Select to expand quoteR1DER said..
I wish they had birth control 70 years ago
I didn't think it could get worse, but , it IS getting worse .
Select to expand quoteSandman1221 said..Chris 249 said..Sandman1221 said..
I just do not like the idea of going to "easier" equipment to compensate for lack of balance and training.
Why not? When people learn to sail boats they don't start out on a foiling Moth or 18 Foot Skiff. If they learn to drive, they don't do it on a Formula 1 car. If they learn to ride bicycles, they don't do it on a velodrome time trial bike. Using "easier" equipment is not only perfectly reasonable, but the usual and logical thing to do.
The other thing is that even using "easier" equipment is not easy IF you aim at using it incredibly well. A grand master chess player uses the same board, rules and pieces as a beginner but the grand master does it at a different level. A Tour de France pro's bike is basically as easy as the bikes used by a lot of weekend warriors but that doesn't mean that the Tour guy is compensating for anything - he's just using the same sort of gear at a different level. A World Cup Wave Champ or the #1 guy on the Olympic rankings on an LT is using "easier" gear but taking it to a different level to a beginner, so the gear isn't compensating for anything; it's being used at a different level.
Look, if he wants to learn to plane, he is going to need to use sails in the 8-9 m2 range for light wind conditions. So a 6.5 needs to be an easy sail for them to uphaul, and for their weight it should be! He just needs a good instructor and/or some balance training, and some physical training too it sounds like. I recommend doing 3x15 sets of pushups every other day, will make uphauling a 6.5 off the water, without an easy uphaul strap, easy!
Anyone who wants to take the easy route to planing on a windsurfing board is never going to ever get there IMO. Now getting good instruction will certainly make it easier, but in itself, planing hooked in is a fairly difficult skill to master in the realm of sports, but boy is it a blast!
A beginner has to be able to develop balance and training. They don't just get up one day and find the skills sitting in the bedside drawer. For many people, the best way to acquire those skills is by sailing with something that is not overpowering so that they are not struggling. A lot of technique can best be learned when one is using gear that is easy to handle so that you can easily move it around and feel the difference between good technique and bad technique. When I've taught windsurfing as a job or as a club volunteer I noticed how effective it was to move people back and forth between very small rigs and normal size rigs. The blend of rigs gave them the right blend of experiences.
He hasn't said that he wants to plane in light winds so he may never need an 8-9. Many people don't have one.
Given how specific muscle strength is, I do wonder how well doing pushups will translate to uphauling. Look at other sports; in cycling, for example, sprinting requires very different training to long-distance riding even for the same person on the same bike. The arm movements in sailing a Laser, while very similar to sailing a windsurfer, don't actually really improve your strength for windsurfing, probably because the angle of the elbow and the diameter of the object being gripped are different.
There's some people here who, in ideal conditions, have had talented beginners planing very early in their careers; in a couple of days or less, apparently. Where I have sailed and taught that is basically impossible because it requires ideal conditions, but it's not impossible.
And finally, as noted above, using easier gear is NOT the same as "taking the easy route". A soccer ball is "easy gear" to use but it's not exactly easy to become a World Cup winner. An Optimist dinghy is perhaps the easiest of sailing gear but to get really good at sailing one is really hard. A high-performance catamaran is hard to sail in general, but a beginner can flop around on one badly.
So the fact that the gear is "easy" does not mean that it's a necessarily an easy route, unless you reckon that anyone can easily become the world's best chess player or soccer player.
Recent teaching experience I have had has shown success in teaching using 4.5 m2 sails on Windsurfer LT : 
eg www.surfsailaustralia.com.au/product/windsurfer-lt-45-learners-sail
For some it is even easier on smaller rigs than that eg Goya Surf 3.5m2-4.0m2 or Ezzy Superlite 3.5m2-4.0m2.
goyawindsurfing.com/sails/y2022/surf/
www.surfsailaustralia.com.au/product/ezzy-superlite-10#surf-sail-clothing-hardware
In the old days (circa 1982) we used to just start out using the 6m2 Windsurfer Class sails and the three quarter sail (4.5m2) for high winds, surf sailing the stock boards, for use on a converted surfboard or learning. These days it seems to me the best approach for learning is to use around a 4.5 m2 sail or even smaller.
I actually enjoyed using the 4.5 m2 LT Learners sail on some windy days while rescuing some student "sailors" and found it actually powerful and controllable and think it might work well in the surf on the LT.
Some progressing sailors even use it when racing on the Windsurfer LT above 20-25 knots although to be competitive racing one needs to use the standard new era 5.7m2 regatta sail.
No no fellas the way we taught windsurfing for decades is wrong.
Can someone in the States go round and glue his fingers up with Six10 so he stops fkn typing. 
Select to expand quoteMark _australia said..
No no fellas the way we taught windsurfing for decades is wrong.
Can someone in the States go round and glue his fingers up with Six10 so he stops fkn typing.
It's going to take six days with the fan on
Select to expand quoteR1DER said..
I wish they had birth control 70 years ago
That's a bit harsh given the current circumstance in the US right now 
Is 70 years too late to terminate ?
