essential concept that they themselves have to spring and then pull the board up to their height. For adults, part of the key to jumping is to rediscover their carefree inner child.

But the other part is to accept that it’s not a daredevil leap into the unknown – although at first it may feel like that. It’s just a blending of skills, most of which they already possess through carrying the kit, waterstarting, pumping, gybing and just sailing.

VIEW MORE TECHNIQUE TIPS

Carrying the kit, you balance the rig parallel to the ground and let the wind blow under it to support it. That’s how you soar during a jump. Waterstarting, you position yourself upwind of the windward edge and use the back foot to pull the tail under your backside to bear away and increase power.

That’s also how you control the tail and bear away in mid air. Pumping – you direct a pulse of power from the rig into the board through the toes with straight legs and a tight core and then release it to make it cork up onto its planing surface.

You use the same pump and release action to take off. Gybing. It’s when you learn to bear away and embrace speed – not wash it off – that you stop fighting the rig and everything falls into place.

And it’s when you stop braking at the sight of a ramp, that you take control of your direction and altitude. Just sailing along. As you head up and bear away, you move body forward and back to shift pressure between the feet and mastfoot to trim the board level.

All you’re doing when jumping is sailing the board through the air.

FEAR ABATEMENT
Of course not all adults are cowering, yellow-bellied flop-artists barricaded into a shrinking comfort zone. However, they are burdened with experience. Learning to plane, everyone, bar none, has suffered the trauma of a catapult.

From that moment on, a gland, which evolved to protect us from the woolly Mammoth, secretes heavily to produce self-preservation impulses and avoid a repeat.

And those impulses, squatting, over-committing to the rig etc., while solving an immediate issue, can, if untreated, corrupt your whole game eternally.

With jumping, it only takes an early crash, probably from trying it on the wrong kit in the wrong conditions, to breed instinctive reticence.

At the sight of a juicy ramp, your logical inner self runs a quick cause-and-effect logarithm – and before you can say ‘reach for the sky’, you’re heading up, slowing down, leaning back, buckling at the knees – and doing all in your power to ensure you clear the lip by a maximum of 2 inches before collapsing into wind in a crumpled heap. So what IS the fear cure?

IF YOU DON’T FEEL COMFORTABLE AND IN CONTROL THE SECOND BEFORETAKE-OFF, YOU CERTAINLY WON’T THE SECOND AFTER TAKE-OFF

Fear generally stems either from a sudden loss of control or from unfamiliarity, i.e., the unknown. The lack of control might be a basic technique issue, but is more likely down to using unsuitable kit in conditions which are too wild, or just wrong.

As for the unknown, it only takes one foray into the unknown for it not to be unknown anymore. The best advice for debutante jumpers is to do it lots. In benign conditions, leap off every hint of a lump.

Familiarity dilutes terror. When you get to the stage where, as your fin leaves the water, your buttocks do not instinctively clench, then you’re ready to tweak and polish the technique. 

It’s a two-stage strategy. Part one is the preparation phase. The aim, by choosing the right moment of the right day, with the right kit and right basic skill level, is to arrive planing with control and joyful expectation as you mount the ramp.

Part two is about working on your technique options as you leave the water.

KIT and CONDITIONS
! hesitate to go on too much about kit and conditions for risk giving you a sack full of excuses not to go for it. But here’s a small selection of DOs and DON’Ts that will really influence your day out for better or worse.

KIT SIZE
It’s simple physics. A big thing needs a lot more power and energy to get it off the water than a small thing. And when a big thing comes down, it does so with a much bigger clunk.

Here’s the crux. It’s the wind that gives you wings, not the size of the ramp. If the wind doesn’t have the strength to support the board when you take off a ramp (and you will need a ramp), you tend to plummet Tom and Jerry style into the void with no sensation of floating or flying, but a vivid sensation of spinal jarring. 

So if you’re trying to get airborne with your 140L all-rounder and an 8.5, it suggests that either you’re short on early planing skills, or more likely that you’re short on breeze.

Meaningful jumping really starts in a force 5 (18 knots) where most people can be using a board under 100L and a sail under 6.0. As long as you have the skills to cope, jumping actually gets easier, more enjoyable and potentially less painful on the joints as the wind increases towards 30 knots and you move to ever-smaller kit.

