First Jumps

The learning curve for kiting is surprisingly steep.

The first few days are tough - you spend most of your time in the water and when you actually do get riding you are generally going straight downwind. You spend the whole time battling the direction of the wind and the waves and ultimately you end up pushed downwind. After flailing around in the water for a while you inevitably look up and realize you are far downwind of your starting point so you head to shore to walk back. They famously call this the "walk of shame".



Well, after a few days of the "walk of shame" I can now consistency stay upwind. That means I can ride around for as long as I like and come back to the same spot on the beach.

So, the next step was to learn how to turn around without a big crash. Now the technique for this is really quite easy. Picture riding along, going to your right, with your kite out in front of you at a 45 degree angle at about 2 o´clock. To turn, you slowly fly the kite up directly above your head, to 12 0´clock, carve the board upwind and steer the kite in the other direction to 10 o´clock. This pulls you in the other direction and off you go. Easy enough, right?

The only problem is that if you do the exact same thing, only fly the kite across the sky faster, you jump.

Really high.

Guess what happened the first I tried?

Hacky, the guy who runs the school, was watching from the beach and said I flew about 8 feet into the air. Now that might not sound like a lot but when it is totally unexpected it´s a little scary.

Luckily, when I was in the air I instictually steered the kite back up to 12 o´clock wich made the kite act like a bit of a parachute and I landed very softly. By the time I landed it was actually a really fun feeling and it has happened a couple more times since.

Now I´m off to the beach to practice turning and perhaps try some intentional jumps.