On Monday April 11th, temperatures hit record highs over 80 degrees! I took full advantage of the day and went kiteboarding for around five hours! The wind was from the South South East, leaving the Sandy Hook Bay water completely crystal flat! Check out the picture below. With smooth flat water the bay becomes the perfect place in order to practice new tricks.
Also this week IKSURFMAG, a free online kiteboarding magazine released their 26th issue!
Now, that I have discussed basic jumping techniques a whole new world of tricks may be learned. Before I discuss back rolls and front rolls, there is one way of riding I am going to talk about called riding Toeside. Naturally when one starts kiteboarding they will be riding Heelside, which is when your heels hold the edge of the board. Riding Toeside is when you reverse and have your toes holding more of the edge. Below is a short clip of riding Toeside and how it can be initiated with a small jump.
Next are back rolls and front rolls, both are basically in simple terms small jumps with body and board rotation. Below are instructional videos of back rolls and front rolls.
So that is what riding Toeside, doing Front Rolls and Back Rolls look like. Next week I will post some videos of me doing those tricks and more stay tuned.
As I discussed in my last post, this week I will talk a little about some basic tricks of kiteboarding. The first and possibly the most important building block of all tricks is simply jumping and catching air while kiteboarding. No waves are needed to jump as the kites are designed to be able to create lift and pick up kiteboarders with ease. There are two ways in order to catch air while kiteboarding: one way to catch air is by moving the kite to a certain position in order for the kite to pull one up as discussed in the first video below, the other way to catch air is by leaving the kite in the same position and edging the board hard enough in order to create what in kiteboarding terms is call "pop".
Below is a short video clip on how to jump and boost big air.
Below is a short video clip on how to jump by "pop", leaving the kite in the same position.
Next post I will discuss front rolls and back rolls, stay tuned.
