Here are just some brief thought about Martin's loop tries:
- He tries to move the board around with his feet - it looks more like an old-school jump jibe than a loop. He's gotten pretty good at turning the board this way, sometimes getting it to turn 180 degrees.
- The nose-tail exchange never happens - the nose always remains above the tail.
- In several tries, the sail powers up after the board is in the water again. That's something I have seen many times when ABK campers tried loops. It often happened to me, too.
For comparison, I added some footage from Jerry Evans, who throws beautiful loops almost every time I get to sail with him. Jerry's loops are often very vertical, end-over-end. That is not the best loop to learn, unless you got great waves and are really comfortable with high jumps. However, the technique as Jerry shows it is very similar to a more horizontal loop. The big difference is where you move the sail: more to the nose of the board, and it's vertical; more to windward, and it's horizontal. But Jerry's loop was also filmed with a Clew-View mounted GoPro (big surprise - Jerry makes the Clew-Views!). I also added a couple of loops from Joseph Pons' video which are more horizontal for comparison. He really shows the rig movement to windward very nicely.
The loop try video did not hold surprises - this is what Martin's loop tries have looked like for a while now. We made the video mostly so he can also see what his tries look like. I think he has all the technical elements he need - he can jump and pop well enough; he can pull his back foot up and stretch the front leg to get the nose down; he can move the rig to windward; and he is starting to get good at turning the board with mast foot pressure, even when the board is back in the water (where that is a lot harder than in the air!). He "just" needs to put the pieces together, and unlearn some bad habits (the jump jibe-like board turn). The only thing I did not see in the video was exposing the underside of the board to the wind - but I have seen him do that at other times.
So, Martin, get around already, will you? Otherwise, I might grow a pair and loop before you!
The loop try video did not hold surprises - this is what Martin's loop tries have looked like for a while now. We made the video mostly so he can also see what his tries look like. I think he has all the technical elements he need - he can jump and pop well enough; he can pull his back foot up and stretch the front leg to get the nose down; he can move the rig to windward; and he is starting to get good at turning the board with mast foot pressure, even when the board is back in the water (where that is a lot harder than in the air!). He "just" needs to put the pieces together, and unlearn some bad habits (the jump jibe-like board turn). The only thing I did not see in the video was exposing the underside of the board to the wind - but I have seen him do that at other times.
So, Martin, get around already, will you? Otherwise, I might grow a pair and loop before you!
