Saturday, December 25, 2010

Nose control

We went skiing for Nina's birthday a few days ago - here is a short video:



This was the first time in many years that we hit the slopes, which gives a bit of a different perspective. I noticed a few similarities to windsurfing that I had not noticed before. The biggest one was "nose control" - how to distribute your weight to keep the nose of the skis or the windsurf board under control. On skis, I tend to sit back, taking the pressure off the tips and making them nervous and hard to control. I sometimes have similar problems when speedsurfing - too little pressure on the nose of the board makes it bounce too much, and limits top speed. In either case, letting this go to long can lead to harsh landing on resp. in the water.

Obviously, the mechanism how to put pressure on the nose/trips is different between windsurfing and skiing. But what's similar is that a well-balanced stance helps in each case - although the balance on the windsurf board has to involve weight in the harness and pressure on the mast foot.

Being the geek that I am, I could of course not refrain from bringing my windsurf e-toys, the GPS and the GoPro. Well, at least that gives you a view of Nina's lovely backside, so you don't just have to read my words :)