Warehouse13, sounds like you have got it.

Pushing the bar out allows the kite to fly fast - this, in addition to reducing the power once you have it, has the benefit of avoiding choking the kite with the bar right in.

I estimate its about 90% kite and 10% board. When you say "time to lean back and edge the kite" did you mean "edge the board"?

Once you have the kite powered and flying, you are out of the water and moving, its time to shift some focus to the board. You need to transition from the downwind plane of the water start to edging it so you can go upwind. This also tensions the kite lines and helps it fly.

I've made it my mission this summer to nail toe-side, and I'm finding it a struggle. I can switch to toe or start off on toe fine, but always crash and burn within a few hundred meters. My front leg calf muscle starts hurting and I can barely go upwind. Anyone have any tips?

Lessons learned for today (#2 lesson)

1. If you go from a waist to a seat harness to get better reach on the bar to de power, GET the INSTRUCTOR to check your adjustments fully
2. When in the water and your harness doesn't feel correctly adjusted, SAY SOMETHING, like why it doesn't feel right! It may not be your fat arse and/or lack of flexibility causing the problem.
3. When your body dragging upwind with or without a board, damn it feels great
4. If you crash the schools kite from 10 to the water and blow the leading edge, keep apologising
5. Again, if you are a middle aged over weight white male (that's scared of entering the water when green peace is around) DROP the ego and get the INSTRUCTOR to check your harness isn't F***ing up your progress, because you can't squat to water start, FOOL.

AND

6. If you somehow "FLUKE" a water start and do an accidental 20 foot superman over the board with an unplanned down loop, SMILE at least you didn't need Viagra to get there

P.S. To the awesome crew at Alliance Gear, Thank You again & to the whole Kurnell crew, I really appreciate everyone not pointing and pis*ing yourself at my pathetic attempts

Sorry if this seems a bit lame, but I've read various comments on directional’s v TT's and am left with a simple questions, which by the way has sort of been asked.

If your objective is directional, why bother with edging a TT? Don't know have read, but not sure.

ONLY reason I'm asking is from a windsurfing background, UNLESS A TT GIVES A MAJOR advantage, I don't want to waste the money. Rather learn the board stuff with a directional instructor, without sounding ungrateful or impolite.

What do people think

Well I officially had my best session yet yesterday, not a bad way to kick off the new year

My water starts are becoming a lot more consistent, maybe 8/10 tries I am up and going.
Now I just need to work on staying up and edging more, also getting the feel for and learning how much bar to pull in before it chokes the kite, this is generally my biggest reason for stopping. Choke kite = no power.
The biggest problem with my water starts at the moment is that I don't dive the kite hard enough on my starts. Often I get up but haven't quite got enough pull/power on the start to get right up out of the water so I end up dragging the board partly underwater and can't build any speed. I think I am trying to point too far across/up wind as well which is not allowing me to build enough speed before i edge.
But I now know what I need to do, and more importantly I can tell when I am doing wrong and what to do to fix it. Just a matter of my brain remembering to do it before the fact, not after haha

That being said though, I hit a few personal milestones yesterday.
- I only had the kite on the water once after a bad water start. This was the first session that I was actually able to pack away a dry kite, it was a rather pleasing moment
- I had 2 really good runs where I water started right on the first go, built speed and edge for a good 200ish meter run out past the groins before I got too excited and brain snapped, forgot what i was meant to be doing and lost power in the kite, sank back down and tried again. This was all goofy side as well, it's funny, I am now struggling with my regular foot direction lol.
- And my personal favourite, I didn't get a single sinus clean out, no head dunkings for me . No massive stacks, only one reasonably good stack where I had a bad start and got pulled over my board when I caught the front edge, but I felt it happening, sent the kite to 12 and rather than body slamming the water I got body dragged and used the lift to kind of just flop/ease myself back down. Other than that a few bad starts in the deeper water where I didn't dive the kite enough and ended up getting pulled over forward because the board got bogged down but that was it really.

General observation - boy does it feel great when you finally edge that board and everything just settles into place and you just start cruising. So freaking amaze-balls

Super stoked to start off 2014

Ed517 said..
Love the stoke levels! I've been doing it for two months now and feel like a kid on christmas morning everytime I drive to the beach and know there's good wind!

Couldn't have said it better myself haha

SaltySinus said..

