Learn to kiteboard.
Introduction
If you want to go to our pages regarding kiteboarding schools, click here. If you want to learn in general about kiteboarding, read below.
Kiteboarding is one of the hardest sports to learn. With most sports you can go out with a friend start to play, and pick up the rules and basics of the sport within a hour or two. Kiteboarding involves risk of injury or death, expensive gear that is breakable, and more vulnerable in the hands of a beginner, and a reasonably high degree of kite control to even think about becoming an instructor. For these reasons and others almost everyone that learns to kiteboard does take some lessons. Below we will discuss what it is like to learn to kiteboard. In particular you can learn about the following:
Progression
Teaching Methodologies
Best Places to Learn
Buying Gear
Kiteboarding Progression:
Your kiteboarding learning curve, known as progression within the sport will look something like the following.
Land:
Your first kiteboarding lesson will likely have nothing to do with a board. In fact it may not even be on the water. First you need to learn how to fly a kite. Now you might be thinking, “how hard is it to fly a kite, I did that as a kid, everyone can fly a kite.” But as a child you learn to fly a 1 line kite. Kiteboarding kites typically have 4 lines and two of them, the left and right lines control the direction of the kite.
The difference between a 1 line kite and a kite with 2 control lines is control. You can actively fly a 2 line kite. If you pull on the right line and push on the left line, the kite will fly to the right, and if you pull on the left line and push on the right line the kite will fly to the left. The wind will always be behind you when you fly a kite. Think of the big semi-circle in the sky above your head. It starts on the ground or water to your left goes up to an apex above your head, and comes down on your right side. Now if you imagine the lines of your kite as the arm of a clock you can envision what it means to fly the kite a noon, right above your head. You can also fly the kite to the left at 10:00 or 11:00 or on the right at 1:00 or 2:00. The arc traced out above your head and to left and right is called the edge of the wind window.
In addition to left and right, you can fly a controllable kite up and down. By turning the kite you can make it go left and down and then right and up. In your first lesson you will learn to fly the kite in a figure 8 pattern. It will become very important to have precise control of your kite, its speed, and its location. It may be useful to acquire a land trainer kite to practice controllable 2 line kite flying techniques.
The faster you turn the kite the faster the kite will fly. The faster you fly the kite the more power it will generate. Why is that? Think of it, the air has substance, a weight, a thickness. We think of it almost as a void, but put your hand out of the car at 60 miles an hour and you can feel the substance, the pulling power of the air.
As with the hand out the window, the faster you fly the kite, the more power it will generate. Generally the lower you fly the kite the more power it will generate. There is a lot more to learn about flying a kiteboarding kite. Suffice it to say you could spend your whole first kiteboarding lesson learning to fly a 2 line on land.
Body Dragging:
After you have learned to control the kite you will be taught to water re-launch the kite. If that comes quickly you get to go out and have a lot more fun. The kite is attached to 4 lines. The left and right “back lines” allow you to control the kite. The central “front lines” are attached to the leading edge of the kite and those lines are attached to a “chicken loop” which is in turn attached to a hook on your harness. It is the in line attachment of the kite to your body that allows you to exploit the power of the wind to pull you in the direction you want to go.
On land with a small land trainer kite you can feel the pull, but the forces are still quite small. On the water with a larger water trainer you will feel far greater power. When you fly the kite from right to left you may even be pulled off your feet and splash face first into the water. With greater control you will be able to do a kind of body surfing that kiters call body dragging. You can get yourself moving across the water fairly quickly. It’s a lot of fun. And, you begin to think how you could translate the power you are generating with movement of the kite to pull you across the water into movement on a board.
Water Starts:
Once you have progressed with kite control and body dragging, it’s time to start using the board. Now is the moment when kiteboarding becomes the most enormous game of rub your tummy and pat your head you have ever played. There is just too much to think about. You have to fly the kite at noon, look away from it long enough to get the board on your feet, control the kite with one hand while the other hand is on the board, and then power up the kite by flying it fast, but not too fast, and not too slow, to pick you up from the water and start pulling you on the board. Then you have to watch where you are going, balance on the board, look at the kite, look at the water ahead of you, and it all gets a little overwhelming at first. Some people learn quickly, others can take an hour, two, or more to get their first board starts going.