More wind means more height, but also more lift under the rig to cushion the descent.  But much above 30 knots and it all gets a bit frantic and unpredictable. 

KIT DESIGN
A feature of most sails above about 6.5 with a freeride, speedy bent, is a lot of shape in the battens just above and below the boom, which is designed to drive the board onto the water. The open leech helps that fullness stay low and lend control at speed – it’s actually an anti-take-off feature.

The difference with a wave or small crossover sail is that you want to get away with as small a sail as possible. The leech is tighter and the centre of effort therefore is set higher in the sail to help lift the board out of then water – as well as to put the pilot in a taller, more ‘centred’ stance.

I know, Robby Naish’s famous R.I.P. video from the last millennium showed him flying his slalom kit some 40-ft. above the Pacific. You can do monster jumps on slalom kit if you have a big ramp to redirect the board vertically, at which point the rig falls parallel to the water and acts like a wing.

But three good reasons not to use race-oriented kit as your ‘go to’ jump combo are:

1. Slalom boards are super light and flat-rockered – and so likely to snap on landing, especially if driven to the ground by a huge rig.

2. If you drop a big, cambered sail in the white water, you’ll be lucky to emerge without a broken batten or 6.

3. The footstraps will be mounted outboard – talking of which …

IF YOUR BOARD DOESN’T HAVE INBOARD FRONT STRAP MOUNTS AND THE OPTION OF A SINGLE BACK STRAP, YOU DON’T HAVE THE BEST TOOL FOR THE JOB.

THE RIGHT WIND
To jump, you have to hit the ramps nose-on, fully planing. So the wind has to be strong all the way to the beach to allow you beachstart and get on the plane – and be blowing at some kind of angle to the wave. But what kind of angle? Some are a lot better than others. 

Side-shore is perfect, if you can find it. You take off across the wind without having to make any adjustments.  But often headlands shelter the wind so they can be gusty right inshore where you need full power. Side-on, preferably with more ‘side’ than ‘on’ is the popular jumping direction.

Blowing off the sea, the wind is usually solid right up to the beach. You have to head up a little to hit the wave at 90º.

Dead-onshore. Some places with shallow-shelving beaches, where the waves are well spaced can be a bit of fun, but generally it’s hard work. You have to head right up into wind to take the wave, which kills your speed and power. It’s like glorified chop-hopping.

Offshore Winds. You can jump in offshore winds, but it’s not the pastime of choice. The more offshore they are, the worse it gets. They tend to be fluffy and unstable and force you to attack the waves on a broad reach, where you have the most speed and the least control.

Hence it’s in offshore winds that you see the most nose-dives and catapults. And as you land, the wave you’ve just jumped shelters the wind and you fall into a hole.

Wind Deflection
Finally on the subject of wind, jumpers need to be aware of how waves – and the shoreline – deflect the wind (it’s all to do with friction). A wave deflects an onshore wind more onshore.

That means as you approach the ramp, you’re suddenly closer to the wind than you once were and need to bear away to stay powered up.

In offshore winds it’s the opposite. As you climb the face, the wind suddenly swings more from behind (more offshore) and accelerates, meaning you have to head up to soften the power. Another reason why you see a lot of catapults in offshore winds. 

THE RIGHT WAVES
Size really is not important  (the best can double loop off a 2-foot chop if they have the wind) but shape and period are. What’s crucial is having a little space between waves in which to crank up the volume.

Waves which are dumping on the beach, or stacking up behind each other with little gap in between, stop you getting settled in the straps and up to speed. Waves that peak and crash suddenly give you little room for timing error.

Tide has a big influence. In the absence of a friendly outer reef or sandbar, conditions are best when the waves run up a shallow shelving part of the beach, where they’ll tend to peak and break gradually giving you wider window to hit a steep bit. 

To get a good jump you must hit an active lip.  It’s when the curling crest smacks the underside of the board and is met with tension from the legs that you go up and up.

You need something to redirect the nose upwards. The shape of the wave determines your flight. A steep, vertical wall will, of course, send the nose straight up. That’s the face off which the practiced look to perform backloops or tabletops – or just get massive air.

The best-shaped ramp for learning is a slopey wave with a little kick at the top. It projects you into a longer flight, so you touch down with forward speed, which in turn takes the sting out of flat landings and is easier on the ankles.

