Sport, Trick and Freestyle Kite Flying Forum

Moderators: Craig, Andy S, Jason

 
thomasnbec
Topic Author
Posts: 8
Joined: Thu Jun 30, 2016 7:14 am

Trying to learn

Thu Jun 30, 2016 1:14 pm

Hi there I started with dual line kites a couple of years ago with a HQ Yukon then purchased a prism quantum then a benson superfly.
This is the hardest hobby I've ever tried to learn.
I watched the Dodd gross YouTube lessons bought the prism DVDs and am trying to just get a snap stall done
I'm based in Chesterfield so have easy access to hills for flying in the Peak District.
Every time I try to stall the kite just shoots of skyward. Maybe it stalls for fractions of seconds but no way can I get a complete pass across the wind window
I've tried in light winds but struggle to keep the kite flying in strong winds which you would class as kite flying weather it's even harder
I've looked but there are no groups to go and learn from.
Are there any basic tips I should be aware of to give me the best chance
Cheers for any advice
 
User avatar
KaoS
FA Supporter
FA Supporter
Posts: 217
Joined: Fri May 26, 2006 5:28 am

Re: Trying to learn

Fri Jul 01, 2016 1:37 am

Most of the Dodd Gross and Prism videos were filmed using "full size" kites (i.e. at least 7 feet wingspan or greater.) from late 90's, early 00's. The kites from back then were well suited to aggressive punchy hand movement manouevres.

Current designs (especially the Superfly) are built with modern tricks in mind. This means they are much less likely to just sit pasted to the sky in a stall. Some will fall onto their backs (turtle), some will even roll all the way round, some will just try to continue flying forwards.

Bridle setting has a fair bit to do with behaviour in an attempt to stall. Lengthening the section of bridle between the towpoint and the upper leading edge (uphaul leg) will make the kite less likely to fly forward and more likely to remain in a stall. Even so, you have to help by reducing the wind force on the kite. WALK (or run) FORWARD while trying to hold the stall.

I suspect you will get best results from your Quantum. The Yukon is a bit small to learn advanced moves on, the Superfly is just not the right sort of kite - a bit like trying to drive in London rush hour in a Formula 1 car.

Hope this helps
Kevin Sanders

Willunga
South Australia
 
thomasnbec
Topic Author
Posts: 8
Joined: Thu Jun 30, 2016 7:14 am

Re: Trying to learn

Fri Jul 01, 2016 6:16 am

that helps loads thanks
All the info i have read or watched states you have to get the stall dialled in before attempting more advanced tricks
could you give me some advice as to which tricks i should be trying with the superfly?
i hope its not the case that i need to buy another kite :-D :-D :-D
 
User avatar
honchoboy
Posts: 247
Joined: Wed Jul 20, 2011 12:54 pm
Location: Leeds, UK

Re: Trying to learn

Fri Jul 01, 2016 12:33 pm

Hi there.

First off you don't need to go and buy anymore kites, you have a capable bunch there which you can trick with.

You clearly have what it takes to progress in this hobby, the first being patience alongside persistence and the second being not afraid to ask for advice. These attributes will serve you well =D>

I'm not that good at providing concise answers to questions so please prepare yourself for a bout of typing diarrhoea. Most fliers find it difficult to explain exactly what they are doing to get a trick to work as it just becomes part of 'muscle memory' but I'll try to give you some pointers.

I feel the snap stall is often overlooked as being a pretty tough thing to get right. When you have been flying a while it is easy to see it merely as a way to get into another trick, or a way to stop the kite whereever in the window you choose, as opposed to a trick in its own right.

As Kevin has already stated often the answer to most tricks success lies in the skill of using your feet correctly. This can feel odd at first as the three things we are more likely to be thinking about when flying are a) watching the kite, b) using your hands and c) not crashing.

Let's consider how a 'normal' kite flies. The wind hits the sail and provides forward drive due to you holding the other end of the lines. That is what allows us to fly the kite around the sky. Now trick flying has an extra element to this, we need to remove that forward drive by stalling it in order to perform a trick. We therefore need to dump the wind out of the sail. Now this loss of air can only be a temporary thing. Sooner or later the wind is going to get the better of you and repower the kite and thus send it off flying again. All we can try and do is prolong this latter part from happening.

Now lets break the snap stall down into 3 elements. The first is the hand movement to dump the air, the second being prolonging this dump, and the third is reading when you can't hold it any longer. We'll forget the latter for now as this becomes more relevant when you are using the snap stall to get into another trick. So we are left with the first two. From reading your post I think you have the first part more or less sorted. You can get the kite to stop. The problem lies in prolonging this 'stoppage'. Therefore we need to use our feet and move/lunge/run forward towards the kite. If you are already doing this then you need to be doing it more.

