what did it for you?

My mate has been trying to get his first backrolls happenening recenly and is struggling.
He cant stop pulling his back hand and sending the kite into a half kiteloop.

he has been kiting for 2 years now, practising backies for 3 weeks

So far I've moved his hands right up to the chicken loop line (thats what did it for me), given mental notes to emphasis pull on the front hand by adjusting body position. waited till he can use a bigger (slower) 16m, told him to throw it off a wave and even gone as far as to suggest fully removing the back hand.

so far the only two he has landed involed deliberatly pulling the kite into a loop and going for a backroll-kiteloop. (though this is still a fluke)

so, any other suggestions that might induce an eureka moment?

cheers guys.

My favourite backrolls are off small waves where you don't even use the kite and you can push the bar right out and just use your speed off the wave. You can also invert this way.
For a back roll off flat water, once you have got the pop, you don't need to yank on the kite - I had this problem with front rolls - trying too hard to get the pop and go around forwards which makes you pull your back hand too much.

So my advice is: you don't need much pop for a back roll, just get the kite quite high, pop off the water and keep going round whilst trying to relax on the bar a bit.

Sounds like you've covered most of it.

I guess the problem is that he is taking too much weight on his hands and not letting the harness take the weight?

Either that or he is rotating the body and leaving the hands behind? Both can lead to back hand pressure and a kite heading into an up-loop.

Maybe get him to do a few basic jumps where he really concentrates on keeping a light touch on the bar and letting the kite lift him via the harness, then have him try and re-create that feeling during the backroll.

Also, tucking the legs up helps speed up the spin and get around quick before the kite gets too out of control.

The soft option could be to rig a rope from a tree and attach himself with his harness and a mock-up bar and practice spinning underneath it (while humming the song "see-saw, marjory daw..." etc).

The hard option is of course to forget the basic backroll, just get both hands on the back of the bar and commit to the F-16 while screaming some death metal lyrics !!



...your friend needs to make that call!

So happy I'm not the only one that does it, though only going one way for some reason. Go figure

How about simply putting his back hand with 2 fingers either side of the chicken loop so if he does pull on the bar it won't steer, that and what everyone else ahs said.

good call space monkey, I'll tell him that one too, looking good for sunday to give it all a try