Front Hand Rules

Want to improve your windsurfing? Then start with your front hand says Sam Ross; he tells us why.

- Sam Ross

Although the front hand isn’t straight, its position helps keep the rig sheeted in and upright. This keeps the body upright, the rig upright, and drives weight into the harness.

“IF YOUR HARNESS LINES ARE IN A NEUTRAL POSITION, YOUR FRONT HAND SHOULD BE RIGHT BY YOUR FRONT HARNESS LINE.”

We quite often get trapped into the methods of doing things, with much time taken arguing which is the correct one. Good technique or bad technique is often in the eye of the beholder and if you get the intended output then it’s probably working ok. However whilst there are millions of methods, there are only a few key principles. If we can understand these then we can tweak our method to suit. The great news about principles is they tend to be less move specific, so as we work through different moves we can try and reapply the principle and hopefully speed up our learning. So to start, let’s look at the rig.

UPRIGHT RIG