MOWIT said..

Sorry if this seems a bit lame, but I've read various comments on directional???s v TT's and am left with a simple questions, which by the way has sort of been asked.

If your objective is directional, why bother with edging a TT? Don't know have read, but not sure.

ONLY reason I'm asking is from a windsurfing background, UNLESS A TT GIVES A MAJOR advantage, I don't want to waste the money. Rather learn the board stuff with a directional instructor, without sounding ungrateful or impolite.

What do people think

In my (lame) opinion, TT vs. Directional is like comparing Rally vs. F1. I'm not sure the analogy completely holds up ... but they're very different kinds of riding. If my local was a wave beach, I'd try harder at the directional...

Thanks for the reply Salty and everyone who have contributed. This is an awesome thread, well done

The only reason I thought that going straight for the SB with foot straps was remembering back to "Free boarding" simple clarification of it, think Surf board behind a speedboat wakestyle/waterskiing. I thought I'd struggle heaps in getting up doing a deep water start free boarding, but once we put an alloy box section into the board, glassed it in then screwed in some windsurfer foot straps Awesome!!!

In my second lesson yesterday, just had a flashback trying to waterstart on a TT and went, ok this isn't how it worked last time. Granted I'm a Newbie to Kitesurfing and doing figure of eights between 11 and 1 is not even remotely close to a proper water start, I just had a flash back and thought I'd ask the wealth of knowledge on Seabreeze. Oh by the way, I had no interest in F**king up my out of date raceboard to learn on, just thought I'd grab another $50 cash converters board and mod. it with straps and away we go

vkay89 said..

Had my second lesson a few weeks back and what a flop I made of myself!

I could barely get my feet into the board to even start up! Does anyone else find it really hard to do this, or is it a newbie thing?

I surfed probably 1 meter once I got my feet onto the board but crashed hard after that. Than the wind dropped and didn't have any consistency with the kite staying up.

Overall was a good lesson although I do feel a lot more overwhelmed on my second lesson as a pose to my first. I really need to water drag a lot more before I think about getting my board on. At least that way I can half master the kite with one hand and than concentrate on the board a lot more.

Need a lot more practice but hate making a fool of myself!

Hey Vkay, no, nobody else has this problem... you must have odd feet. Okay, not really!

Yeah, it's typical when you're learning that you spend 125% of your attention on the kite and can't spare a couple of seconds to get your feet in the board. Also, it sounds like the wind was less than ideal,... if it's gusty, or low, this means you have to spend more attention on the kite and less on your feet. Also lying on your back with with your feet in the air all crunched up is a weird and unatural position... for most people at least... so you'll find you keep on sinking back into the water.

Keep at it. You'll get there.

vkay89 said..

SaltySinus said..

Hey Vkay, no, nobody else has this problem... you must have odd feet. Okay, not really!

Yeah, it's typical when you're learning that you spend 125% of your attention on the kite and can't spare a couple of seconds to get your feet in the board. Also, it sounds like the wind was less than ideal,... if it's gusty, or low, this means you have to spend more attention on the kite and less on your feet. Also lying on your back with with your feet in the air all crunched up is a weird and unatural position... for most people at least... so you'll find you keep on sinking back into the water.

Keep at it. You'll get there.

Haha cheers mate.

Still feeling a little overwhelmed when I think about going out but need to just strap in an go for it.

Crash and learn right?!

Hey VKay, yeah, as long as you have plenty of space then there's no harm in giving it a grow again and agin and again... also, don't be harsh on yourself. It took me about 3-4months until I really distinguish between a good wind day and a bad wind day...

Sometimes the wind is just shizzle and gusty, and exacerbates any 'imperfections' in your technique. If you watch the youtube videos, they're often filmed on a nice serene lake, with now waves, and gentle consistent wind. It's often not like that!

So persist and it will become second nature.

So SaltySinus. After months of this awesome thread doing the rounds, how's your OWN actual riding progressed. Looking back I remember you started this thread to help yourself as much as other kiters helping each other.

What tricks are you up to now? Back rolls would be in there for sure. Jumps? What sort?

Just curious.

SaltySinus said..

Loftywinds said..

So SaltySinus. After months of this awesome thread doing the rounds, how's your OWN actual riding progressed. Looking back I remember you started this thread to help yourself as much as other kiters helping each other.

