In this how-to we will elaborate about the question: what are the best teaching ratios when learning to Kitesurf?

Kitesurfing is a sport that involves a lot of muscle memory mapping. It’s a sport that is in some points not intuitive at the same time it can be straightforward to learn and map the brain to respond correctly. To make your lessons useful and productive, the way your school and instructor are organized and teach you play a significant role in making this learning fast and enjoyable.

We will use the I.K.O. standards on this ‘how to’ and go from level 1 ‘discovery’ until level 4 ‘rider’.

Enjoy reading!

So in Level 1- discovery- The lesson can be up to 4 students with 2 kites while using a small foil kite flying. The student should try to mimic all the movements he will later use on the water. It’s much more important to keep the kite still in a determined position than having it moving all the time. So for this, the student should maintain the kite at 10:30 when going to his left side walking or 1:30 when going to the right. The student should be able to do this by keeping the kite static, doing power strokes and with one hand while moving upwind. If an inflatable is used the lines need to be short making sure the kite doesn’t have power, and an instructor fifth-line should be used.

Most of the teaching in this level is done inland with the kite not flying. The students will be learning safety features and basic flying without any power. The instructor needs to teach the student how to pilot and how to be also the assistant, making them swap positions in each exercise. The instructor can monitor the 2 groups and provide corrections as needed to each of the groups. In this case, the student in the assistant position can also help with his point of view instructions allowing him to increase his understanding of the exercise and the correct way of doing this. The instructor will then correct and increment their learning.

Once we enter the Level 2 – intermediate – I only recommend 2 students per instructor with one kite flying. Or if the place is cold just split the time of the lesson and teach each one independently. This for me ensures the optimal learning ratio. At this point, the student is going to enter the water for the first times. He will crash the kite and in a real situation have to deal with the relaunch, body drag and the board for the first times. The corrections and support of the instructor are crucial at this point. He can also coach the 2nd student once the first one is practicing. This way the 2nd student has time rest in between exercises. The 2nd student also acts as a supervisor and helper of the 1st. Giving him his point of view and helping him all the time. The lesson at this level is demanding physically and psychologically. A lot of new techniques are learned, and a lot of further coordination is required. So the mapping of the brain to coordinate the movements is critical. Since it’s only one kite flying I actually recommend the lesson is split by the 2 students, this some benefits but also some problems. The advantage is your lesson is half the time, and so you don’t get time to get cold as you are always practicing. You also lose the possibility to observe similar mistakes. My recommendation is that you take the lessons separately but observe a similar class to know what to expect beforehand.

Once we reach the Level 3 – Independent level – The student should be able to control de kite properly allowing the instructor some more freedom. In this level, I believe the best ratio is 2 students with 2 kites with 1 instructor. If the instructor has one assistant, it can be 4 students and 4 kites.

At this time the students will be needing more practice time as they don’t crash so many times and the time is better used practicing the tips of the instructor. The student doesn’t come to the beach so often as he can recover himself most of the times. The use of radio communication can significantly help the learning progress of the student. Once the student can ride to each side, he can hear the instructors and quick tips of the instructor. It’s crucial that the communication is done by a 2-way radio so the student can also provide feedback to the instructor

For level 4 the instructor can take up to 4 students each with his own kite, as the students are already riders looking for tips and posture corrections to help them improve and progress. Besides the radio, the use of video equipment can provide for great help for post-lesson progression and mechanization of the muscle memory. After the lesson and with the fresh mind the brain can efficiently process the instruction given by observing what was meant by the instructor. It’s a great tool to achieve a faster progression. Equipment plays a significant role also and should be suited to the exercise the student is aiming to make. The board can have a massive part in this too, I have noticed that several students that have their own gear don’t have it correctly setup making it harder to progress.

So for each level of your learning progress, there are better ratios for learning in my opinion. These ratios could optimize price, but because of bad school practices and clients being unaware of these it’s hard to make a uniformed price list making it very hard to show these advantages. So in our case, we make all lessons one on one for 1:30 making sure you get the most out of the lesson time by making sure you only use your time learning.