SUPTipTuesday: Board Steering

Today's #SUPtipTuesday is all about weighting your rails. Leaning to the left or the right by putting pressure on your left or right foot will impact the ROLL of your board (remember, our boards rotate in 3 planes: roll, pitch, and yaw). If your feet are too far apart, pressing your weight towards the outside of your board will cause it to flip over versus applying that pressure a little closer to the centerline. Of course, if you were to stand exactly on the centerline, you wouldn't be very stable! The ideal foot distance is going to be hip to shoulder distance apart. Not only will that keep you from flipping the board, but it should keep your lower body in the optimal paddling stance, BONUS! One of the easiest ways to apply gentle pressure is to paddle on the side you want to weight, you should naturally lean into your stroke, causing that rail to drop.  Sometimes, however, you'll need to be a little more aggressive and consciously push one rail down with your foot without letting your body weight follow. You can paddle on one side and weight the opposite side. Weighting your rail is helpful in board steering, quartering headwinds, crossing eddy-lines, side drafting, surfing, and down winding. We'll get in to the specifics of how to weight in each of these scenarios as the #suptips continue! Bonus points if anyone can see which rail I'm loading in the pic and why!!

You can see that there is a change in the color of the water, as well as a foam line. This is where 2 currents are coming together. I'm weighting the right rail so the current won't flip me in when I cross the line. The light green water is moving left to right, the darker water is moving right to left.