Beginner Land and Taxi Drills

So the board never gets blown across you, and the wing stays clear.

Climb on from the windward side — the side the wind is coming from. Do the same every time you fall off:

1. Swim round to the upwind side of the board.
2. Climb on.
3. Pull the wing back in by the leash.
4. Find the handles.

Robby Naish · MACkite

This is the skill that gets you home. Treat it as essential, not as a fallback.

Lie on the board and paddle it like a surfboard. In the shallows the board floats with the foil pointing up, which is also how you get across weed. Flip the foil under once it is deep enough.

The wing drags and jumps about on its leash while you paddle. To stop that, tuck it under your feet: flip it over and hook your feet on the leading edge.

Practise paddling upwind deliberately, before you need it. You drift downwind constantly while you are learning, and paddling back up is what makes that survivable.

In shallow water you can also just wade back up the beach with the wing lying on the board. That is much easier than dragging the board up the sand or carrying both.

Kitesurf College · Sam Light · Robby Naish

Kneeling is not a lesser version of winging. It is the base everything else is built on.

1. Slide on lying down.
2. Push up onto your knees with your toes tucked under.
3. Put your knees well apart — that is most of your stability.
4. Stay in the middle of the board.

Some people like their toes touching in a V behind them, some like their feet spread wide. Both work; use whichever feels steadier for you.

While you are getting settled you can put a hand on the board, or rest the wing on the water, to steady yourself. Then reach for the front handle and bring the wing up.

Elite Watersports · Sam Light · Damien LeRoy

A moving board is a stable board, and that surprises everyone the first time.

Front hand on the boom, back hand on, and sheet in just enough to start moving. The moment the board has some speed it stops wobbling, because the foil and the fins only grip once water is flowing over them.

Sit up tall on your knees rather than hunching. That gives the wing room to fly above you instead of catching the water.

Kitesurf College · Damien LeRoy · MACkite · Sam Light

The one rule every single instructor teaches, and the thing you will use every minute you are out.

Twist your upper body to move the wing toward the nose of the board, and the nose swings downwind. Move the wing toward the tail and the nose comes up into the wind. Sailors call the first one bearing away and the second heading up. Move the wing along the board smoothly rather than lifting and replacing it.

Where you kneel matters too. Kneeling further forward makes the board bear away downwind. Kneeling further back makes it easier to head up.

You can lean into it as well. A bit of lean steers the board the way it steers a surfboard. If the board feels stuck and suctioned to the water, lean back to lift the nose and free it.

Underneath the visible "move the wing" cue, what actually turns you is keeping the wing pulling forward and then sheeting in. That loads your back foot, and the back foot levers the board upwind. A wing that is angled back but pointed wrong still takes you downwind.

Kitesurf College · Elite Watersports · MACkite · Sam Light · SUPboarder · WingWorld

You are drifting downwind the whole time you are sorting yourself out. Stop the loss early.

The moment the wing is under control, get the board pointing across the wind — about 90° to it, or a touch upwind of that — and get moving. Instructors call that line crosswind, and it is where you want to spend almost all of your time.

Every second spent sitting still is distance you will have to win back.

Kitesurf College · Damien LeRoy

A real drill, not just a tip. This is how the steering becomes automatic.

Once you are sailing along on your knees:

1. Shuffle toward the nose and slide the wing forward. Notice the board bear away downwind.
2. Shuffle back to the tail and slide the wing back. Notice it head up into the wind.
3. Come back to the nose and let go of the back hand while holding the front handle. Notice the wing and the board stall out and stop.
4. Let the wing go, sit down, and do the whole thing again the other way round.

Do not worry about dropping the wing or making a mess of it. This step is pure practice — spend as long here as you need.

MACkite

Two directions quietly kill your speed, and neither of them feels like a mistake at the time.

Too far upwind and you simply stop. Point straight at the wind and you will sit there going nowhere.

Too far downwind, in light wind especially, and it feels as though the wind has switched off. Running with the wind cancels most of what you had.

Find both edges deliberately, so you recognise the feeling instantly and can steer out of it.

Watch out: in light wind, drifting downwind is a trap. Your own movement cancels what little wind there is and it becomes impossible to sail back. Stay crosswind, or very slightly upwind of that.

