Kitesurfing Beginner Technique
Air Gybe
The Air Gybe done well is the King of smooth: just freezing mid flight, maybe throwing in a cheeky grab, whilst hanging in the wind then casually changing direction before powering off back out to sea. Once fully mastered even the biggest air can be a mere method of turning, and any obstacle a plant. If you have conquered the…
Air Gybe Tweak
Here's a nice little add-on to give your jump transition a point of difference. Nothing too shouty, rather some subtle substance that will feel fresh and look on point! Adding some flare onto your air gybe should be within reach of anybody who is happy getting off the water and changing direction with a modicum of control. The game plan…
Back Loop
The backloop has often been the defining moment in many a riders kitesurfing history. The first genuine “trick” to really wow the masses and motivate ones belief to keep learning, keep tacking time off work and keep spending money. However it does not have to be the starting point. If you can already jump and have the front loop sorted,…
Back Loop Transition
There comes a time in every kiters life when suddenly all the hours of battling the elements really starts to pay dividends. Once you have mastered the many basic fundamentals you will have a solid foundation on which to build many blocks. The backloop transition is without a shadow of doubt the first funky add on to the beloved foundation…
Back Roll Transition One Foot
You know how we love our transitions, and we know that you love them too! So, we've got another one for you to add to your list of funky ways to change direction. This one is a variation on the very foundation of great transitions, the Back Roll Transition, or if you've been in the game as long as we…
Beach Start
Being able to jump on your board and ride off into the sunset without dipping your derriere into the chilly April drink is a veritable pleasure. In it’s simplest form, and attempted in the right conditions, the beach start in Video 1 is well within every up winders grasp. As with so many elements of kiting, most of the skills…
Body Dragging Upwind
Being able to get back to your board or back to the beach is just as important as being able to ride. Without the confidence which this skill gives you, you’ll be sentenced to a life wearing a board leash, doomed to never pushing yourself to learn anything new or fancy, and a hobby involving much more swimming and faffing…
Deep Water Board Carry
We thought we’d include how to carry a board for a couple of reasons: firstly no end of kiters comment to us about how hard it is to carry a board now that so many people don’t use handles. Secondly it’s a bloody good way of keeping karma on your side, a bit like not eating Shark Empanadas, and we…
Fix Your Toeside
Toeside is wonderful. It's an enjoyable skill and an absolutely fundamental part of kitesurfing. It opens the door to a myriad of tricks and other playful worlds such as carving, wave riding, surfboards, and even foils. Being able to use, enjoy and ultimately harness the benefits of both sides of your trusty steed can only make your time on the…
Front Loop
Guaranteed to spice up ones armoury, the front loop is the base move for so many kiting tricks, that it be often regarded with awe and fear. Perhaps because it looks so smooth, and some how un-dangly, it seems to scare prospective freshers away, who then seem intent on focusing all their efforts on the back loop. Well fear ye…
Heel to Toe Carve
In the last issue, we guided you through the process of improving your toe to heel carve on a twin tip. It seems only right that we should now shine some light on turning back the other way, from heel to toeside. This carve is often considered a tad more tricky than its counterpart, based on the fact that you…
Heel to Toe Carve with Spray
Everyone loves a decent toe to heel carve, pushing against the back foot, throwing up a wall of spray like Andy Mapple on the slalom course. Funnily enough, we don’t often witness people wanting to light it up heel to toe. Odd when you compare it to other sports where toe edge carving is the dream, a searing frontside bottom…
Heelside Hand Drag
We thought we'd start this edition with a bit of simplistic, or so it would seem style. Elegantly stroking the water, followed by a plume of spray, was one of the original kiting money shots, and one that is still oft revered and pulled out the bag by many a guest on our clinics. However, as has been the experience…
Hooked Pop from Toeside to Heelside
Instructions To continue our quest of all things toeside, it’s time to throw the pop from toeside into the mix. Now that you’re getting more comfortable, having dialled in your toeside and added the pop to toeside, it’s surely time to have a tasty way to get back to heelside. Not only that, once you master this, you’ll have popping…
Hooked Popped Front Roll
