I've just started kiteboarding (female, 75kg, 185cm, fit), literally only 4 hours of lessons(not including trainer kite and internet searching), and I'm at the point of trying to get up onto the board and ride away.
I'm at the point where I think I would benefit from purchasing my own gear and practicing instead of taking another lesson...? Is that the right conclusion? and then save my third lesson once I've got body dragging with and without board as well as getting up onto the board down pat then seeing about having another lesson.

Thanks!

Hi Kiaraalice

It is in deed a good idea to purchase equipment at this stage and get a few body dragging sessions done before your third lesson. However, choosing the right location, the right conditions, the right equipment, having the right training and a minimum amount of skills are all very important.

There is often a massive gap between what you can do when your instructor is next to you and what you're able to do completely alone, and this gap is mainly due to a poor fast-track hands-on teaching approach.

For example, having ''covered'' a self-rescue often means just a demonstration from your instructor on the beach or in shallow water, which has nothing to do with the real thing in deep water on your own.

You can see how ready you are to practice alone and assess how good your training was by reading my latest blog post here :

http://kitebud.com/2016/12/11/how-good-were-your-lessons/

I hope this helps,

Christian

Kiaraalice said..
Thank you cbulota and Gateman,
I have previously come across your site cbulota- definitely helpful, I am still not able to ride 50 metres/ ride at all, I was wanting to practice exactly that before heading back for another lesson. Do you think that I should fulfil all of your sites competencies before practicing alone- even if that means that i only practice starts, body dragging back to the board/ beach etc

Being ready to practice alone is not just about how far down the list you went but more about how WELL you have covered these basics. If most of the basic skills before the board stuff has been well covered (green column) then you got nothing to worry about. If most correspond to the yellow or red column then going out on your own now isn't such a good idea.

If you had lessons in shallow waters and you want to go out and practice in deep water, chances are you will struggle, won't be able to self-rescue, relaunching your kite will be more difficult and body dragging upwind more challenging. I've retrained well over a hundred students from other schools who, even after 5-6 hours of lessons couldn't self-rescue, couldn't launch the kite safely with an assistant, couldn't setup a kite alone, couldn't body drag with the board, couldn't do a board recovery, etc.

Most newbies accidents happen on the beach during assisted launching, it's a critical skill that needs a lot of practice before you can launch safely without endangering yourself or others.

As a general rule of thumb, if there's a doubt, there's no doubt. If you doubt your ability to go out of your own then perhaps it's not the best idea and also the time to seek better training. On the other hand, if you're confident and skilled, then go for it!

In my experience about 40% of my students were independent and skilled enough to safely go out on their own and practice body dragging alone after only 4 hours of training, the rest needed more training.

Christian