[ricki]

Some upwind body dragging tips from Richard Franks of Grand Cayman.

"A lot of the time they have tried, but failed. May I add some pointers for those reading who still use a leash and find body dragging hard. Please excuse the length of the post!

I had a lot of students who managed to transform their upwind body dragging ability with a few key "modules" I developed and worked on with them. It's been a few years since I last taught, but here are the key points I remember that I went through with every student. The transformations were pretty radical.

Rotate your hips. You want to resist being dragged downwind, so point a hip in the air! This makes a big difference. Now you present your stomach to the water. You want to look like a fin in the water, not a floating frisbee. Going left? Then your left hip needs to point towards the ground. As you want to head more downwind, your belly starts to flatten against the water. Less resistance, right? Remember your first body drags downwind? flat belly against the water. But you want to go upwind, so rotate your hips and make sure one of them is pointed straight into the air and the other towards the seabed.

Keep your body straight. Legs and front arm. This will help you track. Think of it as training for upwind riding. Your board is straight and also tilted like your hips when you ride upwind. Drag cars are long for a reason. They want to stay straight in the direction they want to go. So do you. Keep your body nice and straight. Focus on you legs.

Your front arm should be straight and your palm facing away from your own face, towards the kite.. Thumb side up! This dictates your speed and direction. Use it like a rudder. Towards the kite to increase body drag speed & go more downwind and away from the kite to head a little more upwind.

You need to have speed. If you are not moving forwards in the direction of your front rudder arm, you are going downwind. This is critical. Be aware of where you are actually traveling. Don't be greedy - get your speed up by pointing your arm downwind towards your kite, then start to point upwind of your kite. If you slow down too much, adjust your front rudder arm a little towards your kite to regain speed. This is crucial. If you don't have speed in the direction of your outstretched arm, you are drifting downwind.

If you point your arm too far upwind, you will end up with water in your face. Maybe even roll over and loose kite control. If this happens, try pointing a little more towards your kite until you become more comfortable and can breath again. Breathing is good.

Kite control is everything. You have to be able to hold your kite stable in the air. If you can't do this with 1 hand whilst you are standing, you won't be able to upwind body drag. Fact.

Adjust your bar pressure and drive against the power of the kite. You are always balancing how far upwind you can point with your speed and the power in your kite. When you have a gust, you can bring the bar in and point further upwind. When the wind drops, relax the bar pressure and point your front hand a little more towards the kite to keep your speed up and avoid stalling your kite.

You can raise your kite a little if your face is in the water. This brings it a little downwind, so you won't go upwind as efficiently. As you get better, lower the kite a little and once you keep your speed up you will find keeping water out your face a cinch.

When you transition, you should do it very slowly. Your kite should be very slow in the air from left to right. A fast kite with power is fun, but will just drag you down wind. Pointless. Slow kite and light bar pressure is the key to not loosing the hard earned ground you just made upwind. Once you start to get your speed up again, then you can bring the bar in and drive against the kite to head further upwind.

Forget about where your board is!!!! You already know where it is. For a start, it is upwind of you... Or behind you. Now... When you lost your board, you probably crashed. Then you reset your kite. Was your kite on the left or right while you were resetting it? If it was on the right, guess which direction you got dragged? Downwind and to the right! So your first upwind body drag should be to the left. (Obstacles permitting). If it took a long time to reset your kite, upwind body drag for a relative amount of time in the opposite direction. Focus on body dragging. DO NOT LOOK FOR YOUR BOARD on this first stage! Once you have done your first upwind body drag phase, you can hold the kite at neutral, (or park it on the water if you don't have the skill) and then look for your board.

Body drag upwind of your board and then slowly drift back downwind towards it. If you look upwind, you'll probably steer your kite into the water... In the same was as you would crash or steer your bike into oncoming traffic when you cycle and look behind your back for 10 to 20 seconds.

Combine all together and you'll find it much easier and will drop the leash in an instant. Happy dentist! And brain surgeon. and you!

On a side note, when the wind drops and you can't ride upwind, you can take the board off your feet, hold onto the handle, rest your elbow on the board and upwind bodydrag with the board infront of you. This extends the length of your body and allows you to use the edge of the board to really drive upwind. Even more efficient at going upwind than normal upwind body dragging.

Sorry for the lengthy post. But the info needs to get out there somehow!

Richie"