WA
2464 posts
Tongue-in-cheek tip: switch to winging! Chances are you'll learn the flaka faster winging, even if you have to learn winging first. Well, the tongue-in-cheek part is that I doubt you'll actually consider this - the tip itself is solid. My wife worked on the windsurf flaka for several years. She had one every now and then that she could claim, but never got to the point where she could reproduce it. Her crashes when trying were spectacular, and made sure none of the other freestylers would join here in trying.
She's since switched to winging, and now lands flakas almost every session. The idea of trying with a foil underneath kept her from trying for a few years, but watching competitions, it seemed that wing freestyle crashes were quite harmless. Once she started trying, she found out that's true - crashed are generally a lot softer than with a fin. That may not be true for everyone - a guy we know took a private to learn the wing flaka and ended up in the hospital. But none of here crashes were bad. She got the first flaka at least 10x faster than with the fin, and more importantly, got to the point were she lands one or more in most sessions quite quickly after the first.
Getting the first switch vulcan on the wing is even easier. She got one within her first 10 tries, and got to 50%+ success in a few more sessions. Once you figure out how to wing switch in the straps, the rest is easy, she says (as do others). She had not yet gotten the switch 540, though. She's quite good at winging, but the bigger difference is that the tricks are much easier with the wing (just like jibing is). I can't wait until she finally tries the Palau (kind of a backloop with switching hands to keep the wing powered). It's a bit harder to try since you have to ditch the board leash, and (unlike the flaka) have to jump high.
