review Revolution Kites Club 38

[makatakam]

Do this badly without help. Send us proof. Get a trophy for coming in last.

[Edmond Dragut]

ore second playing alone 👅

[John P]

One of the things that club 38 has, that appealed to me as a beginner, was structure. I don't fly a rev so the club is out but I would still like to put some structure around my learning. Has anyone put together a list of moves that build on each other in a logical sequence from beginner to advanced. I know the videos are split into 3 groups. Should I just follow that or is there something with more detail?

Thanks,

John P

[riffclown]

The KiteLife tutorials are a great start. Once you get the basics everything  else will literally start  to click for you.

 

[Brad Morris]

John, I am with you. A number of guys on this thread look down on Club 38 for different reasons that is no reason to discourage others! I bought my first quad in Feb of this year while in Texas at the end of my trip. The next day I returned to Iowa and have been flying alot ever since and have acquired 2 more quads but from then until now I have not seen one other person fly a quad. Club 38 has been a great help to me as it has given me something to challenge me each time I go to the field. I love KiteLife and the videos that John has done but Club 38 has its place too. I could learn so much more and so much faster If I had a group of guys to fly with but thats not the case. But, until then, club 38 will keep my interest. hang in there!!

[John Barresi]

I think it's matter of facets, technique vs tasks - I think concept of challenges is good, but the there is a discrepancy between flying patterns and actual teaching and understanding of the methods and technique, which is another matter entirely. Showing what do vs actually showing how to do it well.

Its all of value, if you use it holistically.

[riffclown]

10 hours ago, Brad Morris said:

John, I am with you. A number of guys on this thread look down on Club 38 for different reasons that is no reason to discourage others! I bought my first quad in Feb of this year while in Texas at the end of my trip. The next day I returned to Iowa and have been flying alot ever since and have acquired 2 more quads but from then until now I have not seen one other person fly a quad. Club 38 has been a great help to me as it has given me something to challenge me each time I go to the field. I love KiteLife and the videos that John has done but Club 38 has its place too. I could learn so much more and so much faster If I had a group of guys to fly with but thats not the case. But, until then, club 38 will keep my interest. hang in there!!

The only issue that @jmp23834 was experiencing was Club38 wouldn't evaluate because he doesn't have a Revolution branded kite. Club38 has a few inconsistencies with what the quad world uses and calls some maneuvers but it's still good training. It just requires you to own a Revolution kite to advance. @jmp23834  I'll loan you the Rev we discussed for you to use to progress in Club 38 if you'd like. 

[John P]

Actually the sequence of learning is more important than club 38. For example to do a figure 8 I need to learn left turns and right turns. That's a pretty simple one. I was flying with someone yesterday and learned that there are several types of turns. Just having a list of moves would be good. I plan to go through the videos and put one together.

[Bunduki Vlieger]

I also do the Club 38. It is always a good start for beginners. But I agree @riffclownand @John Barresi. Here you will find the better training and the better teacher.

But to answer your question: Maybe Jst-4fn Basic Team Flying-Manual will help you. There are some patterns to practice: https://revkites.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/JST-4-FN-team-standaard-English-1.000.pdf

[makatakam]

4 hours ago, jmp23834 said:

Actually the sequence of learning is more important than club 38. For example to do a figure 8 I need to learn left turns and right turns. That's a pretty simple one. I was flying with someone yesterday and learned that there are several types of turns. Just having a list of moves would be good. I plan to go through the videos and put one together.

Unfortunately, the learning "sequence" is not strictly linear, where learning one move makes the next one possible. It is a branching structure where learning one move makes two others possible and learning those two makes four others possible and learning those makes eight possible. So, assigning any particular order to what you learn is extremely subjective. Some folks learn certain moves more easily than others, but may have difficulty with what comes easily to those others for various reasons including but not limited to their physical structure. For instance, a person with long arms will be able to throw an axel more readily than someone with short arms. That's why the tutorials on this forum are arranged in groups by (very) general skill level and explained in detail. Club 38 says "do a moonwalk and send us a video", whereas JB actually explains how to do it. Your choice -- figure it out for yourself, or have someone walk you through it. Makes no difference to me. No matter what I do, you will get what you want from flying a quad and reach the level of fun you require. Fun is what it's all about, so don't sweat the little stuff.

[John Barresi]

5 hours ago, riffclown said:

a few inconsistencies with what the quad world uses and calls some maneuvers

Understatement for sure, but I agree.

The distinction also worth noting is that Club 38 is at the end, a marketing program... My intent here is to bolster the long term health and "lifespan" of pilots with actual knowledge that can be used - we never say "if you can't do it this you're doing it wrong", which is a recurring theme I've heard over there... The tact here is "do what you can imagine, and here is what will help".

[John Barresi]

For what its worth, I do intend to produce some videos with exercise maneuvers, but nothing "tiered" in any other way except professed difficulty - my style isn't conducive to "passing levels" and top, bottom or supposedly "mastered master's mastering masters the master level" tiers.

[Brad Morris]

That would be excellent! thank You!

[riffclown]

48 minutes ago, Brad Morris said:

That would be excellent! thank You!

If this was referring to me, I think you misread my intent.. My offer was to @jmp23834 since I know where he lives and we frequent the same flying spots.. He also doesn't own a Rev which excludes him from Club 38.

[Brad Morris]

sorry riffclown, I was reffering to John's post about bringing out some new videos.

[Bunduki Vlieger]

5 hours ago, John Barresi said:I do intend to produce some videos with exercise maneuvers, but nothing "tiered" in any other way except professed difficulty

I would like see that 🙂

[riffclown]

10 hours ago, Brad Morris said:

sorry riffclown, I was reffering to John's post about bringing out some new videos.

