Learing to Jibe a surfboard

[Lmrutledge]

I am 6ft 5 and weigh 240. What are some beginging skills to work on to beging to learn how to jibe a surfbaord?

Thx in advance

LMR

[patrickrynne]

LMR,

jibing strapless is a pretty fundamental skill to have. I am not really sure that there are any tricks of the trade to learn faster, though the following advice helped me.

1.) Get on the water. Keep going out strapless, even if you fall. If at first you don't succeed, try try again! Eventually you'll start getting it.

2.) Figure out you natural stance (i am goofy, right foot forward). In general I like to be on my natural stance when I jibe. So say you are heelside on your natural stance, you will turn through the jibe completely onto a new tack before switching your feet. If you are coming heelside NOT on your natural stance, I generally switch my feet before initiating the jibing turn. There are a lot of videos out there showing this approach, just google it.

hope that helps

-patrick

[Yann]

Check out this video. There are a couple of useful moves in there to get from one stance to the other. http://gubbsurf.se/post/En-orgie-i-slag.aspx

I agree with patrick. Jibing full speed and switching stance at the same time is probably the hardest way to do it so complete the switch before or after the jibe.

Look at this guy switching stance with a 3 year old between his knees at 1:27. It's so fast you barely notice it. The kid is strapless so this one actually qualifies for LTS

[JBone]

Try these websites:

http://www.seabreeze.com.au/Articles/Ki ... 65971.aspx
http://www.kiteworldmag.com/surf/gybing/

Key is to learn in flat water and big surfboard. Like Patrick says, don't give up. It's part of the learning curve.
For me switching my feet after carve was much easier. I am still struggling with switching my feet before the carve. It is coming to me slowly.

Best of luck with practice.

That video from Yann is killer on learning to tack...next on my list of transition.