Analyzing the Flaka

Our annual trip to Bonaire is getting closer, so we have started to think about freestyle moves we want to work on. There are still a number of old school tricks to learn, and the loop still beckons, but it also is time to work on new school tricks. In a previous post, I have explained why I thought that the Flaka might be a better first new school move than the Vulcan. At least one young windsurfer I know has indeed learned the Flaka first, and in a relatively short time; but other freestylers had a much harder time with the Flaka than with the Vulcan.

Before I go into any more details, let me show you a Flaka very similar to the one I saw in Bonaire a few years ago which started this whole thought process. This is a short part of the "Girls in Bonaire by Kuma Movie" video:

Two things peaked my interest:

• It is obvious that the move is very similar to an upwind 360, which can be practiced in light wind
• The difference is that it starts with a small jump (or rather pop), but as the video shows, turning the board about 45 degrees in the air is sufficient. 

But looking at this movie and other Flaka movies also shows some subtleties that may explain what can make the Flaka a hard move to learn. For the rest of this discussion, I will focus on the first half of the move, until the board is sliding backwards. The second part is identical to the second part of an upwind 360, and therefore should be reasonably easy to do if you have a solid upwind 360.

At least for Flakas with a small initial hop (less than 180 degrees), there are several changes in how the board is railed during the move. The Flaka is typically initiated with a downwind carve, just like a jibe entry, so we pressure is on the toes. For the takeoff, the board is flat:

In this example, the board is back in the water after turning only about 45 degrees:

The tail of the board needs to slide towards downwind, so the weight must be on the heels - otherwise, the toe-side rail would catch, resulting in a crash onto the sail. The "heel-side rail down" can be seen even better on the next picture:

The board continues to slide around until it has turned 180 degrees:

Note that the sailor's weight has moved towards the nose of the board. The back leg is straight, the front leg bent:

Now, the board is relatively flat. The sail is about to be backwinded. Everyone who has ever taken an ABK camp knows that the sail pressure needs to be on the toes for backwinding, and that's what we see:

The board is now angled so that the heel-side rail is up. The sail is backwinded and pushed towards the nose, so it wants to push the nose around. In an upwind 360, we would now move the weight onto the back foot to move the waterline, and this seems to be exactly the same in the Flaka:

In this example, the weight shift may be a bit more than necessary, so she over-rotates a bit. But you can see exactly the same shifts in this movie where Daida Moreno does a very nice Flaka.

To summarize, the Flaka as shown above includes the following weight shifts:

• toe-side  =>  flat  =>  heel side  =>  flat  =>  toe side
• weight centered over the board  =>  weight towards nose  =>  weight on back foot

So, there seems to be a lot more going on than one might think at first glance. If you watch Flakas from some of the top guys, some of the elements above may not be visible. That's partly because they often jump the board a full 180 degrees before it hits the water again, so the initial heel-side slide is not present. But I think many windsurfers learning this move will start with jumps that are significantly less than 180 degrees, and therefore need some heel-side slide. 

The entire thing about the rail setting was brought to my attention by my lively wife, and is based on what she heard in a Flaka discussion with ABK Boardsport's Brendon. It makes perfect sense to me after working on 360s a few times in "pesky" winds (around 15 mph), where exact technique is essential. However, I have not seen it mentioned much in Flaka lectures or discussions.

I think the rail-to-rail dynamics may explain the problems that some freestylers who can Vulcan have when learning the Flaka. Unlike the Flaka, which can be done with a relatively small initial jump, the Vulcan pretty much requires a 180 degree jump. While both moves do include a backward slide, the move mechanics otherwise are very different, and learning one move first may actually make learning the other move harder.

There is one more thing that has fascinated me about the Flaka: the similarity of the first half of the Flaka with the jibe. That may sound crazy, since the jibe is a downwind turn and the Flaka start in an upwind jump, so let me explain with some pictures:

On the left side, we have Anders Bringdal entering a step jibe; on the right is Daida Moreno entering a Flaka. They both start carving downwind, getting the sail depowered and behind them, and have the head on front of the mast. There are some differences because Anders is on slalom gear in a lot more wind, but I ask you to ignore these and focus on the similarities.

This is a bit further into the moves. We can see that the boards are starting to point into different directions, but the sail and body positions are pretty similar, with the sail in front of the body, and the shoulders more or less square to the sail. 

