wow!
I am impressed! Thank you guys for answering me!
I'm a 42yo professional with a background in Adult Education, I.T. Professional, Computers, you name it..... so my questions are the same as my fortune 500 customers. Thanks so much!
I took my first "lesson" with a local guy. I had to prepay him. I was kinda dismayed. he showed me a plywood board with the graphic of the Wind Window and a replica of a kite. he explained up and down wind. then put me on the 2m trainer kite showed me what i needed to do. then went back to the 'main' area. he came back later to tell me he was going out for an upwind (or downwind) ride. being well educated, it took a few tries, but i got it.
After about an hour and a half of practicing with the 2m , i had to ask some girl who was sleeping on the desk (she was curled up in the fetal position) if there was an instructor available. they (she and some other student) pointed out some guy with a saftey helmet. I asked if they could send him my way.
when he came up he said if i was done i could power down the kite and leave. i said i had prepaid for 2 hrs. 'oh' he says. you need to practice the 'neutral' position and be able to do it with one hand.when i asked if this was included in the lesson time, he told me this was 'free time' and i could 'practice.' I said ok. He then told me that i needed to be able to hold the kite at the 10 and 2 postion. so I launched the 2m kite and boom,it was in a neutral (10 o'clock or 2 o'clock) postion with one hand. easy enough......
later the original instuctor comes back and tells me to get on the 3m kite. so powered down the kite and went to the 3m kite. easy enough.... sure it dragged me around some more. but i got the idea. Finally after 4 hours i was tired and had to go. afterwards, there was no "read this" or 'study that..."
I felt wierd... it was like "ok i paid for '2' lessons. but i was there for 4 hours and the total instructor time was less than or equal to <= 30 minutes. (thats total face time). As someone that works in a training environment for a living it was nothing like i'd give my customers or expect.
when i called back to schedule the next lesson i didn't get the 'we appreciate you as a customer' feeling. more or less i felt like i was getting an attitude of 'why r u bothering me?'
so with some poking around the internet i've been finding more and more instructors and schools. I'm willing and able to front the money for a 'package' but i have to say i really felt left out in the dark.
am i asking questions from left field?
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