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techno900
Joined: 28 Mar 2001
Posts: 924
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 Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2012 12:00 pm Post subject: |
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| NickB's description of FFF is dead on. At least for the majority of us inland sailors in gusty conditions on medium to large boards and sails. |
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Vitez
Joined: 01 Jan 2012
Posts: 13
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| Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2012 12:02 pm Post subject: |
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Well don't worry I haven't said that I won't FFF anymore. I always keep my mind open!
The discussion really caught my eye since I heard and saw people BFF.
If there is something new I'll add to this debate....cu untill then. |
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isobars
Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 11608
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| Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 12:31 pm Post subject: |
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| coachg wrote: | Iso’s, in any ground based sport, and yes windsurfing is a ground based sport, a shoulder width stance promotes better balance & movement laterally. An athlete who takes a stance wider than shoulder width loses balance & lateral quickness. With a wide stance the athlete must rise up to take a lateral step to maintain balance, he also must take a smaller step than an athlete in a shoulder width stance. Both actions slow you down. That is why we teach shoulder width stances in all ground based sports as it promotes better balance & quicker lateral movement. I’m not saying you are not balanced with a super wide stance, just that you lose proper mobility.
On my wave boards my straps are 16” apart toe to toe & my large slalom board they are 18”. I’m 5’10” so your 33” wide stance seems to be rather wide indeed. Also, being lighter at 165 lbs. I tend to place my straps all the way or very near the back position so I probably have a much longer walk than you do to get into the straps. |
I’m, not sure what “toe-to-toe” means -- MY flesh-and-blood toe span in both straps, or the front-to-rear strap leading edge span -- but on all my boards from 1995 to 2010 it runs about 23” for MY toe span and 21-22” strap-to-strap leading edge span. The shortest possible span is on the order of 19”, and I set mine an inch or two wider than the middle settings to give me a greater range of control over board trim while strapped in. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a board that will allow a 16” span, and I wouldn’t want it if it did. I want my weight way back when blasting and well forward when I slow down, all in both straps if feasible. Closely spaced straps would be too limiting for me unless I wanted to spend a lot more time out of one strap.
My 30+” stance, besides feeling natural to me in ordinary field sports (my normal stride when simply walking is 36"), is not for planing; it’s for slogging on smallish boards preparatory to planing. It’s whole purpose is to avoid having to take those steps you refer to above. I.e., A wider stance lets us transfer our weight from back strap to near the mast step and anywhere in between instantly, with no steps, no tripping over front straps, no slipping on wet decks, no unintended trim impulses, and no rising up. This is neither a 40-yard dash, a short sprint, or even just the few subtle steps from the front to the rear straps; it’s a weight shift … and it’s reversible in another instant if conditions warrant. In particular, the guy who walks back to the back strap too soon (in error or if the wind backed off) must now walk back to the front somewhere. In that cycle he is taking many small steps, with many risks, while the guy in a wide stance hasn’t moved a foot while shifting his weight from way forward to way aft and back to way forward. Who’s going to be MUCH smoother and MUCH quicker at accommodating wind and water and operator perturbations over a total range of just two or three feet … the guy running back and forth in stuttersteps or the guy effortlessly gliding his weight between two relatively stationary feet? |
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isobars
Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 11608
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| Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 12:48 pm Post subject: |
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| PeconicPuffin wrote: | | Vitez wrote: | I do think the thing here is that we just won't accept that we are different...some like FFF others BFF but can we accept that?
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Vitez, imagine that you have a windsurfing friend who is exactly as skilled and talented as you. You sail the exact amount of time in the exact same conditions. Everything is exactly the same, except that today he decides he's going to sail FFF while you stick with BFF.
He is going to learn to plane in less wind than you can.
He is going to learn to jibe before you do.
He is going to learn to pump before you do.
He is going to develop better upwind sailing skills than you will
He is going to be able to sail faster than you in certain conditions.
He will learn freestyle moves before you.
It will all be due to the board control skills that FFF teaches.