White water dominates the marine scenery in onshore winds. A recently broken wave is a deeply unstable jumping platform. It’s a morass of boiling bubbles.

But the thin layer of white water that sits on top of waves that have reformed can give you a very positive upwards reaction. 

Waves have the most immediate influence on your fragile mental state. The bigger and further away they are from the beach, the more defensive you’ll be.

Those white-coated reform waves are great for learning because they’re small and close to home. If the wave is of a size and nature that you actually want to jump off it, like those kids at the beginning, you’ll instinctively do many of the right things.

THE MAIN REASON FOR PEOPLE’S FAILURE TO JUMP IS THAT THEY’RE NOT PLANING WHERE THE WAVES ARE PEAKING – COULD BE A TECHNIQUE ISSUE, BAD TIMING OR THE WRONG CHOICE OF ARENA

THE ESSENTIAL TECHNIQUES
The three essential skills for jumping are: a running beachstart, early planing and a relaxed, upright stance. The wind is always messed up around the shore, but if you can get going straight away, your apparent wind carries you through the lulls, over the inside slop and on towards the proper ramps.

Multifin boards help in that you can launch earlier.

The technique is to run behind and upwind of the board pushing it along with the rig and then jump on just off the wind with feet in front of the straps making sure that the shock of your feet landing near the tail is matched with the mastfoot pressure created by you sheeting in.

Even better is to hook into those long lines as you land on the board so you immediately commit to the harness, let the mast drop forward and lower the nose.

If you dive into the straps unhooked and half sheeted-in, the board hunts around on the tail before swinging upwind and stopping. 

Pluck and guts will only take you so far in jumping (as far as A & E at least). They have to be underpinned by solid foundations. Your stance in the air will mirror your regular posture.

I shy away from trying to prescribe a perfect stance – but there are 4 elements of your posture and trim that are crucial to jumping.

1. The head. Looking forward over the front shoulder, you should have a clear view of the road ahead and in the case of jumping, of the landing strip around the mast. If all you can see is armpit hair, you’ve let the head drop and will be sailing and flying blind.

2.

3. Hips high (feel the toes). Moving from a low to a tall stance, the pressure shifts from heels to toes. You MUST take off from your toes. 

4.

TAKING OFF – THE FLIGHT INDUCING FACTORS

Here are the lift devices available to you:

Board Speed.  The faster you’re going, the higher you will go – so long as you can redirect that speed.

The lip hitting the underside of the board. 

The wind blowing under and lifting the board.

YOU pulling the tail up and upwind to level the board off and bear away in the air.

YOU extending knees ankles and toes and
actually jumping.

Sheeting out momentarily to release the nose as you take off

The rig angled over to windward and directing the power upwards.

Those who achieve jumps seemingly disproportionate to the conditions co-ordinate ALL those lift devices in one explosive second. 

That’s the problem – the time available. Hence, at the extremes of the dodgy technique spectrum, you have those who do too little and those who try and do too much. 

The over-active squat and pump and heave as they launch, flying into the air with all the tight control of four bits of cooked spaghetti connected by a lump of jelly. 

The under-active, on the other hand, look as if they’re driving their car off the pier into the sea. Nothing changes.

The ideal approach to begin with is to do as little as possible – but just enough to keep the board online. Then get more active and explosive as you get a feel for what’s going on. 

I leave you this month with one thought as you heads towards a peachy lip … 

Air offers NO support. Think what would happen if you fly off a ramp and do nothing. With the nothing to grip, the fin will shoot off downwind. Are you in a position to take the pressure off the fin and hold the tail online?

With nothing under the nose as it leaves the ramp, the weight of the rig will surely drive it down. Can you instantly depower the rig without losing your shape, or angle it where it lifts the board?

So next month we dig deep, looking at case studies, where it goes right and wrong, how to vary the jumps and go really big.

Harty continues the theme next month.. To find out about his life-changing clinic schedule for 2014 check out www.peter-hart.com . You can email for his newsletter on harty@peter-hart.com and get updates by liking his Peter Hart Masterclass  Facebook page.

 PHOTOS: Hart Photography and Red Bull Content Pool.

The post FLOP OR FLY – HOW TO JUMP PART 1 appeared first on Windsurf Magazine.