Can't quite get air...

[IDBoating]

I have the Carbon Thruster too. I have 2 2.9" fins in the front, outermost positions and a 2.3" in the rear center.

We use two of the 2.3's, in the forward "inside" positions. We've tried lots of different configurations and they all have their advantages and disadvantages. This one has a nice balance of speed (which you lose with larger/more fins) and control (which goes down with smaller/fewer fins).

[Timmy!]

WA, when I first started, I could get the board straight vertical but no air so the next step (like the article talks about) was to figure out how to push the nose down with my foot. I'm not good at this at all, 1 in 3 attempts results in actual air. I think the hardest part is figuring out that front foot and how to get the nose down once the board is vertical. Hopefully we can learn off of each other's mistakes/experiences!
Here's a pic of me the first few weeks of owning a real board.

[IDBoating]

From your pic I think I'm not getting the board vertical enough. If I get the nose higher, it will be easier to then pivot the board up around that high point and thus get the tail out of the water. The experts make it look so easy but it's definitely not easy for me!

[Timmy!]

It's not easy!

[houstonshark]

Thanks for crushing the memory I had of how I thought I was doing Timmy! My board is nowhere near as vertical as that. I'm ollieing way too soon. I started my ollie at the bottom of the wake and basically had the board horizontal by the time the tail of the board reached the top of the wake.

I've never tried to ollie in the flats. I'm guessing that should be practiced with the rope until you get it down huh?

[duffymahoney]

The nose is easy to get vertical, the hard part is getting the rear foot to lift up.

[IDBoating]

Worked on this a lot more this past weekend. Got some "thumbs up" from the crew watching from the boat for my improved form, but only one "clear daylight under the tail" launch so far.

The biggest improvement seemed to come when I moved my front foot rearward on the board. It occurred to me that doing that might make it easier to get the nose up. It felt a little squirrely at first because it was different, but it definitely felt more aggressive when ollie-ing off the lip.

I also made an effort to swoop up the face, then down into a more gentle launch angle as discussed earlier in this thread. I think the foot placement made more of a difference but being an amateur I'm not really sure.

My wife said the "clear daylight" launch seemed to happen when I was more coordinated with my feet. She said it seemed I made a definite move to lift the front and then flip them so the rear foot was lifted. I told her I'd been doing that the whole time, to which she replied "Yeah, well, we couldn't tell except that one time."

I'm counting it as a success, though. No matter what it looked like, it FELT better and I got more thumbs up than any other day. Looks like another bonus late-summer weekend coming up, so hopefully there will be another couple of sessions for practice.

Thanks for all of the tips and encouragement, it's definitely helping!

[Timmy!]

Yeah! Sounds like progress to me! Nice work and keep it up!

[IDBoating]

Thanks! It definitely doesn't feel like your photo above but progress is progress.

[Timmy!]

Thanks! It definitely doesn't feel like your photo above but progress is progress.

When you are doing it, you don't even realize how it's actually happening because it's so fast.

[Allan Kendall]

recently in a clinic (Timmy was there) Brandon Tollie from Idol surf boards had me put more front toe pressure after cresting the wake (extending your front leg at the same time).. this insures no heel pressure and removed the need to compensate and get cough outside the sweet spot. Extending your front foot pushes the back of the board up and to your back foot ie an air ollie

[Allan Kendall]

and Timmy's wrong...it is easy for him! LOL

Timmy on my Soulcraft Jetty...Sex Panther.