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Axel by Jeremy Wharton

The axel broken down into setup, rotation and recovery, with the role of footwork and slack. Worth watching to understand why overthinking blocks the trick.

Presented in Tricks & freestyle. Transcript by QuadKites.org.

Axel by Jeremy Wharton

Key takeaways from this video

  • Much of the difficulty comes from overthinking the axel; breaking it down into the kite's setup, the rotation and the recovery makes it simpler.
  • Stay dynamic on your feet, with one foot back and loose, rather than standing square on.
  • Slack is what makes it work: one hand goes back to pull the brake line while the other goes forward, then pick the slack up as the rotation finishes to restore pressure in the sail.
  • Adding a half axel at the end brings the kite back leading edge up.

Transcript

  1. Breaking the axel down

    0:00

    I'd like to talk to you about one of my favorite things to do with a quad kite: the axel. When I started, a lot of my trouble came from overthinking it. So I'll break the movement down: what's technically going on with the kite leading up to and through the axel, and a bit of body mechanics. Some of it is subjective depending on wind speed, line length or which quad you fly; out of all the quads I've owned, I've been able to axel them all pretty decently.

  2. Get dynamic on your feet

    1:12

    Get dynamic on your feet: put a foot back, stay loose, don't stand square on. The axel is a dynamic move.

  3. The moment the axel triggers

    1:43

    Zooming in: this is the exact point where the axel is executed. As it goes around, all the lines are loose; as you complete the rotation, pick up the slack to get pressure back into the sail. For the hands, one goes back to pull the brake line while the other goes forward, already inducing slack into the sail.

  4. Finishing with a half axel

    2:46

    One way to finish the axel not inverted is to add a half axel at the end: with the kite's rotation, you end up leading edge up.

Keep going

The videos of Quad-line tricks and freestyle

  1. Axel
  2. Axel — you are here
  3. Axel
  4. Axel
  5. Slow-motion axel
  6. Outward axel
  7. Inward axel

See the 31 videos of the series

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