Kitesurfing Lessons – The Beginners Guide

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Kitesurfing Lessons – Landboarding

Once your happy with flying your trainer kite if you’ve still got a bit of time before your kitesurfing lessons you may want to introduce a board to spice things up somewhat.  Landboarding offers the easiest and most practical way into Kiteboarding with a kite for most people as it is fairly easy to pick up and you don’t have to live next to the coast to do it. Landboarding is significantly more forgiving to the beginner than kiteboarding as the ground doesn’t move under you, however the ground itself is much less forgiving…wear a helmet and pads and take care!

Prospective landboarders will need a kite, (obviously) kites do come in two line varieties, however it is more common for four lines to be used for control, these allow for easy stopping as well as forward control. ie the trainer kites we talked about earlier. Kitesurf LEI kites can be used but just be aware of what your going to be crashing them into, the last thing you want is your 1000€ kite being wrapped around a lamp-post (don’t laugh I’ve seen it…ok

, well actually, I laughed so hard at the time I nearly died…!).

The board is the other obvious bit of kit.  The boards used in landboarding are very similar to skateboards, although they are curved to allow for more control. The other main differences from skateboards is the binding that are built into the boards and they have bigger ‘all terrain’ (believe it when you see it!) wheels. These bindings are tightened around the landboarders feet to ensure that the board doesn’t separate from the landboarder, though you may want to experiment with this to start with. The size and shape of the board do vary and this difference is often dependent on what the landboarder wants to do with it. Some boards are specifically designed for speed, and some are designed for tricks.

The board itself should be strong enough that it won’t break when you land it after jumping, progression will likely be rapid and jumping at an early stage is a real possibility.  Cheap skate that I am I always used to buy cheap boards which would inevitably break on first contact with the ground and leave me looking very undignified, usually right in-front of a girl I was desperately trying to impress. Most boards these days come with a weight rating so get one that’s right for you, it will save you cash in the long run….and humiliation and lonely nights and endless wondering what if…but I digress!

Probably the most important bits of kit are the helmet and pad, these must be considered essential and I advise against practising without them. Also make sure you have a functioning safety system and you know how it works. Start small, you want to be out on the smallest kite that will get you moving to start with.

Favoured places to practise will normally be open areas that attract constant wind. Some of the favourite places are the areas near to the ocean, either large sandy beaches, or park areas nearby. Most landboarders are also conscientious enough to try and find areas where they will not disrupt others, as much for their safety as for the safety of others, giving yourself plenty of room will also increase your confidence as your not constantly worrying about landing the kite on top of old mother Biggins bobble hatted head!

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Kitesurfing Lessons – What to look for in a learning location

What should you be looking for in the location you take your kitesurfing lessons? Most people would answer, flat water, constant wind, ready supply of Piña Colada’s and the nearby presence of the Brazilian beach volleyball team.  I’m going to break convention however and disagree (not with the last 2, they are quite obviously essential!!). I would recommend you learn somewhere with conditions as close to those you expect to be kitesurfing in on a regular basis, ie similar to your local spot.  Sure flat water and constant wind will get you up and riding much faster, however don’t be surprised when you return home and can’t even get the kite in the air because the conditions are so different.

Learning somewhere with similar conditions to your local spot will mean when you return home after your kitesurfing lessons you have the confidence and most importantly the experience to deal with whatever your local beach is serving up on a particular day and save you frustration of having to re-learn what you have already spent time and money learning. Something which leads many people to give up the sport before they’ve even really started.

Other things to be aware of is that some places off accommodation and kitesurfing lessons right on the beach in front of the hotel…which is great until you discover the conditions in front of the hotel aren’t great unless the wind is blowing a certain way but you still have to learn in front of the hotel as that’s where the school does lessons. Check there are alternative spots the school can use.

In case of no wind, alternative activities may be a good idea (remember there is no such thing as guaranteed wind!). Wakeboarding is an especially good no wind activity as it works on your water start skills as well as being a lot of fun!

