Kiteboarding: How to Setup Your Footstraps – Ride with Blake: Vlog 36
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Stance setup is often overlooked when learning to kite. Find out how to do it properly here!
This video covers how to perfect your kiteboarding stance as well as some of the basics concepts such as heelside, toeside. Goofy foot vs regular foot. Riding blind and riding wrapped.
If you need help putting your footstraps together for the first time give us a call and we’ll walk you through it.
800-622-4655This may seem like a simple one but in reality when do you ever learn how to set up your board? They don’t teach you this in a lesson. I’ve done it myself where the footstraps are in the wrong position and it makes riding uncomfortable, or when I got my first board and set up the fins the wrong way. There is so much going on when you are learning to kiteboard that it can be very overwhelming. I had a student the other day refer to his first day of kiteboarding as controlling panic.
Once you learn to control the panic things become much easier and it all starts to fall into place, slowly but surely. All kiteboarding requires is patience, practice and dedication. Those are the ingredients for success, however having your foot straps in the wrong position for example can really set you back. That was the case for this student of mine who was learning to ride upwind.
He had learned to control the panic, relax, fly the kite, put the board on his feet and ride the board both ways but was struggling with going upwind. He brought his own board and had set it up at home before the lesson. The size was good, we had the right kite for the wind and everything seemed promising. When we got out there he was getting up right away but was having trouble opening up and riding upwind.
I took the kite to demonstrate what he needed to do. Once I had the board on my feet i realized the problem was his foot straps were closing him in and making him ride downwind. With both the straps facing forward and not allowing for any twist in the hips, this was his problem.
So that’s the story of why we’re making this video. To help all of you who are getting into kiteboarding have all of the necessary information you need before you go. Something as simple as the placement of your foot straps can make all the difference.
Here’s how you do it:
1. Stand on your board with your feet a shoulder width apart.
2. Twist your hips and pretend you’re riding to the right and left. Take note of where your feet go when you open up each way.
3. Set your foot straps on the board and make sure that you’re not having to angle your feet in the straps as you open up. If you set your straps at ‘0’ ‘0’ which is straight, it’s going to close your hips and shoulders downwind.
4 You want to offset them so that they are facing towards the front of the board which will allow you to open upwind.
5. Place the screws in the right holes so that your straps are shoulder width apart, wider if you are planning on landing hard or doing tricks.
PS. Your fins face out on both ends not inward!
Ride with Blake
Learn more about kiteboarding here:
http://www.mackiteboarding.com/
If you have any questions, give us a call
800 622 4655
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