I'm going to be getting into kitesurfing this summer and have already bought and been practicing with my trainer kite. Just wondering if anyone has any opinions on whether or not spending some time at a cable park would be beneficial before I start kiting?

Anything specific I should try/work on?

I'm a newbie and my answer is Yes, yes yes yesyes yes yesyes yes yesyes yes yesyes yes yesyes yes yesyes yes yesyes yes yesyes yes yesyes yes yesyes yes yesyes yes yesyes yes yesyes yes yesyes yes yesyes yes yesyes yes yesyes yes yesyes yes yes.

Especially if you can't yet water start. You have a predictable even powered, even direction, and flat watered place to learn on. Once you get going (took me about 6 attempts) you'll improve your board balance and the like... so yeah, get out there. Really valuable...

The park in Singapore helped me no end.

One thing to remember is just riding behind the cable doesn't help much other than get your initial balance right. You have to actually learn to edge side to side for the real benefit to be realized. The harder you can edge, the more benefit you get. Think of it like a slalom waterskiiers edging side to side and kicking up a spray and that's what you want to be doing but on your wakeboard/kiteboard. Kiteboarding is all about edging, you live on the edge (excuse the pun), not riding flat.

xredwood said...
I probably should have mentioned, I can wakeboard already and I'm a snowboarder so I'm quite used to edging, does that mean I should just save the money I was going to spend at the cable park to get my kite sooner?

If you can snowboard (riding switch etc) and wakeboard then you will know basic board balance and edge control concepts........it is slightly different on a kite board as the weight bias from front to back leg is a little different on a kite and the kite board doesn't twist for turning like a snowboard......I suggest you could save your cable park money, get a trainer kite and lessons.