Test Your Rev Knowledge: Watch My Hands, Guess the Skill by Revolution Kites

Transcript

1. ›

   Game and first example

   0:00

   Hi, I'm Joe Hadzicki, inventor of the Revolution, and today I thought we'd play a little game where I use hand movements to show you a certain move and you try to predict what that movement of your Rev will be. The best way to do this and to learn from this video is to hold up your hands and actually go through the movements with me. Let's give it a try. For our first example, let's start with the Rev standing up on the ground. We've got our handles in our hands, and we do this with the handles. Do you know what that causes your Rev to do? If you guessed it's going to launch your Rev, you're exactly right. Let's take a look at the whole thing. Okay, that one was pretty easy.

2. ›

   Nose-down reverse

   0:41

   Let's see if you can get this one. This time we're going to start with the Rev nose down. Can you figure out what happens when we do this with the handles? If you're not sure, pause the video for a second and think about it. Did you figure that one out? That's a reverse to roll your Rev over. Every pilot needs that skill.

3. ›

   The stop

   1:12

   Let's try another one. Let's say you're flying around the sky with your Rev and all of a sudden you do this. Do you think you know what that is? Let's check it out. Did you get it? That's right: it's the handle control that causes your Rev to stop no matter what direction it's going. There are details in the stopping motion that are too subtle to actually see. We have basically three different options.

4. ›

   Stopping too short

   1:58

   Option one: you don't push your thumbs far enough forward, so you stop short. What that causes your Rev to do is slow down rather than actually stop. Although that soft touch is not an ideal stopping motion, it's not that bad. For example, if you're heading into the ground and you apply that pressure but it's not enough and you still hit the ground, you hit it with a lot less force, so that's not bad.

5. ›

   Too much force and the best stop

   2:24

   Option two: too much force. This is what it looks like. Again, this is not an ideal stopping motion, but we still took a lot of the energy out. So if it ends up getting out of control and landing someplace else, at least you didn't do the worst thing. What is the worst thing to do? Instead of stopping, you actually accelerate it, for example into the ground. Option three, my favorite: as you're flying forward and you stop it, if you practice the stopping motion, this thumb pressure, you can stop your Rev perfectly and then hold it in a perfect hover.

6. ›

   Flying to the right

   3:32

   All right, Rev hotshots, let's see if you can figure out this set of moves. Number one, we're going to have our Rev flying to the right, which puts us in this position: right foot forward, shoulders turned, handles pointing out in that direction. The right handle is in front because we're keeping that balanced at that height. Thumbs are slightly back; that keeps us flying in that direction. Okay, here we are flying to the right. Watch the motions. Did you get that? If you think you've got it, stop the tape, think about it for a minute, lock it in.

7. ›

   A bigger hint

   4:32

   If not, I'm going to do it again, and this time give you a little more of a hint. Here we are flying to the right. Push the bottom thumb forward, step through, square up the handles, bring the thumbs back. Did you figure it out from that? If you got that, you are a pretty serious Rev flyer.

8. ›

   Bottom turn to float

   4:53

   What we actually did was fly to the right, do the bottom turn, rotate, and then fly to the left. As you're flying left and right, you need to have that float orientation; that's where the step through comes into play. This is what it looks like. If you got that, that's pretty impressive. That's called a bottom turn to float, and it's extremely useful in light wind conditions. It's a Club 38 level 6 skill.

9. ›

   Breaking the pattern down

   5:36

   One of the most interesting things about the Rev is that you can fly it at any speed, and that helps you break down a pattern into sections. Let's see if I can break it down into smaller pieces and explain exactly what we're doing. Let's talk about what we're actually doing with those handles. We're flying to the right. Thumb rotation is important because that gives the forward direction to your Rev.

10. ›

    Bottom turn on the right

    6:18

    Then, as we move out to the edge, we push the bottom thumb forward. This causes the bottom wing of your Rev to turn underneath, to turn in reverse, and it turns into an upside-down, inverted position. That's when you step through, catch the hover going that way, and then bring the thumbs back to make it fly forward in the left direction.

11. ›

    Same move on the left

    6:42

    Then, on the left side, we do the same thing: we reverse the bottom wing, which causes the bottom wing to turn under. When you're upside down, that's when you step through, catch the hover in the other direction, and then let it fly forward. I hope you found that fun and interesting, and maybe even a little challenging. That was actually skill number 31, level 6, of Club 38.