Hi All,

I'm in need of some tips on riding blind. I was practising this whilst out in Cape Verde and found it near impossible to travel any good distance when blind. Flipping around by doing a 180 hop was no problem. I removed my front hand from the bar, placed my back hand in the middle and then popped around and made sure to change foot pressure to my new back foot. I was also told to look down at my new back foot to get my body in the right position. All goes well and then I travel for about 5m and I always find myself tripping on my heel edge - followed by the anticipated wipeout! Must have tried about 20 times and the travel varied a little but it always ended up tripping over the edge. Any pointers from anyone else who's tried this?

Whats the best conditions / board to try this on. I figured wide board, light winds, flat water?

Cheers,

James

Piece of p1$$ - just shut yer eyes.

Have you seen http://www.iksurfmag.com/ ? It has some pretty comprehensive tutorials in the Christian and Karine Section. If you go into 'back issues' and check the first edition out, there's a riding blind tutorial.

Karine's demo is both educational and pleasurable!!

Just close your eyes tightly.you won't be able to see a thing.

Everyone's a comedian!

I don't even know the difference between blind and toeside? and that's after watching Karine's demo which was very pleasurable!!

By the way, anyone heard Amazing Grace by the Blind Boys of Alabama?

b e n

ask the fox, he got the love bug for it whilst in brazil. You just need to keep practicing, helps if your nicely powered i find and try and get a real flat section, waves and chop will just throw you when learning.
When you pop try and look over your rear shoulder, if you just keep facing normal you'll bring the board back round. Keep weight on your new back foot and try and keep power in the kite. Then when you get confident try and throw a backloop kiteloop transition outa it...still tryin to get those, ask the others how painful my attempts looked!

Cheers Jimbob,

I'm going to have to try in flatter water next time. I was trying in between waves but it really wasn't that flat. Practise, practise, practise I guess. Just can't wait to start adding it to the finish on other tricks etc!

James

Ye, once it clicks you have to just keep at it and then it comes a bit more natural. Altho it does look sweet doing a trick into blind its proper hard, especially when hooked in, you want to be landing blind unhooked so you can just surface pass out of it. When hooked in its really hard getting the body position right going into blind from a jump or something, its easy if unhooked as you can just take one hand off bar and go for the pass (or wrapped) to help get you round into the blind.

Im with jim bob on the unhoocked side ! unhooked rules make you feel so much free when going blind ! iv never really seen the point of riding blind ! but finishing a trick bling look's sweet !!!! As all trick's practice practice
practice .. and just dont get diss hearted. Benn kiting with Dave Ibby at bit lately and watch he's ever tick and move and he wipes out just as much as anyone i know ! Witch make you feel like its ok to wipe out ! if you know what i mean as all the dvd's you see show the dude's naiing every trick !

You'll nail it the next time you out James ! it always happens to me as i think about it so and see where i went wrong and put it all together in my head and bang got it !

Im working on the backmob and KGb ! and its doing my head in ! HAHA

Took me two solid days on a lagoon to even start nailing it, and then success rate was only a bit over 50%! Hardest thing when riding blind hooked in is untwisting, you have to rotate further than feels natural and to resist the unwinding force its easier if you bend well forward (or backward as you will be, but i mean you bend at the hips towards your knees) as Jim is in his first pic. Notice when he is unhooked he doesnt need such an extreme lean. You also have to kind of really point or even pull back your new front leg - if you try and stand on it you will almost certainly just unwind!

This season im going to start off trying more things unhooked, I reckon its defo the way to go and should make riding blind a wee bit easier.

Cheers for the tips guys. I was still hooked in so that might account for some of it. Like you said Moby, Just going to keep trying every time I'm out and I'll get it nailed eventually

Pictures look wicked Jim - who was the photographer?

I'm in the same boat as you Pete - going to really concentrate on getting the unhooked world of kitesurfing sussed this year as it looks like a lot of fun. So far I've just been getting use to riding around unhooked, hooking in and out and I'm getting pretty use to that now so time to step it up a gear

Cheers,

James

pete can show you first unhooked move to learn, something like the horizontal superman dive isnt it fox?? Nailed a beauty on taiba i do seen to remember!!

jim__bob wrote:pete can show you first unhooked move to learn, something like the horizontal superman dive isnt it fox?? Nailed a beauty on taiba i do seen to remember!!

Yeah, i seem to remember that was the windiest day and you boys were all on 7's so the fox is stuck with a 9. For extra effect it helps if you pull on your back hand just after initiating the raley, makes you go really high and really far...

If your landing blind you havent really got a choice but to un-hook. I can land blind form raleys and s-bends but I cant for ma life ride along blind hooked in.

Dan