What will you learn to do before him? Nothing.
BFF is a dead end on the learning curve. By choosing it you are slowing down how quickly you improve as a windsurfer, like driving a car with the parking break on. It's not a question of personal preference, like waist vs seat harness. Nor is it a choice between subtle tradeoffs, like catching the boom underhand vs. overhand with the front hand while jibing. The only time BFF offers any advantage is in extremely gusty conditions (ie 10 gusting to 40) on small boards. |
1. Apparently, Vitez, many guys here cannot accept your premise, despite the considerable number of VERY experienced sailors right here who say they use both techniques.
Before ANYone blindly accepts ANY claim regarding ANY topic without ANY factual or logical support, like the PreposterousPuffer's list of unsubstantiated claims here, I suggest readers keep a more open mind. Besides, even if the PP man were right ... what would you do when confronted with "extremely gusty conditions (ie 10 gusting to 40) on small boards" ... which is common in the Gorge and the intermountain west. |
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bkiggins
Joined: 01 Aug 1999
Posts: 97
Location: Castle Rock, CO
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| Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 1:04 pm Post subject: |
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| I watched "Beginner to Winner" again last night... specifically watching for strap entry. Not once did I see anyone go BFF, for what it's worth. |
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coachg
Joined: 10 Sep 2000
Posts: 1814
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| Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 2:46 pm Post subject: |
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| isobars wrote: | | Who’s going to be MUCH smoother and MUCH quicker at accommodating wind and water and operator perturbations over a total range of just two or three feet … the guy running back and forth in stuttersteps or the guy effortlessly gliding his weight between two relatively stationary feet? |
Assuming the wind & water conditions are steady enough so the guy with the wide stance never has to move his feet, then the wide stance will be more effective. I’m not sure most sailors have the luxury of steady enough conditions to maintain one stance, I know I don’t.
Your 36” stride has nothing to do with your 30” lateral stance. Being 7’+ Kareem probably has close to a 40” stride but having narrow hips his lateral stance is going to be nowhere near 40”. You are probably wider across the mid-section which will lead to a more natural wider stance. Your hip width determines your lateral stance. An extreme example would be a sumo wrestler who probably has a wider lateral stance than natural stride. Your tendency towards a wide stance would also explain why you played football but knew very little about defensive backs as you must have played on the line. I was a little, narrow hipped 185 lb. defensive back 30 years & 20 lbs. ago so for me 16” big toe to big toe is natural & 20” feels like I’m squatting like a bear in the woods.
The outside front of my front strap to the outside front of my back strap is around 20” depending on which corner you are measuring from. The inside back of my front strap to the inside front of my back strap is the 16” measurement. I do light wind freestyle in the lulls waiting for the next gust which may be another reason I favor a narrow stance. Tripping over footstraps or slipping on decks has never been a problem for me.
Coachg |
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swchandler
Joined: 08 Nov 1993
Posts: 4687
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| Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 3:13 pm Post subject: |
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"The outside front of my front strap to the outside front of my back strap is around 20” depending on which corner you are measuring from. The inside back of my front strap to the inside front of my back strap is the 16” measurement."
I measured one of my Mike's Lab board, and I'm getting the same measurements. This particular board has no other footstrap positions available, so that's the way it is.
Coachg, I'm totally with you on your take on things. The idea stretching from in front of the frontstrap to inserting my rear foot in the backstrap is ludicrous given my 5'8" height. The idea of going for the back strap first just doesn't make any sense to me at all. But hey, each to their own. |
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isobars
Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 11608
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| Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 4:52 pm Post subject: |
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| scargo wrote: | 1. PP's articulation is the best one yet.
2. Vitez, since it appears that you only recently joined the forum, you may not realize that 90% of the regulars regard iso as the bat-sh*t crazy septuagenarian who, through long and turgid counter-examples …
3. I was thinking about buying a new harness so went back to a thread he himself started about the DaKine XT Seat. After about two pages, the conversation had morphed into one where he was telling people exactly what the right percentage of body fat is (shockingly, his percentage), why working out 15 minutes per week is better than 1-2 hours per day,
4. how he sails 8-10 hours per session and is begging for more, etc etc.
