IMPROVE YOUR RIDING
So You Can Foil.
Now What?
From first flight to control, carving, swell and the wider world of foiling
Embracing foiling is only the start.
The real progression begins when you move from simply staying up to controlling height, carving, using swell, pumping and understanding what the foil is telling you.
THE NEXT LEVEL
Flying is not the same as riding
The first time the board goes quiet and lifts clear of the water can feel like the finish line. It isn’t. At that stage, most riders are still reacting to the foil rather than truly riding it.
The next level begins when you stop measuring progress by how long you can stay up and start controlling where the foil sits, where the board goes, how it turns and how much power you actually need.
That changes the whole sport. A long straight flight does not automatically mean a rider is ready to carve, ride swell, reduce power or pump. Those skills grow from control.
As that control develops, height becomes something you manage, touchdowns become recoveries rather than disasters, turns begin to arc, and eventually the water itself starts doing some of the work.
Coming up: why touching the water can actually be part of better foil control, how turning becomes carving, and why one familiar surf habit can work against you on a foil.
What changes next?
HEIGHT
From chasing maximum flight to choosing where the foil sits.
TOUCHDOWNS
From seeing contact with the water as failure to using it as part of control.
TURNS
From steering a board around to carving a foil through an arc.
ENERGY
From relying on the motor to beginning to use swell, glide and body weight.
OPTIONS
From simply eFoiling to a much wider world of foil sports.
REAL RIDERS
Different riders. Different pathways.
There is no single route after your first flights. These four riders arrived with very different backgrounds, and eFoiling played a different role in each journey.
For one it was the first step onto the “dance floor”. For another it separated foil control from the frustration of catching waves. One had already decided he was too old for prone foiling. Another had barely begun surfing.
The point is not that everyone should follow the same path. It is that learning what the foil feels like can open the door that makes sense for that rider.
Mark Heggie
Mark Heggie
eFOIL → WING → SURF
IN MARK’S WORDS
“I initially started with a lesson on at eFoilgc, basically a learn to foil session. This helped me figure out that Foiling was the sport for me. Vasco’s help got me up onto the ‘dance floor’ for the first time.
Since then I have really enjoyed WingFoiling and moved up through the beginner ranks this year. I made a trip to Hawaii and I am happily foiling in the surf.
The eFoilgc Experience was definitely the best start I could’ve had.”
Kate Baker
Kate Baker
SUP SURF → eFOIL → SUP FOIL
IN KATE’S WORDS
“I was really struggling trying to learn to SUP foil and was getting frustrated as I had been SUP surfing for over 10 years and had kite foiled. I contacted Vasco at eFoil GC and asked for help.
My session on the eFoil with him instructing me was the best thing I ever did to help my SUP foiling progression. Vasco listened to me and what I wanted to achieve and then catered the lesson to that. He was so incredibly patient and we had some great laughs along the way. I had an absolute ball. I left my lesson with Vasco at eFoil GC with a renewed confidence and determination.
I am now completely in love with SUP foiling and I know that my lesson with eFoil GC played a huge part in this.”
Grant Wellington
Grant Wellington
eFOIL → TOW → KITE → WING → PRONE
IN GRANT’S WORDS
“At first, I lacked the motivation to delve into the world of foiling. Kite foiling seemed unappealing, and though prone foiling looked intriguing, I convinced myself I was too old to venture into it. However, everything changed after a fortuitous encounter with Vasco’s eFoil Experience.
Feeling the sensation of the foil in action sparked a newfound enthusiasm. This experience not only enhanced my skills behind a boat but also motivated me to explore kite foiling and ultimately embrace wing foiling. To my surprise, age proved to be no barrier, as I found myself catching waves with prone foiling.
Now, my life revolves around the exhilarating and captivating world of foiling…”
Mikarla Bell
Mikarla Bell
SURF BEGINNER → eFOIL → PRONE
IN MIKARLA’S WORDS
“The transition to prone foiling is exciting and the journey you need to take in order to learn, is a wild ride. For me it started with very little surf experience, in fact 4-5 months learning to surf on my 7’6 mini mal before a friend teed up an efoil lesson…
Looking back The eFoiling Experience was the start, the trigger for my transition. The success of that day being able to get to my feet, have sustained flight time and being able to control the board back to the water (thanks to the amazing coaching and instruction from Vasco at efoil GC .com) brought the sport to life, I was hooked…
If you think it’s easy, I shake my head no, no, no…
But for me the challenge is what makes it so much sweeter…”
Next: as your riding improves, the equipment starts talking louder. Wing size, glide and setup choices that barely registered at the beginning start to matter much more.
