Just now joining the fun. New kite surfer alert

[DiyBrad]

Welcome to sport Brad,
In addition to lessons practice flying the kite a lot, watch lots of training videos, read a lot on safety. It’s an amazing sport and Florida, yet with light winds offers beautiful beaches and ocean to ride.

In a twintip you’d ride both regular (as you are) and goofy (right foot forward). For me after being lifelong skateboard exclusively goofy rider other direction was not easy in the beginning but eventually it my strong side to jump and I kitefoil exclusively goofy. It’s fun to learn.

Wait till you discover hydrofoiling behind the boat, kitefoiling or wingfoiling or efoiling - that will be mindblowing

I already have my eye on some foil gear but I need to make use of the new gear I have first. I really want one of the efoils but with a sticker of 12-14k, it will have to wait. I will probably end up with one once the windy season ends here.

[grigorib]

Welcome to sport Brad,
In addition to lessons practice flying the kite a lot, watch lots of training videos, read a lot on safety. It’s an amazing sport and Florida, yet with light winds offers beautiful beaches and ocean to ride.

In a twintip you’d ride both regular (as you are) and goofy (right foot forward). For me after being lifelong skateboard exclusively goofy rider other direction was not easy in the beginning but eventually it my strong side to jump and I kitefoil exclusively goofy. It’s fun to learn.

Wait till you discover hydrofoiling behind the boat, kitefoiling or wingfoiling or efoiling - that will be mindblowing

I already have my eye on some foil gear but I need to make use of the new gear I have first. I really want one of the efoils but with a sticker of 12-14k, it will have to wait. I will probably end up with one once the windy season ends here.

Exactly - efoils are for no wind days. And since they dropped to 5-10k already and you have a dealer in Miami who is a passionate kitefoiler and wingfoiler so demoing gear would be easy. And having a boat is an easy call to get a hydrofoil.
I’m currently inquiring him on <$4900 Waydoo efoil

Anyways, start kiting, ask questions - you’ll find all the answers, especially here.

[Jamesconn300]

A few items:

Watch youtube tutorials till your eyes bleed.
Invest in a smaller board that you're able to ride toeside. Guys correct me if im wrong, but near impossible to ride toeside on door board? (not that I ride toeside often but I think helps with board skills)
Invest in the foil board as soon as possible. The most important piece of the foil board is the powerboat to train on it with. You have that piece and in Florida, there should be many nice no wind days to practice. After around 60 hours of tow foiling over 2 years, I was able to kitefoil first try.
Interesting that you experienced being overpowered with a 2.5 and had to eject, I think Id need 60 knots to accomplish that!
Don't think of more lessons as money down the drain that could have gone to more equipment. Since you already have a sailing and board background, 10-15 hours of lessons is normal.
Im curious to your gear choice. It's common to post kite and board sizes along with weight on this forum, you'll see that alot. After zooming in on your pic I see your large kite is 13.5. Really good choice for Florida I think. Off to a good start it seems..

[ELI]

Time on water ,tuk ?

[ELI]

Time under kite ?

[ELI]

Just don't BAF and Mow ,,,TURN

[FLandOBX]

Just don't BAF and Mow ,,,TURN

TOW and TUK...... I never would have known. Thanks, ELI.

Now.....don't BAF???... Hmmmmm.....Don't "Be A Fool"??? (Or, like we used to say in school....BDBNF......"Bo', Don't Be No Fool".)

Okay. I give up.

[knotwindy]

Back and forth

[DiyBrad]

A few items:

Watch youtube tutorials till your eyes bleed.
Invest in a smaller board that you're able to ride toeside. Guys correct me if im wrong, but near impossible to ride toeside on door board? (not that I ride toeside often but I think helps with board skills)
Invest in the foil board as soon as possible. The most important piece of the foil board is the powerboat to train on it with. You have that piece and in Florida, there should be many nice no wind days to practice. After around 60 hours of tow foiling over 2 years, I was able to kitefoil first try.
Interesting that you experienced being overpowered with a 2.5 and had to eject, I think Id need 60 knots to accomplish that!
Don't think of more lessons as money down the drain that could have gone to more equipment. Since you already have a sailing and board background, 10-15 hours of lessons is normal.
Im curious to your gear choice. It's common to post kite and board sizes along with weight on this forum, you'll see that alot. After zooming in on your pic I see your large kite is 13.5. Really good choice for Florida I think. Off to a good start it seems..

In reality I wasn’t overpowered. It was the first time under a kite that my daughter didn’t own and wasn’t a unicorn so there were a couple of times that felt like an oh shit moment that I couldn’t control so I just ejected out of reaction. Now that I have better understanding of how to control the kite, I don’t think I could get over powered on the 2.5. I have planned on about 9-12 hours of lessons over the next couple weeks once I get more comfortable with goofy foot. I don’t want to waste time and money with the instructor on that since I can practice behind my boat. I do also plan to get a smaller 135-140 board I just haven’t started researching them yet. I am 195lbs so if anyone had some suggestions to start looking into, I am all ears.

[Herman]

^^ Ejecting is a really good instinct to start with. Many people have a great deal of trouble letting go of the bar when things are going wrong.

Even small foils can generate real power. My biggest ever OBE, out of buggy experience, was with a 2m legend.

You will have sussed the meaning of TOW and TUK from the recent posts. You can increase your useful TUK if you can pick up a small cheap LEI to use for beach training. Small LEIs fly ok in lighter wind, might need to lengthen rear pig to reduce backstall, and it will allow you to practice the basics of kite handling without much risk.

The conundrum for the beginner learning to ride is everything is much easier with power but power can also get you into trouble or hurt. Therefore you have to learn some kiteskills in underpowered conditions which actually makes riding a little more difficult but much safer. But it is all good fun.