Longboard freestyle – the basic forward railride

In this article, we will learn to ‘pull’ the basic, forward railride. We sailboarders are lucky. The wind Gods – or the Gods of wind, if you will – have given us windsurfing, and for longboards, they’ve given us the possibility to railride. [Read more]

Longboard freestyle or the art of fun windsurfing

Why freestyle? Simple: freestyle is fun, and I want to share this with you. It doesn’t matter whether it’s longboard or short board, beginner stuff or advanced – there’s nothing more delightful than seeing someone try new moves, try to improve, and just have fun. To see their face when it works for the first time, and having them going out for more (in my case, for more punishment!). [Read more]

Longboard freestyle – generalities & terminology

This article is a mish-mash of general advice and thinking around freestyle and practicing freestyle. There is no one-shot, magic tip that will make all tricks easier to learn. Freestyle is an attitude as much as skills. If freestyle was pure skills, I just wouldn’t be here, that’s for sure. Learning a new move is all in the approach, the forethought, the perseverance, the will to perform, the visualization, and so on. [Read more]

Longboard freestyle – on the railride (rail ride)

This is an article on railriding in general. Further articles will address the different railrides, one at a time. This is special enough a move that it deserves its own introduction.

Railrides is half the specialty for competitive-level longboard freestyling, if there was one. Railriding is more advanced freestyle, but it’s not incredibly difficult either. After all, in the 80s a fair portion of the sailors could do it, and even non-freestyle racer friends could pull at least the basic railride. You can still see on the Internet the railride being ridden on modern Konas and Starboards, for instance. So I must not have dreamt it… [Read more]

Front-to-back sailing (part 1 of 2)

Today we look at a move that is both simple and elegant, and within anyone’s reach. This move has no pre-requisites (other than having a board to do it on!), you need not be a pro, and it’s a lot of fun to learn and to perfect. [Read more]

Front-to-back sailing (part 2 of 2)

In the first article on front-to-back sailing we learned the basics of pushing the sail, or sailing front-to-back. I promised then that this move could lead to much wilder fun sailing, so let’s look here at some of the possibilities.

The very next fun step is to get into front-to-back from sailing clew-first (sail backwards). Have a look. [Read more]