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Hi guys!

I see people do the raley and raley to blind quite differently, but the biggest difference I see is straight/bent arms. I'm practising raley to blind right now. When I do my raleys I keep my elbows quite close to my body, so the arms a bent.

Should I keep my arms straight instead?

When I try to keep my arms straight and lean back to pop, it's like I take too much power out of the kite and kill it. I ride the LF Envy and LFX board, and I have just started to ride boots, if that info helps

straight arms look much better!
everything else is a gayly!

The nicest ones are from the girls, since they don't have enough power to bend the arms, so they are fully stretched, and then pull to pass.

And we want it to look good as well, don't we

for some tricks like a slim chance u have to bend arms to get inverted, others like blind judge u can lay it out more.

Learn both ways.

I believe that straight arms puts your rotator cuff/shoulder at more risk. I have had pros tell me that the best way to keep your shoulders from getting injured is keeping the bar close in to your waist and low, use both arms to pull into your waist before passing. Long arm-dangle passes are not a good idea, apparently.

Sounds wise Consumer. And I see your point Edt, I guess it depends on what trick you wanna go into after the raley, which I guess a lot of tricks start off with? As I wrote I'm practising raley to blind. Will it be harder for me to pull the arms towards the hips for the spin, as you are supposed to, when my arms are already bent?

should be easier with arms bent you have a higher center of gravity. But you should do both and see how it works for you.

Arms bent and close to your body. You should be fighting against getting stretched out. Arms out is bad habit even if it looks better. When you let out your arms you lose some of your upward momentum and it makes it hard to pull in for blinds and 313. If your hands are close then all you have to do is push down as you rotate around vs yank in push down and reach way back to get to the bar.

I have had both shoulders under the knife for arthritis. Non kite related and yeah arms close is better on them. Could not kite most of last year because of getting stretched out.

I think that sounds great The Joe! Of course you wanna look good but you also want to be technical, and avoid injury.
I've been watching this video with Aaron while learning the trick and he's got very straight arms, which looks great, but...

http://youtu.be/fYID1NDFzhA

A railey is with stretched arms, while looking down, so your upper body makes a straight (horizontal) line, with the knees bend, so the board comes above your body (kite as low as possible).

It's another discussion whether this is physically the best thing to do...