Paddle Board Technique - Step Back Turn

The step back turn is a great way of turning around quickly, whether that be around a buoy in racing, in the surf or whether we're cruising around and just want to turn the board around on the spot. So to start with, the paddle starts on our leash side. Our non-leash foot moves into the middle of the board and we step back with our leash foot. To get the board to turn, take wide strokes on your leash side. The more you weight the back foot, the sharper the turn as well. Try and look towards where you want to go. So we're looking where we're traveling to maintain stability. To come out this position, we're going to bring our leash foot forward back into our parallel stance, keeping our blade nice and wide. One thing you'll notice is the position of both feet on the board. Both toes are facing across the board and are almost on the center line. Whilst we're turning onto our heels and it's a heel side turn, we're not using our heels to turn. In fact, there's a little bit of pressure on your toes to make sure that heel edge doesn't catch when you're turning around. If I want to take this turn a little bit further, rather than taking lots of little strokes, I can take one big sweeping stroke around the tail of the board and try and turn it around in one go. Again, remember the wider the blade, the better the turn. So I look to try and maintain the distance of the blade to the board all the way around the stroke, even though it's going around the tail.