On Foil Foot switch : "Yips" or baulks

[Kitedad]

Anyone else deal with this and have tips?

I can jibe (70% success most times) from strong side (heel and toe) BUT: trying to switch feet from strong heel to strong toe before jibing back my brain keeps "stopping" me :)

I can switch from strong heel to toe on Taxi, (quickly, both feel landing where they should) even planing...but once I get on foil my own brain seems to have me not complete a good foot switch (always studder stepping, not moving original front foot back to where I know it should go, etc)

I know its 1000% psychological, but seeing if anyone else hit this and overcame it?

[Wingman]

I talk about this exact thing at 10:16 and 17:30 of my Jibing for Dummies video. I wouldn’t say it’s completely psychological. The most important thing is finding that center of balance like I demonstrate at 10:16, but there are a few things that can help with that. Tune your foil so that it is as stable as possible. Use a nice flat wide front foil and big flat rear foil. Use a longer fuse. Maybe even use a shim in the tail to increase the front foot pressure. If you’re on a short fuse, small tail, and turny foil, it’s definitely going to be harder to do.

The other thing is make sure you bear downwind just a little before switching feet. If you’re edging at all it makes the foot switch trickier and will affect the balance side to side as well as front to back.

Yes, it’s partly psychological, but there are a lot of moving parts to figure out to make it work. In the end it takes hundreds of reps to make all those moving parts come together purely by instinct.

I almost always switch feet before jibing when riding weak side.