John F

I ran the article through Babel Fish and spent last night trying to fill in the untranslated words and to adjust the grammer and colloquialisms. It is a little rough but I think it will be useable. I look forward to the tutorials. This is one of the most spectacular aspects of kiting and the kite community. There is such a big willingness to share.

Bram Thanks for the link. I lived near Utrecht for 9 months in 1992. I tried to learn Dutch but all my friend and associates kept talking English to me. It was a very pleasant experience there. We are still in contact with our friends. I will try with my dictionary to use this. Dank u wel Just started looking through the article and all I can say is WOW. I wish this were in english. This looks like a definitive work on indoor kiting. Probably worth translating and publishing.

Bram Thanks for the link. I lived near Utrecht for 9 months in 1992. I tried to learn Dutch but all my friend and associates kept talking English to me. It was a very pleasant experience there. We are still in contact with our friends. I will try with my dictionary to use this. Dank u wel

Got in 2 hours indoors and it was great. This indoor stuff can be a pretty good workout. Was able to get the 360 and up and over to work. Then moved on to up and over into a 360 CW. That was OK then to UAO to 360 CCW and that was another story. I am very right handed and need to work on left handed control. I think I am really going to enjoy this as it progresses. What is a good way to lauch the kite? I seemed to have to jerk it into the air from its back. Is there a secret to a smooth launch.

I don't know Garage Band. You do not hear the text. You can insert the text on a lable line as you listen. What I do is put my choreography in on the lable line and then as I relisten to the music I can see what moves I planned and picture the kite routine and make changes until I am satisfied. The cool thing is the text is coordinated with the music so if you plan a move on cymbal clash you will see that move at that point in the music. Then the next thing is when you have got something that can be exported and printed to take to the field. It also has timing but I don't find that useful.

Tristan Watched the videos. It brought back good memories of watching you fly as WSIKF. Keep up to the good work.

I have been using a tool for making up the choreography. It is free software called Audacity. The source is http://audacity.sourceforge.net/. This lets you cut and paste and edit a music file and save it for mp3 or cd. What is really a nice feature is you can add text notes to the wave form of the music. So you can listen to the music and when you get to point where you should do something you can add a note (" axle"). That text is saved with the music file. Now you can come back to the music listen again and edit the text to change the choreography. I found it particularly helpful as a beginner and it was easy enough that it makes you want to plan your routine. Another great feature is that you can then export the text to Word or Excel or whatever and print out a crib sheet to take to the practice field. This is a very big help for someone who is not musical like me and it satisfies my need to engineer.

Thanks for the advice. I hope to go to the rec center for the first time tomorrow. The kite arrived last night, so I was able to get a few minutes on it this morning in the back yard. It is pretty neat how little it takes to fly this kite. Would be nice to get out there for some of the indoor events but that is probably not in the cards for this year. I have started a recruiting campaign here in Colorado but so far no takers. I think indoor flying is a seeing is believing problem. If we could get some demos from competent flyers I am sure he interest would happen.

Going to be starting indoor flying. It looks like I am the only one doing it in Colorado so I need help as usual. Are there any dual line indoor tutorials? What are the first skills to learn? What are the differences between outdoor and indoor? What is the best line length to learn on. I have a Skyburner INak on the way? Thanks

I need to get some of these finger lights. I saw them when at Seaside and heard that Geezer found them at a Walgreens. I have checked out several Walgreens but have not found them. I also heard that they are available on the net. They sure look like the best kite lighting system. Easy to attach, light, and not very expsensive. Where can we find them.

I like a variety of music. One thing I like is a slow ballad to see how slow I can fly and axle and cascade. Light winds help. There is one tune that I wish I could do justice to. It is called Soul Finger by the Bar Kays (1967), where were you then. This tune says flick flac, comete, cascade etc. It requires 9 of something two times.

The Hot Tricks competition at WSIKF was great. Congrats to Egan. My wife who standing amongst some newbies to kiting said that they were very confused by the competition and what the kites were doing. I think what would help at a festival like WSIKF would be about 15 minute demo of tricks before the competition. Have the anouncer describe an axle. Have one of the competitors show it a couple times. Describe Side Slide a Fade Flic Flak Cascade Comete and so on. The anounce could give a little description of the inputs and what the kite is doing. I think this would help the non flying audience. It is like when hockey came to Denver. The station covering the game would have tutorial sessions before the game and between periods. Now Denver is loaded with hockey experts who understand and appreciate the game. I think the same would be great for sport kite flying.

I like the concept of the bamboo skewers. Actually some with a blunt end and taper would be great to separate out loop and to loosen. Probably some sort of plastic stick would be best. I think sailors use something like this to undo knots and tangles. I think I am going to the 5 and dime and see what I can fine. Oops I mean the dollar store (miss the good old days).