Riding Downwind:
Once you have managed to do water start you begin by riding downwind. This may occur on your first 2 hour lesson in the water or on your fifth. The wind blows from your back or from behind you. When you first start riding you really aren’t going directly downwind, it’s more of an angle relative to the wind that is more than 90 degrees, but almost always less than 135 degrees.
Sailors talk about various tacks, kiteboarders less so. For a sailor a “close haul” is approximately 45 degrees off the wind. That means that if the wind is blowing from due north the sailor on a close haul would be sailing northeast at 45 degrees, or northwest at 315 degrees. A sailor is on a “reach or beam reach” when sailing 90 degrees off the wind. With the wind from north then the reaching sailor is sailing east at 90 degrees, or west at 270 degrees. Between the beam reach and the close haul is the close reach, east northeast at 67.5 degrees or west northwest at 292.5 degrees. A broad reach is downwind at southeast or 135 degrees or southwest at 225 degrees. A run is close the straight downwind, or south southeast at 157.5 degrees or south southwest at 202.5 degrees.
Applying sailing terminology to kiteboarding you are riding on something of a broad reach when you first start riding downwind. You may be trying to ride upwind but your net progress is downwind. In sailing the wind pushes on the sail the keel helps to translate that wind power into forward or upwind progress while the rudder controls direction. In kiteboarding the combination of your body and the board are at once your keel and rudder. You steer with your board and resist the tendency of the wind to drag you and your board downwind. When you begin to ride upwind you will ride in a direction somewhere between a beam reach and a close reach. At first only a few degrees upwind.
Riding Upwind:
Beginning kiteboarders spend most of their learning time on figuring out how to go upwind reliably. It is so important because it allows you to start and end at the same point. The ability to come back to the part of the beach you started on doesn’t just look good, it is important from a safety perspective. The kiteboarder that gets dragged downwind routinely can be in trouble if they misjudge the wind or the wind changes direction and becomes offshore.
It is one thing to water start, get going downwind, turn upwind, and make some progress upwind. It is quite another to make enough progress upwind with each pass that you make up for the ground you lose to the wind transitioning between tacks, not to mention the amount you float downwind when trying to re-launch your kite or get back to your board. You have reached your greatest milestone in kiting when you can stay net upwind each session reliably.
Advanced Riding:
Advanced riding incudes toeside riding, jumps, and tricks, but is beyond the scope of this text at this time.
Kiteboarding Teaching Methodologies:
There are at least four identifiable teaching methodologies: Shallow Water, Boat Assist, PWC Assist, and Helmet Communications. Once you have progressed onto the water and begin learning to control the kite while in the water you will begin to notice the attributes of your instructor’s teaching method.
Shallow Water:
Some instructors teach from the shore or really from the shallow water in the kiteboarding spot they have chosen. This just means they don’t have a boat or a personal watercraft (“PWC”) or they choose not to use it. This teaching methodology can be just fine for the initial phases of your progression. When learning to body drag with a good side shore wind your instructor may not even have to get wet to impart enough knowledge to get you successfully controlling the kite.
The limitations of the Shore/Shallow Water instruction method manifest themselves when you begin to ride downwind. Kiteboarding involves speed. A few seconds of riding downwind puts you out of earshot of your instructor. After you fall the instructor will wade downwind in your direction or expect you to walk upwind, flying your kite, and dragging your board, a challenge for many beginners.
The challenges of the Shore/Shallow Water teaching methodology are compounded when you learn to ride more proficiently downwind. In a minute you can be a quarter mile away from your instructor. Between crashing your kite when you fall at the end of a run, being dragged downwind, retrieving your board, re-launching, and tacking back in the direction of your instructor, you can end up a quarter mile downwind of the instructor after a tack or two.
Some instructors believe it is good for you to spend 10 minutes drinking salt water upwind body dragging back to your board. We think that’s best left to the downwind rider or beginning upwinder that has become more proficient, falls less, crashes his kite less, and becomes scared or frustrated when he does crash his kite. The boat assist, and PWC Assist methods really shine at this point in your progression, when you could really use your board tossed right to you, some encouragement that you aren’t about to drown, or some advice on how to re-launch that pesky kite.