The popped front roll. A move which is well within your reach if you can rotate forwards under a kite, yet a move which can appear so utterly incomprehensible and/or terrifying. Seemingly defying physics, trying to pop up whilst throwing yourself down into a front rotation. The mind boggles, and the body hesitates. Well, fear not; we're going to have…
Jumping
Jumping Most of us would find it hard to deny the fact that it was jumping that originally flew the flag of appeal and suckered us into this amazing sport. No matter how much we improve, no matter how many crazy powered this or that’s we can pull, there is still nothing quite like airtime. From that first moment of…
Kit Set Up
A few pages later in this issue we will be covering the all-important wonder of stance. It’s all good and well discussing which hernia inducing, twister-mimicking positions you should be moulding yourselves into. But it could all prove so unachievable or at the very best extremely difficult, if you are wrestling with a kite and board determined to resist your…
Learning To Loop #1
Body Drag Under Turn and Down Loop Sliding Transition To kick off our series of all things loop, we're going to have a look at the very foundation, the under turn. First, it is employed while body dragging to get the mechanics and understanding in the bag before we then move on to the slide turn. Cracking this is a…
Learning to Loop #2 - Heel to Toe Carve with Down Loop
If you've joined the ranks of under-turners and downloopers from our Learning to Loop #1, it's time to build more confidence, practise more, get more comfortable, and while you're at it, add another string to your bow. This time around, it's a veritable killer combo. Your mission, should you choose to accept, is to marry a toe to heel carve…
Pop Back From Toeside
Last issue we looked at the rather swanky way of popping to toeside. So it’s probably only fair to give you the equally impressive method of styling back from toeside to heelside. It’s all good and well hammering into a carve, or timidly sliding the board back from toeside, but if you’re intending to carry on in the same direction…
Pop to Toeside
Some time ago back in the annals of history, or issue 2 to be precise, we looked at how to slide the board from heelside to toeside. Probably one of the first tasty moves any of us learnt. Now it’s time to take the Lucky Luke step even further and actually pop to toeside, which could also be your first…
Popping
As Kellogg’s so rightly said, “once you pop you just can’t stop”. Popping is an absolutely fundamental skill in kiting, and as far as fundamentals go, it’s potentially one of the most bamboozling. That’s not to say that popping is super difficult, but there’s a lot going on and when you come to learn it, you’ll be bombarded with all…
Popping off a Wave / Chop
Popping off a wave, wavelet or steep bit of chop as in Video 1, in many locations, is an inevitable and often unavoidable consequence of meeting one of the oceans naturally formed stunt ramps, as you speed out from the beach. When you know what you’re doing these obstacles become joyous kickers, but when you don’t know how to handle…
Slide Turn
To kick off proceedings, this issue, we’ll be taking an in-depth look at the Slide Turn transition. Unquestionably the first transition on your radar and, unless you plan on crossing an ocean, a move that will top your frequency charts along with launching, landing and body dragging. The Slide Turn comes in many shapes and forms, long ones, sharp ones,…
Stance
Stance, body position, posture: the way in which we hold ourselves on the board is the ultimate foundation, principle numero uno, THE fundamental of everything that we try and achieve in kitesurfing. From the outset of getting up on the board, rocking upwind, resisting for take-off, popping, getting out through the lumpy stuff and anything else which requires you to…
Strapless Beach Start
Continuing on from last issue’s strapless fest you’re probably more than ready for this. The beach start is a useful tool as it means that not only can you delay the inevitable dunking, but you can also get off the beach quickly, which is a godsend when the waves are pumping. Water starting is all good and well but if…
Strapless Heel to Toe Carve
Carving a surfboard successfully, throwing up a wall of water and exiting with speed feels absolutely divine. It is the basic building block for all things wave riding. And once you are confident changing from edge to edge, or rather rail to rail and throwing the kite about, you’ll soon be ready to challenge waves that once seemed intimidating. All…
Strapless Riding
We’re going to keep this one relatively brief, as it is not rocket science, or rather it doesn’t have to be, apologies Mr Bernoulli. However pretty much everyone who stands on a surfboard for the first time, having been riding twin tips makes the same basic mistakes. To understand how a board works and how this effects the way you…
Strapless Toe to Heel Carve
