Simon Bornhoft reveals how our body mechanics determine if we can or can’t move our feet for tacks and gybes.
“Everything’s fine until I move my feet!” This is a refrain that has echoed around windsurfing technique’s hallowed halls since the first tentative tacker’s toe crept in front of the mastfoot, and it can also be heard before and after moving the feet in a gybe. On smaller boards moving the feet can be the hardest, most disruptive make-or-break moment. If you’ve found you keep falling off the front in your tacks or you’re unsettled moving the feet in gybes, there’s a very good reason… You could be trying something that’s not actually humanly possible. No matter how many times you try it, it will never, ever work. In so many cases our body just doesn’t bend, move or flex the way we hope it will. So this feature is simple – and judging from the thousands I’ve coached, it’s hugely influential.
