Matt from Up on Foil got in touch after the Tricktionary ads kept popping up on his feed. He took a closer look, and instead of just scrolling past he asked me to come on his show. So I did. This is episode 92 of Up on Foil, and it is live now on his channel.
What I liked is that we did not only talk wing foiling. We got into the windsurf-freestyle years that started all of this, why a single book takes me about three years, and the slightly absurd reality of having to shoot your own crash photos on purpose. If you want the long version, have a listen below. If you want the short version, here it is.
Why I learned the front loop before the duck jibe
I started windsurfing on summer holidays when I was thirteen, and once I had my own way to get to the water it was always freestyle that pulled me in. The trick I remember wanting most was the front loop. I got a VHS tape of it for my birthday, my grandparents standing behind me asking if that was not a bit too advanced, and I watched it until I could see it with my eyes closed.
So I learned the front loop before I could even do a duck jibe. It never crossed my mind that the duck jibe was supposed to come first. That tends to be how it goes: you do not learn things in the logical order, you learn the one you want badly enough. Worth keeping in mind when you look at any structured progression, including mine.
Why wing foiling won me over
When wing foiling first showed up I thought it looked boring. I was already on a small freestyle wind foil board, jumping and spinning around on a fast foil, and the early wings looked soft and flappy on top of big heavy boards. It did not speak to me at all.
Then I put a wing in my hands and jumped on my own freestyle board with it, and I could not believe how light and maneuverable the whole thing was. My first 360, my first air jibe, all of it came easier than it ever had on windsurf gear. That is the part people forget: the skills carry over both ways. Whatever you have done before on the water is not lost, it is a head start.
Three years for one book, and why I am on nearly every page
Matt asked the question I get a lot. Three years on the wing foil book – was that not stressful, with the gear ageing while you work? It is, a bit. But the reason it takes that long is not perfectionism. It is that I am not writing a text and handing photos to a designer. I am building the actual pages, finding the one right photo for every single point, and there are a lot of points.
I have something like 400,000 photos in the database for this book. Shooting is the fun part. The hard part is finding the exact image for the exact topic, and sometimes you hunt for one shot for half a year. And you cannot send a pro rider out to demonstrate a beginner mistake, so a lot of the basics in the book are me. Even the bad examples, the crashes, the folding-knife fall onto the foil – someone has to go out and shoot those on purpose, knowing exactly how much it is going to hurt. That is why it takes what it takes.
What is coming next
The next one is the advanced and freestyle edition, and I am working on it together with Dr. Beat Steffan, who you may have seen pushing an absurd range of tricks on his feed. It runs from duck jibes through the first 360s and Palaos all the way to the hardest jumping and flow freestyle.
There is also an app in the works, more of a masterclass on the milestone moves than a clip for every trick. As for when any of it is finished – I have learned not to promise dates. They finish when they finish, and then a truck shows up with several thousand books. I am working hard to make that truck come sooner rather than later.
Have a listen
Big thanks to Matt for having me on and for the good conversation. You can find the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube. His show and his site at uponfoil.com are worth a follow if you are into foiling in any form.
If it lands with you, send it to someone who would enjoy the behind-the-scenes part. And if you want the book we talked about, it lives at tricktionary.com.
See you on the water.
Michi
