Downwind Skillsets - Breaking it down

Note: This blog’s angle is ‘fastest path to autonomy / competency’ purely for downwinding. I have no doubt that a part of everyone’s journey requires some form of experimentation – which leads to a nice learning cocktail of failures and successes. My angle is to try and help people minimize how painful the failures are, and how frequent the successes are.

Anyways, back to what was nagging away in the back of my mind. I think primarily as the sport goes more ‘mainstream’ and more people want to do it (downwinding in general, not per se just with a  paddle), the average demographic is changing with a slightly different ‘incoming skill set’ than maybe those who got into the sport earlier. Or maybe to phrase it differently – maybe there isn’t quite the appreciation of the fact that downwinding is the combination of a number of separate skill sets, not a single ‘black box’ skill set. Additionally, I also think with the rate of gear development, the gear choice / fomo has also become a distraction. Whilst thinking and brainstorming for this blog I came across a phenomenon called ‘Gear acquisition Syndrome’. Yes, it’s a real thing. It’s partly fueled by the excitement of getting a new kit and a continuous cycle of dopamine you get from it. Now of course, this is what the brands want and is why every new product release get pushed by team riders (some brands are guilty of doing this in over the top measures IMO) as ‘game changing’ products to give consumers the feeling they are missing out, and that it might be the answer to all their problems (I’d challenge people to think about good vs good enough).

So what are peoples ‘problems’ when learning to downwind, why does it seem like the learning curve is taking longer and what does buying new gear have to do with it? Well I think maybe that as less experienced foilers come to downwind, they maybe don’t appreciate their gaps enough. I see this reflected in two main ways:

1. ‘Oh well the guys who started ages ago on crap gear were freaks’ without the understanding of the competency level (coming in, and gained) across the skill sets prior to starting vs. their own competency level
2. If I can’t do X. Then this new board / foil / paddle / parawing will make sure I can do it (this is where the buying new gear bit comes into it). 

On point 1, sure there are some talented freaks in the early adopter group. But for the most part it (as I said earlier), there was the comprehension of a larger number of skill sets to a good / high level required to do this sport (more on these sub-skill sets later) or the sub optimal (compared to now) gear forced you to develop certain skills to a higher proficiency for success, which now pays back exponentially with the better gear. At the end of the day the more of these skill sets you can do, the easier this sport becomes (exponentially) – regardless of gear (I think this aspect of the learning curve has been overlooked a lot). On the flip side, the fewer you can do, the harder it gets (exponentially) – because learning multiple things at the same time is extremely difficult. An analogy I have is that you don’t do a triathlon if you can’t run, bike or swim with decent competency and you don’t learn to swim, bike or run by doing triathlons. You train each component individually before putting it together. I appreciate that the demographic coming into this sport is changing and this is more often the reality, but if downwinding is your end goal I would say, rather than diving head first into downwinding  and then try and learn everything at the same time, do a stock take on your skill sets. I’ve listed what I think these are in order of importance (most important first in terms of where I think you should invest your time / money/ energy):

• Do you understand bumps and can you read bumps? You can practice this with a wing if you already wing (there are a lot of things you can practice and learn with your existing wing gear without needing to invest in new equipment) and also with the anchorman, towing, with a FD or parawing. Also looking at other people’s footage and lines (heaps on Youtube) helps a lot.
• Can you foil well unsupported (this is more for windsport background foilers)? Without the support of the wing or kite? You can practice this first by winging more with the wing flagged, with an anchorman dropping the wing, tow foiling, FD, SUP wave foiling or prone foiling
• Can you pump decently? You can practice this with a wing / anchorman, prone foiling, sup foiling, FD, behind a boat or dock starting. This is the easiest skillset to practice independently. The better you can pump, the better you can compensate for mistakes you make.
• For those wanting to paddle: Can you paddle and balance on your board in choppy water? Easy enough to practice. Can you paddle up on foil/ Do you know what this feels like? I’m not referring to flatwater paddle ups. But if you don’t know this feeling – going out in bumps waiting and hoping you’ll manage to be balanced, time it right, then paddle up on foil, only to then be surprised by how it feels will result in a lot more reps than necessary. Going SUP foiling in waves, even in small waves, and learning how it feels to time your paddle strokes then get on foil with a paddle will mean you are familiar with that, and it will be one less thing that uses up your attention and focus in the bumps.
• For those wanting to parawing: can you comfortably start in both directions and stow the parawing. Subsequently are you comfortably untangling the parawing if you fall? Note I don’t say anything about redeploying here (read my parawing blog post if you want to know why).

