Figure 8 and 180s by KiteForge

Transcript

1. ›

   Introduction

   0:06

   In this tutorial we're going to talk about the figure 8 and 180s. These two maneuvers are really fundamental for team flying, particularly if you're just jumping into a line and starting to learn it.

2. ›

   The figure 8: how to turn

   0:22

   A figure 8 looks simply like this: back and forth, back and forth. What you'll most often see is teams following in a line like that. Let's assume you're coming at this from a beginner standpoint. There's a little bit of dual line in getting a really smooth figure 8. I think most people, when they start, use a lot of thumb, and the kite tends to spin out. The other thing is that they get down here, lose control, and then have to power up again.

   The way we usually teach it on the line is this: when you're starting the right roll, the first right half of the figure 8, you bring that hand in and down at the same time, and you hold it, not too far, all the way through the turn until the kite is pointed diagonally up to the next corner. That's what this looks like. My right hand draws in and then sets back, the left hand draws in and sets back, over and over. It's important to note how one hand is dropping and coming back slightly more than the other. What you'll find is that it gives you a much smoother figure 8 and lets you keep a little forward speed going.

3. ›

   Two things you'll run into

   1:43

   There are two things you're going to run into as you explore this for the first time. One is the natural fear of the under turn. Right here, about here, we start to panic, we lock up and we don't necessarily follow through. So what's important when you first start this, maybe even starting higher, is that when you bear down on that hand, you make absolutely sure you keep it bearing down until you see the kite pointed up again. Make that a very clear idea in your mind: you start the turn with your arm loaded in, and you maintain that arm in, no matter what, until the kite is facing up again, and then you can release. That first hold is all you need to get around, as long as you make it. If you do need to accelerate the turn a little, because you didn't make it tight enough, you can put a little squeeze into the brake on that hand as well to accentuate the turn. Oh, there. You can always nip it off a little with some brake to get it in there. So that's one aspect. Again, lock in that turn, watch the leading edge, and stay true to the turn until you're facing up again.

   The other, especially in lighter wind: sometimes we make the bottom of that figure 8 and you find that it sort of stalls out, or you lose gas. One reason is that you've gone into a turn, which is kind of a brake turn, and at some level you've slowed the kite down. Then you've finished the turn and now it's facing up, but it's not in that full go, control stance. So what we're looking for is that, as soon as you've held it in, made the turn and see it line up, you consciously set back in with the gas. We can see that happen here. There's the right turn and set the gas, make the turn and set the gas. The key, of course, is to build it up so that you have a relatively even speed throughout. You'll find that this subtle consciousness toward applying a little forward out of the bottom turn will help.

4. ›

   Seeing the shape: the rectangle

   3:50

   The last component I'll give you about figure 8s is to see the shape very clearly. The way we build it out is actually a rectangle. Say this is the center of our window. I fly to the top right corner of that rectangle, I make half a circle to the bottom right corner of the rectangle, and then I fly a nice long straight line. Then I make a half circle to the bottom corner of that rectangle, and repeat over and over again, focusing on a nice straight path from one lower corner to the next top corner. That tends to give the figure 8 a lot more structure and a lot more clarity. Especially when you're following, it helps you get away from the idea of chasing the tail of that snake, because every single person on that follow line is trying to follow the kite in front of them, and it creates this oscillation. But if everybody knows what the general shape is, built on that rectangle, and follows it, simply keeping the right space from the kite in front of them, with each person doing their job, you end up with a much, much cleaner follow line. That's the general overview of figure 8s.

5. ›

   180s: the upturn 180

   5:05

   We'll go on to the next one, which is 180s. The 180 is a paramount maneuver, simply for reversing direction. You're going one way and you want to turn around and go the other way without taking up a big path. The first 180 that most people try is, of course, an upturn 180. As a new flyer, it gets you away from the under turn scare, where you face down for a second and have to recover. Let's start the upturn 180 from a static position right here. We just face up, then face left, face up, then face right. On a traveling path it looks like this: face, face and go; face, face and go. If we can do it smoothly, it starts to look like this. Ideally the kite rotates around its axis, so that the center panel more or less stays in place. That allows you to change position without coming back at a different altitude than you started on.

6. ›

   The under turn 180

   6:12

   The most common 180 used in team flying is the under turn 180. We simply call it the 180 for short. The reason we use it is that facing down and then back, once you've learned it, allows you to cut more pressure and reinitiate your power going the other way. A kite in this shape naturally generates more power when it's upside down than when it's upright. With that in mind, the under turn 180 looks more like this. And on the traveling path it looks like that. That's something you would see on a thread: two kites passing, turning around, passing again, turning around, passing again.

7. ›

   Two ways to do a 180

   7:10

   To do a 180, there are a couple of different approaches, and a lot of it depends on your physicality, your style and, frankly, the tuning of your kite. What we're looking at here is that, in its most fundamental sense, when you do a 180, facing down, the kite wants to sink by nature. If you're doing a 180 in place, you'll notice the altitude of my hands: watch them drop as I go through this 180, and then they come back up to position. The reason is that in the invert I'm pressing on the brakes, but I don't want to do all that with my hands while I'm making the 180. So instead I simply lower my hands and then put them back in position. That lowering is, like we learned in the reverse flight tutorial, pressing slightly on the karate chop edge of your hands. Right through there.

   The other way some people do it is by scooping the bottom brake. Like that, and you'll see the lowest wing right there actually ends up rising and taking the place of the other wing as it goes through the rotation. It's a slightly more abrupt way to do it. Let's see what both look like out there on the line. One is: I rotate and I face my hands down. Then I go. Rotate, bury the hands down and go. Let's see if I can do it fluidly. There it is. Now we'll take that with the scoop. This is a little more of a scoop input, and you can see it's not quite as axis-oriented, but it does work. Especially if you're learning and feeling out how the kite actually flies and functions, those two outlooks may help quite a lot.

8. ›

   Three altitudes

   8:59

   The last thing I'll offer about 180s is that they feel quite different at different altitudes. Especially if you're looking to use them in team flying, I would look to do them at three different altitudes. One is a true ground pass, quite low, back and forth: 180, 180. Then we take that up to 50% high in the window. So here's our 180. That requires a little more pressure on the brake line, because you're higher in the window and the wind is naturally pushing down on the kite more. The last one is to do it up in the top third of the window. Here it really requires a bit more awareness in those bottom lines to keep the wind from pushing the kite down. So once more, there's the top row. Let's take it down to the bottom row, or rather the center row. There we are, burying the hands, scooping out. Then we drop down to the bottom and do the same thing again. Like so.

9. ›

   Brake and gas

   10:10

   The only other thing in my mind is to talk about simple brake hits for the turn versus also accenting with the other hand at the same time. When you're making that 180, don't be too shy about using a little brake on one hand and a little gas on the other hand to really help that rotation around. As I make my 180s when I'm not thinking about it too much, you'll see me actually using both hands, and all the same making sure I keep pressure in the bottom lines to keep the kite from dropping.

10. ›

    Closing thoughts

    10:50

    So that's my general introduction to the figure 8 and 180s. We'll keep the content coming, and I look forward to seeing you in the next tutorial.