Trick: Railey

The thing with kiteboarding is that after a while you start beating yourself up when you just can’t seem to land the new tricks you are working on. You start to over analyze it and go out for a session just with learning the new trick in mind. When you start doing this, it’s easy to forget the most important part of kiteboarding … having fun and just go with the flow.

I have had a series of days where I have just beaten myself up so bad because I just can’t seem to get a trick. But then yesterday, I hit a all time low and feelt pretty bad. Got my kite in the air and decided to go out on the other side of the beach where some small waves where starting to build up in beatyfull sets.

As I rode back and forth a stretch of probably 1 km, just hitting one wave after another, just rideing them as I saw fit. Frontside, backside, up and down, up and down and back up again. At the end of the beach and the start of the lagoon there is windchannel where the wind was abit stronger, there I just boosted huge and got some serious airtime all the time just thinking “higher, higher”. I started to get this pure feeling, like a friend I had lost somewhere along the way was suddenly starting to speak to me again. I found myself just grinning from ear to ear as I thought to myself “just one more run” over and over again. Then I realized that now, at that moment I was having all the fun I possible could have out there. This was what I had lost somewhere along the way, and this was exactly what I needed.

The day after, my tricks all started to clicked. Suddenly I started to land them, and I feelt relif that I had found my new old friend “fun” again.

After some session beeing fully overpowered on my 9m2, it has happend. After a failed backmobe attempt (god I hate this move!), I landed wrong and just couldn’t get my board around the final 40 degrees to land. I came down super hot and smacked my leg on the board, I have no idea how it happend but my shin got totally smashed.

Luckly nothing is broken, it’s just swollen and alittle soar. Hopefully I will back in a day or two. Guro is doing awesome with her body dragging and now has almost full control on the kite. She can relaunch it, bodydrag and bodydrag upwind in both direction using only one hand to control the kite. Now it’s time for her to try the board.

After a maraton of nice days, we have gotten some gray weather with some showers. Not much wind, so we are just chilling drinking rum’n coke and watching films.

I have gotten a new obsession, grabs ….. soooo fun to try and grab every part of the board when you are doing front or back rolls. Gonna try and work some more on this.

The last couple of days has just been incredible, lots of good kiteing, lots of wildlife, and Guro has started to bodydraging on her kite.

The new board is just fantastic, great pop, great control and great feel. I have finally gotten my tricks back, after 2 months of no kiteing … it takes about 2 weeks to get back on track. Guro has done a great job filming and taking some photos.

Friday and Saturday I was on my 13m2 perfectly powered at about 20-22 knots, just doing freestyle all day long. At one turn out on the point, I saw a couple of seels just popping they’re head out of the water looking at my kite then diving under again. And as Guro and I where out bodydraging we saw this huge mantaray just swimming past us and into the seaweed.

Yesterday I was lit on my 9m2, starting the day off with some freestyle … then when the wind picked up I hit the waves and started to boost high. The best feeling in the world, just boosting off the waves flying 7-8 meters up and floating down again. Had a run in with an eagle up there, it was scanning the water for some fish. Suddenly it dived straight down, under water, back up again with a fish in his claw. Nature rocks!

I have added a “trick” section on the blog, I will fill it up with some small videos of tricks as they come along. Added the “Back 2 blind with airpass”

We will try and get Guro up and running on the board in acouple of days, it’s fun to see her progress so fast down here.

I have no regrets living cheap back home, to stay down here for 3 months. The weather is good, the wind is good, the people are good. Feels like your spirit is growing everyday down here. It does not hurt to be able to kiteboard every single day and seeing so much wildlife either.