Freestyle with Lennart
At a young age, Lennart Neubauer is already one of the up and coming stars of the freestyle scene. Based on the Greek island of Naxos, Lennart has some of the best training grounds possible, and he has improved rapidly over the years.
In this guide, he walks us through “The Ponch”. Check out the full guide here below.
For the Kono, You want to be confident with your “ducks”
Lennart explains:
The Kono is one of the most fun moves to do in any type of conditions. You want to be confident with your regular ducks so that you can fully focus on the move. In general normal stand ducking moves are a bit easier on bigger sail sizes, so if you are going for your first Kono’s trying them in winds around 20 – 25 knots is ideal. In wind above 35 knots, it will get a bit more difficult.
So for the take-off, your sail must be in a ducked position, while still sailing across the wind as much as possible. For the jump of you want to push hard with your backhand as you take off with pressure on your inside rail (pushing slightly from your heels and carving in the wind) to create as much lift as possible.
Very important here is to jump up with your body & not jump towards the water which is a common mistake from people learning to Kono.
With this move you should get enough airtime to spot the landing over your shoulder. At the highest point you should remember to point your toes down towards the water and pull the front leg below you. Once you land you just got to flip the rig and sail away like nothing happened.
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