5. And then one begins thinking about all flawed sailing advice he's given, including his jibe lesson (throw a football to yourself, slam the car door closed with your hip, then jump a foot off the board), waterstarting (both feet in straps), board size, BFF, and on & on.
6. Vitez, take everything iso says with a huge grain of salt.
Of course, in writing this, I've just opened myself up to one of his 10,000-word rebuttals. Can I cut that short by admitting that I've misprepresented his positions, taken his statements out of context, and not backed my opinions by reason & logic? Probably not, but it's worth a try . . . |
1. But it's just claims, sans any support. I don’t take that without proof even from my oncologists … thank God.
2. How else does one clarify and support complex topics? Of what use is "My gear rules", "That don't work", or "My way or the highway"? Why do so many people demand that I write longer posts and/or expound on my posts? If you want stupid empty sound bites meant for yucks or chest-thumping or derision, read certain others' posts. If you want thorough, informative, supported, instructional, USEFUL facts or opinions presented for your consideration, read more detailed posts like mine and mac's. If you want simplicity, stick a "No Fear" decal on your forehead, pay up your insurance, and go kiting in a thunderstorm. BTW ... I'm not 70 yet; he made that part up, which is something you must watch out for with about two dozen people here. I consider their derision a compliment, a testimony to my ability to think and speak for myself.
3. I started the thread with a question about harness fit, people answered it with several useful comments including weight loss, then the discussion legitimately morphed into a fitness and weight loss discussion highly relevant to windsurfing. That’s a bad thing … how? I just now reread most of it ( see http://tinyurl.com/7v2gyg3 ) to refresh my memory of the topic, and still consider it valid now after another year of sailing, gym time, and exercise physiology books. IMO anyone who doesn’t check out the books and research on the topic is doing himself a giant disservice.
4. That is an outright lie, plain and simple, refuted too many times to be an honest mistake.
5. Yet again, the “waterstart in both straps” was someone else’s advice, not mine. The rest simply illustrates scargo’s closed mind supported only by isolated phrases taken from many tutorials (which bigger thinkers have asked me to publish in a book.) I guess my jibe tutorial is part of web sites in so many languages because it’s “bat-crap crazy”, the people who have thanked me for it are full of “salt”, and leading a jibe with our hips is folly in his world.
6. Take it with a grain of salt … or risk going through your next decade stuck in second gear, as we see all day every day at many venues from local lakes to the Gorge where SO many sailors make the SAME lame mistakes literally hundreds of times because they’ve been stuck in the same rut for 10, 20, even >20 years. It’s still amazing how many critics of my suggestions admit in other threads that they can’t even freaking jibe yet, or don’t sail in strong winds, or whose smallest board is 2 or even 3 times the volume of my smallest board. Scargo, for example, admitted just three years ago that he didn’t know how to sail back downwind after getting caught upwind when the wind picked up dramatically … a necessary intermediate skill I’ve been using literally for decades. (Many people have told me for years that my tutorials have helped them immensely. You’re free to take these attack dogs’ word at face value, or to try something they’ll never understand: choose for yourself or accept their myopic edicts.)
Vitez, this is yet another example of people trying to tell others how to think and, in this case, windsurf. You have a choice to make: read, understand, select, learn, experiment, expand your envelope … or take people’s unsupported edicts and personal attacks at face value like a mindless moron and limit your skills to their canned paradigms. It’s all in the archives for anyone interested in the truth. IOW, you can hand your nose ring reins to the gang bangers or you can be you own man and think for yourself. I’ve been tempted to follow my wife’s advice to quit these WS forums because this is just one of thousands of personal attacks they cannot back up, but I hate the thought of letting these Occupy iWindsurf bullytards outshout rational free thought at the expense of inquiring minds. IMO, poisoning the well with false and/or ignorant accusations is about as low as it gets online. |
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PeconicPuffin
Joined: 07 Jun 2004
Posts: 945
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| Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 5:34 pm Post subject: |
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Trying to get clever with wording now...
| isobars wrote: |
1. Apparently, Vitez, many guys here cannot accept your premise, despite the considerable number of VERY experienced sailors right here who say they use both techniques. |
A considerable number of VERY experienced sailors use BFF in extremely gusty conditions on small boards. Sailors like myself, for example. But we don't use BFF as the standard method of getting into the straps.
