How good is your Kite Control ?

You’ve never flown a kite before

You had your first flying experience. Your body is tense and you are nervous and possibly frightened about flying the kite. You may have heavy grip on the bar and you frequently lose control of the kite and crash. You are constantly looking at the kite and you’re still learning basic kite control.

You've flown a kite for more than an hour and start to relax. You can keep the kite stable in the same position for many seconds. You are more confident about your kite control and can relax your grip on the bar. You start to be able to fly the kite without looking at it. You are comfortable flying the kite with one hand and at moving the kite from one side of the window to the other

You’ve been flying a kite for a few hours or more and you are comfortable performing a variety of body drags (crosswind, downwind, upwind, body drag with the board). You are competent at flying a kite and carrying your board at the same time, in and out of the water. You rarely crash the kite anymore. You are competent at performing safe assisted launchings and landings in a variety of wind conditions.

You’re comfortable riding the board in both directions. You can ride without looking at the kite and keep it stable at a 45’ angle. You are starting to master riding upwind and doing transitions. You’re competent at relaunching the kite in a variety of scenarios and a variety of wind conditions in deep waters. You have a difficult time going out in lighter winds (15 knots or less), you don’t understand how to react to a back-stalling kite. You might still be confused about what the trim strap does.

You master upwind riding and transitions and you can kite in a variety of wind conditions. You start to get used to flying different kite sizes. You might be learning to ride toe-side and your first basic jumps and rotations. When you crash, or fall off your board, you often lose control of the kite and crash it. You have a good understanding of how the kite flies, you can trim your kite as you ride. You are competent at relaunching the kite in lighter winds (12-18 knots) in deep waters.

You can land a few basic hooked-in tricks keeping your kite stable at 45’. You start to experiment with downloops and downloop transitions. You may already be riding various types of boards. You can perform a basic jump and land softly by redirecting your kite. When you crash, or fall off your board, you can keep control of the kite to avoid crashing it. You start to be comfortable kitesurfing around waves. You can kite in lower winds (15 knots or less) and you start to be more comfortable kiting in very strong winds (25-30 knots +). You may have started to experiment with self-launching and self-landing.

By now, you own multiple kite sizes and you are competent at kiting in a wide range of locations, wind and water conditions. You may also own various types of boards and you’re trying different disciplines. You are comfortable and competent at performing self-launching and self-landings in various conditions/locations. You have started to experiment with kiteloops.

You can reverse launch a kite and keep a kite flying in very low winds (10 knots or less). You may have experimented flying various types of kites (c-kites, foil kites, etc.). You may be able to perform a few basic unhooked tricks You can perform controlled jumps of at least a few meters with controlled landings. You are comfortable at looping the kite either to land a jump, do transitions, looping during a trick/rotation, etc. You are comfortable and under control even when kiting overpowered. You can control a kite in very gusty conditions and you are comfortable kiting in frontal wind conditions.

You are specializing in one discipline (wakestyle, wave-riding, racing, etc). You are comfortable doing Kiteloops and megaloops. You may be competing on a National or International Level