Kitesurf College · Damien LeRoy · WingWorld

The easy turn. Learn it down here, where falling off costs you nothing.

A gybe is a turn where the tail passes through the wind, so you swing round the downwind side. It is the easier of the two turns.

1. Push the wing toward the nose, so you start heading downwind.
2. Steer the wing high above your head.
3. Let go with the back hand and swap your front hand over.
4. Put the new back hand on. The wing's pull drags you round the rest of the turn.

It is exactly the side-to-side swap you drilled on the beach, with the board turning underneath you.

Watch out: on a big inflatable SUP this is genuinely awkward and slow. If it is not working, sit down and paddle yourself around instead.

Kitesurf College · Elite Watersports · Sam Light

The small detail that makes standing up work, and almost nobody mentions it.

While you are kneeling and moving, twist your knees so they sit at an angle rather than square: knees pointing slightly downwind, feet slightly upwind. Slide your back knee toward the middle of the board.

This does two things. You can hold the wing without twisting yourself up, and your back leg is no longer in the way of the foot you are about to bring through.

Which way your knees point also trims the board. One way lifts or drops the tail, the other rolls it side to side. Staggered keeps both mild.

Elite Watersports · Kitesurf College · Sam Light · WingWorld

The standard route up, and the one nearly every instructor teaches.

Get moving across the wind first, so the board is already stable. Then:

1. Bring your front foot through and place it with the ball of the foot over the centreline, near the front strap inserts — or a little further forward if you are new to foiling and want to keep the foil down.
2. Stand up mainly on that front leg.
3. Place the back foot with the arch over the centreline, near the rear inserts.
4. Keep both feet near the centreline, not out on the rails.

Go up gently and slowly. If it feels wrong, drop back to your knee and try again — twenty times if you need to. Trying to leap to your feet in one go is why people fall straight off the other side.

Use the wing to lift you rather than pulling it down toward you, and do not lean forward as you rise.

If the board is so floaty that you cannot get your weight over it, try the tripod. Put the wing's trailing edge on the water and lean down onto your own forearm against the front of the wing. It holds you up while you get your feet sorted. Then bring the wing slowly overhead and take the back handle.

Watch out: there is a window. Stand up after the board is moving and settled, but before you are going fast enough for the foil to start lifting. Do not build up to full speed and then try to get up.

Robby Naish · Elite Watersports · Kitesurf College · Sam Light · Damien LeRoy · WingWorld

Skips kneeling almost entirely. Worth trying if your board is small, or if you already stand sideways on a board.

The knee start is the conventional route, and it suits people coming from a SUP background on a big 140–160 litre board. If you are on something smaller, or you already ride a surfboard, wakeboard or snowboard, this alternative may click much faster. It puts you straight into the sideways stance your body already knows.

Set up the same as always: wind at your back, wing downwind, and the board crosswind or a touch upwind of that. Then:

1. Scramble onto the board on all fours — both knees and both hands down, body already facing sideways. Your hands take the weight and balance the upwind rail while you settle.
2. Swing your front foot through and plant it with the arch along the centreline.
3. Now get low — really low. Backside almost touching your ankles. That low centre of gravity is the entire trick.
4. Swing the back foot through and stay down there. Balance with your ankles and feet, not by standing up.
5. Only now reach for the wing's front handle and use it to swing yourself back crosswind. You have certainly drifted downwind while getting sorted.
6. Once you are crosswind, powered up and moving, stand up slowly, using the wing's pull to help you rise.

You can also stay squatted and ride. It is a perfectly good way to sail along, and it means you choose the moment you stand.

Take your time on every step. Rushing puts you back in the water and costs you more time than going slowly would have.

It is much kinder to your knees. You are still briefly on them, but for a fraction of the time. After that it is the soles of your feet taking the load and the friction, not your knees, shins and the tops of your feet. If your knees complain, this is the reason to try it. Your wetsuit knee pads last longer too.

You also balance differently, and better: down in the squat you correct with your toes and ankles rather than swinging your upper body around looking for balance.

It doubles as a take-off gauge. If you are squatted and already almost planing, that gust is enough — stand up and you will usually be on foil within seconds. If it feels slow and sticky down there, wait for a better one instead of burning a try.

