This tutorial explains unhooked frontolls.
The kite should not climb during the unhooked frontroll.
Position your hands so that the kite stays parked, or drops slightly.
Ride downwind to drop line tension and then unhook.
Start carving upwind.
Line tension will then increase rapidly, but keep edging with your lower body.
As the kite launches you, lift the front leg and drag the back leg.
This gives you some initial rotation.
As your legs swing back you must also throw your upper body into the frontroll to help
the rotation.
Land riding downwind and absorb the impact.
You can see that this rotation is quite different from a hooked in frontroll with the kite high
supporting your weight.
You do get some initial rotation from the board, like a basic frontroll, but this generally
wont be enough, so you have to help it.
Firstly, it’s important to get your legs back.
This makes your mass sit close to the axis of rotation and it’s now far easier for
your body to rotate.
At the same time you must really try to send your upper body around early.
This basically gets the bar around early, then line tension will pull you to face the
kite once again.
Let’s review that riding the other way.
Ride downwind until it’s easy to unhook.
Carve hard upwind to rebuild line tension.
Just before the kite launches you, lift the front leg and drag the back leg for some angular
momentum.
Allow your legs to swing back to make better use of your angular momentum.
Twist your head, shoulders and torso into the roll.
Bend your knees and hips to adsorb the impact.
I can’t emphasise enough the importance of twisting your upper body into the roll.
So let’s look at what happens if you do not.
You can see that the kiter gets plenty of angular momentum from the board on launch.
However, they do NOT twist their torso.
Their chest faces downwind, then line tension keeps them facing the kite, cancelling out
the rotation.
This mistake is common because it feels unnatural to really throw yourself into the roll.
As you will turn upside down, look at the sky and loose sight of your kite and landing.
The best way to overcome this is to build up with the following steps.
Start with hooked in frontrolls, where you keep the kite parked, and don’t steer up
to 12 for support.
Instead, use a stronger pop than normal.
Lift the front leg early for the initial rotation.
Then swing your legs back and lead into the rotation with your upper body.
After this move to unhooked frontrolls, but with the kite parked much higher.
This will provide some support and allow you to frontroll with less speed.
As you build experience, you will be able to park the kite lower, use more speed, more
pop and a more athletic rotation.
As you have seen, line tension affects your rotation while unhooked.
This can be useful.
If you are over rotating, for example, you can drag the bar to your side to counter the
rotation.
Thanks for watching, open our OFF THE HOOK playlist for more unhooked tricks.