A back-roll is pretty much always the first rotational trick we learn and whilst our first attempts might be buried throwing of our head, shoulder, hips and board around behind us in the hope they arrive on the water, once mastered the simplest trick can be turned into a very stylish manoeuvre to which you can add your own personal style.
So it is time to give you 5 tips on how to improve your back-roll and transform it from a hurried move into a stylish trick.
1. Invert, invert, invert.
If you uses to making the rotation without being inverted it is now time to change that and get inverted. To do this you should think about throwing your legs up and over your head, rather than behind you after you pop.
To do this, instead of looking over your shoulder you can start to look up at the sky to start your rotation and getting your body position inverted.
2. It is all in the pop.
Stop using your kite to get height and start working on your pop. You need to get an explosive pop to be able to throw your legs in the air and having enough height to make your rotation. By loading a good pop you will create tension in your lines which will pull you up and out of the water. In this way you will turn a basic back-roll to a freestyle move. Spotting a small kicker will also greatly help with this.
3. Grab it.
You must add a grab to your back-roll. When you feel comfortable enough with your back-roll it is time to add a grab. There are so many ways to grab your board but for starters it is easiest to try to grab the tail or the nose of your board depending which hand you let go of the bar. Don’t forget when letting go with one hand, not to pull with the other hand else you will end up moving your kite. You can even practice a back roll and removing your hand from the bar without grabbing at first. This will teach you to take your weight in your harness, not your arms.
4. Tweak it.
When you start grabbing your board and you are finally able to get it and hold it, then it is time to add the final element of style to any grab, the tweak. For this you should need to extend one of your legs and ‘tweak’ the board whilst doing so, holding the grab as long as you can.
5. Land it toe-side.
Starting to add that extra half rotation and landing toe-side will open so many options in the future for many new tricks. By landing toe-side you can also use your back-roll to toe-side as a transition move by down-looping your kite once you have landed and carving around to the other direction.
There are of course many other variations you can add with double grabs and really slowing down your rotation to show you have complete control over the move. Once you master these techniques you will se the back-roll is so much more than the first rotation you learn.