• My first pre-work session
• May I ask for 10 more of these sessions?
• Fragments to decipher - tricking that leaves questions

These sessions were all in the tricking en masse spirit. Approaching tricking from this different angle turned out to allow me to catch glimpses of tricks that if I would have worked on a trick methodically one by one, would have been several years ahead. This once again leads me into thinking of the beginning of the Trickery Flickery video ( http://kitelife.com/forum/topic/3477-trickery-flickery/ ): "Once you understand what to expect, you then start to be able to control these and then they become moves". I hope that I'll be able to benefit from the insights/samples gained. Yet, I'm not a believer in some only way that does it all. More grabbing bits and pieces of trick learning by applying several methods.

The schools in Stockholm have their sports leave during week nine this year and also at work some have left for typically a week in some ski resort. We (my family) did "our trip" during in December (less crowded then), so we remained home now. It turned out that I didn't need to go far to do sporting of the kiting kind instead.

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My first pre-work session
Tue Feb 28 09:22:43 CET 2017
GF forecasted 4m/s
Kymera on 25m 38kg lines

OK, I've reached a new level of nerdom today. Tennis training is cancelled two weeks in a row, so therefore, I figured instead of being late to work because of playing tennis, I could do some sport kiting!

Observations from the flying were not that many during this shorter session (can't be immensely late at work). The little longer of my line sets that I most often use served me well. The winds close to the ground were a bit low and slightly turbulent. So, a bit higher up in the wind window (one time) a cascade attempt (only like two half axels or so) was unexpectedly soft and floaty. Could I hope to repeat this? 

Flying with the Kymera, for me, I need to actively strive for the "tricking en masse" practice that I rather recently decided that I would try, because the figure flying with the Kymera is tempting because it looks good. The walks of shame were frequent today, but is something that needs to be accepted when trying to trick en masse - Welcome the walk of shame!

When going there I two times crossed the cross country ski tracks but I thought I was alone. However two "pre-work sport extremists" of the skiing type showed up later.

Moving backwards and forwards was somewhat restricted by ice. It was more ice on the side of the ski track that was lower than the track where one would expect the meltwater to go. Unfortunately this was the place that suited the wind direction best and was quickest to get to during the limited session time.

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May I ask for 10 more of these sessions?
Wed Mar  1 09:04:26 CET 2017
GF forecasted 4m/s
Hydra on 25m 38kg lines

I can wish no more of a session than this (apart from that it should have been a little longer). The wind suited the Hydra perfectly and the lawn was well cut and free of ice. To describe it, from on-ground nose down, you could just force the kite onto its belly when being supported on the LE, so that a fade launch could be initiated quickly - no running up or downstream was required. The morning sun shone occasionally on my back. Today I was in the middle of the ski track surrounded by several skiers that also had discovered the nice weather.

The session felt like a step forward in the en masse tricking - tricking with little rest - keep the kite out of normal flying. I believe that I was helped by the good conditions, the little higher wind than yesterday that suited the Hydra better and also that the Hydra seems to accept much tossing around (thinking mainly of cascades here).

I got the (snap) lazy susans going (also) with the Hydra, and that felt good. The trick seem to be - don't wait after the snap turtle - just do the lazy quickly. I should experiment if I could lower the nose by moving forward however to see if I could do this trick more calmly. The exit was often a bit early so I need to work on this as well.

Today's highlight was the cascade. It could go on until I lost count and then flew away without the ending in a turtle! Realizing that the session time was limited I started to instead do the run of contemplation (well I shouldn't over emphasize the the contemplation part - the thought was simple: "Get that kite up and that quickly"). If this instead had been a "marathon session" the run of contemplation would have been pointless - frequent running would just have caused a pause of rest/inactivity. Another good thing was that a few of yesterdays softer cascades happened as well!

This tricking en masse that I currently try to do, I believe that letting go of the setting up and analysis offers a new way of learning for me. For some reason the cascades seem to go on (for today and this kite) - perhaps I can figure out why one day and then learn the difference so that the half axeling/rixeling get predictable/controllable. If I manage this, then my hands has taught me how to do do a trick (well at least on the Hydra). 

One end of one of the mini battens was found to be loose - when/how did this happen?

So weren't there any not so good things today? Well the FAs and the belly launches weren't reliable. The tricking en masse leads to more walks of contemplation (but I think when learning/discovering new stuff the walks are inevitable). I also discovered that one of the near-the-wing-tip-mini-battens was only attached on one side.

