So, I picked a pretty bad time of the year to take up Kitesurfing, I know... anyway...
Did two two hour lessons in the last couple of months, tried for more, but they kept getting called off because of wind and storms. At this point the kitesurfing school I started with is closed for the season, can't really hold that against them, the wind has been crap.
As far as expertise goes, I've gotten as far as setting up the equipment assisted launching, flying the kite to a given position, body dragging and upwind body dragging. (apparently I did pretty good at this for a newbie, in that I didn't go upwind, but at least I didn't go downwind)
At this point I'm thinking of doing one of two things. First, I can just ride the winter out, maybe take up surfing for the board skill and hit the gym to work myself into better shape, pick up the rest of the lessons I need at the start of next season and go from there.
Option B is I pick up some gear, and work on what I have learned, spend hours just flying the kite on the beach in the few days of decent kiting weather that don't fall on a work day, maybe some upwind bodydraging, maybe even try to take things a little further, get up on the board etc if I am feeling really confident.
So, is the second option a really bad idea, would I be better off playing it safe and waiting for the next season? Either way I'm probably want to get my IKO card when I can get the lessons in for it...
Regards,
Mike
buy some 2nd hand gear in the off-season, it's heaps cheaper. buy a bow kite with lots of depower, you'll be riding within an hour no sweat.
Use a 3m trainer kite and fly it in the park (all you need is a few knots) until you can do back and front roll kite loops in both directions with your eyes closed.
When the wind comes, you'll be an ace.
Gruezi's right.
Just get a real small kite or trainer and muck around on the beach. Practice turns figure 8's, umm sit on the beach and practice swooping the kite through the wind window to the point it pulls you up to the riding stance. Power up the kite and do some little jumps.(better in the water with hand close by the safety).
Winter is to dangerous to just go get some 2nd hand gear and get into it without more experience. If you feel confident enough and you think your past that stuff then get a 06' onwards 9m something, suggest waroo but I don't care anything with good depower. Make sure there are no squalls on the horizon and no one 100m down wind and go for it.
Be assured you will get punished for a couple weeks, but if you stick it out and persist all will be good in the end as long as safety is your priority.
Good luck 
The trainer I have is an Airush 3m. It's got the open air cells so I presume that makes it a foil. Only two lines, how does that compare to controlling a 4 or 5 line? Is the depower all that is lost?
First time I tried to get it flying I was actaully trying to launch it backwards 
, second time it felt like I was about to lift off.
Perhaps I'll try to get a few hours with the trainer in and see how I'm going.
That sound's like a good start, learn to fly that for a few sessions then give it or flog it to a mate to get him into kiting as well. Throw any proceeds towards a bow with depower, get a board around 140 depending on weight of course. grab a harness. Then wait for a good 15-20 knot wind, not squally weather because you need to master landing fast before they hit. Plus it tends to be really gusty and that will make learning so much harder. Do heaps of research over winter and come summer you'll be cruising I'd imagine.
These links may help mate.
actionsportswa.com.au/
www.kitefilm.com/eng/weeklytrick.asp
Goodnight
great idea learn how to kite from the internet.
then once you can get up on the board.
start telling everyone else what to do on the internet because you will be an expert.
you will know it all after 4months of kiting. I guarantee.
you have been to aks, no doubt on a dna. It would be dangerous for you to step out on a second hand kite that was not an SLE kite without additional lessons. Not too many good ones second hand out there at the moment (DNA, Boxer SLE, Switchblade 2 are the ones i would recommend). Definitely don't go a bow kite or a C kite.
What i would do.
