One foot

The “one foot” is an aerial trick that involves removing your foot from the rear strap in the air. At first glance, this trick may seem a little dangerous. But don’t worry, we’ll see how to do it safely in this How To.

 

First of all, you must check that your front strap is properly fixed in the inserts. Indeed, it would be silly to find yourself in the air with the board dangling from your leash because you didn’t screw your straps properly. Now that you have checked this, let’s see how to make this famous one foot.

The jump

First, you’re going to have to jump. Take as much speed as possible and then give an impulse on a section that interests you. The more speed you have, the more efficient your pop will be, the higher you will go and the more time you will have to do your trick. Speed ​​is the key to a successful jump. Also try to do your jump sailing upwind.

Jumping slightly into the wind will allow you to be more stable in the air. In addition, the jump will rather be high than long, which will make you land smoothly. If you jump with a beam reach point of sail, you will probably have a little moment of panic upon landing as you will have gained a lot of speed on the descent. Also, make sure you jump straight. If your body is a little too far back or forward, you will have a hard time nailing this trick. Once you’ve popped, you should start to climb into the air. This is where you are going to do the “one foot”.

 

Remove your foot from the strap

In order to do a clean “one foot”, you must not have struggled to remove your foot from the strap. Two techniques are available to you to do this smoothly.

• The first is to give a horizontal hit on the board to remove the foot more easily. If you do this, try to pull your foot well back and as horizontally as possible. In doing so, it will simply come out of the strap as when you are sailing normally.
• Otherwise, you can lift your heel off first and then pull your foot. This way the top of your foot will slide out of the strap.

Now that your back foot is released, you can bring the board back towards you by bending your front leg. This way you will be closer to the board and you will be less likely to lose it. Now you can do some acrobatics while you’re in the air. You can stretch your leg forward, back, up, down… have fun!

Replace your foot in the strap

After you’ve done a few stunts in the air, you’ll have to put your foot back in its place. When learning to do this trick you probably won’t be going very high because you won’t be very comfortable. I therefore advise you to replace your foot just in front of the rear strap. Be careful to put it in the middle of the board. If you put it too much on the outside of the deck, there’s a good chance it’ll slip off the board and hurt quite a bit. A bit like a pedal kickback on a bicycle: if you only have your toes on the pedal and you press a little too hard, you will hurt your shinbone. So focus on getting your foot right. As you progress through this trick you will surely go higher and higher and you will need more control on landing.

I therefore advise you to put your back foot back in the strap while in the air. To do this you will have to make a horizontal movement, a kind of kick but very light. If you just put your foot on the board you risk putting it on the strap and there, you will have a hard time putting it back on. At first, it’s very likely that you do it a few times before you manage to put it back in. If you don’t get it right the first time, don’t hesitate to just put your foot in front of the rear strap. Believe me if you land with half your foot on the board, it can hurt. After that, it’s just a matter of getting used to the movement. At some point you will instinctively know where the strap is and you will put it back on very easily.

This trick is really super fun to do and easy. If you know how to do simple jumps, you will be able to do this trick very easily. There you go, you know how to do a one foot jump, you just have to go to the water!  

Malo Guénolé.