My misunderstanding then..  Sorry.

[frob]

On 10/30/2020 at 7:37 AM, John P said:

Actually the sequence of learning is more important than club 38. For example to do a figure 8 I need to learn left turns and right turns. That's a pretty simple one. I was flying with someone yesterday and learned that there are several types of turns. Just having a list of moves would be good. I plan to go through the videos and put one together.

Then what you described is the opposite of what Club 38 offers.

While the other levels they presented are somewhat of a progression, they aren't linear. They won't tell what the other "skills" are when asked, saying you must progress through each level before unlocking the next. When I've asked a few times over the years I've been told that I could easily work through the videos to be declared a master, but they won't disclose what they all are. 

I was one of the first people to publicly view the program, one of my kites included their flier and I posted in their forums about a month before the program was officially launched.  They were charging at first, and eventually made the program free. I ended up going through the first four levels, and don't think it was worth the small investment.  Makatakam also paid up at the time, and I'm not sure how far along he went.

Just as examples...

Level 1 which is publicly available are all about the core skills, but badly taught.  Setup is important, but the official Rev video is garbage. Watch JB's videos on line management and setup/teardown.  The next skills of launch, turn, and back down do need to be taught first, but Joe's videos are not good at demonstrating them.  In addition to the KiteLife videos, there are plenty of others on YouTube that are better tutorials. Sills 5 of landing on feet nicely and 6 of flipping over are duplicates of skills 3 and 4, just explained differently (and badly, struggling to keep the clips in frame and not showing hands and kite simultaneously).

Their skills 9 and 13 for spinning, what he verbally describes is actually called a bicycle turn as he says the kite shouldn't drop at all, but then he doesn't describe the bicycle turn, instead he just describes a basic spin done quickly which is guaranteed to lose height. He then verbally describes the skill but mixes up three different types of turns, then he attempts to demonstrate them; he described that he was going to do a 360 hovering in place (a bicycle turn), does a quick turn that doesn't hover, does a half turn that loses height, does a lost-control 540 that drops considerably, and struggles to maintain control at several points, but never properly demonstrates what he described as the goal.  So many FB posts ask the same question about how to not let their skills 9 and 13 do a spin spin without dropping so much height, but because he explains it as a fast turn nobody will do it as the bicycle motion required. When people recommend developing the skills required for a bicycle turn, specifically working on hovering in all orientations especially inverted, they get poo-pooed saying those are later skills that don't need to be developed yet.  

It isn't until #20 that he gets to reversing the kite, but it is a skill needed for 11, 12, 15, etc. I'm curious what their higher level skills are, but based on the videos people post on their FB page as people pass off the skills, they're all just the basics of control.

 

There are so many better resources, even distributed directly from Rev (but not their creation). Their flying techniques page is okay.  Rev is also one of many sites to host copies of the old flying manuals, although they didn't author them.  While they're great salesfolks, they aren't great teachers.

[makatakam]

14 hours ago, frob said:

They were charging at first, and eventually made the program free. I ended up going through the first four levels, and don't think it was worth the small investment.  Makatakam also paid up at the time, and I'm not sure how far along he went.

I paid my $50 fee and received a white Polo shirt with a Revolution logo and the key to open the first video. I had already figured out what it was from hints Joe Hadzicki had given in the promo video for the program and figured out the second also. I looked at the titles for all the levels and realized I had already progressed beyond anything I could learn from Club 38, and because I'm basically very lazy, decided I didn't want to do all that was necessary to get the hatpins for each completed level. I was also disappointed with the quality and competence demonstrated in the videos. To be perfectly blunt, and meaning no disrespect to Joe, but I felt the instructor should be better at what he teaches than his students. Then, when the program became free after I had paid, well, I was even more "disappointed".

I would also like to comment here that a spin that does not lose altitude is not technically a "bicycle spin". A bicycle moves sideways, or in some other direction as it spins with the spin in the same direction as the movement of the kite. When the kite is made to spin in the direction opposite the movement of the kite it is called a "moonwalk". A spin that maintains altitude as it spins is just a spin that hovers even though the motion of the hands is similar to pedaling a bicycle.

[John Barresi]

I beg to differ on one point only - "bicycle" spin does indeed indicate a rotation around the center with no loss of altitude, a traveling bicycle is more or less the same principle but with controlled movement / direction change around the wind window while spinning.

Never heard the term moonwalk used officially, I'd guess it's more localized colloquial.

[DonFibonacci]

On 10/30/2020 at 5:28 PM, John Barresi said:

For what its worth, I do intend to produce some videos with exercise maneuvers, but nothing "tiered" in any other way except professed difficulty - my style isn't conducive to "passing levels" and top, bottom or supposedly "mastered master's mastering masters the master level" tiers.

I'd love to see what you come up with.

Inspired by two things - your comment in "Rotational Drills" about using them as warmups and your mantra of "don't judge success or failure until you've done five in a row", I developed my own sort of "warm-up" routine that I run through at the start of every session.  I've been surprised at how quickly I've improved the individual skills. 

In contrast to Club 38, where you do a pretty long pattern stringing together sometimes unrelated or out-of-progression elements, I'm doing quick repetitions of smaller skills - 20 reps of X, then 20 of Y, now back to X, but in the other direction, etc.  It reminds me of penmanship in grade school - rather than writing a paragraph, I'm filling a whole page with a single letter.

The main advantage, at least for me, is I stay hyper-focused on refining each skill in its turn.  Also, I feel like it's more directly building muscle memory for each skill.

[John Barresi]

Somewhat related...

https://kitelife.com/2012/06/28/when-it-becomes-routine/

https://kitelife.com/2012/03/30/flying-with-intent/