Trick flying is sometimes called slack line flying, I find this a much better explanation to describe what we are doing. Rather than taut lines we need slack lines to allow us to trick (ok this is not totally applicable to all tricks). Yes, quick wrists will give us some slack but coupled with feet we will then get more slack. If you watch a good flyer they very rarely are standing in one place. There is a constant ebb and flow of moving backwards and forwards.This comes from a feel for what the wind is doing and practice will achieve this.

So the more you can walk/run into the kite the longer that snap stall is going to hold. 8-10mph wind is what most fliers enjoy. Any more and we have to do more leg work and above 15mph it can become nigh on impossible to get enough slack into the lines.

Here are a few tips that may help you. Please bear with me on the first one, it's not perfectly accurate but hopefully you'll get the point lol.

1. Imagine you are in an orchestra and you are the percussionist. You have two kettle drums in front of you, one on each side. We are holding the sticks in front of us waiting for the nod from the conductor to do a 'boom, boom'; one boom on each drum. We get the nod and we quickly hit each drum one after another. This wants to be a 'boom, boom' as in what you may hear at the end of a joke, but quicker. As soon as we have done it we then raise the sticks to await the next nod from the conductor. This is more or less the hand movements we need to snap the kite. If done right you are going to hear the kite make a particular noise, a bit like 'chick, chick'.

2. Sometimes I think I am walking/running forward enough but maybe i'm not. A great tip my flying buddy did with me was to lay something on the ground right next to my feet. He then would make me do the trick and then stop moving as soon as the kite flew off. Without looking around he would ask me to guess how far I had moved forward. I was very rarely right. I always thought I had moved more forward than what I actually had. After a while he made me repeat the process but he would lay another marker on the floor or where he felt I should be running to. This really opened my eyes as to how much slack can sometimes be required. I've seen people sprint many, many metres just for one trick.

3. Try and video yourself either from behind or from the side. It doesn't matter how ugly the flying looks. That is not the purpose. The benefit comes from watching it back and you may realise that what you thought you were doing was actually nothing like what you were really doing. I learnt a lot from doing this.

4. Try walking into the kite as you are doing the wrist movements (and then continue moving forwards) rather than after.

5. Flying on your own can be very lonely and soul destroying if you are struggling with something. This is often what leads to people moving onto different hobbies. Flying with others will bring you on leaps and bounds, and you will learn way more from watching the flier than the kite.

Now I see that you live in Chesterfield. There are a bunch of us (NMKG) who regularly fly and are not far from you, all based around Leeds way, so you are about an hours drive away. Why don't you meet up with us? I am confident that at the end of the day you would be driving back with a smile on your face. Failing that we could meet half way, travel down your way or come and join us at Filey in September. You can click on the link in my signature to find out more or visit our website here (please note this is a work in progress and has a lot of work needed before it's finished, life just seems to be getting in the way at the minute).

Don't get too hung up on a particular trick. Sometimes you just need to put it down for a while and try some other move. You can still trick without being perfect at snap stalls. We always tend to teach people how to axel first as its pretty easy to get your head around and is a great confidence booster.

Have you spotted the Tricky Wiki link at the top of this forum? It is a list of tricks and advice on how to achieve them.

Whatever you choose to do, do not give up. You'll get there :biggrin:
Ian
Northern Monkeys Kite Group

UK STACK Freestyle Champion '18
 
thomasnbec
Topic Author
Posts: 8
Joined: Thu Jun 30, 2016 7:14 am

Re: Trying to learn

Sat Jul 02, 2016 6:14 am

Thanks for the help
PM sent
 
User avatar
SkyRags
Posts: 188
Joined: Wed Feb 13, 2013 1:32 am
Location: On Raumati Beach, New Zealand...preferably ALWAYS

Re: Trying to learn

Tue Jul 05, 2016 9:34 am

The Snap Stall was one trick I tried constantly to master - over and over again it would frustrate me - even reading constant articles, watching latest videos etc etc

I would recommend reading the article "Conceptual Kiting" in the stickies section of the Prism forums. This will give you insight into kite relationship

The other video that helped me a lot is the older Prism video (Before freestyle pilot) - Mark does an exercise where he has the kite on the ground, tips down, nose up and practices lifting the kite into a stall just above the ground and holding it.

This teaches you a different sensitivity and helps a long way towards snap stalls and side slides


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
In the bag : KaoS Kites; Charisma, Benson SuperFly, Jest of Eve Talon UL
 
User avatar
jaydub
Posts: 1228
Joined: Tue Apr 17, 2007 7:32 am

Re: Trying to learn

Tue Jul 05, 2016 11:44 am

I found the Dodd Gross and Prism videos held me back almost as much as they helped me, as the kites have moved on, as Kevin (Kaos) has intimated.