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Kitesurfing Lessons – kit and what to look for, buying your first kite.

Buying kit is a notoriously sticky issue and something I would definately leave until after your kitesurfing lessons. Mainly because there are so many people and companies telling you completely different things, all claiming to know exactly what is good for you and which bit of kit is best. Unfortunately as a beginner you are especially susceptible to this kind of marketing as you don’t have the experience to know what is best for you, or even how you’d recognise it if it came up and clubbed you over the head. So many beginners end up buying a bit of kit because their mate told them to, or because it was the one that had the coolest design on it…sound familiar, that’s what I did and ended up taking a year to learn to go upwind because of it. However there are some simple bits of information which will allow you to navigate the minefield that is buying kit and if you follow them you’ll not only save money but also time and frustration. So we’ll start by talking about arguably the most important bit of kit…the kite.

Contrary to what manufacturers tell you a kite cannot be amazing at everything, it cannot have the most power, turn the fastest, be the most stable and the easiest to relaunch all at the same time.  Why? because a kite is a wing and wing design is based on compromise.  To divulge into a bit of aerodynamic theory, a wing at its most simple (and for all you physicists out there, I know, this is very simple!) can be either long and thin which will generate an awful lot of power or short and fat which will handle a lot easier. A wing cannot be both long and thin and short and fat at the same time, not on planet Earth anyway, it has to be built as a compromise between the two extremes. The same holds true of a kite.  Generally as a beginner you are better off aiming at the short, fat end of the spectrum, these kites will tend to be more forgiving and more responsive, also they are less likely to ping you 20m down the beach if you do something wrong, as they generate less pull. If you think that’s for wimps and your tough enough to handle a long thin one (kite that is!), be my guest, but I’m no slouch (if I do say so myself) and due to a long thin monster of a kite I spent the first year of my kitesurfing career in misery…you have been warned!

As to the whole C vs hybrid vs bow vs delta kite arguments (you probably won’t even know the difference but you’ll hear a lot about them over the coming months) it basically breaks down like this…hybrids, bows and deltas are all different types of bow kites that is they have some form of bridle and de-power a hell of a lot more than a C kite…get one of these, DO NOT…I repeat, DO NOT, buy a C kite, of course you’re your own person and who am I to tell you what to do but bear in mind C kites are much harder to control, kick like a shot of tequila and offer very little in the way of advantages to the beginner rider. In short the bow style kites are infinitely safer, easier and faster to get started on and will most likely be the kites your learning on during your kitesurfing lessons.

Next we look at how much you should be spending on your first set of kitesurfing equipment after taking your kitesurfing lessons.

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The Trainer Kite

Practising with a trainer kite before your kitesurfing lessons can give you a massive head start, literally saving you days of money and time.

Practising with a trainer kite is the most cost effective method of getting into kitesurfing for 2 reasons:

   1. You will progress much further and faster during your kitesurfing lessons, saving you money having to pay an instructor. With kite flying skills under your belt, your instructor will able to move you to a full sized kitesurfing kite much sooner, and your general progression throughout the entire course will be improved.

   2. You will save your new kitesurfing gear from unnecessary wear and tear during your first days of learning to ride. We all bounbce kites off the beach to start with, best to do it with a cheap trainer kite than a shiny, new (expensive) one!

Spending at least 4-10 hours on a trainer kite prior to a lesson will allow you to advance at a much faster pace than coming in with no kite flying experience. Remember that learning to kitesurf (your initial 8-10 sessions) is 80% kite flying. Every hour you spend flying a kite prior to trying to put a board on your feet will double your chances of getting up and riding, avoiding the frustration of continually crashing your kite into the water. Snow kiting and Land kiting can be learned in one tenth of the time that water kiting can be learned. A basic trainer will get you started down this road.

So now onto part 2 and the fun stuff - Kitesurfing Lessons – Flying your Trainer Kite

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