Self-teaching

[sarc]

Lots of people have been self taught, but if you were to ask them again, I think they'd all say they wish they had taken lessons. From my experience: I flew a friends trainer kite, got hooked, bought a 12 meter C kite, no lessons, tried to launch it (after watching the DVD's over and over again, got tossed 40 feet, traded the kite in for a 7 meter, flew it in light winds, got the hang of it, grabbed my snowboard and learned to snow kite, then in stupid winds, got tossed again by accidentally sending the kite and cracked my collar bone and was out of 7 weeks. The bone still has a lump 3 years later. In the summer I finally took a lesson for the water, learned a lot, and felt reassured because there was someone else educated that was there watchng and correcting me. I went and bought gear, took baby steps on the water, loved it, got better, learned to be an instructor and got certified.
That's my journey. Kiting can be very dangerous. I was lucky more than once, and after the lesson, things weren't as scary. If I had to do it again, I'd take a winter lesson and then a water lesson.

Even after lessons, you need to be very careful. Not sure where you live, but there are a lot of access issues. If you go to the beach with your new gear, mess up and hurt someone, you could restrict access for the rest of the group.

What he said. Back in the 90's we had no choice but to self-teach but almost all of us were expert windsurfers who understood the wind, the sea and how dangerous watersports can be. And we all trashed a lot of gear before we could kite safely. While we were learning we were a danger to ourselves and to anyone within 200ft radius. Today there's no excuse not to take lessons (shop around, watch how lessons are run in a couple of different schools and choose wisely! Bad schools/teachers do exist)

[cleepa]

..and stay away from any beach I frequent because you will be the guy that hurt someone else and gets kiting banned.

This is an important reason you shouldn't teach yourself. At a lot of beaches, it feels like a matter of "when not if" someone does something stupid and gets kiting banned from that spot. I sympathise with everyone who feels the pain of the cost of kiting, but lessons are the smaller part of the cost and a very important part of the learning experience. In your lessons, all the aspects of safety should be covered. This is important for your own health, that of other beachgoers and preserving kiter access to beaches. Around where I am, we've had one beach shut down because of someone's irresponsible actions. Don't be the person that does that and get some lessons.

[BernieTomic1]

I taught kiting from 2003-2009 or so, and still occasionally teach friends for free.

Do you have old kites that you wouldn't mind too much if hard crashes break them? I find this is an obstacle when friends ask for help learning to kite.

[tautologies]

This is an important reason you shouldn't teach yourself. At a lot of beaches, it feels like a matter of "when not if" someone does something stupid and gets kiting banned from that spot. I sympathise with everyone who feels the pain of the cost of kiting, but lessons are the smaller part of the cost and a very important part of the learning experience. In your lessons, all the aspects of safety should be covered. This is important for your own health, that of other beachgoers and preserving kiter access to beaches. Around where I am, we've had one beach shut down because of someone's irresponsible actions. Don't be the person that does that and get some lessons.

Just as a matter of personal philosophy I am fine with people taking risks and hurting themselves if they choose to not heed advice, but once it hurts someone else I am not fine with it anymore.

[knotwindy]

Exactly
Find an empty spot where there are no other people to hurt or a launch to put in danger and
Go do whatever you think is fine. Take it very slow and use small kites and if you get lucky you will have stories to tell. If you get unlucky, we will

[RadDrDuke]

Yes, to teach friends you need old crappy kites you don't mind them crashing hard.


The MOST IMPORTANT part in teaching yourself is finding a huge, open beach without anyone around. If this isn't possible then you can't teach yourself at all.
Learning to kite is very dangerous to yourself and especially others in proximity to you. People always way overestimate their skills in transitioning from trainer kite to real kite and get horribly whipped/looped many times before they gain real control.
That's why Hatteras is great; you learn in the middle of a shallow bay without hard things downwind or any people around and you can get a jetski follow to allow rapid progress. Anti-Disclaimer: I don't live or work in Hatteras and have no connections whatsoever.

[kiterocky]

If without anyone around feel free to kill yourself ..already to many kiters on the spot...))

[LetsFlyaKite]

Don't listen to anyone on here. I understand you might be struggling with money, and you just want to enjoy kiting. So here's some helpful tips where you can learn by yourself, the safe way...

First you need to know your emergency release and how it works before anything. Again safety is the #1 goal. And also know how to eject the kite completely if you need to.

Don't go out learning in high winds, pick a day where it's lighter wind. Higher winds carry greater risks and the potential to hurt yourself increases.

It helps to have a buddy who knows how to kite with you...

Go get em!

[F27Corsair]

I'm going to agree with the above. Some of you guys are wound up way too tight. If you take your time and use your due diligence, self learning can be done and in a safe manner. I am self taught- I watched countless youtube videos, asked lots of questions, practiced for hours in an open field before going to the water, etc etc. I never put anyone in harms way or never got myself in trouble that required someone to bail me out. I've helped many guys that have had lessons fish their kites out of trees or off cars in the street.
If you are tight on cash and take the precautionary steps, you can be just as safe, if not safer than someone that took lessons. With that being said, I am very much aware there are many guys that wing it and end up getting themselves and/or others in trouble, which can give self-taught folks a bad name. But to make a blanket statement such as "self teaching is a sure way to get in trouble" I think is unwarranted.

-Travis

[knotwindy]

I’m not sure anyone on here said you can’t learn on your own. Lots of us here(maybe most of us) did and because of that we are saying
It is so much faster and somewhat safer to get a couple of lessons first.
You don’t need 6 days at $1000 but a couple of 3 hour sessions will make life so much better/safer to start.
Or just go thrash yourself around. And bring a GoPro, the ‘authorities’ will want to know what happened.