A bit further into both moves, we again see both sails in the same position, with the mast towards the viewer. Anders is about to rotate the sail, Daida is about to get backwinded to finish the rotation. Even though Anders is looking forward and Daida is looking to the back, their body positions are similar. The original back foot is now in front, and the shoulders are pretty square to the sail.

From the pictures above, we can conclude that the first half of the Flaka is very similar to a jibe! Except for the jump/pop, sail and body move in a very similar fashion in both moves. The obvious difference is that the feet remain in the straps for the Flaka. So to rotate the body by 180 degrees, and have the old back foot go to the front, we have to pop the board out of the water. Then, instead of stepping forward, we rotate the body 180 degrees, taking the board with is. I this this analogy gets even more amusing when we think about the Flaka 180 instead of the Flaka. In the Flaka 180, the sail is flipped like in a heli tack while sliding backward, and we start sailing back into the direction from where we came. So the Flaka 180 is really the upwind equivalent to the downwind Vulcan. It can be also seen as a heli tack that starts with a jump-turn. And based on the above, that's very similar to a jibe :-)

The Flaka entry

We have 50 days of windsurfing everyday on Maui coming up soon - so it's time to think about things to learn. A recent blog post by the Canadian Guy certainly encourages thinking a lot about moves before trying them. He got his first Vulcan in 155 attempts, compared to more typical counts in the 300-1000+ range. He studied plenty of how-to-articles as well as blog and forum posts to prepare for the move. Understanding and visualizing the move probably helped him cut out a few hundred tries.

One move I'd like to try during the next 2 months is the Flaka. Some windsurfers have a hard time learning the Flaka, but others think it's easier to learn than the Vulcan. A few things that I find attractive about it are:

1. I've seen Flaka being completed after a tiny little 45-90 degree jump.
2. Compared to the Vulcan, there's a lot less to do - the hands remain on the boom the entire time.
3. The Flaka is a natural progression from the upwind 360s, which can be learned in light wind and then practiced in high wind. The only things to add are the initial jump, and the slide.

However, I have one big problem with the Flaka theory: I do not believe the explanation that my favorite windsurfing teacher gives about the mechanics of the move. I think his "quadrant" theories are great for the spin loop and the Vulcan. However, if my memory serves me right, he also thinks that the initial sail throw for the Flaka is into the forward-leeward quadrant, and that mast base pressure makes the board turn upwind. 

I looked at the Tricktionary videos, and at least 15 other videos of Flakas in many variations - regular, one-handed, air flakas, and double flakas (mostly at continentseven.com). In all of the videos I looked at, the initial sail throw is to the windward side, typical into the forward quadrant. Here are screen shots from 4 of these videos:

The videos are showing Daida Moreno, Sarah-Quita Offringa, Davy Scheffers, and Piotr Konkel just as the boards are about to leave the water. In each case, the mast is tilted to the windward side, not to the leeward side. The mast remains there while the board is starting to turn, and the nose is coming down:

Note that between the first and second pictures, the boards have turned about 45-90 degrees. This turn cannot be caused by mast base pressure - any mast base pressure would turn the board the other way, away from the wind. Instead, what appears to be causing the board rotation is the "unwinding" of the body, from the shoulder down to the hips and eventually to the feet:

 

In the third series of pictures, the boards have rotated 180 degrees, and the back legs that were bent in the middle picture are straight again. Now, backwinded sail steering is taking over to push the nose of the board around the rest of the way.

Here's an animated picture series from Daida's Flaka, where the initial oversheeting to (a) depower the sail, and (b) pre-wind the body, can be seen nicely. After the oversheet, watch her body twist the other way, from the hands down to the hips and finally the feet:

So, according to this analysis, the Flaka is a two-part move: in the first part, the board is turned by twisting the body, with the sail basically being neutral; in the second part, the board is steered around the rest of the turn with backwinded sail pressure. This switch, together with the considerable commitment required for the first part, may explain why the Flaka can be hard to learn (especially if you have not done your light-wind homework :).

Flaka (or Grubby?) before Vulcan?

Should the Flaka (or perhaps the Grubby), not the Vulcan, be the first "New School" trick to learn? I think yes, and here's why.

