The Most Important Part of Kiteboarding: How to Fall

Blake from MACkite here. It's good to be back! I'm recovering from a torn ACL surgery, and just being able to walk is so incredible. So I figured... why not teach you one of the most important things in kiteboarding, which in my opinion is how to fall.

Get Strong

I have a lot of experience in falling; I've been injured a lot. Throughout the years of teaching myself how to kiteboard and do all of my own tricks, I have had to learn how to fall through trial and error. Now I've got it down to where a lot of my injuries aren't due to falling; they're due to previous injuries and not being strong enough. I'm learning that if you're stronger, it's better, so I'm going to the gym and doing some squats and even body weight exercises as a preventative measure so that I don't get injured. The stronger your legs and your body and your core and your neck are, the less likely you are to break something. That's one thing that I'm just learning now because I've never been a gym person, but even if you don't go to the gym, you can do some extra exercises on top of going out and being active and kiting. That'll help prevent you from injuries that might not happen when you're a little stronger.

Get Small

If you take anything away from this, remember that when you feel like you're going to fall, get small. That's my key advice for any sport and any trick, even just tumbling on the ground. If you ever feel like you're going to fall, get small so that you can roll out of it. If you're tall, then you're much more likely to fall because you have this leverage that's going to take you down, and the crash is going to be harder. If you're small and compact, you can kind of roll out of it. So get your body together and create a lower center of gravity. That really helps you not take those hard impacts that can injure you and set you on the sidelines.

Get Your Kite Up

You always want to keep your kite above you. Once your kite goes down, that's going to pull you with a lot of force into the water and you'll hit it harder. Water is a lot softer than other things, but with that amount of force driving you down, water can still feel like concrete. If your kite's above you, it'll help lift you up and keep you floating down. Obviously, it's easier said than done, but if you know you're going to fall, try to get that kite back up above your head. Once you start pulling on that back hand and going around, it's very common in backrolls and as you're learning to jump to pull too hard on the back hand so that you go one way and the kite goes the other, and then you come crashing down. So remember to keep your kite above your head as much as you can so you float down, rather than come down hot.

Get Sheeted Out

You want to release the bar if you know you're going down. Obviously, you try to keep it above you, but if you have it pulled in, you're going to come down a lot harder, so push out on that bar. That way you're not coming down with all the force. As you're coming down, hopefully you can keep the kite above your head, you get small, and then right before impact you push out on the bar so that it opens the kite to soften the impact. If you have the bar pulled in, then the kite is going to be powered up and pulling you harder into the water so you fall harder, which doesn't feel so good. So remember to push out on the bar as you come down, and that'll allow you to soften the impact like a parachute catching you as you're swinging down. You can also just let go of the bar and cannonball in.

Get Rid of the Board

You want to kick the board off upwind if you feel like you're coming down hot. Even when you bring the kite above you and release the bar, sometimes you can still come down with a lot of force when you hit the water. Having that board with all of your weight on top of it creates a lot of impact, so if you kick that board off behind you, then you can just pencil dive into the water or cannonball if you get small. That's going to soften the landing. Pencil diving is the best thing unless you're going into shallow water, and then I would recommend keeping the board on so that you don't sink into it and you can take the impact with the board. If you can get small, you can absorb the impact, whereas if you're standing tall, it's a lot of impact on your spine, neck, back, and knees especially. So if you're coming down hot, as long as the water is deep, kick that board off upwind of you. Make sure you don't kick it off downwind, because then you can get pulled into the board, which can hurt you. Whether you hit the board, the fins, or the edge, it's a hard object that you don't want to hit or crash onto, so kick it upwind of you if possible and get rid of that thing so you can just focus on preparing for a crash and landing.

Get Your Kiteloop Around

Once you're at the level of looping, always make sure to get that loop fully around, even if you know you're not going to make it. If you panic and you loop the kite and it goes down, whether you're trying backrolls for the first time or you're jumping and you accidentally send it, it's better to fully commit it to a loop and have it go back up in the air than to do a loop halfway, create all that tension, and then sheet out and stop. Then it's going to send you down to a really hard impact. It's scary and it's pretty hard sometimes to fully commit, but pull that bar in as hard as you can, hold it so that it goes all the way around, and then sheet out as it's going up to soften the landing.

Those are the tips I thought about while I'm recovering from my leg injury. I've had so many injuries over the years where I wish someone would have taught me how to fall properly so that I wouldn't have had to go through all those, but I'm grateful for it because now I've learned exactly how to fall properly and save myself some damage throughout the years. Honestly, knowing how to fall is probably the reason that I'm alive today, so I hope this really helps you. Let me know how it goes, and I will see you at the beach and then back on the water in six to eight months. I'm looking forward to it and am grateful and happy for every day. It's amazing to be alive and continue to be able to do the things that I love to do. See you next time!

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