Rotation while traveling by Thierry Bressure

Transcript

1. Bicycle on the move

   1:29

   Today, in light wind, we're practicing a move some call the moonwalk, or traveling rotations. The rotation on the spot, everyone knows: it's the bicycle. I have two cameras, one on my hands, the other on the kite. The idea is to do those rotations while the kite travels. To learn, I break it down: travel, rotation, rotation, keep traveling, rotation.

2. A precision figure

   3:16

   This move is part of the competition precision figures, with a pattern like this: launch, stop, rotation, travel, stop, rotation, translation… Working on competition figures really improves your flying.

3. Rotation and translation

   4:12

   Back to traveling rotations: rotation, translation, rotation, translation. The point is to feel that during the rotation, the kite's direction of travel changes relative to its orientation. Going forward is easy; sliding is fairly easy; a rotation alone is easy; but combining them is much less so. I recommend working on the competition precision figure to feel the movement; once you have it, rotating while sliding and traveling becomes simpler.

4. The Tarzan move

   5:59

   Once you've done that exercise and can fly the kite in every orientation, the next step I recommend is what I call the Tarzan move: rotations on the wingtip while traveling. Tip the kite onto one wingtip, then the other, and so on. This move forces you to absorb the kite's change of orientation while moving, since you're no longer rotating on the spot. Some pilots find wingtip rotations complicated; yet it's the first thing I learned, with somewhat tedious passes across the window, and once you can do it, everything becomes fairly simple. Practice in both directions.