Fractured Axel

In opposit to Toby i try to give as less slack as possible, i try to always fill the kite during trick. For me cascade is just puting kite to pancacke and out of it - this way of description give good point of view about slack management during the trick. this gives you great control over the all trick aspects such as rythm, speed, accents, angles etc.

MikeLos wrote:

In opposit to Toby i try to give as less slack as possible, i try to always fill the kite during trick. For me cascade is just puting kite to pancacke and out of it - this way of description give good point of view about slack management during the trick. this gives you great control over the all trick aspects such as rythm, speed, accents, angles etc.

I agree with this - the key to nice cascades IMHO is managing the slack well.
Too little and it doesn't rotate properly - but too much and you end up with
something all loosey-goosey which doesn't make for very pretty or
repeatable cascades.

I'd recommend light winds - so that the kite is nice and slow and requires
lightish inputs - and short lines - so that you can clearly see the
effect of inputs and slack line on the kite. This is what I've been doing
recently - in tidying up all my tricks and technique and its paying dividends.

YMMV

-Frazer

1. Fly side-to-side of the window, doing half-axels at the edge where the kite is stalled and they are easy. Practice this until you can get them looking nice and flat.
2. Gradually do them closer and closer together towards the middle of the window (you will have to give more slack for the same effect), until...
3. There is no flying in between each beautiful, flat half-axel, et voila, you have your Randy G-looking cascade!?

Funny!Thats exactly how i learned it!
I'm trying to learn the comete now,i did it the same way:fly to the top-half axel-fly down-half axel-fly up .......
At this moment i can do it without flying up or down,only i don't pick up the "rythm"of the comete every time!
If i do,it looks very good but i'm patient,i did half a year of practice before i caught the right "rythm"of the cascade!

@Jay
Explain to me,what exactly do you mean by "three pop"?
When i'm cascading, i first give the upper wing a little push(you can also give the lower wing a little pop,or a combination of these two),then the halfaxel pull,and then i catch it with the other hand-again a little push-pull-catch.....thats also three inputs.

Greetings
Pierre

In opposit to Toby i try to give as less slack as possible

The amount of slack was not really my main point, rather it was having the bottom wing towards you slightly before the big rotation input, which certainly works well during a half-axel and which I'm sure I subconsciously achieve during a cascade by managing slack. Thus I totally agree with you and Frazer on this - less is better if you can get away with it and this is how I also try to fly.

Saying that, I remember from trying to do my first tricks (and often still forget) that sometimes a kite needs a lot more slack during certain manoeuvres than you think, and for someone having trouble learning a trick I would nearly always recommend more slack rather than less to remedy their problem, as the consequences of giving too much slack with regard to how a trick looks and works are, in most situations, likely to be less important than giving too little. Then, when you have something that works, even if it does look a bit loosey-goosey, you can start to reduce slack a bit and neaten things up, finding out just how little you can get away with.

Perhaps I should not have said LOTS of slack then, but this term is relative to how much you have previously been used to giving and, as Erik and Rob identified, lack of slack sounds the most likely cause of Thomas' problem with the kite not flaring away properly in a cascade.

@Pierre. I had not thought of trying this for the comete, which I still don't always have the right rhythm for. I will give it a go and see if I get improvement.

You absolutly right, toby, that correct setup is most improtand aspect of doing any of the tricks. If you can't do it right - all othe technics can't help you. So first - correct setup.

But when you familar with it, next thing - guiding kite in the trick (slack menagement). So i think for h/axel and cascade the best way to describe how much slack you need to give is enough to flare kite and no more.

The more you can get the kite to a position where the wing you're about to pop is back but the nose has dropped forward then the more you will get a rotation that is flat with the nose away. I don't know how the QP compares but many of the newer polyvalent type kites have a very heavy set bridle and this tends to make this harder IMHO

ObijuanKenobe wrote:

If...and only if...you are interested in REALLY getting this trick, you need to use three pops per turn. This is called the "french cascade" by some. You transition into a beautiful "asteroid" if you can get the hang of it before you progress to the comete.

Staying with the two-input method: Try to feel the wing as it rises to vertical...so that your input is given just as the line catches it at vertical (second input, harder). Then lift the other side (first input), and again...feel the lines as the wing lifts, catch it the top again (second input, harder).

obi

Thanks for the advice, Obi. For now the two pop cascade is enough of a challenge!

