After 7 or so years of riding the same beat up freeride board I learnt to windsurf on I thought it was time for an upgrade. I figured if I was going to use my new board for the same length of time as my old one I my as well spend a bit on it. So I bought a new 2014 Fanatic Skate TE that was on sale.

Now that I have an awesome freestyle board I was looking at learning how to freestyle windsurf, but I don't really know where to start. I can get 95% of my gybes now and I'm starting to consistently get planning gybes. I can get probably 50% of my tacks and can do a few basic freestyle moves like heli-tacks, bodydrags and riding on the nose of my board.

I'm a little stumped as to where I should go next. I'm praticing duck gybes and valcan (all I can do is jump 90 degrees and fall over backwards). Is there something else I should be doing first? Are there any resources online for freestyle moves?

From what Ive read its best to try a heap of moves at the same time so you dont get too bogged down with one. The first ones to learn seem to be helitack, upwind 360, vulcan, spock, flaka, grubby, willyskippers. Havent really got my head around anything else so cant comment on them.

Try Sam Ross's videos, this ones the vulcan but if you click on it you can find some other freestyle moves like the upwind 360, flaka and forward loop you could try.


Heaps of tricks to learn here:


ContinentSeven has a great list of moves that you can suss out:
www.continentseven.com/windsurfing-moves/

Ahhh the Vulcan... Perhaps the hardest move you'll ever learn, but the start of a long and fun journey. The freestyle board will help a lot!

Tips:
- Buy the Tricktionary. Its a book with all the windsurfing moves in it, with instruction and common mistakes. I've nearly worn mine out. Its also got wave moves too which is also handy for jumps and whatnot. (https://www.tricktionary.com/en/)
- Trawl youtube for tips. (Here's one for Vulcan: )
- Film yourself. Get someone to film whenever you can.
- Sail with some good freestylers. This will accelerate the process of learning a lot.
- Practice! Vulcan took a long time to learn and a lot of swearing haha You'll get there!
- Find some spots with relatively flat water to train. This creates a more uniform training environment and helps iron out mistakes.

Vulcan tips:
1. Have your mast hand quite forward close to the boom, sailing slightly downwind with good speed.

2. Pop the board up as you aggressively pivot around the mast.
2.1 During this transition focus on rotation exactly around the mast foot, keeping the board flat. This will centralise your weight (helping you not fall backwards) and reduce the tail or nose gouging into the water.
2.2 Focus on jumping the tail of the board around, not so much dunking the nose. This will give you a cleaner rotation.

3. The mast hand transition is critical. As you rotate about the mast foot YOU MUST bring your back quickly hand across and quickly place it near the mast on the opposite side of the boom (the new side). If you don't, the rig will not be upright, and the angled rig will drag and ruin your rotation. Its super important to keep the rig upright by doing this fast transition to pull off a good Vulcan.

4. As you land, extend the back leg straight. This will keep your weight toward the nose over the mast foot. If you don't, you might fall backward or gouge the tail, killing your speed. Don't be in a rush to sheet in, but wait until your backwards slide stops before you really sheet.

5. Change from switch to regular and claim it!

Lots to think about! But keep at it! Like I said, the Vulcan is where it all begins. Practice practice practice!

Have you tried firing your laser long time no see around here Windy K. Welcome back and hope you progress with your freestyle. (Sorry I have nothing to add re: freestyle tuition)

There is some good stuff on this link
sites.google.com/site/learnersguidetowindsurfing/freestyle

I am about the same level as you and just bought an older skate. After a jump i spun out, so i thought: Might as well go fo a flaka. Didn't make it of course, but I did get it sliding backwards and felt that freestyle might actually be achievable.

It was heaps of fun, and I am now purposely going for flakas. Still need to crack one but atleast people are asking me if i can actually do one, so i'm guessing it looks somewhat freestylish ;)

I'd suggest going for a flaka....

Thanks for all the advice, I have plenty of reading and video watching to do now. Now if only it was windy :(