Watch out: this is one method, not the method. It needs hip and ankle flexibility to get properly low; its own instructor rides a lake that is flat most of the time and does not claim it in chop; and riders report it being hardest in very light wind, when there is not enough pull to swing you round or lift you up. If the knee start is already working for you, keep doing that. If it is the chop that is beating you, the next two drills are aimed squarely at that.

AWKWA (Ben), two videos — single-source method; the "get low", "swing across the wind before standing" and "front foot first" parts agree with the other instructors

For a smaller board, or choppy water, where sitting up to raise the wing just tips you off.

On a big stable beginner board you can kneel or even stand up, then calmly pick the wing up. On a smaller board, or in chop, that upright moment is exactly when you fall in — especially as the wing comes up.

The stink bug gets rid of that moment. The name is the instructors' own, and it describes the shape you make: crouched underneath the wing, elbows in, knees tucked. It is low and stable, and because your hands are already on the handles you can power up and go immediately. Once you are moving, the foil works as a big stabiliser and everything settles.

1. Lie on the board, and from here on keep your weight placed so the nose stays slightly raised.
2. Pull the wing in to you if you are not already holding it.
3. Turn the nose of the board slightly downwind. Push against the water, or against the wing, to swing it round.
4. Bring the wing overhead, with your front hand on the front handle. Your back hand can hold the rail of the board.
5. Put both elbows beside your waist, lean on your elbows, and tuck your knees in — knees close to the middle of the board, where its buoyancy is.
6. In one movement, grab the back handle and raise the front hand to fly the wing.

The wing should pull you along straight away. Once you have speed, stand up and go.

Why slightly downwind? The instant you first lift the wing it gives a sudden jolt of pull, and that jolt is aimed downwind. If the nose is pointing fully crosswind or a touch upwind when it arrives, it rolls you straight over the side. Turning the nose down a little absorbs it.

Watch out: fore-and-aft weight is the whole game here. Too far forward and you nose-dive; too far back and the nose lifts too much, which is less stable and much slower to get going. Keep the nose slightly raised the entire time — and the smaller your board, the more precise that has to be.

Kitesurf College

The same start with your legs either side of the board — the version that handles real chop.

Hold the wing and straddle the board, a leg down each side. You can pick the wing up and taxi along like this, and it gives a surprising amount of control even when it is choppy, because your legs are gripping the board.

When you are ready to go:

1. Drop your elbows into the same position as the basic stink bug.
2. Release the back hand and use it to grip the rail.
3. Put all your weight on your arms and lift both legs up off the sides of the board in one quick movement. You are now crouched under the wing exactly as in the basic stink bug.
4. Place the back hand, raise the front hand, and power up.

The point of it: you can go from taxiing in rodeo to taxiing on your knees in about two seconds. If you are quick you barely stop moving at all, and that makes you far more stable than starting from a standstill.

It also lets you push through chop and small foamy waves instead of being knocked off by them. Sitting up like that gives you a good view of the water, so you can watch for a gap in the waves and then get up and ride away in it.

Its own instructor recommends learning to taxi this way.

Watch out: it asks for a bit more strength and flexibility to swing your legs up from the sides, and it gives you less time to think about where your weight is. Learn the basic stink bug first and get your fore-and-aft placement genuinely good before adding this.

Kitesurf College

Standing up straight is the fastest way back into the water.

Keep your knees bent and your weight low. Lock your legs straight and every ripple goes into tipping you over.

Keep your body upright over the board rather than hanging out sideways the way a windsurfer does. The board is narrow, so your weight wants to be directly above it.

Damien LeRoy · KT Surfing · Robby Naish · AWKWA

When you wobble, your hands can fix it faster than your feet can.

Starting to fall backwards? Sheet in a little with the back hand — the extra pull holds you up.

Starting to fall forwards? Sheet out and dump the power, so the wing stops pulling you over.

Practise catching yourself both ways on purpose, so the wing becomes something you can hold on to.

Damien LeRoy · WingWorld

Back and forth on the surface. This is the whole skill, and it is worth several sessions.