Control is the ability to...
CHOOSE HEIGHT
Not simply react to wherever the foil happens to rise.
TOUCH DOWN
Let the board meet the water without treating the ride as over.
RECOVER
Bring the foil back into a settled flight instead of fighting it.
KEEP DIRECTION
Stay in charge of where the board is going while the foil settles underneath you.
CONTROL
Control comes before height
Once riders become comfortable getting onto foil, the instinct is often to chase height. But height without control is fragile. The real step forward is being able to decide where the foil rides rather than simply hanging on to wherever it goes.
That is why touching the water is not automatically failure. In advanced coaching I use controlled contact with the water as part of learning pitch, speed and recovery. The goal is not to stay airborne at any cost. It is to stay in charge of what happens next.
A rider who can come down, recover and continue has more control than somebody who stays high only while everything remains perfect. That difference becomes increasingly important as the water gets rougher, the turns get tighter and the motor stops doing all of the work.
Keep going: once height stops being something you simply react to, turns begin to feel less like steering and more like carving.
CARVING
Turning becomes carving
At first, a turn is usually just a change of direction. The board points somewhere new, the rider corrects, and the foil follows.
Carving is different. The turn becomes one continuous arc. The foil banks, speed and lift stay connected, and the whole system moves through the water rather than being pointed, corrected and pointed again.
This is where small inputs start to matter more. Abrupt power changes, heavy rear-leg pressure or trying to force the board around can break the flow very quickly. As riders progress, the cleaner the inputs become, the cleaner the arc feels.
And this is also where riding starts to feel less mechanical. Instead of managing separate pieces, the rider begins to link direction, roll, speed and height into one movement.
Next: once carving begins to flow, swell stops being something you simply cross. It becomes energy you can use.
What makes a carve different?
ARC
A carve is one continuous curve, not a series of corrections.
BANK
The foil rolls into the turn instead of staying upright while the board is forced around.
FLOW
Speed, lift and direction stay connected through the whole movement.
PRECISION
Small, clean inputs matter more as the turn becomes tighter and faster.
Where does the energy come from?
MOTOR
Creates the speed that gets the foil working and lets the rider reach moving water.
SWELL
Adds its own speed and direction once the foil begins travelling with it rather than simply across it.
GLIDE
The foil carries that energy forward with less dependence on constant throttle.
RIDER
Manages height, direction and timing so the available energy is used instead of fought.
WATER ENERGY
Then the water starts doing some of the work
Once a rider can manage height and link clean turns, moving water starts to feel very different. A swell is no longer just something the board crosses. It carries energy.
On an eFoil, the motor gives you speed and access. But as the foil begins to match the movement of the water, the rider can rely less on power and more on glide. That is where the sensation changes from being driven across the surface to being carried by it.
Riding swell is not simply the same as crossing waves. The timing, direction and energy are different, and the foil responds to all of them. When it comes together, the motor can become quieter and the water begins to do more of the work.
This is also one of the gateways into the wider foil world. The same ability to feel and use moving water sits underneath wave riding, prone foiling, SUP foiling, wing foiling and downwind riding, even though each discipline adds its own skills and safety demands.
Further down: pumping looks like another way of creating energy, but the biggest misconception is thinking you have to push the foil down. The real movement is your weight above it.
The pumping misconception
NOT THIS
Trying to push the foil down with brute force.
UNLOAD
The rider moves the body upward, temporarily reducing the load on the foil.
LOAD
Body weight returns through the board and foil as the cycle continues.
TIMING
Efficient pumping comes from rhythm, foil response and setup, not from stomping harder.
PUMPING
Pumping is about your weight, not forcing the foil down
Pumping is one of the most misunderstood parts of foiling because the movement can look as though the rider is driving the foil down into the water. That is not the idea.
Pumping is about managing body weight above the foil. When the rider moves the body upward, the foil is momentarily unloaded and can rise more freely. As the rider relaxes back into it, body weight loads the board and foil again.
That is why a good rider can make pumping look almost effortless. It is not about stomping harder. It is about timing the load and unload with the movement of the foil.
