Important adjustments
In September 2020 it was time to travel to Grado in Italy and try to improve my kite skills next to the camping site “Al Bosco”. After walking through knee high salt water we reached a sand bench with hundreds of pumped up kites. It was beautiful to see all these colorful kites in the air and at the beach.
Still not knowing how to kite upwind I made use of the same tactic to body drag first to gain some space. My water starts soon got better. However, I realized that I was riding faster than I wanted and that I lost a lot of height at each attempt.
In the picture above an experienced kite surfer already sees what I did wrong. Thankfully, during a break I got to know another Austrian kiter who did impressively high jumps at the same spot. He advised me to keep my edge and avoid moving the kite to much. Just by adjusting my posture, stance and kite movement I instantly had better control during riding.
That being said, I still was not able to gain height. So I ended my session outside of the dedicated kite zone heading straight in to the swimmer zone. Thankfully nothing happened and one of the most important improvements could be discussed at the beach bar together.