Modern kites tend to need much smaller quicker movements. Very much a drumbeat for a snap stall.

I'm still not great at holding a stall and my side slides are almost laughable.

I'm on the Chesterfield side of Stockport, so maybe able to meet up some time, although I'm generally limited to an hour or two on odd Saturdays when the wind is suitable (which this year has been hardly ever!)
 
damp_weather
Posts: 184
Joined: Fri Sep 14, 2007 6:25 pm
Location: Near Gatwick, UK

Re: Trying to learn

Tue Jul 05, 2016 3:41 pm

Disclaimer: the most modern kites I own are Skyburner Ociuses. Have never had the chance to fly a Superfly.

The Snap Stall was described in Prism's "Advanced Way to Fly" video (the same one that SkyRags mentions). - It has a segment where you close your eyes and hear the drumbeat of the hands moving quickly. - That was how I learned the snapstall. - However I didn't mention it earlier as I can't find it reproduced on youtube. (In contrast, much of Prism's later "Freestyle Pilot" and earlier "Way to Fly" videos are on youtube.)

Yes, I too read again and again that one should learn the stall first.
Trouble is, after practicing and practicing the snap stall and stall and float, and I think getting rather good at them, I didn't find that I could do other tricks or learn them easier. - So I can't confirm from personal experience that one should learn the stall before other tricks. :-(

Anyway Thomas, you have members of the Northern Monkeys Kite group near you, which should be very helpful in learning tricks....
 
thomasnbec
Topic Author
Posts: 8
Joined: Thu Jun 30, 2016 7:14 am

Re: Trying to learn

Wed Jul 06, 2016 9:23 pm

cheers for your advice
i can't seem to find the prism forums to read conceptual kite flying
next time i go flying I'm gonna try flip flacs
hopefully ill get chance to meet up with the Northern Kite Monkeys flying yourself its hard to know what your doing wrong
going to cornwall in 2 weeks so should get some nice steady coastal wind and we're only 5 mins from the beach. hoping for some decent weather.
should i stick with 1 kite to learn on?
the quantum is robust but seems to perform better in stronger wind
the superfly feels better to fly but is way more delicate don't really want to crash it loads as it will cost a fortune in spares
 
User avatar
misterbleepy
FA Supporter
FA Supporter
Posts: 2864
Joined: Fri Aug 20, 2004 10:29 pm
Location: near Newquay, Cornwall
Contact:

Re: Trying to learn

Wed Jul 06, 2016 9:40 pm

thomasnbec wrote:
going to cornwall in 2 weeks so should get some nice steady coastal wind and we're only 5 mins from the beach. hoping for some decent weather.

Which part of Cornwall are you staying at?
Keith B
--
Kite Tricks mind map

bleep bleep bleep
 
thomasnbec
Topic Author
Posts: 8
Joined: Thu Jun 30, 2016 7:14 am

Re: Trying to learn

Wed Jul 06, 2016 9:42 pm

St Merry Nr Padstow
 
User avatar
misterbleepy
FA Supporter
FA Supporter
Posts: 2864
Joined: Fri Aug 20, 2004 10:29 pm
Location: near Newquay, Cornwall
Contact:

Re: Trying to learn

Wed Jul 06, 2016 10:13 pm

St. Merryn?
If so, I guess the beaches nearby are Treyarnon and Constantine that face west, and Harlyn that faces north. I've flown at Constantine before - big and open, and at Treyarnon, which is much smaller (but has an awesome tidal pool up on the rocks).
Not flown at Harlyn, but that's more to do with the fact I've only been there once.
I'd be happy to try and hook up for a fly, but I do work full time, so it would have to be an evening, and would be easier if you were down in the Newquay area (Crantock can be a good flying beach)
Keith B

--

Kite Tricks mind map



bleep bleep bleep
 
thomasnbec
Topic Author
Posts: 8
Joined: Thu Jun 30, 2016 7:14 am

Re: Trying to learn

Wed Jul 06, 2016 10:17 pm

Yeah St Merryn
Meeting up would be good evening is no problem.
Harlyn Bay is where Chris Goff is flying the Supernova on the promo video
 
User avatar
jaydub
Posts: 1228
Joined: Tue Apr 17, 2007 7:32 am

Re: Trying to learn

Thu Jul 07, 2016 12:59 am

thomasnbec wrote:
Harlyn Bay is where Chris Goff is flying the Supernova on the promo video

Not quite. One Cornish bay must look like another as it was filmed at Crantock, unless I'm very much mistaken.
 
thomasnbec
Topic Author
Posts: 8
Joined: Thu Jun 30, 2016 7:14 am

Re: Trying to learn

Thu Jul 07, 2016 6:08 am

Ok