Keeping the motivation to try again is the most important thing to not give up before you start and to be consistent, so I leave you some advice:
Watching videos on YouTube or Instagram
Watching other people’s videos is good, compare their technique and yours, but if you are just starting out it will be more useful to watch people who are just a little above your level than to watch experts.
Also, don’t take all the advice from others as the absolute truth, listen to it, try it, if it works for you follow it but also try your methods, we are not all the same, we don’t have the same skills, the same equipment, the same spot, or the same sporting background.
That is why I decided to make this manual, because I have seen many pieces of advice that have not been useful to me and I myself have learned things that I had not heard anyone say.
You can find many videos on Instagram if you look at the people I am following on Instagram with my account.
Forums and groups
Visit pumpfoil forums and groups, share your experiences, read other people’s experiences, ask questions, and read other people’s questions and answers. Not only will you learn something, but you’ll find motivation to try again even if you fail 100 times in a row.
Some Facebook groups:
Counting sessions and celebrating small goals
Count the sessions you do, note your progress, and celebrate small goals (holding for 2 seconds, holding for 5 seconds, your first 10 meters, reaching the buoy or the tree…). Compare yourself to other people’s level and number of sessions, but don’t get discouraged if they go faster than you. Some people start counting sessions from scratch, but they already practiced efoil, wing or wakefoil before. You also have to keep in mind that we always share the best jumps from each session, so keep in mind that the rest that don’t appear in the video were almost all mistakes.
In this YouTube playlist you can see my entire evolution session by session, and in the comments you can read my feelings, progress, mistakes and learnings in each one.
Record yourself on video
Record yourself on video whenever you can, it will be useful to see yourself later and notice details that you didn’t notice during the session: the position of your feet in that jump that you did best, your body too far back, you don’t extend your legs completely even though you thought you did…
Share your video with friends, groups and forums, and ask for advice. Not all the advice will be good but it will give you ideas to try and above all motivation to get back in the water and try again.
If you send me your video by email I will try to publish it on this blog along with my advice so that you can improve and so that others can read it too.
Return to the index of the tutorial for pumping
