Basic Jumping This is what everyone sees and what everyone strives to do. It looks cool and the amount of hangtime you can get is unbelievable! I can remember the first few jumps I tried, very sketchy, long, low and fast!! So either you’re in this position where you’re jumping sucks, you haven’t tried any yet, or every now and then you pop a huge one and then all the others are long and low. This is how you get that pop to send you up high and to get a smooth, silky landing. There are three components to any basic jump: Kite movement, board control and timing. If you get any one of these three wrong, the jump will go Pete Tong every time! So read on and learn about each part of jumping.

Timing Most people know about the two parts above, but if you get the timing wrong, you’ll crash and burn or have scary moments quite a lot, so we’ll go over this first. One of the big misconceptions in kiting is the timing in jumping. Most people think that you send the kite back into the window, then you get yanked into the air and finally you pull on your front hand to bring the kite back over your head and down to land. This is partially true but not wholly true.

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The timing goes like this, you pull on your backhand, sending the kite back and up into the window whilst loading up your edge. Just before you get yanked off the water you spring up releasing your edge. As you do this, you pull on your front hand to bring the kite up above your head giving you lift (instead of swinging you round like a pendulum). Once you’re floating up you pause the kite above your head, until you start to fall. As you glide down, you again pull on your front hand hard. This will give you the forward momentum needed to land planning, instead of splashing down. So here are the basic points:

1. Pull on your back hand and edge harder
2. Release your edge and pull your front hand
3. Park the kite above your head as you drift
4. Pull hard on your front hand as you come in to land

As with any jumping sport, you start small and then work your way up, basically conditioning your senses. Imagine doing a massive 40ft jump the first time. 99.9% of people would panic and probably loose control of the kite, crashing hard. But if the same person were to start small and build up to 40ft, by the time they got there they’d know what it feels like and would know what to do up there to come back down safely.

Kite movement

Now you know the timing, we can break down the kite movement even more. As you start to think about jumping, imagine travelling to the left (Port tack). You’ll start with the kite at about 10:30 in the window. As you start to load up your edge, you’ll send the kite back into the window by pulling on your back hand (right hand in this case). Send it across and up to about 12:30. As it starts to pull load up the edge even more. Just before it pulls you off the water, release your edge and pull on your front hand. This will drift the kite up to the neutral zone (above your head), and will give you the lift taking you directly up. As the kite is directly above your head, as you start to come down, you’ll drift down like a feather instead of dropping out of the sky like a lead weight! Just before you come into land, pull hard on your front hand as you would in a water start, this will give you the forward momentum needed to land planning. So on port tack: Kite at 10:30 Kite to 12:30 Kite to 12ish Kite to 9:30 Board control So this is one of the parts of jumping that is well hidden. Unless you know what you are looking for, it is hard to see what a good rider does in comparison to someone who is learning how to jump.

Basically any good rider will edge harder as they send the kite back into the window, just before leaving the water they will release their edge, jumping into the air. As they do this, they will send the kite forwards and up in the window.

I like to call this edge and release, for obvious reasons!! When you get this sorted and combine it with the kite movement, your jumps will transform into high floaty controlled jumps compared to the old low fast swinger jumps!! But to get this technique right you have to put the time into doing it again and again. So try the edge and release technique that follows.

Make sure you are able to stay upwind keeping the kite stationary whilst riding. With the kite at about 45º, stand up putting more weight on your front foot and ride towards the kite. Do this for about 2 seconds then lean back, put pressure on your back foot edging harder. Then repeat this technique again and again. The key to getting it right is to put on a progressive edge as you come back upwind. This means you’ll progressively edge harder, then suddenly release going back towards the kite, then once again progressively edge harder. The more aggressively you release your edge, the more likely you are to leave the water without moving the kite at all. This is what we call pop and it is what you’re aiming for.

1. Stand up and ride towards the kite
2. Progressively edge harder by leaning back and putting more pressure on your back foot
3. Release your edge by standing up suddenly
4. Repeat the above

Loosing power when going towards the kite – You’re underpowered, put up a bigger kite.

Loosing control as you go towards the kite and getting dragged off downwind even more – You’re overpowered and need to size down your kite.

You stall as soon as you edge harder – You’re either underpowered or you are putting too much pressure on your back foot, stalling the kite. Come in with more speed and progressively edge harder.

You’re not popping off the water – You don’t have to do this to start with but slowly build up to getting in little hops. Try carrying more speed, progressively edge harder, then quickly stand up, almost jumping up and forward.

Once you get off the water, you can try putting a grab into it, as if you are doing an ollie on a skateboard, so with no kite movement. So just remember to keep your hand in the middle of the bar whilst doing this so the kite doesn’t move in the window as you concentrate on controlling the board.

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	©2006 The Waterboard Ltd Inc. All Rights Reserved ©2005 Fluid Edge ©2005 Mike Smith Many Thanks to Mike Smith for providing this article.