Continuing on from last issue’s heel to toe carve, we can now add the other half to complete the basic requirements of wave riding. Once you can link these two turns together you are wave riding, however mythically it may appear to onlookers, and all you need to add is a genuine curl of water chasing you and before you…
Strapless Water Start
Last month during a series of clinics in Egypt, many of our guests often commented on how impressive it looked to be riding around on a surfboard without straps, and of course how much fun it looked even on flat water. On top of this the general consensus was that it must be very difficult. Au contraire mes amis! In…
Surfboard Dismount
Surfboard Dismount The surfboard dismount is one of those moves that works, it really is as stylish and practical as a well-tailored, colourful hat. Fun and functional, nonchalantly plucking your board from the air obviously has its aesthetics, but it also trumps fumbling around in the shallows as the backwash bulldozes your board and fins against your shins or the…
Surfboard Foot Change
Whether you are riding strapless or strapped, the necessity to change your feet will eventually come knocking. Back in the dark ages when three strap directionals were in mode, it was not unusual to see kiters dropping into the water, turning their planks around and then sailing back whence they came. However those with a slight thirst for progress took…
Switch to Toeside
Whether you are already attempting to ride toe side or are now contemplating the possibility, hopefully there should be a few helpful hints in the next page or two. As mentioned in the last issue, switching to toe side is a fairly natural step forward from the slide turn. If you are now sliding around like Torvill and Dean you…
The No Slide Turn
We could have called this article something along the lines of transition like a pro, or turn around without losing any ground, but neither of those quite capture the character of this transition quite as well as the name we've plumped for. Having had a detailed look at the slide turn in our first CK'ssentials and having been plagued by…
Toe Side Hand Drag
A while back we took you through the heelside holiday shot. Seeing as things are warming up and liberty in the sense of ocean dips is returning for many, it must surely be time to enjoy the simple (ish) things. Casually gliding atop the wet stuff on your toes, caressing the water as you take the opportunity to smell the…
Toe to Heel Carve
The Toe to Heel Carve has the potential to become one of your absolute favourite moves. Ignored by many as a practical solution to changing direction, this bad boy unquestionably opens the doors to a world of plumage, throwing down buckets, photo opportunities and soaking your kite buddies. However, before we oversell the future, you need to set the fundamentals…
Featured
Popped Hooked Front Crail/Nose Grab
Making a move look good, especially for that Kodak moment to be frozen in time eternal is about sticking that extra tweak or grab in. With that in mind here our guide to a popped front roll with a Crail or Nose grab thrown into the mix for extra spice. The grab itself is done with the back hand reaching…
Inverted Grabbed Front Loop
Funnily enough some of the most pleasant to watch and pleasing on the eye kiters are not necessarily the most radical, but simply the most stylish. Obviously there are the golden few who combine both and have as a result forged a decent career out of kitesurfing. So with that in mind here’s another way of adding the mustard onto…
Beach Start Back Roll Grab
If you want to kick off your session completely mad dog, hair down, guns blazing, look at me, who’s the Daddy, then this far from subtle entry into the ocean is defo your tipple of choice. However, it is possible to underplay it as if nobody is watching, but that forced cough before lift-off, might just arouse suspicions. We’re spicing…
Board Off Dismount
Whilst pondering all the moves, grabs, transitions, airs, washes, strokes, tweaks, pops, passes and loops that we’ve covered on these hallowed pages, it struck us that we haven’t been particularly generous on the dismounts. To make amends, here is the board off dismount. Actually, a very achievable trick, since there’s no need to get it back on, it works in…
Grabbed Back Loop Transition
Adding a grab to any move will instantly add style, spicing it up to stand out just that little bit more. Trying to add a grab will also unfortunately reveal any weaknesses, those flaws in technique that we are aware of, which are hidden convincingly behind those subtle adjustments made on the fly, during a move. Therefore working on your…
Shifty Indy Jump
To finish off this issue another sent move which you can enjoy in the cold, hanging on with gloves just as much as you can somewhere warm. The Shifty Indy is a sent grab with a look back and twist which you can hold for a while in the air, and which you can tweak by either extending the legs…