The skills you learn at this stage in your kitesurf lesson are crucial navigation points that need to be in place BEFORE you begin practicing the waterstart.
“I already know how to bodydrag, I just need to practice riding.” We hear this a lot from students at varying stages in their kitesurfing progression.
But bodydragging, by definition, is just getting pulled around in the water by your kite. What you, the person learning to kitesurf, actually need is the ability to navigate- to be in control of where you are and which direction you are moving.
And yes, we get it. Most people want to spend as little time bodydragging as possible! Many students (and unfortunately many kitesurf instructors as well) tend to rush through this part in order to “get on the board” as soon as possible.
After watching thousands of students going through the learning process, the conclusion is inevitable:
The better you get at bodydragging, the faster your progress will be with riding. The skills you learn at this stage are the ones you will need for riding. So pay those dues, and invest the time to get those skills down. It will pay off later, many times over.
A good rule of thumb is that a person can be said to be in control of their kite if they can work their way upwind at a high enough angle, as well as to direction their motion in the points across the wind and downwind. This holds true whether bodydragging or riding.
In this video I explain some of the basic kite control skills that need to be developed before you can start working on this.
These would include being able to move the kite around the edge of the window at minimum power, a solid awareness of where the across the wind line is, and the ability to “look past the kite” to see the bigger picture.
From there we look at specific strategies to minimize the time you spend bodydragging, so that you can get back to your board quickly and efficiently, and get back to practicing riding.
We do this because- The better you are at bodydragging, the less you have to bodydrag.
