Ruben is sending his kite and getting it above his head before he throws the kite loop... so he's doing a small 10-15ft jump first. Usually he boots off a wave, gets 10-20ft up and then throws it (starting kite high).

Typically:

Kite > overhead <, you any distance off water, you are pretty much safe to throw it cause you have room to swing under it.

Kite at 12 but > not over head < (low in front of you), or kite low period,regardless of whether or not you are off the water, you are gonna come down HARD.

All you need is room to swing under it after the loop.

Learned all of this the hard way 'cause nobody else except Billy and Jason were really doing them much when Danny and I started trying them.

Just figured this out after 2 years of doing them wrong half the time and wondering what went wrong. Well, not wrong really ... just too aggressive for my board and knees.

Kite high and small buffer area and you are good to go.


Scott, have you tried down looping it yes at the same point you are back looping