My stance has gradually shifted, and I’m having a hard time getting it back to where it used to be. It’s moved from what I’ll call Position #1 to Position #2, and it’s definitely starting to cause problems.
In theory, I know what to do—just reposition my feet—but for some reason, my body keeps defaulting back to Position #2. It feels neutral and in control there, even though I know it’s not ideal. When I try to return to Position #1, I immediately notice lack of natural feeling and discomfort, particularly a torsional strain in the knee. This misalignment is limiting hip rotation and severely compromising both my pump and getting good turns down. I’m starting to think my body has just adapted to this new position. My center of gravity seems to have reset there through muscle memory.
The worst part is, I’m using this incorrect stance across everything: prone, DW, and FoilDrive.
If it was just an offset stance, I’d probably leave it - but it’s so bad, I gotta try to correct it. Looking for any advice or tips on how to retrain my stance and get back to my normal positioning.
Sounds like your getting stronger muscles but loosing flexibility. Id practice moving your stance while riding. I change my stance from pumping out to before I’m carving into a face.
Easy fix, narrow your stance. If you can’t ride with your feet only hip width apart you have some tuning in your setup to dial in.
More detail, Sartorius muscle in your hip flexors maybe hanging you up from squaring up your hips and shoulders to balance, so your feet are moving to compensate. It’s not easy, but working Glute Med/Min and Hip Flexors to be long and strong is worth the training off the water. At least my opinion not being a Dr. and with no accountability on a forum.
Stance 2 is super good for winging, especially useful when riding toe side a lot. The toes of the back foot should not perhaps point that much forward (as on your picture) though, you’d gain lots of extra control over the foil when the back foot is placed more across the board. But not a problem if they do.
Put some extra traction in a good place where your toes and arch go. Having something tactile to key in on that’s a little uncomfortable but not a dealbreaker when your in the wrong place will fix it quickly
Interesting—it really feels like something is physically preventing my body from keeping my feet in the right position. When I try to force it (to correct) while on foil, it almost feels like my back is starting to face forward and I’m way overtwisted to ride, if that makes sense. It’s such a weird sensation.
The issue is more about foot orientation than their offset. Specifically, the front toe shouldn’t be pointing straight toward the front of the board.
In my ideal stance:
The back foot should have the toes pointing at 12 o’clock, heel at 6.
The front foot should be angled with the toes pointing somewhere between 10 and 11 o’clock.
Stance two isn’t wrong. Lots of guys switch to more of a ski stance to help with twisting. Especially for efficiency. Standing sideways is much harder. James Casey example here.
I 100% agree. His front foot is at 2 o’clock, but if you rotated it to 1 o’clock, I’d say that starts to get into “wrong” territory—that’s where I’m currently at when not paying attention to it.
Just got out of the water. It was tiny today, barely anything, so I used a smaller foil. Once I’m foiling with the mast high, it’s not too hard to shift into the right zone. I’d just like to get it dialed in from the start so the whole setup is more efficient. It’s crazy how even posture effects COG.
Now that I’ve added that trackpad bump, it’s easier to find the right spot for the back foot. I’d also like to try and get both feet to the stringer line. Something to work on
