Any good ideas floating around out there for marking foot position. I often miss my footing on pop up and waste a good start trying to shift my feet. I’ve heard of guys putting traction pads on top of their traction pad as targets, but to be honest I don’t actually know what the ideal position is yet visually. I usually just figure it out by shifting around while riding. Should I mark it as a place to land or more like boundaries?
I put a little strip of thin contrasting color traction right on top of the factory traction, going across the stringer right in front of where I want to land my front foot, like a front foot bar. Ideally I land just almost on it, and it’s nice as I can target it and feel it when it’s right. When doing the pop up if I’m too far back it’s really obvious I need to scooch up prior to lifting my hands. I’ve found it really helpful.
I used to use traction, foot arch bars, etc to really lock down my foot placement but then I got a new board and did a totally flat traction setup and my foot placement became much more offset which has been great. I’ve now used this new positioning to place my strap inserts so I’m now able to ride prone strapped some which is great.
My advise would be to not try to lock down that foot placement until your riding consistently feels AMAZING and your placement is consistent. Ripping a small foil, pumping for days. When you have that then start glancing down to note your position then make traction changes based on that.
I also find that less is more for traction alot of times. Especially with boot season coming(God I hate boots). I’m finding I only really want traction under my forefoot in my stance area and maybe 2 inches in front snd behind of where my foot goes. (So two little spots of traction rather than whole sheets) My heel traction peeled up on my front foot and I don’t notice it at all and once I’m in boots that will be less traction for the boot to catch on when I’m popping up(I feel like I’m boots I’m always fighting the front foot stopping short on pop up)
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I always just take a sec (once I’m up and riding) to look down and check the foil position below the water. Generally shouldn’t matter where your feet are in relation to the board (as long as you’re not completely bogging the tail or burying the nose before you’re on foil) - front foil should be between your feet when you look down.
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Yes, I put a 2"Wx3"L traction pads on top of the main traction pad to mark foot placement. For efficient pumping James Casey recommends your back foot should be over the front half of the mast to slightly in front of the mast. Then set your front foot to be shoulder width apart from your back foot.
If you only use the adhesive that originally came with the traction pad that you use as a marker, it will come off the main traction pad fairly easy/cleanly if you need to reposition it. Once you’re sure about your foot positioning, you can use contact cement/super glue for a more permanent solution.
With the marker pads, I never have to look down at my feet to check foot position.
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Thanks for all the help! I picked up a traction pad yesterday, chopped it up and put a strips to mark the center of where I wanted my feet to land. I put one on the front half of the mast position and another forward a little less than shoulder width apart. I wanted to run a more narrow stance because I always end up too wide.
During my session today, I noticed immediately that they were misplaced. With my feet in the marked positions, the nose was steadily rising up trying to breach. I quickly switched to positioning ahead of the pads. Even with the misplacement though, the pads were extremely useful as borders. I knew If I felt them at all, I was off and had to shift forward. I’ve removed and readjusted for another attempt tomorrow. Can confirm, the 3M adhesive on the pads sticks well enough to stay on my traction pad, but will peel off and reapply without damaging my deck pad.
One additional benefit I’ve noticed was in regard to my pop-up. I’ve struggled a long time with keeping my pop-up slow and stable enough to ensure proper foot positioning, but fast enough not to loose so much moment that I struggle to come up on foil. With the marker pads, I have extremely fast feedback during pop-up and it helped me a lot with my efficiency. My success rate was much higher than it usually is. Seems like a great training tool.
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What everyone else said. I use a can and razorblade to cut a circle on my pad, peel that circle out, then use the can to do the same with the pad you buy, put that circle in the hole, Boom!
Even if you put it a little too far up or back, it’s a great reference point. Really helps when doing towing water starts.