Des Posted January 21, 2011 Report Share Posted January 21, 2011 Hi folks, I've just moved over from the power kiting world (bought a Level One JJF) and am keen to start learning those cool looking tricks I've seen on YouTube and such. I've checked out Randyg's and Eolo's video collections. I'm very impressed. But where do I start?? Which are the least complex tricks in your opinion? As I'll be mostly self-teaching I want to start off gradually, gaining confidence as I go, rather than getting completely fustrated with some trick that I souldn't have been attempting anyway. Thanks in advance Des Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
windofchange Posted January 21, 2011 Report Share Posted January 21, 2011 Well, you got a great kite to learn with! That's a good start. The JJF is awesome and very capable - so if you aren't getting a trick, it can't be blamed on the kite. LOL Anyways, what you want to do is start with the basics, landings, stalls and basic control maneuvers such as drawing patterns in the air. Not just circles but squares, rectangles, octagons etc... This will give you a better feel of the kite and how it reacts to your controls - which will help you learn what the kite needs (for input) to get it to perform the tricks. This doesn't mean that all you can do is fly the kite around for months, you can still work on pretty much any trick but learning these basics will make everything else so much easier. One of the first tricks that most people learn (and possibly one of the easiest) is the Axle. You do need to have learned how to stall the kite before you can perform this trick (and most others). The axle is super simple to do, but can take time in learning how to do it so that it looks awesome. Basically, stall the kite on one edge, get the kite level with the ground and give the outside line a pop while throwing slack to the inside line and the kite will rotate itself over the lines and open back up. From there you can start doing other tricks such as the Cascade, Axle to Fade and others. The Axle to Fade is a great way to set up the Jacobs Ladder as well. Although they are not really called tricks, one of the best things that I learned when starting was ground recoveries. These are tricks that you do to get the kite back in the air after crashing (or messing up a trick). You can pretty much relaunch the kite from the ground in "almost" any position. This saves you from having to walk to your kite every single time you mess up a trick - which can be tiresome, boring and frustrating. I highly suggest mastering ground recoveries before really getting into any tricks. Hope this helps get you started. The funnest thing about sport kites is that you can learn the tricks fairly quickly but then you can spend years mastering them. Oh.....one more thing. Coming from a Power Kiting background myself, the hardest thing to learn was that these kites require a super delicate and precise touch. Something that will be very hard to un-learn from the way power kites need to be flown. Think of it as Power Kite = nuclear warhead....sport kites = laser beam. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobB Posted January 22, 2011 Report Share Posted January 22, 2011 Hi there... Right off... I broke more kites learning ground recoveries than learning tricks. The 'walk of contemplation' isn't as bad as a broken kite. Just want to throw that out there. Now that I can do them, ground recoveries do save alot of time. One move to stay away from is the dead launch... Stalls & side slides are pretty easy to learn. Lazy Susans, flic-flacs & fades are also some of my first tricks. It took me around a year to learn how to axel, another year to learn the 540... it's tough to learn from videos, so if you can find someone to fly with, that would be a huge help. One group of videos you'll find very helpful would be... http://kitebox.net/mama74/ http://www.youtube.com/user/DPmama74 These really helped me, but watch anything you can find. There are hints and tips in all the videos out there. I'm anxiously awaiting the KiteLife 2 line tutorials... ~Rob. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Des Posted January 22, 2011 Author Report Share Posted January 22, 2011 Thanks Windofchange and Rob!! Great advice. Just what I was looking for. Clear and concise. Now all that is left is for me to practice, and practice and even more practice!! And as you pointed out, windofchange, there'll be no excuse for blaming the kite!!! -Des (edit: Just found this link http://www.aerostarsportkites.com/flying_tips.htm which describes a step by step approach in agreement with your own. ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cgregurich73 Posted January 28, 2011 Report Share Posted January 28, 2011 I fly power kies and do sport kites i found on the prism web site they have a sections strictly for tricks videos and diagrams good luck i just got back into kites after a absent of 10 yrs and im learning all over.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
windofchange Posted January 28, 2011 Report Share Posted January 28, 2011 Although it has been mentioned time and time again, it never hurts to bring it up once more. One of the best resources that I have ever found on slack line tricks is Randy Greenway's sportkite blog. He has many videos free to download and use. Randy G's Sportkite Blog It's a page that everyone should at least have bookmarked! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Barresi Posted January 28, 2011 Report Share Posted January 28, 2011 Agreed, I learned most of my tricks initially from Randy's videos. I'm also working on a series of dual line video tutorials which should be available fairly soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_(on-light)110px.png.f871ac6915a5dfb149c2fb26bbaf0493.png)
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.