Sitting in the freezing Northeast and battling windsurfing withdrawal symptoms, what can a poor boy do? Well, reading Tricktionary over and over is one idea. Reading about Vulcans, Spocks, Flakas and so on helps, with a YouTube movie thrown in every now and then. But let me change themes for a second, and go back to the ABK camp in Cape Cod last fall. A few guys had the jibe down well enough, and it was time for new pastures. We got one lesson about the speed loop, and one lesson about the Vulcan. Huge difference between the lessons, though:

• For the speed loop, the main issue was how to avoid getting hurt. The solution was to start small, almost downwind, jumping and turning just a bit before falling on the back into the water. I can fall on my back very well, so technically, that seems to be perfectly doable. Plenty of other articles and lectures about the loop also say it's mostly guts, and very little technique. I think I remember everything Andy talked about in the lecture.
• The Vulcan lecture was much longer, and had a lot more technical detail. Andy said many windsurfers have to try 1000 or 2000 times before getting it (he was talking about slower learners like myself, not about the 20-year old water wizards who learn everything in 2 years). The problem with the Vulcan is that it introduces many new elements. The ones I remember are: hops from flat water or small chop; turning the board 180 degrees in the air; sliding backwards for the first time; and flipping the sail while in the air. Yes, getting all that together will certainly take me a while. But Andy said that this is the first "New School" trick one needs to learn to get a chance at more fun stuff like Spocks.

Somehow, that did not sit quite right with me. Ok, so I spend decades learning to jibe well - but I don't want to spend a similar time on just the entry trick for New School stuff!

Back to the Tricktionary. It, too, states that the Vulcan is the first New School trick to learn. In the book, it's right after the speed loop (and the speed loop is often not considered a New School move, since there is no backwards-sliding component). But with Tricktionary, I can look at all moves for hours without getting wet, and go back and forth to compare the picture sequences. Furthermore, it also shows pre-requisites for each move.

So, after studying the Gecko, which I hope to learn on my next Bonaire trip, I read that the Gecko "is essentially a non-planing Flaka". Looking at the Flaka pre-exercises, we also see the Upwind 360, both planing and non-planing. Comparing the pictures and descriptions, it seems to me that the Flaka is very similar to both the Gecko and the Upwind 360, the difference being the jump, starting the turn in the air, and then sliding backwards. Yes, there is the backwinded part at the end, but it's there in all these moves. Furthermore, any regular ABK camp attendees ready for New School tricks will know how to do this part (if your backwind sailing is not good enough, Andy will make you practice it - no matter how good you think you are at other stuff!).

This seems to outline a pretty clear path to the Flaka:

1. Backwind sailing
2. Backwind jibe, heli tack.
3. Upwind 360 (nonplaning, then planing).
4. Gecko.
5. Flaka.

Compare to the Vulcan, the only new part in step 5 is the essential "New School"  element: jumping the board into a 180 degree turn, and sliding backward. Everything else is part of one of the earlier tricks, or at least very similar.

If the (entirely theoretical) analysis above is right, then the first New School move to learn should be the Flaka, not the Vulcan. Learning the Vulcan after learning the Flaka should be easier, because there is less new stuff (just flipping the sail in the jump). Interestingly enough, Tom Lepak, an ABK instructor currently working on the Vulcan, writes that many surfers suggested to him to learn the Flaka first.

Since all of this is entirely theoretical, I'd love to hear from windsurfers who actually can do the Vulcan and the Flaka what they think.

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After getting some feedback about this on the iWindsurf forum, I realized that I had ignored one important difference: the nose of the board spins away from the wind in the Vulcan, but into the wind for the Flaka. I have no clew if that makes the Flaka harder, but can imagine that it does. Also, if one learns the Speed Loop first, that's also a downwind turn. Not sure if that helps with a Vulcan, though, since the mechanics of the turn seem to be rather different (catapult under the sail for the loop, being centered on the board for the Vulcan).

This makes me wonder about the advice to Tom Lepak to go for the Flaka, though. He's managed to turn the 180 degrees downwind for the Vulcan, not upwind. Looking at Tricktionary, a downwind jump with a Flaka-like ending seems to be a Grubby. Which, in turn, seems similar to a speed loop, so we come to a much shorter learning sequence:

1. Speed loop.
2. Grubby.

I still have the feeling I'm missing something here. Tricktionary rates the Grubby at the same level of difficulty as the  Spock, and thus as harder than the Vulcan, Willy Skipper, and speed loop.
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For those who (like me) barely know about these moves, here are some YouTube videos: