How to teach kids..reposted for holiday season

Reposting for holiday season from

www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Windsurfing/General/How-to-teach-kidswhat-we-learnt-at-VIC-kids-club/


This is no means authoritative and other people will have different views but this is what we learnt from teaching kids over three ish seasons... (we run a weekly/fortnightly session all through summer and we've been doing it three years - credit to Jerzy for being the guy who runs it - I just turn up and teach)

This worked for kids from 6 up to 12

Very light winds (think only just making ripples)
Board with some resistance in the middle (centre fin on windsup) or daggerboard - ideally a board that they paddle about on so they know where to stand etc
Tiny fin at back (boom is very short and they can't sink tail - therefore they can't turn upwind by raking sail if fin stops board from sliding) Sail somewhere where you can walk upwind - and get used to the idea that you will be walking upwind
Obviously aim for somewhere where they are in their depth

Teaching

Explain all the words that you're going to use on the water before you are on the water
Explain the wind direction every time, on the beach before you launch
Don't talk too much
Don't talk in sentences (see below)
Don't worry about bad habits - kids seem to form and reform habits all the time. It's only dumb adults that get entrenched
Don't worry about the little bits between the main techniques eg how they climb the uphaul to get their hands on the mast is irrelevant.
Talk them into a sailing position and moving but then get them to relax afterwards (because they often end up tense after being set up moving)
Teach them to gybe first (little sails don't exert much leverage so a gybe where you swing it around the front is faster because of leverage).
Don't call it a gybe - they don't care - this is boring.
Point out which end of the board is the front

Physically - never support a child upright or hold onto a board. If they need to be put in the right position, then give them a shove. The reason is that kids are smart and you are stronger. If you offer a solid thing to lean against, then they commit all their weight to it and you realise that you have an eight year old hanging off your arm and a board drifting down wind.
Loads of encouragement
For the first run a kid does - do not follow them walking, if anything WALK BACKWARDS because it gives them a better sense of achievement of how far they have sailed...
Aim to point them at a beach (it's safer and you can ask them to aim at landmarks)
Encourage them to lean back and use their body weight by having mini tugs of war

Use ten commands (get everyone to agree to these if there are more adults around - because otherwise it is confusing for the kids)

Practice all of these on the beach before you go out with the rig.

DROP IT - most important command. It means let go of the sail.
SECURE - two hands on mast
BOSS HAND - the front hand. (Shouting boss hand means focus on the front hand. From SECURE it means put it on the boom. During a gust it means let go of the back hand - you don't need to explain all this. They won't listen.)
SHEET IN - pull in gently with the back hand (done after BOSS HAND)
STEP AWAY - move away from the mast foot
RAKE - tilt the rig back (to head upwind)
STRETCH - tilt the rig forward (to go downwind)
OTHER SIDE - move your hands to the other side of the boom (often used to stop them when they grab the wrong side with the BOSS HAND but also this will initiate a gybe - basically, they reach around the boom and pull in and the board comes around)
SWING - swing the rig around the front or the back of the board (front will be faster)
LOOK COOL - smile and look forward at the horizon
DROP IT - just re-iterating this one....

The main thing is that kids will learn to windsurf in spite of your teaching so just give them really light pointers and make sure the conditions are right.