When you have this perfect session going, stopping for going to work is not really at hit. On the other hand it might be more efficient per hour than my usual session, often ending in the dusk or when my wife reminds me of today's planning ( ...Now!). Talking about my wife, she didn't know that I went here before work because I left home much early. It looks like that I've sunken deeper into the kite swamp. When almost everything is going you way it is so tempting to continue the session - but NO this alternative wouldn't be reasonable today.

The number of morning skiing pre-work extremists were even higher today. I deemed the best spot for kiting was in the centre of the ski track loop. One of the skiers is can be seen in the background.

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Fragments to decipher - tricking that leaves questions
Thu Mar  2 09:21:12 CET 2017
GF forecasted 2m/s
Hydra on 25m 38kg lines

One lesson learnt - don't put absolute trust in the forecast (even if checked just 1h before!). I'd expect that on this field 2m/s would have meant the HQ Shadow - not the Hydra.

Small intrusions and large intrusions. The GF field gets nibbled, a playground, (artificial) beach volley and areas for vegetable plants reduces useful area and makes it somewhat more difficult to find good wind. Another field just south of Stockholm has really fallen victim of some landscape architect? There a 400m large "ring of evil" has been created by planting trees in a circle covering much of the field. There is some campaign going on to save this field from other use, but whether they think anything about the trees or not I don't have a clue. I have not tried this field so I don't know, but that ring just can't be good news. Besides, it seems to be every landscape architect's duty to plant trees the instant they see water. Here in the inner parts of the archipelago the nature itself grows trees all the way down to the water making the kiting fields close to water very few. The erosion from the water is also small so the zone without vegetation (beaches i.e.) is very small as well.

When randomly doing axel-like inputs, I sometimes get a very soft axel going beyond the "natural stop", but doesn't fully double axel. Should perhaps compare this to the double axels that the (Prism) Alien does. The turtles lasted for some period for some reason. No I can't say I understand why and I didn't actively do any attempts to control the pitch of the turtle during this session.

Another trick to be deciphered from today is a rolled up fade launch. After a failed low sloppy snap lazy I ended up on the ground. The kite was rolled up in such a way that when pulling the lines it rolled up on the ground and did a fade launch! It happened twice! It is like certain codes for entering doors - You can't picture fully was happened, but you know what to do when you are standing there, it is the situation that triggers the memory/action - the next time I'll try to observe and remember more "theoretically". ... (one night's sleep passed, in the morning I think that I sorted it out how it "must" have happened): After the failed snap lazy, the kite had ended up flared on the ground with the lines (starting from the kite) going over the trailing edge, then over the leading edge and then on the ground - i.e. rolled up once (the back-flipped rotational way). The un-rolling/launch was performed by a non-hesitant but not too hard initial pull, followed by just maintaining a faint line tension (like when maintaining a fade). It was much like a fade launch, but the lines wrapped over the kite forced the nose down and under into a fade. How to repeat the snap lazy "failure" to be able to to this fancy start again?

One line under the wing and one line above being held by a yoyo-stop. Is there a way out this snag?

If the Hydra now provides me with tricks during tricking en masse that I don't fully understand yet, its bigger brother, the Jinx should be slower and could perhaps give me the time to decipher it? When checking the fortuna-forms (.com) website it seems last updated in 2014 and the offered Jinxes lacked specifications (so also the reviews in Kiteclique). 

If I only could make my wife convinced about the great thing in buying an American kite (or actually any kite) again - already as it is, buying/importing a kite directly overseas would add tax and more expensive shipment compared to buying within the EU. If the trade protectionist climate would further harden and also be met with counter measures one short term effect could be that a kite import here would be even more expensive. Being very optimistic this actually could provide a temporary opening for getting the Jinx: "Darling, don't you reeeeaaaaly think that I ought to get that Jinx kite before it might risk getting more expensive?". Kites might eventually be somewhat more confined to their region of origin on either side of the Atlantic. On the other hand, making predictions is very hard, especially those about the future. Unfortunately it also seems like I moved too slowly, the Fortuna Design page was no more when checked  and also when verified again. Well I guess I shouldn't be considering new kite purchases for some time now anyhow (at the time of posting this blog entry I've already failed doing so horribly). So in the end I think I'll invest more time in kite repairs to see what I think of them after the time that has passed since I last used them and having learnt more, thus postpone purchases for now.

I discovered today that the clip preventing the centre-T from moving is completely missing. Hopefully I can find the marks of the old one, so that I know where to put it. Or rather, go for a double clip - it is not the first time that I've had them sliding and damaging the sail. I guess that the rip could be repaired with a dacron patch. I wonder what type of thread that should be used for this? The image is from a later date when the ugly tape field repair had slided.