BWalnut said..
When I first started out I never tried the ride til you fall method. There's value in that for sure, and there are other ways to progress. I always thought getting dialed on fully stowing, and then successfully redeploying my parawing every single time was more important to me. This taught me to lock that skill in while also learning to read the bumps for when I should redeploy. I think my longest was 3 hours 55 minutes and 50 miles with no falls. No way would I have had the energy to keep going if I was fighting with restarts at the end of every single one of my runs. Plus, I kinda feel like I normally would fall in the worst locations which means the restart would take even longer. I just did my little 3 mile downwind run, then 3 miles back upwind, over and over again.
As parawings have gotten better and my gear choices have changed I settle in with a different style on different days. Most recently I ride more like a winger. I'm using smaller foils and sessioning on a very tight zone of bumps. I often times go bananas letting my LTX canopy swing wild and free while I challenge my turns for a 60-120 second leg scorcher and then redeploy and repeat. It's like doing a HIIT workout and I definitely get my best turns doing this because I make zero effort to stow. The LTX is like a dance partner that I want to interact with. Other sails are not fun to have out and do best in a full stow. With those, ride til you drop or focusing on longer DW runs is definitely more of the vibe for the day.
All that to say, there's no wrong way to go about this. If you're having fun, then you're having fun.
The S3 has totally changed how I look at sessions too! These new pw designs have changed my outlook on the whole discipline. I now ride much more like a wing session with frequent redeploys. I just slash and burn and redeploy when the bumps flatten out and then zip back upwind to do it again.
It’s summer here too so the dw conditions really have not happened in awhile. But I have totally adjusted my outlook on pw sessions. I no longer feel the need to only do dw sends with the pw to only chase the aced run. I will still do that for sure but for now I am really digging working more on performance turns pushing that side of the pw game. What’s interesting is they feed off each other. Learning to turn hard and make the most of small bumps helps you read and connect easier when you go back to the larger foil.
