So most have probably made stupid mistakes learning to kite. what are your bigest mistakes you have made, and how could you have avoided them.

one from me my first kite was a 16m f-one tribal new delta wing 100% depower. so I thought it dosent mater that its huge it can depower its safe. well first real time out I am pumping it up and the wind is maby 6mph anyway by the time I finished geting the lines ready it was blowing 20mph. i thought oh well 100% depower. i felw it for about 2 minets then let my frind who had about 10min on my 1.3m Hq sympony try it out then the wind was blowing about 26mph. needless to say I had some kite repair to do and was lucky my frind was not hurt. so a cupple meseges here dont buy a huge kite to learn on also dont put your inexpirinced frind on a huge kite in high winds.

Most painful mistake - trying to stop by edging hard and sheeting in with the kite in the middle of the power zone ...

lots of folks probably have a stupid/painful story, the first one is:

back in the early days - self teaching
first day out ever, on a 2 line kite, no water relaunch, no body dragging, just grab the board
got "lucky" on one of my first waterstarts and got going mach 3,
no idea how to turn or stop,
after the rides very rapid stop/start/teabag/stop/crash/stop and i finished puking,
i still had to figure out how to get back to the beach swimming with the kite and then
walk back up to my car and my "friends" laughing so hard they almost puked

there have been others since then.....

Wanting to land the kite in grass instead of sand, beteeen palm trees...
Line caught the palm leaf, kite looped, I just could jump aside to not fully hit the palm, just slightly, did a frontroll, then released...

All fine, luckily, now always keeping as much distance as possible!

"distance is your friend" ... Lesson learned for sure.

Learning in deep water kite fell straight down (almost on my head), lines went slack and tangled, kite LE in water pulling me hard down wind... a long long long way down wind and caused some panic on my part as the winds picked up somewhat. I got it launched eventually but I don't know how. My 5th line was well twisted around the other lines.

Long walk of shame resulted.

Learned to not fly the kite too close to the edge but if the kite does start to dive straight down on you keep top wing tip flying. You never want slack lines while the kite is in the water... can easily become entangled causing all sorts of hardships... kite tumbles etc etc.

Kiting in Prasonissi, east side, off shore wind, strong off shore current, winter, no rescue, hardly anyone watching me, everybody else kiting on the other side (onshore wind), me enjoying flat water, risking gear but life as well. Could not resist, stupid but lucky, nothing happened, might do it again...