Perfect Speeed day.

Today was about the 10th day on my new 8'10" Speeed, and today we totally clicked with each other. lot of factors came together, and I went from liking the board to loving the board. For one thing, it was the first glassy day in a while that we were not paddling in wind and chop and that obviously helps a lot, but there were a few other things that made a huge difference that might be worth sharing.
1. From other threads, you might know that I have been experimenting with fins. Today was a new combo that worked great: 3D 7s (4 ¾) thrusters, and a 3.6" trailer with very little tip rake. (Thanks to Jim K at Extreme Windsports for recommending the 3D 7s.)
2. I really focused on reaching my back foot back to find the hip in the rail line every time I wanted a tight turn, and the board responded every time with tight accelerating carves. A couple of times it came back up to the lip so fast that I had to really wake up and get my foot shifted to the other rail to come back off the lip before I cut right out the back.
3. I made sure to really flex and load up the back leg before pressing into the rail, rather than just leaning on it.
4. On the rare wave that was shoulder high or bigger, I made sure that I was really leaning forward on the drop so that I was perpendicular to the face, and not standing vertically.
5. Not to be afraid to really get up on that wide nose when trying to pull into a stubborn wave. I swear that there were times when I was close to hanging five as I tried to paddle over a pitching lip, before needing to hop back to the tail for the drop and turn.
6. Lots of active fore and aft footwork to trim the board for the type of turn I wanted, or optimal speed.

None of this is new to most guys on the forums (sorry for posting on two forums, but I have had a lot of good advice from both and wanted to share the thanks), and in fact every one of these skills was suggested to me by people on here (thanks Creek and others). I just thought that it might be fun to list them all in one place as reminders for anyone like me who is trying to dial in a new board, and is searching for what it takes to make it click.

Awesome work ... Learning heaps too...