They were forecasting good wind for today, like, a week ago or so. But for the last few days, not a whole lot. Well, lo and behold, it was one of them good old Kingston thermal days that seem more and more rare all the time! Took a few hours of vacation time and sailed 4.7 with the 105 for about 3 hours.
Experimented quite a bit with shakas today. Numerous attempts, some decent, some terrible, but slowly starting to figure them out. Seems like I am perhaps going back on the word to try pushies, but while there were some fun waves out there, it was not a pushy day. The big ramps were just not there.
On the shakas, I am having trouble with rotation. I'm not exactly having any success turning into the wind at all. I think this could be one of two problems or both. Either I am not committing and throwing my body over the sail enough to get it flat, or, perhaps more importantly, I am not keeping my backhand sheeted in enough. ???
Any shaka-doers out there have any advice to help promote rotation into the wind.
I think its going to be something like this:
Solid 4.7 or 5.3 day - work on shakas
Solid 4.2 or smaller - get some pushloop tries in.
Giddy up!
4 comments:
Nice to see you blogging again! Can't help on the technique questions though.
Thanks! We'll see how long it lasts, although usually it is the winter lull that kills the process so perhaps a few more posts into the fall.
Not that I can do Shakas, but I remember what Caesar Finies said during a Shaka lesson last fall. He said whether the jump ended up as a Shove It or a Shaka depended on how far he carved into the wind before the take-off. If the nose is through the wind, make it a Shaka; otherwise, a Shove It. So maybe you need to carve harder before take off?
Thanks Boardsurf - I will try that. What is interesting however is there is a how-to video out there for shakas (can't remember which one) which suggests the opposite. At this time I have no idea - so I will need to try everything. Most rotational freestyle moves require bearing off prior to executing - like spocks, grubbies, flakas... Not sure if that applies as well to shakas but it would be hard to bear off and still find a wave to then carve up.
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