You'll be learning from Gottfried's vast experience of kite surfing. He'll show you both the basics and loads of little tricks to make life easier. Some of what you'll learn will be put into practice straight away, while other tricks you'll be using well after completing the course.

What do I learn?

The 7 steps to kitesurfing:

1) getting started:

first you learn something about kites in general, what kind of kites there are on the market, what they are made from and so on ( keep asking me)
How to set up a kite and get the bar and the lines sorted out.
How to inflate a kite properly
How to attach the lines to the kite and check them before you launch the kite.
How do I take a kite, carry it and park it on the beach.( never work against the wind..)

2) first practice:

We first fly small traning kites with 2 lines, to explore the behaviour of a steerable kite and see, which area of the wind we can use to fly that kite.( "wind-window")
We do small 8's , big 8's flying rectangles and linear figures. We explore the edges of the wind-window and do even kiteloops. Remember: keep your arms on your chest like a horserider.

3) first time in our element:

in knee deep water we control a real one now . Now we concentrate how the depowersystem is working and what we can do without using our arms . The power of the kite is controlled by our gravity as we are wearing a sitting harness…the arms just control the flight direction of the kite.
Once you control the kite and can fly figures [like we did in step 1] you are half a kitesurfer already.
We also learn how to control the kite with one hand, which enable us later to get the board on our feet with the other hand.

4) bodydrag
this time we use the power of the kite to let us drag through the water, which is about 1,00m deep . The kites takes us downwind - once we fly the big 8 - and we get a sense about the developing of pull with the kite. We do that first without the board and then afterwards with the board on our feet, learning in this way how we can control ourself with the kite.

5) into the footpads and onto the board

We try first without the kite on the beach to get the board onto our feet. You don't have to be a yogamaestro do that, but it helps once you have a kite in the other hand to get to kitesurfing. You are very close now to your aim, and look like a real kitesurfer already with the board on yor feet.

6) The start impulse of the big 8

11 o'clock to 5 o'clock or 2 o'clock to 8 o'clock lets rock….that means we fly diagonal through the wind-window and generate enough power now to get on the board. Lean back in the harness and go back in the water. As we learned before: gravity takes the power of the kite or the center of our mass ( not the arms) . Once you have realized that you progress further towards the final step.

7) My first few meters

Congratulations welcome to the club …you did it J you have been on the board for a few meters and kitesurfed the first time.
Now you are on your own maintaining practice with you own gear. Don't forget : the best teacher is practice the second best is meJ