Which then takes me to point number 2 – going to gear to ‘fix the gaps’. Gear fixes, when done right, can have HUGE benefits on your progression. But I have to emphasize ‘when done right’. Instead of going through a whole thing about why you shouldn’t copy the best riders (because the base premise for their gear selection is completely different than for a beginner) here’s just some thoughts. Note: always reflect on the skill gap vs the gear gain and see if its something you can realistically address as well. 

• Foil choice: Make sure it has enough lift and low end for your average conditions. I don’t really want to say more on this as there are so many opinions on this with regards to what AR you ‘have to have’ according to the Facebook experts. But when starting out, just make sure the foil you choose has sufficient low end and lift to get you going. Because without that, you won’t be able to work on the rest. To figure out the best foil for your local conditions – ask local riders!
• Board: Make sure it’s stable enough for you to put down power. Again, same with the foils, to avoid being told off by the social media experts that the width I recommended was in fact 0.254” too wide, or 1.65ft too short for the optimal board. I’ll say, longer helps with stability. But so does width (just don’t go too wide I think even up to 21” wide, with the right length is still good, the ratio length / width is actually the most important I think). Longer and narrower does accelerate faster, but narrower can have diminishing gains if you go too narrow. If you’re dicking around falling off and climbing back on your board a lot in choppy water, either you’ve got to work on your balance and bracing. Or your board is too narrow. Remember – don’t follow the ‘pro’s’. Foilers that race want to be able to start small foils on demand regardless of if they’ve got the right bump – they also have better balance on their boards. Average Joe (and Joanne) wants to start average foils when the right bump comes along. There is a slight difference in base premise here. If your board isn’t stable, you can’t put power down. You may have the fastest board on the planet, but if you’re in the water next to it every time you try to paddle up on a bump, you’re not going to be foiling….as with the foils, ask local riders what they would advise. Who knows you may even find a great second hand option or some buddies to go with while you’re at it.
• Familiarity. I talked about this on the Generic foiling podcast. As much as gear can compensate for some lack of skill. Familiarity with your gear can help you develop skills quicker as you are better adjusted to how your foil behaves and spend less time focusing on what the foil is doing, and therefore spend more time focusing on all the other things you need to process. In fact most of the people who I have seen make the fastest progress have just stuck to a single board / foil set up regardless of conditions. Whereas some of the people I’ve seen make the slowest progress have constantly changed gear without working on the skill gaps they were hoping the gear would compensate for. So one thing to consider with your foil choice is something you can use for 80% of your sessions.  

Finally, this brings us to your chosen method of getting on foil, time on foil is the most important metric of all for progression. So consider time spent getting on foil (I call this reset time, how quickly you can get back on foil) vs. time on foil when considering how you go about your sessions based on your background. For SUP racers, the paddle might be the best tool as the paddle up is easy, for wingers the wing might be the best, for kiters the parawing could be a nice tool and for those with less of a water sport background towing / FD might be the most effective. I can’t really judge or advise on that front so I’ll leave it up to you. 

Anyways, I hope I’ve given folks some food for thought, I’m just keen to help people achieve their goals as quickly as possible because as fun as it is to learn something new like down winding. It gets even better once you crack the code! For anyone who’s interested in joining the Coach Casey Club to get access to the learning modules, be part of weekly coaching calls and generally a community that’s stoked on learning, here’s a link for a free one week trial. As always, any feedback, questions or comments, feel free to reach out. Again, this is just my opinion / observations and maybe / hopefully helps people identify some easy target areas to work on which will help them accelerate the learning journey.