[quote="isobars"]Before ANYone blindly accepts ANY claim regarding ANY topic without ANY factual or logical support, like the PreposterousPuffer's list of unsubstantiated claims here, I suggest readers keep a more open mind.
I the Preposterous Puffer* agree (though I've done some explaining why FFF is so important as a skill builder) and so encourage anyone interested in the topic to check in with some top windsurfing instructors to get their perspective. Some possible people to talk to include Guy Cribb, Peter Hart, ABK Boardsports/Andy Brandt, Dasher, Jem Hall etc. Word is they all teach FFF (and explain why in great detail.)
| isobars wrote: | | Besides, even if the PP man were right ... what would you do when confronted with "extremely gusty conditions (ie 10 gusting to 40) on small boards" ... which is common in the Gorge and the intermountain west. |
If caught in those conditions hopefully they would still first try FFF, and if that wasn't working, use BFF like the survival method it is. BFF is much better than falling, as I've said before.
You know what gets me about this thread lately? I think Iso knows that people should choose FFF (except for crazy gusty/sinker boards) but he just can't let go of the argument. In the post above there's no actual disagreement with my assertion about which technique is better for learning. And hey, Iso...having seen that video of you sailing at Roosevelt: If you had better skills rolling your weight forward on the board (FFF helps teach this) you could sail up slowly under control and carefully step off the board, as opposed to your "usual dismount".
(*Preposterous Puffer is funny...almost as good as Piqued Puffoon, which is still your best!)
_________________
Michael
http://www.peconicpuffin.com |
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isobars
Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 11608
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| Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 6:39 pm Post subject: |
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| PeconicPuffin wrote: | 1. I've done some explaining why FFF is so important as a skill builder
2. they all teach FFF (and explain why in great detail.)
3. I think Iso knows that people should choose FFF
4. (except for crazy gusty/sinker boards)
5. Iso...having seen that video of you sailing at Roosevelt: If you had better skills rolling your weight forward on the board (FFF helps teach this) you could sail up slowly under control
6. and carefully step off the board, as opposed to your "usual dismount".
7. Preposterous Puffer is funny...almost as good as Piqued Puffoon, which is still your best! |
1. I missed that. All I've seen is claims, not support thereof.
2. Could you direct me to those explanations? I'd love to improve my sailing. So far the only jibing videos I've watched are on/in such flat water, steady winds, and big boards that footwork is hardly even relevant. "Jibe with your legs straight" ... he's got to be kidding, right?
3. And like so many others here you also know more about my career, sports history, education, and dogs' names than I do? Again ... kidding, right?
4. Sorry if I get bored by anything less, rarely have access to steady wind, and like my ankles.
5. I outgrew that many years ago. BOORRRRRRINNNNGGG!! Have you even tried "sliding into third" at 30 mph to see how many times you can skip on yer ass? (I've counted three skips so far.)
6. Again with trying to tell people how to sail! Hell, next you'll be telling me I shouldn't stand on both feet in four feet of water beside my board, sheet in and leap into the air simultaneously, and come down on my already planing board -- a jump start -- because we're "supposed to" beach start, water start, or uphaul. Jeez, guys ... show some imagination and put some PIZAZZ into your sailing. Heck, I'll bet you sometimes get to your knees rather than directly to your feet from neck deep -- just like getting out of a pool -- when climbing from deep water onto a huge board to waterstart it.
7. Have you looked up the other obscure words I've used? They're all real, were a hoot to find, and are purely and obviously in jest, not derogatory. |
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