I've had my 1.5 SLE (full sail) for about six weeks and fly whenever time and wind permits.
As Wayne mentions, I'm finding "time on lines" is making an enormous difference. Even forgetting all the theory and flying just for fun causes you to pick up fundamental things almost unintentionally. Simple things like doing a dive-stop and then holding the kite in the 'stop' position is indirectly teaching me inverted hovering without realising it. The same with doing inverted launches, and then holding the pose just off the ground. This is type of stuff that is working for me. You find a range of movement that works (and equally what doesn't work!), and then you find you use little corrections over time to hone it further. Like playing a car rally game, keeping the car off the mud and on the track.
I've watched the vids, stressed over the theory, but I'm tending to find the more I relax and do things for fun and games the more I'm becoming familiar with 'correcting' the kite while flying in the sky. In doing so I'm gaining real muscle memory of the handling and physics of the kite without thinking too much about it.
That said, watching JB's vids, going out flying, then watching the vids again, etc. allows you to reinforce what you're doing and pick up vital points in the videos that you hadn't picked up the previous time you watched them. Really fundamental issues, like, when hovering, keeping the lines connected to the highest edges of the kite closer toward you in order to give the kite lift and retain its vertical position in the sky. I missed that when viewing the (JB hovers) video the first few times around, as I hadn't built up enough experience of handling the kite to appreciate it fully, but when I was ready to ingest it and the point finally hammered home it was an eureka moment and I'm now applying it on the field to improve my hovers and switch between them.
I can't do a full 360º bicycle yet, as hovers must come first. Bicycles are a transition between all hover positions, so trying to do the former without learning the latter is running before walking.
Attempting to watch and follow the hands, handles and lines of others do transitional hovers in tutorial videos can be like watching someone juggling rubik's cubes while solving them at the same time though! But already I'm getting glimmers of achieving static hovers in different positions when actually going out there and flying for myself. So without stressing about it too much, learning the hovers and later transitioning between them in a fluid motion will likely come in their own time, given experience and more muscle memory. Just need to have fun and tease it out.
As others advise, if you haven't already, use the 3-wrap frame instead of the chunky SLE. The 3-wrap is lighter and more flexible and the kite is a lot more responsive.
Enjoy flying! It gets better and better.
