Not feeling the love

[plummet]

We'll I havent been kiting since the start of April and I don't really care!.....

I'm not even looking at forecasts.

Hmmmmmm.

[Starsky]

Not sure what you want to discuss?

I've been nursing injury for basically the entire winter and am dying to get back into the water. Haven't kited since OCTOBER! Try that on for size..... it sucks.

Consider yourself lucky.

[SLiiCK]

If you've had a lot of kiting over the past few months ? perhaps you've had your fill. I sometimes cannot kite because of work, kids and wind conditions for up to six weeks sometimes, because of this it has kept me hungry for kitesurfing for the past 17years and I still get butterflies in my stomach every time I get to the beach.
After a break you most probably will get it back, I try to mix things up each time I get to the beach either TT surfboard and now foil and even landboarding this helps.

[Starsky]

Having to take the winter off, I find myself this spring with ALL the gear maintained, tuned and ready to go. Having gone through pretty much all of it, I had the nice realization, I've finally hit the point of no more gear lust.

There are lots of cool and attractive pieces of kit out there, but I actually have no want for any of it. Any new gear would be replacing something that is in perfect working order and does exactly what I want it to up to and beyond my skill level.

I now have gear for literally every condition. Strutless kites for foiling and waves, Strutted kites for gusty wind, C kites for unhooked, and boosting, Winter specific kite. Foilboard, skimboard, wakeboard, surfboards, all pretty much exactly how I like em. Bars with no CL, Bars with CL, 5 line bars, 4 line bars, 32, 28, 24, 23, 21, and 17m lines, hard shell harness, soft shell harness, board shorts harness, Slider set up, pivot set up, regular hook set up. Drysuit, 5/4mm hooded suit, 4/3 suit, Shorty, Neo shirts, booties, gloves, Vests, helmets, you name it, I've accumulated loads of stuff. All of it tweaked and turned over to dial it all in to my personal tastes. Ie, it took at least 5 helmets to end up with the perfect fit.

Funny enough, now that my arm is ready to get back into it, and the water is warming to less than ridiculous temp, I'm nervous as hell. Have this strange feeling I'm going to have forgotten it all, and am really needing to get back in the saddle to get a little mojo back!

[vela99]

interesting.

I have observed that normally my hunger grows with the practice of a given sport.

I regularly practice mountain biking, windsurfing and kiting and I love them all. When the conditions/spot/area/buddies etc are right to practice one of these sports and I have dialed in on it normally it takes me quite some mental effort to immediately switch to another one of my sports to the point I actually miss out on a few good days.

Not sure I made myself clear. The root cause may be a different one, but I can relate to your point. Sometimes even if you really love to practice kiting, the mind is "lazy"

[SLiiCK]

Having to take the winter off, I find myself this spring with ALL the gear maintained, tuned and ready to go. Having gone through pretty much all of it, I had the nice realization, I've finally hit the point of no more gear lust.

There are lots of cool and attractive pieces of kit out there, but I actually have no want for any of it. Any new gear would be replacing something that is in perfect working order and does exactly what I want it to up to and beyond my skill level.

I now have gear for literally every condition. Strutless kites for foiling and waves, Strutted kites for gusty wind, C kites for unhooked, and boosting, Winter specific kite. Foilboard, skimboard, wakeboard, surfboards, all pretty much exactly how I like em. Bars with no CL, Bars with CL, 5 line bars, 4 line bars, 32, 28, 24, 23, 21, and 17m lines, hard shell harness, soft shell harness, board shorts harness, Slider set up, pivot set up, regular hook set up. Drysuit, 5/4mm hooded suit, 4/3 suit, Shorty, Neo shirts, booties, gloves, Vests, helmets, you name it, I've accumulated loads of stuff. All of it tweaked and turned over to dial it all in to my personal tastes. Ie, it took at least 5 helmets to end up with the perfect fit.

Funny enough, now that my arm is ready to get back into it, and the water is warming to less than ridiculous temp, I'm nervous as hell. Have this strange feeling I'm going to have forgotten it all, and am really needing to get back in the saddle to get a little mojo back!

I have had the that feeling when you've had quite a long break but I found after 20mins back on the water your dialled back in and when you set your kite up just take your time then it all feels natural again.
Also I've got most gear to cover nearly all conditions plus plenty of old kit piled up in the back of the garage, and finding I do not need to get anything else even though some of my kit is getting old(also some newer) although mind you there is a few things I would like to buy but can always dream!
And as vela said your mind can get lazy I've had times when I'm not geared up to go out but push myself and when I get back in I think I'm glad I got out and feel better about myself.

[FLandOBX]

So, plummet, I get that way sometimes. I find that the more proficient you become at any endeavor, the harder you have to work to keep it fresh and exciting. Sometimes, it doesn't happen, and we move on to other activities. Other times, we find a way to stoke the fires again.

With kiting, I find the "trick of the month" routine helpful. List 10-12 tricks that you haven't mastered, and focus on perfecting one each month. You've only got a month for each trick, 'cause you need to move through your list (one trick per month). It also makes it interesting to pick tricks in disciplines that you don't usually practice. So, if you ride waves, work on some unhooked tricks. If you ride wakestyle, work on board-offs. But get good at the trick of the month in the allotted time, and then move on down the list.

Anything you can do to break up the routine of doing the same old things during your kite sessions may help to rekindle the flame.

[BWD]

Need more challenge starsky?
Take the fins off all your boards?
Take the stabilizer off your foil?

I don't know, seriously, for me feelings like that have less to do with the sport or activity itself, than my mood or other factors, even if it's something I never really put my finger on.
One day, the wind starts blowing, and the stoke comes back on the breeze, like salty sea air.

If not, maybe it could be the gear.
If you ship me all your gear, I'll test it and try to analyse the problem in detail.
It could take a while. Years perhaps.
Same offer to you, plummet.

[Kamikuza]

I'm without foil board at the moment, and am getting annoyed because we rarely get decent enough wind to ride without it needing 17m kites for the TT or surfboard. I think I've been out only once or twice a month since we got back in March.

[TomW]

I've been kitesurfing 16 years. I have consistently done 60 sessions a year. That's not a lot. But I'm still stoked to go out.
Back when I rode bicycles a lot, 4000-6000 km a year, for 15 years, I started ramping up my long distances. I was doing 120 km a day, 200km, then randonneures 300km. I started thinking I would do a Paris -Brest- Paris (900km) and did a 430km ride in 22 hrs solo. after that I felt really negative about getting on my bike. I took a few weeks off, reflected that I loved cycling and had enjoyed it immensely. That having that happiness was really valuable, and by over doing it I was jeopardizing that source of joy. So I cut way back, and started doing other activities. So when I did ride, the joy was there.