A little over a month ago, I had a 2 day foil clinic in Miami with Alex Morales. Although I still have A LONG way to go in having steady flights, i think the clinic helped me avoid prolonging my earlier painful and very slow path of total trial and (lots of) error(s).

With William's suggestion, I am posting here my notes from that clinic. Many of you are way ahead of me in windsurfing and foiling and thus these might be too basic -or in some cases not applicable to your level and/or conditions here but this is what I had. Pick & try at your own risk and/or disregard liberally as you so choose:

. Keep the board flat - feet placement, heel- toe pressure
. Turn body sideways, back to the wind, stance more parallel to rail than facing front of board
. Open stance with legs and wide grip on the boom
. Front leg straight, pointed forward, putting resistance against board turning upwind
. Front foot around where front strap goes, back foot starts a little ahead of fin screws and towards center of board (while learning anyway, later more out towards rail).
. Don't put pressure on your heels. Press on the toes.
. Start with heading in reach, as you fly, turn upwind some. Downwind hardest to control, upwind easiest (assuming you built speed before going upwind), reach in between
. As wind picks up, bent legs, push butt and shoulders outside of the board. Sheet in the sail as strong as you can. Body hanging outside the board lightens the board and combined with sheeting in, you'll pick up speed (if pumping needed, pump at this point). As you pick up momentum- but before you pick up too much speed and get hard to keep board in full control-, shift back foot further back on the board, towards tail. This should allow lift. As you get up to flight, bring body over the board for better control, sheet out slightly to shed excess power that you don't need anymore, and if needed, bring back foot slightly forward. Keep all movements to very small amounts, light on the feet, keep body as still as possible. Once in flight, body should be slightly (tilted-leaning) forward.
. Once in flight, turn a little more upwind (using sail - pull back slightly). Make sure to not turn downwind - much harder to control.
. Learn to use sail-mast pressure to control lift - sail back will put weight towards back of the board-foil and enable lift off. Sail -mast forward pushes nose down and levels-lowers board.
. As you sheet in, may have to bring sail-mast back a little to compensate for sheeted in sail putting more downward pressure in the front
. Downhaul sail a lot for all conditions and lower outhaul.
. As you progress, can use banking to steer board. Remember, foil mimics whatever the board is doing - to go
. Light feet, hang from boom, sail power carries you. Higher boom position helps with this. Move feet as if walking on a wet floor. All movements of feet, body, sail, mast, etc. In very small increments.