How to make kitesurfing loops

The kite loop is one of the most extreme tricks that you can perform in kitesurfing. But don´t worry my friend. Even beginners can start trying their first kite loops safely. For that, start your first kite loops while doing body dragging. Try it in a day when the wind is not so strong until you get confident to try with the board.

Learning to kite loop

* Set the kite at 1 o’clock, slowing down as if you wanted to make a U-turn. 

* We raise the kite at 12 o’clock and try to make a cut that gives us a meter in height but no more. 

* As soon as we notice that we start to lift, we pull very hard on the bar in the opposite direction to where we are sailing, and at full power with the bar down. A classic mistake is trying to make a kite loop with the bar de-powered… the kite does not turn, and the turning time is much longer. The objective at this point is to make a complete kite turn as tight and vertical as possible to go up and fly diagonally. To do this, you have to throw the kite loop when the kite is at 12 o’clock. Here comes the typical point where people get scared by the fact of going horizontally forward. And this is the point where our future of the Next 5 or 6 seconds and if we do it well, everything will go smoothly, but if we do it wrong, phase 4 in which we are in the air can be very complicated, and phase 5, which is landing, a lot. 

In the air: when we notice the lash, it is advisable to group the body by bringing the knees to the chest to bring our centre of gravity together and thus avoid unbalancing in the air, which would cause an uncoordinated landing.

The landing: as the kite loop spits us very aggressively forward, and we usually come flying at high speed, we must look for a strict downwind landing, very exaggerated but never with the board perpendicular, always horizontal to the direction of flight and we will look for our board to touch the water with the back part first to avoid a counter edge. If we have done phase 3 well, the landing must be sustained despite the low altitude that we carry since the loop has been well up and closed. Finally, we will place the kite in the correct position to facilitate landing.

Tip: always practice the kiteloop with kite sizes of 10 square meters or less so that the turn is fast and vertical. Keyword: downwind.

 Timing: Times are basic in kitesurfing in general. I put a simple and easy to understand example with the extensions: It is not that our kite becomes more powerful when we add extensions to our lines, it is that it is within the power zone for longer. If we extrapolate this to a kiteloop, all the time the kite is turning it will be at full power, therefore: kiteloop more open, lower, more aggressive.

• On the contrary, if we want to make a smoother kiteloop, we must put the bar at full power and give it a very aggressive order so that the turn is as vertical, closed and fast as possible.

Conclusion

When we talk about how to kite loop, it may sound a little bit scary, but if you try with common sense it is not dangerous at all. It is very important though that you try in a day when the wind is light and once you start looping the kite, you keep it until the kite is 360 dregrees