Wing Foiling—How Hard Is It to Learn?

“Is wing foiling difficult to learn?”

That’s the very first question most people ask before deciding whether it’s worth the effort or if they should scrap the idea and just live vicariously through a few YouTube videos of Kai Lenny doing superhuman things. While I can’t answer that question directly for you, I can shed some light on my experience learning to wing and the “do’s and don'ts” of the learning process.

Like most people working at a kite shop in 2019 I saw one of the first wings on the market, scoffed at it, and decided that while I don’t think the sport is here to stick, I need to learn how to do it so I have the knowledge to talk to people about it. Fast forward almost 2.5 years later and winging is pretty much the only thing I do. Disclaimer: I have not been winging for 2.5 years. I would say I have been successfully winging for only about 6 months at this point. And why is that? As you can probably guess, I learned all the don’ts by actually doing them. So before we go into the do’s and don’ts, a little background on my watersports history. 

I grew up loving water sports but really never was able to do them until I started kiteboarding in 2012. It took me about a year to ride upwind, jump and do backrolls, so I wasn’t a crazy fast learner. In 2016 when the Liquid Force Foil Fish came out I started to foil with plenty of bumps and bruises along the way. After about 2 years of foiling, I rarely touched a regular twintip, spending all my time on a foil. When high aspect foils became a thing I fell in love with riding our 2-3 foot swells in our average summer 10-15mph winds. This brings us to 2019 when wings hit the market. My first session on a wing was in 25kts and 4ft waves. In Lake Michigan, 4ft wave conditions entail being smashed by breaking waves the entire time with almost no break between them. Needless to say, I think I spent a whole 10 seconds kneeling on the board at one point and after a few walks of shame and getting tossed around like a rag doll I decided to scrap the idea for the day. There were a couple of other similar tries resulting in similar outcomes that year. Fast forward to 2020: more advanced wing gear hits the market, people learn to ride swell/waves, and everyone and their brother wants to get into the sport. I decided to give it another try, but even with working at a kite shop, gear was hard to get so I spent most of my sessions trying to learn on gear that was too small for me. Because of this and the frustration it caused, I only went out a handful of times and had a couple rides on foil. In 2021 more advanced and correctly sized gear became available and I finally got out in learning conditions with learning gear. A few sessions in and I was up and riding, a few more sessions after that and I was making all my transitions and trying out different gear. A few sessions after that I started riding some swell and I was all in.

So, how difficult is winging to learn? I’d say it’s as difficult as you make it. The key to success is to go out in good learning conditions with good gear to learn on - this is SUPER crucial. This does not include advanced riding conditions or gear that you can “grow into”. Below is my list of do’s and don’ts if you want to get started wingfoiling and have the most success and fastest learning curve possible for your skill level… alternatively, you could just take 2 years to learn like me!

Do:

• Get an appropriately sized board, wing, and foil for your weight and conditions
• Go out in flat water
• Go out in at least 15mph winds
• Spend time on the board taxiing and handling the wing
• Spend time on a foil beforehand- Boat, kite, surf, sup (you need some sort of foil experience)
• Watch YouTube videos

Don’t:

• Get gear to “grow into”
• Go out in waves
• Go out in under 15mph winds
• Watch Kai Lenny riding Jaws and go out for a wave charging session

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