The equipment matters too. Front-wing design, foil efficiency and the complete setup all affect how easily speed is carried and how well the foil responds through each cycle. Some setups naturally glide and pump more efficiently than others.
This is a practical skill I work on progressively in coaching. An article can explain the mechanics, but it cannot see the rider’s timing, equipment or conditions and correct them in real time.
The Pumping Myth
What doesn’t work:
Trying to push the foil down with brute force.
1st – Unload
The rider moves the body upward like a little jump up, while taking weight off the front foot. This temporarily reduces the load on the foil and allows it to rise.
2nd – Load
Then allow your body weight to press the foil down, like standing stiff. This pushes the board and foil downwards and accelerates through the water.
3rd – TIMING
Efficient pumping comes from rhythm, foil response and setup, not from stomping harder. It’s like a little dance, timing is everything.
Next: the mechanics may be the same, but the words that unlock them are not. The same explanation can work perfectly for one rider and completely miss another.
FOIL SPORTS
The eFoil can become a doorway
Once the basics of foil control are solid, the eFoil can stop being the whole sport and become a way into a much bigger one.
My own foiling started with kite foiling in late 2012, years before I first stepped onto an eFoil. That taught me early that the hydrofoil below the water is only half of each discipline. The other half is how you create power, enter the water and manage the conditions.
The useful part of an eFoil is that it can let a rider experience and understand the foil itself without having to learn every other part of a new discipline at the same time. But it does not replace learning the discipline you are moving into.
Coming up: four real riders, four very different starting points, and four very different paths after eFoiling.
What transfers, what doesn’t
KITE
Foil feel transfers. Kite, bar, lines and kite safety do not.
WING
Foil feel transfers. Wing handling and wind skills do not.
PRONE / SURF
Foil feel transfers. Paddling, wave entry and take-off do not.
SUP
Foil feel transfers. Paddle use, wave entry and SUP take-off remain their own skills.
WAKE / TOW
Foil feel transfers. Tow dynamics and external pull change the game.
DOWNWIND
Glide and pumping transfer. Ocean reading, endurance and route choice are their own skills.
COACHING
Teaching is about the student
Progression is not only about what the foil is doing. It is also about how each rider understands what is happening underneath them.
If a student is stuck on something, I never assume they lack the ability. I assume I haven’t yet found the language that makes sense to them.
You can say exactly the same thing to two people and they can hear two completely different things. One explanation clicks immediately. Another does nothing. That does not make either rider difficult. It means the coaching has to change.
My job as a coach is to watch what the rider is actually doing, understand what they are feeling, and find the cue or explanation that reaches that person. Teaching is about the student, not the lesson plan.
After more than 900 classes, some patterns come up again and again. The mechanics may repeat. The language often cannot.
Coming next: three cues I keep coming back to in class. They sound simple, one usually gets a laugh from surfers, and all three are about changing what the rider feels through the foil.
Same foil. Different language.
IF THEY ARE STUCK
I have not found their language yet.
SAME WORDS
Two riders can hear two completely different things.
MY JOB
Learn how to reach that rider individually.
THE RULE
Teaching is about the student, not the lesson plan.
What I actually say
1. TRIGGER CONTROL
Speed changes lift.
2. “THERE ARE NO HEELS”
Feel through the balls of the feet and the ankles.
3. “THERE IS NO BACK LEG :)”
Take the heavy rear-leg habit out of early foil control.
THE POINT
Memorable language can change what the rider feels far faster than a technical lecture.
THREE RULES
Three cues I keep coming back to in class
After more than 900 classes, three ideas still come up again and again. They are deliberately simple. They are not universal laws for every rider or every stage. They are coaching cues I use to change what a student feels through the foil.
1. Trigger control.
The trigger changes speed, and speed changes lift. If the speed is moving around, the foil height moves with it. For a rider learning control, that connection has to become obvious.
2. “There are NO HEELS.”
I say this because heels do not feel. Heavy heel pressure dulls the feedback. The balls of the feet and the ankles give far more sensitivity, so I use a deliberately memorable phrase to shift the rider away from simply standing on the board.
3. “There is NO back leg. You don’t have one :)”
Heavy pressure on the back leg can pitch the foil up very quickly. Surfers often find this one particularly difficult because rear-leg loading is part of their normal movement on a surfboard. On a foil, that habit can have you off before you can say “Freck”.
