A beginners take on instructional videos

YouTube – We all do it, search for Windsurfing and watch the many great instructional videos online. I have my favorites like everyone but I always get a laugh out of some of the assumptions in these videos regarding my windsurfing skills or really lack of skills.

At this point in my 4+ year journey I’m obsessed with learning how to carve jibe and I spend most sessions on the water practicing this maneuver. As everyone knows the carve jibe is a many step process (as many as 12) and for this intermediate windsurfer I’ve studied and worked hard to try to master this important maneuver.

If you know how to carve jibe you know the steps – 1. Look around to make sure it is safe to turn – 2. Move your back hand down the boom – 3. Drop out of the harness lines – WAIT, WHAT!? I’m just getting comfortable using my harness lines. I’m going 20+ MPH (flying across the water) and I’m suppose to Let Go! The harness lines are my safety lines and now I’m not only going to let go but (4) get low and (5) take my back foot out of the strap and (6) step across to the leeward side while maintaining all this speed! Yes sir!

I have to laugh because all the videos demonstrate these first critical steps and move right on to the next steps without a seconds thought or mention of how unnerving this action is to someone just learning how to carve jibe. When I chat with fellow intermediate windsurfers this always comes up as probably the most difficult aspect of the carve jibe and for some folks where the carve jibe fails due to the fact that they come off plane to stay in control.

My point in all this is though the instructional videos are great, they have serious limitations and this is a result of my limited abilities not the skills the videos are demonstrating. As Dirty Harry once stated, A Man’s Got to Know his Limitations.

So I will continue to watch the videos, find the instructors that I think are best (my three favorites are GetWindsurfing, Sam Ross, and TWS Tenerife Windsurfing) and have a good laugh every now and again when someone demonstrates a maneuver in three foot irregular chop in winds blowing 20+ knots with perfect form and ends with “now you try it!”

PS After much practice I’ve become comfortable Letting Go! and you can to. Just try it!