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A Beginners Tale Of Learning To Kitesurf

I can’t breathe.

Darkness envelops me as every sinew in my body fights against the pull.

I still can’t breathe.

I don’t know where I am as the pressure develops. My heart beats faster; panic sets in.

My body spins like a rag doll in a washing machine, tumbling and tumbling. What’s this, dizziness now, through lack of oxygen, great…how long have I not been breathing, it feels like hours, days, weeks even.

I battle harder and harder before suddenly, I see light at the end of the tunnel.

An opening. A chance to breathe, to stay alive and I’m free…

Finally, I have my wetsuit on!

waterstart

It’s safe to say I wasn’t born to Kite Surf!

Which surprises your author, I’m a man who likes to think he can do most things, and without fear. I am a man who once tried to body surf Pipeline for instance for the ‘craic’ before getting rightfully, and with hindsight thankfully, chased out the sea by some annoyed surfers! But with kite surfing not only couldn’t I do it…it scared the b’jesus out of me!

It looked so simple.

Standing on the beach that first day, watching the riders in the waves effortlessly glide across the water before launching themselves into orbit with ease. A thing of beauty, a stark contrast to me in my wetsuit I hasten to add, think beached whale.

But as soon as I grabbed the kite for the first time the fear set in! Thoughts like,

‘What if I take off and end up in Mongolia? I don’t want to live in Mongolia! Especially with a smashed pelvis and neck accompanied by soiled underpants’

raced through my mind within seconds. Madness I know, Mongolia is a beautiful place for a start and the worse that could happen would be an accidental ‘jaunt’ down the beach! But I couldn’t get thoughts like these out of my head!

Learning To Kitesurf

I was so tentative with the kite.

Not wanting to do anything with it ‘just in case!’ Just holding it on my own was enough. Then I’d glance around me and see young kids throwing them around without any apparent fear, kite looping and sliding along the beach, grinning from ear to ear, and my embarrassment would set in.

Man up!

I’d tell myself. But I couldn’t. What should have taken hours took what felt like weeks (that’s because it was), and we hadn’t even got to board starting yet, what would that entail? Pain, that’s what, but more about that later.

For some reason my brain seemingly would forget everything I was being taught and just when I’d think I was over the fear, it would come back, stronger. Every new day was like starting all over again. Much to the frustration of my instructors and myself too. After a lot of practice though I finally got the hang of it, and could fly the kite, without dropping it at least, now for the water!

Body dragging, in the scheme of my kite surfing career came relatively quickly to me, no problem; it was actually a lot of fun. I say quickly I of course mean slow, cities are built quicker compared to my ability to learn. But I got it, which was a breakthrough. If just a small one.

It was when I was given a board that my brain decided to stop. Getting on it or should I say in it, was fine, starting on the bl**dy thing was a very different matter.

I knew what I had to do; I just couldn’t do it.

Something inside me prevented me from carrying out the actions needed to get moving, and I couldn’t get over it no matter what or how hard I tried. Not enough power, too much power, bringing the kite down too low, not bringing it low enough, drifting it too far back not drifting it enough, you name it I did it.

My ‘Mongolian Fear’ as I like to call it came back in floods, even if I didn’t realise it, it was there and it crippled me.

Learning to Kite

After numerous wetsuit tears, bumps, bruises, broken toes, and some mighty fine Superman impressions (Kites are my Kryptonite I’ve decided) which lasted for weeks and I mean weeks I still couldn’t get up and going.

Put this into context, a student at the school I was learning at was up and ‘riding’ by the end of their second day! Special is not the word for me. I’d like to point out that the student was a young fit teenager who was semi – pro at windsurfing and snowboarding, I’ve done neither and am a porky back pain riddled old man (30 is old in my eyes), he was always going to do better…well that’s my excuse anyway, and I’m sticking to it.

Mastering the ‘pop-up’, I use the term mastering loosely, finally came to me after what must have been the longest process in kite surfing lesson history, the ‘feeling’ came to me and my muscle memory kicked in and before I knew it I was coming up every time.

Whoop whoop!

Success at last. The trouble was I had no idea what to do next…

If you can relate to this come and join us in our Facebook group where we’ll get you up and riding in no time with expert advice, tips and tricks to get you up and riding 3 x Faster. Click the link to join…it’s FREE!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/tantrumkitesurf/

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Mastering the Waterstart

The Water Start

The Tantrum Kitesurf Show

Kitesurf insider secrets, tutorials, video feedback, and equipment advice all aimed at getting you riding better…faster

Tantrum Kitesurf

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Water starting is one of those make or break moments in learning to kitesurf. It can be incredibly frustrating as you try time and time again, avoiding the waves, getting the damn board on your feet, waiting for the perfect moment…and flying straight over the front of the board for the thousandth time! Luckily there are a few common errors most people make when trying to water start which prevent them from riding up, up and away. The first is not pushing the front foot far enough around to release the board onto the plane and the second, of course, is pulling the bar in as you rise out of the water.

By not pushing the front foot far enough away from you as you rise out of the water, you will find yourself coming up up with the board too horizontal to the wind. Incredible amounts of power are then required from the kite to keep you going, as the board is creating a huge amount of resistance directly against the pull of the kite. By simply pushing forward with the front leg and coming up at an angle of 45 degrees or more away from the direction of the wind (ie. with the board pointing further downwind) you’ll release the board onto the plane. With the board pointing downwind your direction of travel is the same as that of the kite and thus much less power is required as you are working with the pull from the kite rather than fighting against it. A good trick here is rather than thinking of pushing your front foot away from you instead, pull your back leg in towards your bum, this will have the same effect but will mean that its much easier for you to keep your legs bent and control the power as you rise up from the water.

The second mistake people make is to pull on the bar whilst rising out of the water. As human beings is our instinct to pull ourselves up using something close to hand while attempting to stand up, also we naturally want more power if we are not quite out of the water and so pulling the bar seems like the right thing to do to give us that last little burst and pull us onto the plane…nothing could be further from the truth and this instinct must be resisted as we learn to water start

By putting the bar in we momentarily power up the kite, however when the kite reaches the bottom of the window (and we want to send it back up to initiate our second power stroke) if the bar is fully pulled in it will simply stall the kite backwards leaving us bobbing back into the water teabag style. What you need to aim to do is put enough power through the kite so that you have no desire to pull the bar in further as you have plenty of power already. This done, once the kite reaches the bottom of the window a simple tweak in the right direction will return the kite back towards the top of the window and put it in a position to start our second power stroke.

Hope that you found this post useful and that it helps your progression down the road to learning to kitesurf smoother and less frustrating, if you want more like this then subscribe to our YouTube Channel where every week I release a new video giving you all the kitesurf insider secrets, tutorials, video feedback, and equipment advice all aimed at getting you riding better…faster.

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