I notice Mike, Kane have more a back foot far back stance (with mast at the back) vs Erik or Adam being having their back foot more forward (mast more forward).
Does it have to do with the foil ?? Mike, Kane can you tell us more about it ?
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I’ve been spending some time in the last few weeks working on drawing different lines and its required changing stances. Here’s what I’ve found. For carving and generating speed through turns and maximizing efficiency I like the back foot forward. With the 170 this is pretty much centered on the mast, maybe a touch back from there. In drawing tighter lines and navigating the pocket more I’m preferring a wider stance with the back foot a way behind the mast. This lets you leverage from the tail in pitchy moments or tighten your arch (Pedigo) by rolling weight back through the turn.
Until now, I had always tuned for what I was going to do, so foot back was more tail shim with a wider stance. If you look at old videos when I was on the Game Changer or 980 Kujira you can see a more shortboard style.
Last year I got really into the efficiency of the foil and hard boot snowboard lines. Building speed from turn to turn, minimizing pumping. This tuning was lots of plate shim, a very fast tail setup, small tail and as little shim as I could get away with and pushing the mast way forward. 1095 and 170.
I’m now trying to blend the two. The epiphany was that I could control the shim feel, front foot pressure, by moving my front foot. So front foot way back and back foot up is the carvy snowboard feel. Or widen the stance, get the back foot back and front foot up and then have that shortboard feel. I now play between the two depending on how I want to draw lines. The last video I posted you can see how far I’m behind the mast. But next wave or section stance may be super narrow and carving.
In learning I’m always blown away by the path, generally long, where you don’t see the obvious, but then you have the aha moment and the next level is unlocked. I credit downwind and winging, just time on foil, for allowing much more comfort in foot movement which has unlocked this new approach.
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Cool you’re a hardbooter?
Foil carving feels so much like push pull style Swiss hardboot carving.
I’m not but I spent a lot of time watching videos and breaking down the technique. The flying the foil technique is also relevant to snowboard carving. I ride a wide Burton that carves insane and is good in trees and powder. Fish style.
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Check Ryan Knapton for wide board soft boot carving. Otherwise the old Swoard videos are all push pull when not laid down.