Thanks Erik, for the thorough clarification & encouragement!

I got nice half-axels some time ago and can do them anywhere in the window now. However, it took me some time to get from there to cascades because my secret to the half-axel was to chuck tons of slack at the kite, which is a bit embarrassing when you want to pop straight away for the opposite half of the cascade cycle.

I suppose the trick in the end was getting to the point that MikeLos and Fraser describe, so that although there is an obvious relationship between half-axels and the cascade, I no longer approach the cascade in the way that I approach my anywhere-in-the-window half-axels. That, and moving to a slower kite (Virus to Nazko).

TobyR wrote:

Hi Thomas,

Before you get too concerned with getting perfect cascade rotations, can you do a decent-looking half-axel on its own yet?

Yep, in general I can do I nice half axel

Sorry if I underestimate your ability here

No problem at all

However, if you can't, or maybe even if you can already, perhaps try this:
1. Fly side-to-side of the window, doing half-axels at the edge where the kite is stalled and they are easy. Practice this until you can get them looking nice and flat.
2. Gradually do them closer and closer together towards the middle of the window (you will have to give more slack for the same effect), until...
3. There is no flying in between each beautiful, flat half-axel, et voila, you have your Randy G-looking cascade!?

PS. For the best half-axels, I find it helps to give a very small `pop' with the bottom hand first, immediately (no hesitation at all) before the main input with the top hand, followed immediately by lots of slack from both hands. This first input pulls the lower wing of the kite slightly towards you, just like with a regular axel where if you want to pop with the right hand, for example, you pull the left wing of the kite slightly forward first.

I Think you hit a sweet spot here. Look forward to try it.

Good luck
Toby

Thanks, Toby!

ObijuanKenobe wrote:

If...and only if...you are interested in REALLY getting this trick, you need to use three pops per turn. This is called the "french cascade" by some. You transition into a beautiful "asteroid" if you can get the hang of it before you progress to the comete.

i still don't get where is third pop suit in to.

StuartB wrote:

I got nice half-axels some time ago and can do them anywhere in the window now. However, it took me some time to get from there to cascades because my secret to the half-axel was to chuck tons of slack at the kite, which is a bit embarrassing when you want to pop straight away for the opposite half of the cascade cycle.

Hmmm, probably the lots of slack/only little slack differing opinions stems from the kite you fly. I'll try both ways, but until now the quite little slack has worked to get the cascade going Thanks!

Thomas,

I'd recommend sticking to what you are doing with just one pop for now. To begin with additional pops will just complicate things.

My tip for you, which most seem to overlook, is rather than thinking about what your hands are doing.. think about what your feet are doing.

In no wind you will be walking backwards, in light wind stood still, in standard wind walking forward slowly and in strong wind walking forward briskly.

Correct ground movement will significantly improve the quality of this trick without having to change the hand movements you've got working already.

Once mastered with the one pop.. I would then add an additional pop which, for me, is used to improve the success rate of each individual axel.

Thomas* wrote:

StuartB wrote:

I got nice half-axels some time ago and can do them anywhere in the window now. However, it took me some time to get from there to cascades because my secret to the half-axel was to chuck tons of slack at the kite, which is a bit embarrassing when you want to pop straight away for the opposite half of the cascade cycle.

Hmmm, probably the lots of slack/only little slack differing opinions stems from the kite you fly. I'll try both ways, but until now the quite little slack has worked to get the cascade going Thanks!

There is no difference in opinion. You can do it both way, but minimizing slack give you more control over kite during the trick.

Half-axels are pretty much the same for all the kites that I fly (Viruses, Nazko, Psycho, Karma). I started to get cascades on the Virus and I don't think they were much different to what I do on the Nazko, but it's easy to overcook things and fall out of the cascade with the Virus.

The Nazko is my go-to kite of the moment and it has a much more stately bearing. That's not to say that you can't speed up the cascade, but this kite looks really nice doing them slowly and deliberately.

The Karma also does nice cascades, but I am less keen on it for other reasons (although it took me a year to begin to appreciate the Nazko, so who knows).