This month we hand over to top Austrian freestyler Mario Inthal for his words on how to crack the strapped in switch stance conca tack.  Its a relatively simple move to perform, but looks the business!  Over to Mario….

MARIO INTHAL
AUT-117

I started doing this move back home in Austria on a river, on a typical lightwind day. Lightwind training is very helpful to get a feel for your equipment.

To get used to the movements you should practice a few tricks like the carving 360 (for the ending), getting into the straps switch stance non planning and shifting the sail non planning…

Anyway it’s a lot of fun!! Enjoy!

Search for a flat area in front of you. To get into your footstraps switch stance, bear away from the wind slightly. Keep your bodyweight above the board and stay upright. Take your back foot and slip it into the frontstrap on the other side of the board, while leaving the original front foot in the footstrap. As you have completed step 1 you immediately have to continue with step 2. Step into the rear strap with the original front foot. Now you are sailing switch stance. Here we go!

As soon as you feel comfortable and you have accelerated a bit more, shift the sail, so you continue clewfirst. Keep your weight on the centre of the board, don’t lean too far backwards, or you will lose all your speed.

Once you are sailing switchstance clewfirst, you should gain speed again. In preparation of the following step you shouldn’t be too overpowered. Gentle powered sailing should be fine. Your hand grip should be wide.

Now you start to carve into the wind while putting your weight onto your backfoot, sheeting in and moving your head into the direction you want to go next. Everything will happen very fast now. It’s very important to force a short slide, which you achieve by the movement of your head, the impulse of the sail and by leading your board through the curve with your frontfoot while slightly lifting your backfoot.

Lean over the sail, get your body close to it (bend your frontarm), lift the nose out of the water. Try to move your backhand closer to the harness lines.

In this pic your can see the carve I mentioned before. At the same time you should get your slide.

In this position it’s pretty tricky to stay on the board. You need to get your body upright again, before you lean forward and place your weight onto the masttrack. Straighten your front hand while pulling in your back hand. From here on it’s comparable with a carving 360.

Hang on your sail and steer your board into the direction you want to go next.

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Here we go again. You just need to hook in and start planning your next move!