Your First Kiteboarding Trick After Learning How to Jump

Hey, what's up guys? I'm Rygo.

I'm Lucas.

And today we're going to kick off a new playlist where we're running through the fundamentals of kiteboarding with an emphasis on simple, stylish things that you can practice: grabs, all the basics. It doesn't matter what your discipline is; these are things to work on to elevate your riding, whether you're a freestyler, freerider, or even a big air rider. Today we're going to talk about a super simple tail grab with a sent jump and what you can work on to improve that. If you're doing your first jumps, this is where you start with your first grab. It's the entry to a lot of grabs, and the entry to board-off too.

Let's start with the kite movement. It is a simple jump, but we can break down what we're doing with the kite and then we'll break down what we're doing with our body. One thing that's important is you don't need to change your jump; you don't need to learn something new here. If you're already jumping, just add a grab to your regular jump, whatever that jump is. It's just a little flavor you can add to it.

When you jump, you're going to pull your back leg back, and as you pull your knee up, the tail of the board comes closer to your hands. Take your back hand off the bar and grab the tail. You really want to pull that tail up towards your body; the more you tweak it, the more you bend that back leg and straighten your front one, the more stylish it is and the better recognized it'll be. From there, you want to release the tail, put your hand back on the bar, land smoothly, and ride off.

That's a super simple, easy, entry-level grab, and it's going to help you get into more grabs and your board-offs. If you want to do one-footers, it's a very simple start into the future of grabs and I would recommend this as the first one.

A few key points to keep in mind: obviously you should know how to do a simple jump with this. You're sending the kite up and then you're redirecting that kite forward so you can land going a bit more downwind. One thing that's really nice about the tail grab is you're taking your back hand off the bar which puts a little bit of pressure on the front hand, so when the kite's at noon, the kite's going to come forward and pull you.

One really important basic fundamental is tweaking. Point your front leg and then bring your back knee into your chest. The more aggressive you are with this, the better. Start small, do a simple tail grab, and with time, as you get your timing right, bring that tail closer to your hip, poke the front leg, and it's going to look pretty stylish. Take baby steps, work your way into it, and this is where you're going to start with your first grabs. This will help you bridge into more advanced grabs. It's a great start and you don't change much once you're already jumping. It's something you can easily throw into your regular everyday routine.

We're going to go through several different grabs, starting with the back hand grabs. We'll eventually get into front hand grabs and transitioning into rolls and different things like that; all these things build on each other. We'll catch you later. Cheers!