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axel a Zen is the act of stepping forward AS you do the hand technique,.... so much slack you can walk into it, not just catching a shirt button or wrist watch, walk towards the kite at the edge of the window, then practice closer to the center as you gain experience. you are after a slow rotation, which changes lanes during the transition, timing it with a sundial! Flick flak (I use a French Bridle and sissy sticks, Flying Smiles Kites), insure you have "sufficient down"/reverse tuned into your set-up, snap your thumbs together, ~ evenly ~ towards the kite, it will flip inside out (this is a violent action as the kite's 3 feet tall), wait a second and step backwards away from the kite, it will return to upright without any further action required by the pilot. This is done directly downwind and your hand actions must be equal and centered. If you can do a flick-flak you are only "steps away" away from the Falling Leaf. Now when you flick, you'll step violently towards the kite also, not just the hand action alone, No, a total body commitment. There's huge slack in there now, you must wait until the last possible second as the kite falls towards the ground (the string is over the LE) and then step-backwards aggressively to unwrap and remove the acres of slack you placed in moments ago. Snapping the kite back to upright, powered up again flight possible. If you can half axel (stop the kite flat, leading edge facing you, bridle below the kite) you're set-up to do a clam-shell roll-up. Do the 1/2 axel low to the ground, at half way around snap those thumbs violently at the kite and flick it over, it's four beats of music if you are ready to demo. The Zen can do anything and everything other Quads can do, just slower, more gracefully, actually it's the easiest size to teach lessons on, it's responsive feeling down the strings which folks immediately connect to...... I am working out my fourth Zen, it's a personal favorite kite of mine. Still available too, if you want to chase Bazzer and Shook to make it happen. Ask for something unreasonable,... HA! you won't be the first one to do so. Mylar-backed SUL leading edge sleeve made of nylon, built tighter to the tubes too, magic sticks, French bridle, hybrid framing, covers sewn over the elastic knots, additional reinforcing patches I forgot to address line lengths, the Zen is a big kite, it needs time to do it's thing, I use 60 feet or 100 feet of 50pound Skybond on long throw handles. 30 feet is an indoor length and not recommended at all on this sized format

I've found my minimum is 50' for the Zen. Just too big for 30's, wind window is really small and I feel, too short to easily move the kite in turns. Added extra - 50' is about my limit to throw one successfully.

Watching your video, notice that your best reverse attempts usually saw your hands staying closer together, moving together as if holding the same frame - the least successful attempts saw that right hand start to pull back farther back and away from the other hand. Not a foolproof observation, but good food for thought.

Okay, day four of my full practice devoted to this. Here is the unedited video from half of it. My best success was at 9:50 in that clip, managing not once around, but somewhat over twice around. While I've been toying with this reverse flight on-and-off for months, here are these summary four days dedicated exclusively to reverse flight: Day 1- 0 full reverse 360s, 1 good partial of 3/4 turn, 1 good half-turn reverse, a bunch of 'falling backward' Day 2- 0 full reverse 360s, 4 good partial turns, many 'falling backward'. Day 3- 0 full reverse 360s, perhaps 5 good partial turns, many 'falling backward'. Day 4- four full reverse 360s, perhaps 5 good partial turns, several reverse floats back to the ground. Today's big change was to dramatically increase the force I use to load the sail. Usually moving forward I can do a gentle sustained force that keeps it barely loaded, and if I let up slightly it shifts to a forward float or glide. During these successes I found I was pulling back to load the sail about 2x or even 3x what I do for forward flight. The other big change was directing the force. The top half I need to pull back in full reverse, the bottom half I need to apply nearly-full forward drive, otherwise it would destabilize or rotate around like an inverted hover or full rotation, subject to continuous minor correction. This feels different than the same motion outdoor, which very nearly holds neutral on the low-hanging side with the top half pulled back to hold the sail vertical. A new problem today was, I think, coming from maintaining the vertical direction while in reverse. In outdoor, because it's holding a vertical angle, the arms require a "drawn bow-and-arrow" posture to maintain a straight line. In this practice, the motion ended up laying the kite flat. While it made flying more difficult, recovering from it felt like the same motion as an axle, a big tug to the side and it swings back around. One thing I noticed was when loading the sail during the successes and the partial-successes, there was a kind of click or pop into place. Maybe a term would be "indoor whump", or maybe "engaged" or "pressurized"? When it hit the right combination of load and velocity, there was a notable shift that came in as a pop or click that I could feel strongly, almost as though it went from the sail being pulled then suddenly kicked into being engaged or driven, like when powered by a sudden gust but at an indoor scale. There was a notable tug at that instant. When I felt that kick in, the kite was suddenly substantially more responsive and joined up with the commands I wanted to give. Again, the amount of sail loading was roughly double the sail loading I use for forward motion. I suspect that's the point I've got to hit for this to become reliable. When that engagement kicked in and then left again, it stalled. I found I could shift back to forward drive or otherwise recover during that moment of stall, rather than dropping down to a landing or pulling in for a recovery catch. Anyway, looking forward to comments people may have.