Now that you got that chop hop down and you've tasted flight, you want more. Jumping is very similar to chop hopping except for what you do to get that extra bit of air.

Try to get the nose of the board to ride smoothly up the face. Sheet in hard and transfer your weight back a bit. You want to load a lot of pressure on the board under your feet. (For skiers: It's like compressing your skis to pop off of a mogul; except the board doesn't flex.) Let the chop redirect your direction from forward to up and forward.

As you get airborne, lean back more, and pull up your feet to your bottom. I try to remember to push my feet apart to lock them in the straps. A common mistake is to pull the back foot out of the strap by simply pulling it sideways. As you are doing all of this, you want to rotate the sail into the wind slightly and force the nose off the wind slightly. This is important because if you don't push the nose off the wind you will spin out.

If you did everything right, the sail will be nearly horizontal and will give you some lift. For some additional height be sure to raise the windward rail so that the wind can catch the bottom of your board. It's a great feeling! Stay sheeted in until you land. There are only two times to sheet out. Bailing out and when you are landing completely flat.

Finally, execute a nose first or tail first landing of your choice. The shorter the jump the more speed you will come out of the jump with the higher the jump the less. For higher jumps I suggest you do a nose first landing for safety reasons. It will absorb your jump better. Either way, you have completed your first jump. The more you practice the higher you will go in smaller chop. I can now hit jumps of 2-3 feet in no chop and when there is chop I have hit 4-6 footers, and on wave faces 8-12 footers.

Marc A. Lefebvre