1. Buy a trainer kite from a kiteshop.
2. Use it to buggery.
3. Buy at the start of next season get an 07 new kite which will be on special (~$900-1200), so much less hassle then second hand, (warranty, you know its history, no slow leaks etc) and it will only cost you a couple hundred dollars more. If your lucky the kiteshop will trade your trainer back (windforce and airborne do for like 70% of its cost i think)
4. The kiteshop should include a lesson for free with the kite purchase (some do for aks). Go out and take your lesson
5. Go out and tear it up.
quote:
Originally posted by Overpowered
Unfortunately there is not much info on kiting on the internet and even less on kiting dvd's. There is the real world, grab the gear and go try.
If you want to join the little boys club then go ahead. Little boys club members all encourage everyone do it their way.
Well carbine how many paid professional lesson did you have before you flew your first kite?
I flew my first kite when I was 5. I even made it myself. My peers were so pissed I didn't have an iko card and that my kite tail was longer than theirs.
quote:
Originally posted by Overpowered
So you have not had any professional lessons and yet you recommend them?
quote:
Originally posted by Overpowered
You don't wish to recall your kiting at Melville ? Why? Were you an arsehole to someone? Don't you like kiting? Why kite?
Overpowered, good to see you have come round! I always tell people to get lessons from a pro. Firstly because the pros teach it all the time and can do it best, secondly because I cant be stuffed teaching them myself! (Especially emergency packdowns!)
Mike, I'd definitely practice with your trainer kite through winter. Tends to be all or nothing in terms of wind.
On another note, where can I kite on thursday morning to take advantage of the gusty NE winds forecast???
Hey mate, i started kiting with a 3m kite, buggy and a mountain board in the off seasons. You should become a pro with kiting at the park with a buggy and mountain board(its lots of fun!) first then you'll find your skills when you start kiting will have improved 10 fold.
All the chicks love watching you when you do 360's in a buggy!!
Good Luck
quote:
Originally posted by carbine
great idea learn how to kite from the internet.
then once you can get up on the board.
start telling everyone else what to do on the internet because you will be an expert.
you will know it all after 4months of kiting. I guarantee.
you have been to aks, no doubt on a dna. It would be dangerous for you to step out on a second hand kite that was not an SLE kite without additional lessons. Not too many good ones second hand out there at the moment (DNA, Boxer SLE, Switchblade 2 are the ones i would recommend). Definitely don't go a bow kite or a C kite.
What i would do.
1. Buy a trainer kite from a kiteshop.
2. Use it to buggery.
3. Buy at the start of next season get an 07 new kite which will be on special (~$900-1200), so much less hassle then second hand, (warranty, you know its history, no slow leaks etc) and it will only cost you a couple hundred dollars more. If your lucky the kiteshop will trade your trainer back (windforce and airborne do for like 70% of its cost i think)
4. The kiteshop should include a lesson for free with the kite purchase (some do for aks). Go out and take your lesson
5. Go out and tear it up.
Or learn like I did!
That is, a mate wanted to start, so goes off to Perth, in early 2001, gets a Wipika FreeAir (ARX or something, I think anyway) 2 line freight train, big nutty directional, sets the stuff up in Albany, eats it hard the first few attempts, and I'm thinking hey I want a go of that! I eat it numerous times before we work out there's this thing called a 'Wind window' and flying the kite through it can HURT! little more playing and we finally worked it out... pretty boring having to swim in every time you drop the bar tho... Later that year got a 3m Rad Sail - as seen here! -
**** it.
just listen to the guys on the beach who cant even go upwind (there are plenty on this forum aswell). They will help you out, they are experts.
they won't help you out when you lose your board or need your kite towed in though.
I take offense to calling Carb's reply pointless. Thought that a genuine effort was made to give some sensible advice.
Need wind.
Nice dummy spit Carbine!!
Face this fact, there's not many technical topic stuff noob's can comment on right. So as you'll see from my posts I don't instruct people on how to do kite loops.
But I do reply to newbies as I've just done all the research myself and most the stuff is still fresh in my mind as I'm one.
