Unhook and spin or throw a head down... basically play the acrobat in the air. There are a few best practices and tips which are key to practice freestyle correctly, of course your physical condition will largely dictate what you can do and as always it depends on the spot and weather conditions.
Freestyle involves unhooking and is best on flat water spots as you can edge, load and pop easily when there is no chop.
For good freestyle spots, see our page on lagoon spots.
You want a place that has constant wind and for freestyle, ideal wind speed is around 15 knots with 9 to 12m kites.
You will definitely have to go with a traditional C, hybrid-C kite or open C kite, the latter two being the easiest and most accessible.
For advanced unhooked tricks like handle passes, these kites are more appropriate, as they have more slack, meaning the back lines loose tension and the kite pulls less and thus allows passing the bar.
Naturally to resist the potential crashes and beating in failed tricks, a construction based on a strong fabric is desirable. And an easy relaunch ability is good in these situations.
Some people prefer 9-11-13 quivers, others prefer 8-10-12 quivers.
Steering a wave kite is nice with a light bar pressure. Carving fast and tight turns on waves can quickly get exhausting with heavy pressure on the bar.
Light bar pressure is generally dependent on your kite shape and aspect but on some kites you can tune bar pressure with pigtail settings.
In freestyling, when unhooking and doing handle passes, it is common to use a long leash and attach it at the back of the harness. But that is probably the only situation where it makes sense to use a long leash as you will be freestyling in flat water.
Beware, if you are riding in deep waters, or in waves with a long leash you can find yourself pulled by your kite, for example when it falls down because of a bad manoeuvre, or because your kite stalled. What will happen is that your kite is pulled by waves or it may enter a death loop because the kite lines wrapped around the bar. Then you are generally submerged under water, pulled backwards, cannot breath and have to try and grab your quick release with one hand in the back: that is extremely difficult (or impossible) and probably the worst moment to do so.
For freestyling you will generally prefer comfortable and flexible harnesses which allow you good freedom of movement especially if you are into twisting and rotating.
Choosing a twintip for freestyling is really dependent on preferences. Generally speaking you will want a wide board which can absorb hard landings especially if you unhook.
The key factors to choose the correct size are going to be your height and weight. But generally speaking wide boards are good and will give you more float.
Lighter and smaller people (<73kgs), should prefer twintips of 136cm – 148cm in length. Medium sized people (68 to 90kgs) need a larger twintip of 145cm – 160cm. And heavy riders (>90kgs) should prefer 150cm – 165cm twintip.
Beginners will usually progress much faster on a larger board and should prefer a larger board in the beginning before moving to a smaller right-sized board.
A freestyle board should have good pop, good upwind ability, be stable and provide smooth landings.
To deliver these characteristics a freestyle board should be wide, have a straight outline and square tips combined with a medium to high continuous rocker flex and a single or dual concave.
Fins have a significant influence on the behavior of the board.
Deeper (higher) fins provide more grip which improves up-wind and pop.
The length (or base) will provide more directional stability when longer or better turning speed when shorter.
You may want to have shorter fins for flat water and longer fins for more choppy conditions. An excellent solution to avoid screwing and unscrewing fins all the time is to use the excellent Firefins system.
The most common setup is straps. Using straps, you're not really attached to the board, so the main disadvantage if you freestyle is that your feet may slide out. Although now there are excellent straps with doubled velcros which ensure your board stays well secured on your feet, which is a very good choice if you don't fancy boots.
With boots, you're secured to the board firmly. If dedicated to freestyle especially on flat water, then using boots allows you better transfer of power from the knees and will provide you improved control and stability as you get a better feel for the board.
One thing to beware with boots is that you can injure your knees if you crash as your board won't detach. Especially if you are using a suicide leash setup, you find yourself pulled by all the energy of your kite and your board which resists in the water. So beware of the injuries.
Don't use a leash! It is that simple.
Although less important than in wave riding you should have your safety skills dialled in. It cannot be stressed enough that safety skills must be practiced and dialled in.
You must know and have practiced how to roll your lines properly in the water with your safety line wrapped first! You don't want to get back to the beach in shore break with dozens of meters of lines all over the place and the risk of getting tangled in them. You also must know and have practiced how to use your kite as a sail to get back to the shore in cases you would be far. You can also use your kite as a float to rest if needed.
To roll your lines properly in the water when you have a surfboard, it is important to learn how to do the operation whilst floating on the surfboard between the legs: balance can be difficult to find, but it really helps to be more comfortable during this moment.
A good best practice is to secure the one-pump locks on the struts before any session: that enables you to deflate your leading edge and use your kite as a float if needed.
Additionally, make sure you are familiar with your quick releases including the leash quick release. Also see our recommendation for leash when wave riding. What you need to be familiar with may also depend on the type of harness you are using.
The main skill you need in Freestyle is what is commonly called Load and pop where you first build power and speed into the kite and then pop the board out of the water with that stored energy.
To load the kite, you start by edging across the wind while gaining speed. You sheet your kite in and hold your edge to build speed while maintaining control. Once you have sufficient speed you gradually increase your edging and park the kite at 45°. By edging harder you increase the power in the kite.
Now you can pop using the power loaded in your kite. Pop requires you to use your front and back foot weight to initiate a clean upward release out of the water. To release the stored energy, you first slightly edge upwind then you lift your front foot and pressure your back foot. Think of looking forward over your front shoulder to maintain your body. Before the board completely leaves the water you will want to release the pressure on your back foot. Keep looking forwards over your front shoulder.
Load and pop is the key to all your freestyle and unhooked tricks.
If you plan to learn unhooked tricks it will work better with a wakestyle kite cause it offers all the required qualities for this discipline. Before you start unhooking, make sure that you trim it properly – there shouldn’t be a backstall if you pull the bar close. I would also recommend to go not overpowered for your first unhooked attempts.