These cues are not commandments. They are tools. If one does not reach the rider, I change the cue. That is exactly the point of the previous section: the mechanics may repeat, but the language has to fit the person standing on the board.
If you want real-time feedback rather than an article, that’s exactly what my Advanced Classes are for. I can watch your riding, your setup and the conditions, then work on the next skill that actually matters for you. Advanced Classes →
EQUIPMENT
As your riding improves, your equipment starts talking louder
At the beginning, the biggest gains usually come from the rider. Better balance, steadier trigger control and cleaner inputs make more difference than swapping parts.
Later, once those inputs become repeatable, the equipment starts to become much easier to feel. A front wing that once simply felt “stable” begins to reveal how it carries speed, rolls into a carve, recovers from a touchdown and glides when the motor is quiet.
The same thing happens with board size, mast length and rear-wing setup. A smaller board can feel freer in the air, but it gives away some forgiveness when getting started or touching down. A longer mast gives more clearance, but also changes leverage and makes poor height control less forgiving. Rear-wing choices affect pitch support and how freely the foil turns.
That is why “advanced” does not automatically mean smaller, faster or more extreme. The right setup is the one that supports what the rider is actually trying to do: carve harder, ride swell, pump further, handle rougher water or simply make the whole ride feel calmer.
Equipment should not be used to hide a technique problem. But once the technique is there, the right equipment can unlock a very different level of performance.
If you want the technical side of how those parts change the ride, the How Hydrofoils Work guide goes deeper into front wings, rear wings and mast length.
Next: there is no single “next level”. For one rider it is a cleaner carve. For another it is swell, pumping, a new foil sport or simply making difficult water feel easy.
What starts talking louder?
FRONT WING
Stability, speed, glide and turning feel become easier to distinguish.
REAR WING
Pitch support and how freely the foil rolls and carves.
MAST
Clearance and leverage. Longer is not automatically better.
BOARD
Less volume can feel freer in flight, while more volume remains more forgiving at starts and touchdowns.
SETUP
Advanced means fit for purpose, not automatically smaller or faster.
PROGRESSION
There is no single next level
There is no point where a rider suddenly becomes “advanced”. The next level keeps moving because the rider keeps changing.
For one person it might be a clean carve without correction. For another, letting the motor go quiet and staying with swell. For somebody else it is linking pumps, moving into wing or prone, or simply feeling calm in rough water that used to feel chaotic.
I see this all the time in coaching. Two riders can have similar time on foil and want completely different things. One wants more speed. Another wants less speed and more control. One wants waves. Another wants efficiency, distance or simply a smoother ride.
That is why progression should not be measured by a checklist of tricks. I would rather look at how much of the ride is intentional.
When height, speed, roll, pitch and direction start to feel chosen rather than survived, the rider has moved forward, whatever discipline or equipment they are on.
And that is really the point of this whole article. Embracing foiling is only the start. What comes next depends on where you want the foil to take you.
One last thought: as riders improve, good foiling usually starts to look quieter. Less correction, less wasted movement, more control.
Your next level might be...
CARVE
Link the turn cleanly instead of steering and correcting through it.
SWELL
Use moving water so the motor does less of the work.
PUMP
Manage weight and timing to carry the foil through the water.
NEW DISCIPLINE
Take your foil feel into wing, kite, prone, SUP, wake or downwind.
CALMER RIDING
Make rough water, touchdowns and changing conditions feel less dramatic.
Why I draw the line
900+ CLASSES
No teaching accident. I intend to keep it that way.
RIGHT CONDITIONS
Progression changes with water, wind, space and rider ability.
LIVE FEEDBACK
The correction has to match what is actually happening, not what an article assumes.
RIGHT STAGE
The next skill only makes sense when the rider is ready for it.
SAFETY NOTE
This article is not a substitute for a lesson
This article explains progression, not a step-by-step lesson. Foiling involves speed, a mast and foil below the water, and changing conditions, so the right next step depends on the rider, the equipment and the water in front of you. I’ve taught more than 900 classes without a teaching accident, and I intend to keep it that way.
Next: once the fundamentals are secure, the eFoil stops being the destination. It becomes a doorway into kite foiling, wing foiling, prone, SUP, wake and downwind riding.
Foiling since 2012 • eFoiling since 2018 • eFoilgc since 2019 • 800+ students • 900+ classes
WHERE TO GO NEXT