Taxiing is riding along on the surface without flying on the foil. The word is borrowed from aircraft moving on the ground, and it is what instructors call it. Ride along across the wind, in both directions. Turn around, come back, do it again.

To stop the foil lifting before you want it to, keep enough weight on your front foot. Weight drifting back toward the tail is what lets it climb, so if you feel the board getting light, push down through the front foot.

Kitesurf College · Elite Watersports

Going downwind is free. Going upwind is what turns a session into a round trip.

Look where you want to go. Your shoulders, waist and hips follow your eyes, and that is what points the board and puts the wing's power into your legs.

Feet: front foot pointing forwards, just off the centreline on the upwind side. Back foot across the centreline toward the back. Drive your back leg into the wind and carry a bit more weight on your back heel.

Wing: hold it closer to the leading edge, sheeted in a little with the front hand and out a little with the back hand, sitting at roughly 45° across the board. Angle it back a touch to head up, then always bring it back to the middle to keep moving.

On a SUP: the fins are all at the back, so the board constantly wants to bear away downwind. Keep the wing high and gentle, and put weight on the upwind rail — lean into your heels so that rail digs in. With no centre fin at all, stand as far back over the fins as you can, and edge your front foot toward the upwind rail so the whole board works like a fin. Keep your speed up: fins only grip when water is moving past them.

Watch out: that hard upwind rail lean is a SUP technique. On a foil board, keep the board flat with the mast upright — leaning the rail there is mostly just drag. What does carry over is weight back and back-foot pressure to head up.

SUPboarder · Robby Naish · Scott Miller · Damien LeRoy · WingWorld

The turn that wins you ground upwind instead of giving it away.

A tack is a turn where the nose passes through the wind, so you swing round the upwind side. It is the opposite of a gybe, and the harder of the two.

1. Lean the wing toward the back of the board and step back, so the nose swings up into the wind.
2. As the nose passes through the wind, step forward to keep your balance.
3. Bring the wing over your head and switch hands.
4. Lean it forward again to get moving across the wind, then settle it back to the middle.

Keep your head looking through the turn, toward where you are going — not back over your shoulder at the wing. Stay low, keep driving through, and only go looking for the wing once you are round and moving again.

Watch out: leaning back and staring at the wing as you come through the wind is where nearly every failed tack goes wrong — you stall and stop dead. Stay forward.

Slingshot · KT Surfing · Sam Light

Same move as on your knees, with one bit of timing that matters more on your feet.

Push the wing toward the nose to start bearing away downwind. Then, before you are pointing fully downwind, guide the wing overhead, release the back hand and swap your front hand over. Place the new back hand and let the wing pull you round.

Leave it too late and you will be running with the wind with no power left to finish the turn.

Kitesurf College · Elite Watersports

The one rule that decides whether a taxiing gybe works. Worth practising as its own thing.

Once you can ride long stretches without falling, spend sessions just turning around and riding back. Turning is the only time the board is moving rotationally rather than forwards, and that means if the rotation stops halfway round, you fall. A board that is not moving has no forces holding you up.

Learn it on your knees first, even if you are already riding standing. Drop back onto your knees for it: kneeling gives you more balance and lets you get away with a few motionless moments while you work out the movement.

To start the turn: let go with the back hand, put it on the leading edge and push on it. You are now leaning your weight on the wing, and that is what frees your feet to steer the board round.

What you want is one smooth movement from one side to the other at a steady speed, all the way through 180°. Your feet can get there three ways: lots of little steps, one big step at the point where you have twisted as far as you can, or swapping your feet before you start. The moment you are round on the new side, grab the handles and go.

Watch out: being late with your feet is the classic failure. You stop leaning on the wing, so you are no longer pushing the board round — you are just shifting your weight about on a board that has stopped, and it goes unstable straight away. You can also grab the boom instead of pushing the leading edge, but that leaves you more likely to fall off the side.

WingWorld

Coming out of a turn you will be standing the wrong way round. This is how you fix it.

Wait until you are moving across the wind and the board has settled — not mid-turn. You can do it in one hop, but it is easier in two parts: shuffle your feet closer together, then a tiny hop to swap.

The rule that makes it work: keep both feet centred around the same point the whole time. If your feet wander forward or back off that point, the board's trim changes underneath you and you will lose it.

