It's a good clip.

Excellent tip - really like his straight shooter vids. Gonna give it a whirl today

The problem with the method he describes is that you only get one shot to get it right. Get it wrong and you're in the water.

The method is based on two things, Doing a pump on the front wing to get power, and swapping your feet fast. You might as well tell people to just get good at foot swapping.

There's a much easier way to do a foot swap, and you can practice it as many times as you want without too much crashing.

Start by positioning your back foot just in front of the mast. Put your weight on your back foot.

Move the front foot back to be near the back foot. You can move your front foot back and forth as far and as many times as you like. With a little practice you can ride with both feet together, just in front of the mast. It's called "ski stance".

Get comfortable riding in ski stance and moving your front foot in and out of ski stance. Practice it from toeside and heelside.

When you've practiced a bit, move your front foot back. Now move your back foot forward. You've just done a foot swap. It might take a few dabs to get your feet exactly where you want them. With practice you can hit it in a single fluid move.

The advantages of this is you can practice this all you want with very little crashing. Following from this, you can swap your feet your feet anytime you want. You don't need loads of power or smooth water.

More importantly, you can can swap your feet whenever you like. You do a lot of foot swapping and you really get to feel the power of the foil through your feet. Once you're feeling the power you can place your feet wherever you want, including strap to strap changes.

Don't have to pump, just ride the board near the surface then wait for a bit of chop and change feet as the board crosses the crest, so as your CoG goes more forward the board has the space to dive while you change feet.

Advantage of a pump is the flow it initiates and you don't need to rely on lift from the kite. It's like a hop with a foot change at the apex, when you have the least amount of weight on your feet. Gives time to feel your balance on the board as your weight comes down. As you get better, the pump gets more subtle.

Handy if you change feet before or after the transition...

This is the only video I've found with a good example of a pump: 2 minutes 15 seconds in.

Gorgo said..
[snip]

Like this? Two minutes 9 seconds in...

Once you practice the ski step and get your swaps down, then you can try the pump and swap which is the most fluid of the moves. I don't even think about the move anymore, it's just muscle memory. I learned of course the hard way, a Paipo with zero rocker, and no room for error. I got punished a lot, but eventually got there. I later shaped another board with rocker and it was pretty easy to refine the move as the odd splashdown didn't result in a crash. Gorgo's method of the ski stance I think is one of the easiest. After you get that part wired then try staying in your natural stance and practice pumping once, then moving your rear foot and tapping your front heal and move it back. This helps with timing and also the fear of too much forward pressure. Once comfortable with that the swap will be easier.

Bloody hell this is so hard to learn to do. My feet are too scared to want to move. I probably managed just one switch where I said to myself just DO IT and it worked. It seems the trick is to really commit to it.....

If you're finding it scary, try it with a brief touchdown on the top of a bit of chop as you do the switch. This fits in easily with the pump technique. As with anything you could break it down into smaller steps by practising deliberate brief touchdowns, getting used to how this affects speed and balance.

I'd also suggest a small kite so you can keep it lower in the window. This means that you're getting used to regulating your height above the water by adjusting fore-aft pressure and through boardspeed. This is the opposite on flying a big kite way overhead and sheeting in and out to take weight off the foil or put it back on. A big kite overhead reduces your feel for the foil and its relationship to the water. (Obviously racers are using max kite size and are initiating foot switches for tacks and gybes with the kite overhead, but for freeriders, this is the opposite of what you should be working towards.) This is one area where freeride foiling and twintipping have something in common - riding with your kite low in the window (and a size that allows this) will increase whatever style you already possess and help you develop more.

This is how you do it.