We have heard instructors say their students progress more quickly when they have to do the “walk of shame”, walking their kite upwind, carrying their board, as if the workout and kiting downtime are punishment for failing to ride upwind and will encourage better performance after the suffering. We think those instructors either don’t have the money for a boat or PWC, haven’t been exposed to the benefits of the Boat Assist or PWC Assist methods, or are just plain sadistic bastards.
It is interesting to note that almost all kiteboarding instructors are young, predominantly male, fantastic natural athletes, in phenomenal physical condition, and almost certainly took very easily to kiteboarding, learning to ride upwind in just an hour or two. They are the 1 percenters of the athletic world. When they learned they did the walk of shame a couple times while a buddy laughed at them, went back out determined to master upwind riding, did so very quickly, and formed a belief that tough love was the only way to learn. For the rest of us mere mortals, the kiteboarding learning curve is much more extended. We will ride downwind for hours before riding net upwind for a whole session. We will become physically worn out and frustrated from upwind body dragging to recover a board or doing the walk of shame. For us a ride upwind, a boat to bring you your board, or some encouragement and instruction when attempting to re-launch a stubborn kite can be the difference between learning the sport and dropping out due to frustration. These things really only get accomplished when your instructor employs a boat or PWC, and that is why we distinctly favor the Boat Assist or PWC Assist methods of instruction.
Boat Assist:
Boat assisted kiteboarding instruction allows the instructor to follow you or at least catch up to you so he can communicate with you, get your board and bring it to you, or bring you on the boat, and take you back upwind. Boat assist and PWC Assist provide you the support that Shore/Shallow Water instruction does not.
The drawback to Boat Assist is the propeller. As a kiter in the water, particularly a beginner, you will be scared that the boat is getting too close, and one wrong move by your 20 something instructor who has no assets and nothing to lose will cost you a body part and that’s after you are already paying and arm and a leg for the lessons. Your instructor will also be worried about getting too close. The distance will be just enough to hinder communication. With the sound of the wind and water, the noise of the boat engine it will be difficult to hear your instructor. It will be even more difficult for the student to ask questions. Your instructor will have to stay upwind of you. That means that your instructor will be behind you. Talking over your shoulder, into the wind, is pretty hard, let alone in the water, with the other noise mentioned all around you.
PWC Assist:
PWC Assist is the best kiteboarding instructional methodology. You get the advantages of Boat Assist, upwind rides, board retrieval, and instruction without the walk of shame. The seminal advantage of PWC Assist is no propeller. PWC are powered by an internal pump. That means the instructor can get closer to his student. Just close enough in fact that your instructor can communicate with you, you can ask questions, a dialogue can occur.
PWC Assist is almost always conducted one on one. As a result it is more expensive, but your progression will be quicker, and PWC might end up being less expensive in the long run. Boat Assist is frequently one instructor to two or three students. Less personal attention. Fewer board retrievals. More of an upwind taxi service, not personal attention after every run.
Helmet Communications:
There is one more type of instructional method that some kiting schools are employing or starting to experiment with. Kiteboarding helmets can be equipped with a waterproof speaker and radio receiver. That communication equipment can be used to establish one way or even two-way communications. With one-way communication, the student does not get a microphone, and therein lies the drawback to this method. The student cannot ask questions, provide feedback, or even indicate they do not understand what the instructor said. At present the only known two way communication technology known to this author is being sold by a company called bb Talkin. Helmet Communications is being used most often as a supplement to Boat Assist in a partial attempt to make up for the communication deficiencies of Boat Assist. There are now also instances of Shallow Water instruction aided by Helmet Communications. This can be useful for the early intermediate rider that does not need watercraft backup but is attempting to learn a skill, such as jumping.
One qualification respecting Helmet Communications, reliability can be a problem. On the beach the “comm” test usually goes well. But in the water, at range, with everything wet, the background sound of the wind and wave action, the voice of your instructor often sounds something like an old fashioned fax machine performing its screeching handshake combined with the even more old fashioned hiss off a cathode ray tube television with rabbit ears pointed in not quite right direction or lacking in the correct amount of tin foil covering. This technology has been greatly improved by with the offering from bb Talkin. Their technology is long range Bluetooth. Not only does their technology permit two-way communications but the background noise filtering, the overall sound quality, and the range make it the best product on the market as this is being written in early 2018.