Kiteboarding -Are You Progressing As A Beginner Kiter (8 Water Checks)

Welcome back to the OK Kiteboarder. In this episode, we're going to look at eight checks to see if you're progressing as a kiteboarder. Use this episode as a gauge to see whether or not you have weaknesses and areas that you need some improvement on. When I first decided to become a kiteboarder, the first thing I did is I went out and I purchased all my gear so that I was completely committed. Now that's not something that I would recommend for everyone, but honestly if I wouldn't have done that, I probably would have given up the whole venture of becoming a kiteboarder. I'd probably have a YouTube channel currently called something like When Kids Attack, something like that. But here's the thing, when you go out and you're first learning to kiteboard, it can be extremely intimidating. You look around and you see these kiters doing tricks that just seem completely unattainable and it becomes a little bit overwhelming. So in today's episode, let's look at an on the water checklist, some areas that maybe you need to improve on as a progressing kiteboarder. And maybe you check every box, but maybe you don't check every box and we can identify some areas for improvement in your personal kiteboard progression. Are you bogging down on the takeoff? On your water starts, you feel like you just kind of can't get out of that grunt feel. Maybe you're trying to go upwind too early. Your first initiation on the water start really is to try to get more downwind and then once you've gained some speed, then work on pointing the board upwind and tacking upwind. But initially, get the water start more downwind with the initial movement. Number two is posture. Are you riding the kiteboard in a crouched position or is your front knee extended and your back knee slightly flexed with a straight erected posture with hip extension as you're riding? If you're riding in a squatty position, it's going to limit all of your progression going forward. Check your posture, make sure that you're good, tall, straight knee on the front extended, and a little bit of flexion on your back knee. Number three is sinking on transitions. It is absolutely unavoidable early on in the development of kiting to not go in the water when you transition directions. But I think a lot of times when you're working on transitions and you're sinking in the water, it's because you're just too impatient. So here's the key. Don't be so impatient. Slow down with your kite movement. Whenever you get to the end of a tack and you're ready to reverse course, very slow movements with your kite, bringing it to 12 o'clock, very slowly depowering the kite and then making sure that your speed, your velocity has come to a conclusion before reversing ground in the other direction. A lot of times what will happen is you still have momentum going one direction and you're sending your kite across the window to the other side. And what this does is it makes you bog down in the water because you're working forces in opposite directions. So just be patient. Slow down on your turns. Number four is to keep your feet flat on the board. You can get away with this all day long on a twin tip board riding on the hillside. But start paying attention to this. Are your feet flat on the board? Do your toes and the balls of your feet touch your board while you're traveling on a twin tip board? If not, let's address it now because once you start going to toe side riding and working on transitions, S-curve, riding a unidirectional board, or if you want to progress into foiling, you're going to have to be able to start riding with your feet flat on the board. So why not start now? Number five, do you keep your hands too far apart on the bar? Really the hand position on the bar should be fairly narrow because once you start progressing and you start working different tricks, you don't want to oversteer your kite. So placing your hands fairly closely together right now is going to pay off in the end. In fact, it's really more about sheeting the bar in and out when riding. It is about cranking the bar as you turn it, maybe like you did on that trainer kite. It's just really not the movement that's occurring with a four line leading edge inflatable kite. So be more concerned about depowering, sheeting the kite in and out, hands close together, towards the center of the bar, which is going to give you a lot more control and take away the oversteering that occurs where you start using a lot of your upper extremity musculature to move the kite around. It's just not the way that these kites are designed to be used. So hands closer together, start progressing. Number six, flying the kite one-handed. Are you able to fly the kite with one hand? Because when you start working with trying to work yourself upwind, being able to rotate your torso, opening up your chest to the direction that you're trying to travel is priceless. It's really going to help you accomplish a lot of things, especially in the arena of trying to get more upwind. So start practicing on taking your lead arm off of the kite and opening your shoulders up as you're traveling upwind. Number seven is kite watching. Do you watch the kite the entire time you're out there on the water? If so, start breaking this habit. Start relying more on rhythm and harness pressure and just habit in trusting where that kite is and where it's going to be. So start working on not looking at the kite during your kite transitions. If this is too difficult, just start working then on not watching the kite as you're cruising in one direction. And then progress to where you're not having to look at that kite as you transition on the water on every turn. Once you're able to master this, not having to worry about the position of the kite with every movement on the water, then you're able to take that focus and concentrate on other skills that you'd like to progress on and not having to worry about where that kite is in the air. Okay, number eight is are you extending your knees and hips during jumps? Now that you're beginning to jump a little bit, do you notice that your knees are flexed and your hips are flexed as you throw the kite overhead? If so, let's start breaking this. Let's start looking at trying to time your jumps to extend your knees, extend your hips at the same time that you're coming off of the water. Maybe right now you feel like even even though you send your kite overhead as powerfully as you can and you have speed that you're still stuck on the water. It's very possible it's because you're just not extending at the point of ejection when the kite takes you off the surface of the water. Most of it is timing, but it's going to add to the height of your jumps and the consistency in your jumps and you're not going to feel like you're stuck on the water every time you throw that kite and send it overhead to 12. Look, I know this episode was a little longer than normal. However, I think it's very important to address some of these frustrations in the developing kiter. As you're trying to progress, it's good to go through a checklist to see whether or not there are some points that you're just missing or that you've overlooked as you're progressing as a kiter. This world of kiteboarding can be very intimidating especially considering how it's such a community setting. Please subscribe to my channel and also turn on the notifications bell for future episodes that are coming out. Also visit okkiteboarder.com and sign up for my newsletter where you'll be able to find additional materials in the coming months. See you next time on the OK Kite Boarder.