The info I do absorb as accurate are from Ian and Darren. The rest of you maybe good at kiting and wealthy in knowledge, but these guy's are proven.(as in do it for a living in the area's I kite)
Gruezi if your offended by the pointless comment to your mate then have a read and quote what he wrote that was not already in the thread. All it achieved was a negative on others opinions, to go on and reword what was already said.
Yes I will help you out if you lose your board or kite. Mate upwind takes all of about 2 weeks to master and kiting one handed the same. But if you got any pointers for landing the backrolls a bit softer I'll listen.
Hey Blaster,try a kiteloop mid backroll..sure to have you landing a fair bit softer. Unhook at the same time for some real comfort (F16)
Harden the F#*k up..
Better still, take up knitting. That Lazy-Boy sure is fine...
quote:
Originally posted by Blaster
Nice dummy spit Carbine!!
Face this fact, there's not many technical topic stuff noob's can comment on right. So as you'll see from my posts I don't instruct people on how to do kite loops.
But I do reply to newbies as I've just done all the research myself and most the stuff is still fresh in my mind as I'm one.
The info I do absorb as accurate are from Ian and Darren. The rest of you maybe good at kiting and wealthy in knowledge, but these guy's are proven.(as in do it for a living in the area's I kite)
Gruezi if your offended by the pointless comment to your mate then have a read and quote what he wrote that was not already in the thread. All it achieved was a negative on others opinions, to go on and reword what was already said.
Yes I will help you out if you lose your board or kite. Mate upwind takes all of about 2 weeks to master and kiting one handed the same. But if you got any pointers for landing the backrolls a bit softer I'll listen.
Yeah probably should have mentioned that bit.... I don't recommend learning the way we did! Get a lesson or 2 sure... Still a bit of fun to work it out by ones self!
And when the wind is totally blasting, and you can't get on the water... what's wrong with getting your foil out and jumping on the beach?! Sure beats sitting there wishing you were on the water!
Thanks wildstyle tried that unitentionally already, didn't seem to work maybe when I'm older and wiser like all the other hero's I'll give it another go.
Harden the F*** up, what the!!
That's a classic, does that actually anything or did your brain relapse's or something. Dah I can't think of something so I'll write what the last idiot wrote.
I'm sure Kalavas will disect what he needs, then say to himself I'll never do that again like so many others.
Kalavas, I started at the end of the season too and I know it’s a real bugger not having any wind to get out and continue learning.
If you want lessons in the off season I agree with Overpowered, Ian Young is the go, I cycle past his office at Pelican Point on the way home each day and more often than not he is out teaching.
You will also need to learn to be too sick to go to work when the wind is >15kn
OP. Looking at the forecast I think you'll be too sick to go to the doctors in the morning, probably best if you go in the arvo.
That way you also you get to chat with other kiters in the waiting room.
I still do one-on-one (or you and one mate if you really want to) with my jetski @ Pelican Point when there's no storm fronts coming through for those who have a good wetsuit. But as Overpowered points out, bookings are essential!
Still fly a trainer kite as often as possible - even if you are having lessons - but set yourself specific tasks eg running across the wind flying a left or right hand pattern, parking your kite overhead and low to the sides as if you are getting back to your board ... all the stuff you'll get as theory from any professional instructor.
overpowered....looking at the amount of posts you've got, you should be almost as qualified as ian is. Do you have a job??
Thanks for the advice everyone. Got tomorrow off work so I'll probably ride down to the beach and play with my trainer for a few hours. Looks like some good advice, I'll take it all on board and probably end up doing something in between the two options I initially mentioned.
Big thanks to everyone who took time to offer advice.
Regards,
Mike
Not sure this has been covered in this thread, so for all you noobs, wearing boardies over your wetties will lift you cool factor to 10 (you too Blaster). For those that feel they can attain Jedi level in under 3 months, wearing you budgie smugglers on the outside of your wettie will see you well on the way. All of the above, matching in red, with cape attatched will see you crowned HERO.
Matching kite, matching board, cape!
What the F%#k???
