kitepower wrote:*uck leashes, happened today, experienced rider. Leash attached to ankle!!!!
Board leashes in lessons is gross negligence, they are guaranteed to make the board hit the person they are attached to, how much evidence do you need?
If a person does not have the skills, patience and persistence to body drag back to the board, they should not be getting into kiting.
If you are teaching with board leashes you are teaching people to smash themselves with board leashes, and in my opinion you have sold out to you own wallet.
All the excuses you are quoting here about why you need to use board leashes are bullshit!
So you would have me tell a client that
I won't give him a board lesson unless he either:
1. Buys equipment and practices bodydragging until he's proficient enough that he can bodydrag reasonably efficiently, which
might require MONTHS if he can only go on weekends and is somewhat unlucky or has more difficulty than average. And even if he is successful and becomes reasonably proficient at bodydragging, he will
STILL UNAVOIDABLY WASTE a significant portion of his board lesson compared to using a reel leash. This means he gets significantly LESS VALUE because of the money spent on mostly wasted bodydragging time.
2. Or he takes his board lesson without being reasonably proficient at bodydragging, in which case he WASTES EVEN MORE (maybe LOTS more) of his board lesson PRACTICING bodydragging.
There is often a very distinct point where the law of DIMINISHING RETURNS comes into play regarding using
LESSON TIME TO PRACTCE.
The best use of lesson time is to convey information, demonstrate technique and provide ESSENTIAL technique feedback. Once the student has a reasonably good idea of what his mistakes are and some techniques for correction, he should practice on his own to gain proficiency.
As it is, we could EASILY use up AT LEAST 50 HOURS just conveying information. God knows how much time on demonstrations (it would be easy to justify repeating every last thing at LEAST 4 or 5 times) and since criticism ("feedback") is one of my most well developed skills, and since kiting skills can ALWAYS be improved, we could "feedback" him until he went bankrupt. My point is that there is NO WAY for us to cover more than what we consider the absolute rock-bottom BASICS ONCE unless it becomes obvious that the student doesn't know something critical.
Furthermore, we believe it is more ESSENTIAL that the student UNDERSTAND the HOWs and WHYs of what we teach - INCLUDING any potentially reasonable contrary views or theories. For example, it may only take 30 SECONDS to show a student a CL QR and say "When you push on this, this gets disconnected and the kite loses power and falls". It usually takes us at LEAST 30 minutes to cover some of the following ONCE:
:
1. Try to CONVINCE the student of the importance of PRACTICE to develop reflexive activation with anecdotes which have some memorable features.
2. Explain the pros and cons of various types and the different ways they may work at the kite. 3. ESPECIALLY what can make them NOT work. Show one or more not connected to a flying kite.
4. The effect of line wraps and tangles . (Often digresses to a 5-15 minute knife discussion).
5. MOST IMPORTANTLY, how to analize a QR to determine as many of the ways it may fail as possible and any possible solutions.
6. Available backup CL QR systems.
7. The best techniques for activation depending on various factors - including at least briefly mentioning of alternate activation techniques. Also, how to practice these techniques.
8. Potential problem associated with unintended CL QR activation.
9. Potential problems associated with leashes, their QRs and any possible solution(s), including where, how and when it should be attached (and detached).
10. How to recognize potential problems associated with CLs, usually regarding spreader hook interaction and feeble donkey dicks.
11.Having the student actually activate the CL QR ONCE while the kite is flying kills at LEAST another 15-30 minutes unless at the end of the lesson, then usually 5-15 minutes.
Usually, the best way to get a student to understand a subject is to ask him a question which necessitates him figuring out the answer based upon some of the factors discussed, however this is even more time consuming and is usually not practical to any great extent.
Now consider that they're unlikely to CORRECTLY REMEMBER a large chunk of this barely understood stuff if they don't actually practice soon after their lesson, thereby necessitating a certain amount of repitition at the next lesson.
Even worse is the fact that unreliable conditions necessitate having to frequently minimize or omit stuff when good conditions for a different type of lesson are present creating unavoidable inefficiency which also effectively wastes time which a nice standardized curriculum would avoid, and you should start to grasp that
EVERY MINUTE of lesson time is precious enough to justify a certain amount of added risk.
Richard M.
Malibu Kitesurfing - since 2002
(310) - 430 - KITE (5483)
http://www.MalibuKitesurfing.NET
kfRichard@MalibuKitesurfing.NET