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Great post. I've thoroughly enjoyed all of your build threads. Your creativity is inspiring, everyone has been building kites for 100`s of years and you create a new diamond's technique. Thanks for keeping the forum alive and creative!

great choice Blue, i'm looking forward to hearing about your Mamba, from what ive read its one of the best. its definitely on my list of kites to get...in the mean time my wife, 4 sons and 9 grandchildren are all eyeballing my A-bag so im committed to putting together a B-bag, hence the Hydras. if i ever find a real Hydra made by Focus Kites (Paul DeBakker) it will go in the A-bag. words of wisdom, Exult, bonding with a kite might be more rare than we think...best to hang on to them and try again later... khsidekick: i'm just north of you in Longview, wa...hope to get down your way this summer (RV-trailering) maybe meet up at WSIKF if they have it this year mebeatee, i'd like to hear more about the Mamba and BMK/Aerie kites

I stick to them as well, but actually I meant more of evolving by learning to deal with the kite and adopt to it. Take the three kites I referred to in my post above as an example: The HQ Maestro felt funny initially, but paved the way to to my deserted island DLK, the HQ Infinity. Before I was more familiar with older types of kites. The HQ Jam session felt “at home” and I had similar feelings for the Prism Elixir. Not being used to smallish low wind kites, the Prism 4D didn’t feel as a real kite for the first ten sessions. I’m sure that a similar (size/wind range) kite also could have provided that. Before the 4D I was very dependent of the larger inertia of “normal” standard wind range larger kites. The 4D was a medicine against the tendency I had from the Jam Session days to do tricking with a flick like input. The Rev Indoor felt like (and was) a total failure – constant unintended ground contact (*). I put it away for (one, two years was it?) after about five sessions. Since I returned to the Rev Indoor soon 3/4 years ago, it has provided: Much improved use of heavy brake (in normal flight) in no/low wind (and feeling of pressure) allowing the kite to do most of the work instead of you (and I thought that I already knew this from before…), not being so dependent on a soft LE in low wind to propel the kite and offering a (third**) flavour of quad axel practice... * The feeling is like a caricature of piloting a bridle-less 1.5 quad. ** The other flavours of axel practice I tested are 1.5 Revs and the “toss around forgiving” Skyburner Fulcrum.

I went to a duel line clinic in Long Beach WA put on on by John a couple years ago. Paul Dabacker and Scott Weider were there helping to teach all of us tricks or what ever we wanted to learn. At one point John had Paul flying his Hydra and was calling out tricks one after another for several minutes. Paul only hesitated on a double roll up, but pulled it off with ease. I was amazed at how Paul’s feet were constantly moving, and that’s what I learned from him that day. Keep your feet moving. I’m no trick flier by no means but have learned a few over the last couple years after attending the clinic. My personal favorite kite is an ATM I have both STD and UL and beat the crap out of both and they have taken the abuse with minor repairs. Kind of gotten off topic sorry. My Mamba is the UL Moonie version so I take it easier on it than most of my other kites. When I started flying it I kept having issues with wing wraps and was unable to unwrap on the ground with out walking. I added vinyl end caps to solve this problem for me. The Mamba has replaced my Solus UL that I flew into a T post at WSKIF last year. I’m usually not so long winded. Sorry. You are going to enjoy your mamba! Nice choice [emoji847]

Jeff Howard's "wren"?

found this on youtube. good view of both the flyer and the kite simultaneously with good separation between individual tricks and then plenty of repitition. hes flying an HQ maestro II on short lines like 50', and about 80' in segments. this 90" kite has some unspecified modifications (pimp by paw)? he spends the 1st 5 minutes practicing snap stalls and controlling the kite in a stall, then gets into more advanced tricks. enjoy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR3jDc1npMg