Interested in becoming a kitesurfing instructor

Hi Dai,

I'm about to finish my 14th season of full-time kite instruction. Prior to this my main job was teaching snowboarding for about 12 years. Even when working full-time It was very difficult to make a comfortable living at first, until I started my own business (kite school / shop). Passion for teaching is essential for this job, much more than the passion for kiting. Keep in mind that most days when the conditions are good you'll be working, instead of kiting for yourself. You also need to be very patient and adaptable to a wide range of personalitlies and speed of progression. Most of your students will be slower learners which will put your patience and teaching skills to the ultimate test.

I suggest you start by taking the instructor course (IKO or KA), then shadow some lessons, find a mentor with lots of experience to work with. This will allow you to see if you like the job without investing in starting your own business. I suggest you get in touch with Jason from Byron Bay kitesurfing. byronbaykitesurfing.com/

To become a legitimate kite school, even a small one, you need to spend a fair bit of money every year. Think of spending at least $5-6K on the comibnation of a council permit + insurance, per year. And that doesn't include your gear, vehicle, radio helmets, etc. A lot of schools are just getting by financially and need to sell gear to be profitable / sustainable.

The best people to ask for advice are your local schools. I know that some councils in QLD don't require permits to teach kitesurfing...

In my experience living in Perth, demand for kitesurfing lessons does not stop, but again, ask your local schools, maybe it's different there.

In my opinion, the only way to be profitable doing lessons for yourself on a casual basis would be to it without illegally, with all the risks associated.

I hope this helps

Christian - KiteBud

Gold coast waterways authority doesnt recognise kiteboarding as a vessell so even tho you can get insurance for some reason branching from around 900 to 5000 $ you wont actually be able to make a claim or use it. Because technicalitys with the gcwa

Weird right?

Also none of the normal or major insurance companys will insure you instead theyll reccomend a "broker" who is actually just someone who works for one of the major insurers.

So if you actually OWN ANYTHING OF VALUE like a house etc etc the $120 to $180 a weekend (if you work saturday and sunday) you make might actually cost you your HOUSE its very very easy for a student to hurt themselves and then claim missing work cover etc and then theyre very real very big insurance company will take your

(Almost completely 100% not insured employer) to task and theyll see that the GCWA doesnt actually count kiteboarding as a water vessell and therefore even if someone like jason has insurance it is void.

Guess where that leaves you my office working friend??

Completelllyyyy ssskrewwweeeddd

Theres a reason most kitesurfing instructors are blow in backpackers from abroad with little to nothing to theyre name.

Ill employ a 25 something yr old from anywhere but australia anyday of the week just for this reason.

So if you want my advice. Quit your job and move overseas and teach at some honeymoon island for 25$ a hour pretend its a holiday for 6 months.

If you last 4 years doing that (8 seasons) then congrats your one of the very few people who clearly enjoy yelling at fat middle aged men in waist deep water more then you enjoy anything else on earth.

Now after that you can be broke and poor and a real kite instructor! Open your own school realise that the 5k$ insurance you paid for is unclaimable but least iko will recognise it and list your school as an iko school and now your on your way to makeing $100 a hour!! Sounds awesome!!! Just dont forget to factor in that youll be spending at best 4 or mayyybe 6 hours a day getting paid to work and about 10 hours a day not being paid at all just hearsing cats every night trying to get studentd to actually turn up on time and praying that theres wind.

Do yourself a favour and look how much money you would of made this week alone just click on the seabreeze goldcoast weather any arrows not firmly in the 15 to 25 knot windrange disreguard them completely. Are you counting the arrows mid week?? 1/4 them because in australia people have to work and cant learn to kite midweek

You should as a school be makeing like maaaybe 600 a week peak season with really really good weather... so that 5k$ worth unuseable insurance will need half the seasons income to pay it off

Still want to yell at fat old men in waist deep water to push the bar out!! Push the bar out!! or to take theyre hands off the bar?

Then feel free to pay a couple grand i believe by now and work for 40 hours for FREE "shadowing" someone

Your better off learning how to replace mobile phone screens for money and buying a bunch of screens and phone tools off ebay.

Ive seen cases when teaching abroad where the school im working for is also renting SUPS cause its a nice lagoon etc never any injurys from kiteing but youll get groups of 200kg american tourists renting these sups and theyll try step off them and because they havent been outside in a few decades theyll misjudge the depth of the water theyre stepping in and theyll literally shatter and explode theyre entire leg bones into pieces.

Ive never had any injurys happen in my 11 years of teaching kiteing apart from some jelly fish stings and sea urchins or coral injurys etc etc but injurys can and will happen and your inexperience simply means your not aware of them. An impact on someones chest can put them into cardiac arrest they can have a heart attack and die theres no real way of knowing who is susceptable to this sort of incident.

So if you want to make a few extra $$$$ i cant think of anything stupider then teaching kiteing or scubadiveing or paragliding or any adventure sport.

And thats before i get to the HUGE rant about how doing these things to your hobby and passion will inevitably erode away at it with time.

I have had seasons teaching kiteing where im only allowed to kite in the rain... think about that... any other time id be forced to teach. And even then sometimes the student has a flight back home and they paid in advance for some scammy reason from the school owner and now i gotto teach them in middle of a squally storm

But wtf do i know im just a fat old man who keeps yelling at everyone to learn to unhook

Also if you cant do a unhooked raily yet then dont be an instructor its a disgrace that they let people pay money to get a instructors licence and all they can do is ride left and right and jump up and down like a kook

As always

Step 1 : unhook

..
But...one of them brings smiles to people's faces and enhances the natural element (of air) in the form of what man knows as a 'sport' ...

The other does this..

..potentially creating earthquakes and tsunamis and unleashing Godzilla
Not a fan of mankind destroying the earth through greed i am afraid ..maybe it happened before with civilisations destroying their own worlds possibly...

..... Food for thought .....

Hi Dai,

Kitesurf instructing is a great job if you do it for the right reasons. The right reason is you want to share your passion of the sport with others and enjoy helping others to progress and seeing them experience the joy of learning this dynamic and exciting sport. In my experience, most other reasons won't sustain you at it for very long. Although you can make money from teaching kiting, it's more of a lifestyle job which enables you to travel and swap a desk job for a beach lifestyle.
I taught kiting for many years and also taught teaching kiteboarding instructors for IKO as an examiner for about 5 years. I loved doing it, travelled fairly extensively, met great people and had an amazing time.
My advice is "go for it" if you don't need the money and just want to give back to the sport and your fellow water sport enthusiasts. Find a good quality school who has good standards and work for them. It's just too hard and expensive to set up properly as a solo instructor and not worth gambling with the liability on your own.
It's a very satisfying job to do, especially if it's just part time.
DM

That one went out to my homeboy rusty01


Boomers just be keying cars ?n parking lots yo rip dem mirrors offadat campervan