The Four main turns and Toeside Riding
Tips from Mike Smith (2x British Kitesurfing Champion)

Working through the following steps, you’ll have 5 or 6 new ways to turn around, before you know it, you’ll be able to ride toeside and you’ll be able to get to and from toeside from the carve turn to the 180 ollie, so read on and keep learning!

Step 1 – Stop and go!

When you first get up and go, the usual way to stop is to fall off, crash and burn and potentially crash the kite. Once you get over this stage by learning to control the power of the kite, you should be able to drop back into the water-start position and then be ready to come back to where you came from. “So how do I do this?” I hear you ask, read on:

You may have done this already but now it’s time to do it deliberately.

Stop and Go - Kite Surfing Lessons
So you’re riding along in one direction. To stop ;
  1. It doesn’t matter where the kite is in the window; just edge really hard, by putting loads of pressure on your back foot. Obviously if the kite is lower in the window, you’ll have more leverage over the kite whereas if the kite is high in the window it’ll want to pull you off your edge and down wind. So edge hard, stop the board and drop back into the water.
  2. As you drop back into the water drift the kite slowly up to the neutral zone. Keeping the board in-between you and the kite.
  3. Now you’re in the water start position, and are ready to go in the new direction.
Kitesurfing with the Waterboard
4. Dive the kite the other way and head back to the beach!

Slide Turn : Kite Surfing Lessons
Step 2 – Slide turn

This is just an extension of the above, before you drop down into the water, dive the kite in the new direction so you slide, stop and then ride away.

  1. Approach it the same as above, edging to slow your board speed down.
  2. Before you sink into the water, drift the kite over your head making sure you’ve scrubbed off all of your board speed. When done properly, this will give you enough lift to keep you in the standing position. In this turn you should drift the kite up to the neutral zone gently, as you stop, you’ll dive the kite aggressively in the new direction.

If you drift it with too much speed, you will get lofted and if you don’t move it aggressively enough, you’ll sink back into the water and do a stop turn. As no one day is the same as the other I can’t tell you how much or little you need to move the kite, but with experience you’ll get the feel for it. Basically the more powered up you are, the gentler you have to be with the kite. The less power you have, the more aggressive you have to be.

  1. With your feet, you’ve edged to slow yourself down. As you stop, shift your weight from your old back foot to your new back foot and face the other way.
  2. Dive the kite in the new direction before you sink in to the water.

Now this is where it becomes interesting. By learning the following turns, you’ll have to learn to ride toeside as you will have to enter or exit the turn on this edge. So for the next two steps, it doesn’t matter which one you learn first.

Step 3 – Toeside carve

This turn is very similar to a bottom turn in surfing or a toeside carve in snowboarding and when done correctly, looks awesome.

  • Ride along on your heelside edge as normal.
  • Pull hard on your backhand, turning the kite through 180 degrees so it is facing away from your direction of travel. It sounds like the wrong thing to do, but if you have the kite too high, you’ll get pulled up off the water and will probably crash.
  • As the kite starts to turn, break off your edge by standing more upright and keep the nose of the board pointing at the kite. This will ensure that when the kite is directly downwind of you, in the top part of the powerzone.
 Toeside Riding : Kite Surfing Lessons

Don’t worry too much about this because you’ll be travelling directly downwind so the kite won’t feel too powered.

  • As the kite comes around to the other side of the window, keep carving around, putting more pressure on the toes of your new back foot. A good tip if your having trouble at this point is to take off your back (trailing) hand and try to reach down to drag it in the water, this will get you leaning over your toeside edge.
  • Once on your toeside edge, start carving up wind.
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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.

 
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