What tricks are you up to now? Back rolls would be in there for sure. Jumps? What sort?

Just curious.

Oh no!!! Please don't make me admit my lack of progress!!!!

Okay, so 'progress' to date... is limited. In short, I'm doing decent 'Sent jumps on my strong side, and undecent ones on my weak side. I'm *still* wrestling with toeside (sinking from edging too hard or over taking the kite as I'm direct down wind,... no middle ground).

On a good day, I'm doing some decent load and pops and have achieved a good 70% of a backroll...

Over all, I've gone from no board experience of any kind and feel I'm at least competent enough to go and come back without drama and often have a great time doing it!

In short, not enough progress!

Not out there often enough? Like me? Every week I just can't wait to get out there after work and on weekends.

I think I am at the same level as you Salts. Going left and right - check. Edging - check. Toe side - check. Jumps - meh... still trying to control spot landings and have not tried a back roll yet.

So really just mowing the lawn still, but gee.. what a nice mowed lawn it is!

Kazan said..

SaltySinus said..

Loftywinds said..

So SaltySinus. After months of this awesome thread doing the rounds, how's your OWN actual riding progressed. Looking back I remember you started this thread to help yourself as much as other kiters helping each other.

What tricks are you up to now? Back rolls would be in there for sure. Jumps? What sort?

Just curious.

Oh no!!! Please don't make me admit my lack of progress!!!!

Okay, so 'progress' to date... is limited. In short, I'm doing decent 'Sent jumps on my strong side, and undecent ones on my weak side. I'm *still* wrestling with toeside (sinking from edging too hard or over taking the kite as I'm direct down wind,... no middle ground).

On a good day, I'm doing some decent load and pops and have achieved a good 70% of a backroll...

Over all, I've gone from no board experience of any kind and feel I'm at least competent enough to go and come back without drama and often have a great time doing it!

In short, not enough progress!

Not out there often enough? Like me? Every week I just can't wait to get out there after work and on weekends.

I think I am at the same level as you Salts. Going left and right - check. Edging - check. Toe side - check. Jumps - meh... still trying to control spot landings and have not tried a back roll yet.

So really just mowing the lawn still, but gee.. what a nice mowed lawn it is!

Yeah, not out there enough... and when I do, it usually equates to 30-40mins of actual time on the water... Still, I'm still enjoying the progress and every now and then, I have a 'good' session and I come back buzzing (metaphorically, although I did once get a bumble bee stuck in my ear)

Cinijar said..
Hi All,

Great thread, well done. (thanks for no sleep last night while I read it!)

I am just getting into this foray and recently purchased a small four line power kite (3.5m Cross Quattro) as a trainer. At least I thought it was small till I flew it, anything over 15 knots and I'm being dragged around the sand, 20+ the other day was quite challenging. Being a little bloke at 6"7 and 130kg this surprised me a little!!

Anyway I have made my own 4 line bar for it for about $25 worth of bits from the local chandlery after some close study of google images..... and have my old windsurfing seat harness so will start using that to get a more realistic feel.

The only set back is pulling the bar in depowers the kite, but I figured it would help me to learn to fly extended by default ( I've heard the old windsurfer sheeting in habit is hard to kick). I figure in a decent breeze I can probably have a crack at some body drags before my first lesson, I'm sure that will look priceless at the local beach....

Any hot tips / things to be aware of for us 'larger' riders?

Sounds deadly.
I would make sure you have some sort of quick release built into that contraption before you permanently attach yourself to it and it ends in tears. Also I do not understand how pulling the bar in depowers the kite. Can you post pictures?

Cinijar said..
Anyway I have made my own 4 line bar for it for about $25 worth of bits from the local chandlery after some close study of google images..... and have my old windsurfing seat harness so will start using that to get a more realistic feel.

I figure in a decent breeze I can probably have a crack at some body drags before my first lesson, I'm sure that will look priceless at the local beach....

Any hot tips / things to be aware of for us 'larger' riders?

if you want to experience power/depower on the bar, get an inflatable trainer like the ozone Uno. They will also enable you to body drag as your current foil will most likely not be relaunchable if it touches the water.

If you want an overly thorough idea of how the bar works check this from our friends across the gap.

I figured this would be much closer to the real thing than just getting dragged around by the arms holding onto a pair of handles