Kitesurf College

You have a good side and a bad side. Only one of them gets better on its own.

Whichever way feels natural — the same way you would stand on a skateboard or snowboard — the other direction will feel clumsy and wrong. That is completely normal, and it does not fix itself while you keep riding your good side.

Deliberately spend time going the wrong way. Ten minutes each way, switching, rather than half an hour of the easy one.

Robby Naish · Damien LeRoy

You will fall hundreds of times. Falling badly is what breaks expensive things.

When you go, do not drag the wing down with you and do not land on it. It is a sewn, inflated structure, and the join between the strut and the leading edge is where all your weight goes if you crash onto it.

A backwards fall is often savable: sheet in and let the wing hold you up. Otherwise climb back on from the upwind side and start again.

Robby Naish · WingWorld

Before your first flight, know the one thing that controls height.

Weight toward the tail tips the front wing of the foil upward, it makes more lift, and you climb. Weight toward the nose tips it down, it makes less lift, and you sink.

That is it. Height is a fore-and-aft weight decision, nothing more complicated.

Kitesurf College

The goal for your first foiling session is not a long flight. It is a short one you ended on purpose.

1. Taxi across the wind with front-foot weight to build speed.
2. When you have some, press the back foot briefly — only a little extra weight, so the board stays fairly level and rises slowly.
3. If it keeps climbing, shift slightly forward to level off.
4. To come back down, sheet out. You need less power flying than taxiing.
5. Shift a bit more weight onto the front foot and settle back onto the water. Steering the wing higher takes off some pull too.

Lots of short flights, not one long one. Getting used to the changeover is the whole exercise.

Watch out: too much back foot and the board — with the foil under it — angles up together, keeps climbing, and breaches out of the water. Be gentle and climb slowly.

Kitesurf College

A foil does not take off like an aeroplane needing a long fast runway. You load it up instead.

Get the board taxiing across the wind and wait until you feel the power fill the wing. Then pump the board: press from the front foot to the back foot, a bit like ollying a skateboard, to load the front wing of the foil. That pressure is what lifts you, not raw speed.

The instant the nose comes off the water, shift your hips forward over your front foot and hold steady front-foot pressure.

If you are nearly at flying speed but not quite: aim across the wind, get your best speed, wait for a gust, and add a few pumps of the wing.

Watch out: genuinely light wind needs wing and foil pumping coordinated together — a separate, much more advanced skill. If it is not happening in light wind, that is why.

Robby Naish · Damien LeRoy · Kitesurf College

Three named causes. Fix the right one instead of trying harder.

• Not enough speed. Below flying speed, pressing the back foot does nothing, or lifts you briefly and then stalls. Lifting the nose before you have speed just slows you down further.
• Aiming too far upwind. You bleed speed and never reach the threshold.
• Aiming downwind. Running with the wind means less wind in the wing. It stops pulling and stops supporting you.

So: build speed crosswind, front foot down, board flat and dragging as little as possible — then press the back foot.

Kitesurf College

You get about a second to adjust to both, and neither is optional.

The power. Taxiing, you are sheeted in hard just to beat the drag of the board in the water. Flying, nearly all that drag vanishes — keep pulling the same and you will accelerate to a speed you are not ready for. Sheet out. It is remarkable how little power you need once you are up. And keep some front-foot pressure on, or you will over-lift and pop the foil clean out of the water.

The steering. Taxiing, you steer by moving the wing forward and back. Flying, the tiniest lean steers instead: toes down turns you downwind fast, heels down turns you upwind fast. Stand upright, in line with the mast, and keep the wing above your head rather than out in front.

Kitesurf College · Robby Naish

The specific first-flight crash worth knowing about before it happens to you.

While you are taxiing, you lean back on your heels to balance a powered-up wing. Carry that same lean into the flight and the foil carves hard upwind — sometimes far enough that you turn right around, at which point the wind catches the top of the wing and puts you straight in.

So as you feel yourself rise, ease the heel lean off to almost nothing. A slight lean is plenty to balance the wing, and plenty to ride upwind.

Overdo the correction and you will end up leaning on your toes instead, bearing away downwind. Somewhere in the middle, upright over the mast, is what you are after.

Kitesurf College