Upright side slide by Aerialis Kites

Transcript

1. ›

   What a side slide shows

   0:59

   Hi, Sven Arnesen from Aerialis Kites, and here's a brand new quad line tutorial for you: the upright side slide. This is a move that definitely proves one of the unique characteristics of a quad line kite. You can stop it in the air, keep it glued on the spot, and then slide it all across the wind window and back. Yeah, you can do this with a dual line kite too, but it's much easier with a quad. If you follow along with this tutorial, I'll let you in on the details so that you can learn how to do these upright slides yourself. The side slide is building on skills from a few of the previous tutorials you can find here at Aerialis Kites: the hover, giving you the basics on how to stop and keep your kite stationary in the air; the improve your hovers tutorial, where I give you a few more tips on improving the hover; and then the quad line kite angle of attack and the more on the angle of attack tutorials, which, as the titles imply, get into the details of the angle of attack. But before we kick off, please be aware that there is no one truth, nothing is written in stone. There are several ways to go about side slides, and in this tutorial I'll bring out a few guidelines that at least have been working for me, and hopefully they'll work for you too. But most importantly, go out there, have fun and just fly.

2. ›

   Six elements

   2:23

   All right. As you probably know by now, I kind of like the idea of breaking a move down into smaller elements. And why is that, you may ask? Well, that's an easy one: it's because you can pretty much practice them one by one, right? So let's break the upright side slide down into the following six elements. One: fly into the hover. Two: hold and tend the hover. Three: start the side slide to the left. Four: stop the side slide. Five: start and return the side slide to the right. Six: stop the side slide again. As you can see, elements three and five are quite similar, and so are elements four and six, but no worries, we'll get a little deeper into that later. So let's just go through each and every element one by one, and when done, let's put them all together.

3. ›

   Fly into the hover

   3:25

   One: fly into the hover. I think it's a very good idea to start it all by flying into the upright hover. You can do this either by taking off from the ground and flying upwards, and when the kite is about halfway up the wind window, you gently apply the brakes, thumbs forward, until the kite stops and starts to hover. And by the way, you're in no hurry, so take it slow. This is what it looks like. Or you can do it the opposite way: from the top of the wind window, reverse your kite down, and when the kite is about to reach halfway down the wind window, you just slow it down by gently pulling your thumbs back until the kite stops and starts to hover, looking just like this.

4. ›

   Hold and tend the hover

   4:32

   Two: hold and tend the hover, because now you're in the right position to start the side slide. But hey, let's wait for a second. Let's take the time to keep the kite flat in that stationary upright hover for a few seconds. Start by keeping it there for a count of three: and one, and two, and three. Now do it all over again, but this time I challenge you to hover the kite a little longer, let's say for a count of five: and one, and two, and three, and four, and five. And again, but now you should try to keep the hover for ten full seconds. Can you make it? It should look something like this: and one, and two, and three, and four, and five, and six, and seven, and eight, and nine, and ten. Now practice these two steps, fly into and hold the hover for ten seconds, until you can do it properly nine out of ten times. And when you tend the hover, make sure to have both hands extended equally out in front of your body. Let's call this the neutral hand position. While keeping your hands in this position, also make sure your input to the kite is subtle: too much, and the hover will start to look a little wobbly.

5. ›

   Start the slide

   6:16

   All right, now we're ready to slide that kite. Three: start the side slide to the left. Actually, it's pretty easy: pull your left hand a little closer to your body, and the kite will start sliding to the left. But of course there are a few other things coming into play too, so here are some more details. Before starting the slide, make sure that you have your kite sitting comfortably in a stable upright hover. Now your hands should be in that neutral position I talked about, you know, both hands extended equally out in front of your body. Now you're about to do several things simultaneously. Pull gently your left hand a little closer to your body, and you might also push your right hand just a little away from you. Let's call this the skewed hand position, and this is actually all it takes to start the kite sliding to the left. But you're not quite there yet, because you will also have to tend the hover, meaning always keeping your kite at the same height and its leading edge horizontal while sliding. You do this hover tending just like for a stationary hover: subtle input with your wrists, balancing the kite in the air. If it starts to drop, move your thumbs very lightly back; or if it starts to lift, apply the brakes a fraction by pushing your thumbs forward. And like I said, the leading edge is supposed to be horizontal while sliding, so you might have to apply the brakes with one hand and apply some lift with the other, to make sure the leading edge stays in that horizontal position. By the way, check out my other hover tutorials if required: loads of helpful stuff in them. All right, let's check out a full sequence of these first three elements: fly into the hover, hold and tend the hover, start the side slide to the left, to see what it should look like.

6. ›

   Stop the slide

   8:39

   Four: stop the side slide. Now, it's really satisfactory when you nail those smooth side slides, just like this. But what happens when the kite nears the edge of the wind window? Well, let's try it and see. Ouch! Too close to the edge, and the kite loses all its lift and drops to the ground. Now, that doesn't look so good, does it? No, we need to stop the slide before the kite gets to the edge, and that's pretty easy too. From that skewed hand position required for sliding, left hand towards your body, right hand a little forward for a left slide, simply return both hands back to the neutral position, while carefully balancing the hover. Returning from a skewed hand position to a neutral one will gradually slow down the speed of the side slide and finally bring the kite to a complete stop while still in a hover. And you can do this stop wherever the kite is situated in the wind window. Let's take a closer look at the stop, and now once again with both the kite and the pilot in view. No matter where the kite is situated in the wind window, up, down, low, on the sides, you can stop the side slide by returning your hands from that skewed to the neutral position.

7. ›

   Reverse and stop the slide

   10:25

   Five: start and reverse the side slide. Now, when your kite is hovering way left in the wind window, it's time for reversing the side slide, sliding it to the right. And I bet you've probably guessed how to do it: you just go from that neutral hand position to the skewed one again, but this time you pull your right arm a little closer to your body while extending your left a little away from you. Now the kite will start to slide again, this time to the right. Once again, make sure to tend the hover, keeping the kite's height consistent and its leading edge horizontal while sliding, with just tiny adjustments in your hands and your wrists. Here's what it looks like. The kite is hovering close to the left edge of the wind window. Initiate the right slide by gently pulling on the right lines while pushing on the left ones. While sliding, tend the hover to make it as stable as possible, leading edge horizontal. And now, finally, number six: stop the side slide again before reaching the right edge. Stop it by returning your hands to the neutral position again. Voilà, it stops.

8. ›

   Practice and body language

   11:57

   And from here on it's actually all up to you and how much you will practice, because the more you practice, the better you'll get. After a while, when you have all the basics down, make sure to practice the side slide in both directions, at any height in the wind window. Notice any difference in the input required and the feel of the kite, depending on its height and position in the wind window. You can also experiment with slower or faster slides and stops, and when you get the hang of it, you can get pretty close to stopping the slides on a dime. And that's pretty cool, right? Finally, I must not forget to mention body language, because you can always improve your slides by moving around on the ground. In lighter winds you might move backwards to make sure you have enough pressure in the sail to keep your kite in the air. In stronger winds you can take some pressure out of the sail by moving downwind. And by walking sideways, you can cheat, and you'll be able to extend the slide significantly. So now drop whatever you're carrying, pick up your kites, hit the field, and soon you'll be sliding your kites all over the place. Thanks for watching, and see you soon in another tutorial. Bye bye.