Author: Tantrum

Performance Kitesurfing in Tarifa, Spain.
Posted on by — Leave a comment

How Stubbing My Toe Improved My Kitesurfing

Abel Lago - At It Again

Have you ever noticed when you stub your toe and it hurts like hell the 1st thing friends will tell you is, “don’t think about it.” This sage advice is often followed by your brain fixating intently on the absolute agony your poor toe is in.

What’s going on here? Surely if you are clever you would follow their advice and not think about it. The unfortunate fact is that the human brain does not work in negatives. For an example try not to think about ice cream. What is the 1st thing that springs into your head, I imagine, a creamy, cold delight of some sort.

You see the human brain only works in positives it simply can’t get its head around negatives. It can’t ‘not think’ about something it can only focus on something else. Thus in our example of stubbing your toe a better strategy would be to think about ice cream rather than try and ignore the pain in your foot.

This same principle applies when learning to kite surf, thus rather than thinking about “not pulling the bar in” whilst learning, instead tell yourself to “push the bar out.” This immediately puts a positive spin on the action and is something your brain can deal with. Whilst teaching yourself any new move or trick in kitesurfing you must be careful of the language you use when talking to yourself (or the language used by your instructor). Ensure it is stated in the positive and that you’re not simply telling yourself “not” to do something again (in which case you almost certainly do exactly the same thing).

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Improve Your Lower Back Strength For Kitesurfing

Hip Bridge

Now that you’ve started building up some flexibility in your lower back it’s time to start looking at building up some strength in that areas. This will enable us to have more control over the kite when it’s trying to twist us into strange positions and really get the most out of our time on the water without worrying about aches and pains.

Here are some good exercises to get you started:

Hip Bridge

Hip Bridge

How to do it: Lie on your back, feet flat and hip-width apart, arms relaxed, and knees bent. Squeeze your buttocks as you lift your hips, creating a straight line from the knees to the shoulders. Hold for a slow count of two, then lower slowly. Build up to 10 to 12 repetitions.

[divider]

Bird Dog/Superman

Superman

How to do it: Begin on all fours, knees hip-width apart and under the hips, hands flat and shoulder-width apart. Squeeze your abs by pulling belly toward spine. Keep the spine neutral, without arching the back or rotating the hips, and extend your right leg back and your left arm straight ahead. Hold for two to three seconds or as long as you can maintain form. Repeat five to six times on each side.

[divider]

Side Plank

Side Plank

How to do it: Lie on your right side, in a straight line from head to feet, resting on your forearm. Your elbow should be directly under your shoulder. With your abdominals gently contracted, lift your hips off the floor, maintaining the line. Keep your hips square and your neck in line with your spine. Hold 20 to 40 seconds and lower. Repeat two to three times, alternating sides. (If this is too challenging, start with bent knees.)

[divider]

Lunge

Lunge

How to do it: With your abs gently contracted and hands on hips, take a big step forward with your right foot. Sink down so your right knee is at a 90-degree angle, then push back to the starting position without pausing. Repeat 8 to 12 times, then switch legs and repeat.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Stretches To Improve Your Kitesurfing

Kitesurfing Stretch

As we kitesurf all of the pull of the kite is being taken through the harness, which means you are essentially being pulled along by your core (abs and lower back). This can cause problems for a lot of people as typically for us in the Western world (due to a combination of sofa’s and haribo) this is the softest part of our bodies. If you’re going to get seriously into kitesurfing its good to focus a bit more time on these areas so as your kitesurfing improves so does your core strength.

The mistake most people make when they hear the term core strength is they instantly go out and do 10, 000 sit ups. This can actually make any potential problems a hell of a lot worse, as by focussing only the bits we see in the mirror, our abs (and who doesn’t want great abs) we ignore the part that is probably even more important, (and the part that almost everyone has problems with at some time or another) the lower back. Having great abs is awesome, but if we don’t strengthen our lower back we get an imbalance of muscle which actually deforms our spine and makes any lower back problems worse.

So how do we strengthen our lower back?

I would suggest a combination of working on lower back flexibility and strengthening. Due to the fact that most of us spend a long time sitting down each day we often have a deformation of the spine which really needs to be addressed before adding too much muscle which can lead to greater deformation as all that extra muscle clamps around the already over loaded spine. For this reason, I would suggest starting with a regime of loosening up the lower back, adding flexibility before adding strength.

Below are some great exercises to get you started down this path.

1. Standing Hip Flexor Stretch

Standing Hip Flexor Stretch

In order to make this one work better, you should use the law of reciprocal inhibition — which says that when one muscle contracts the opposite and opposing muscle relaxes — so to get a deeper stretch of the front hip flexors, you’ll want to contract your glutes hard.

You should do this one MANY times throughout the day. Instead of sitting on your butt all day long, you should get up every 5 or 15 minutes and do this stretch throughout the day. Hold for counts of 3-5 seconds and repeat 2-3 times.

2. Lunging Hip Flexor Stretch …

Lunging hip flexor stretch

This is a more intense way to stretch your front hip flexors. I do this one whenever I’m done working out and occasionally before strength training. You’ll probably notice one side of your body is in more pain, quicker, when doing this exercise because that side of your body is tighter. Good. Now you know what you need to work on. Again, Hold for counts of 3-5 seconds and repeat 2-3 times.

3. Seated Butt Stretch

This is one of those stretches you can do while you’re at work throughout the day to keep yourself in check.

Seated Piriformis stretch

4. Laying Down Butt Stretch

This is a more intense (or can be) version of the seated butt stretch. Notice it’s basically the same position with your hips and legs …

Lying Piriformis stretch

5. Seated Lower Back Stretch

Seated Lower Back Stretch

Again, this is a great one to do while you’re at work or virtually any time of day. Don’t go overboard with this one right after strength training though because you don’t want your body to “assume” a stretched out position for your lower back because some “tightness” is necessary there to stabilize your spine.

Instead, use this stretch along with the others to relieve your pain and to get these tight muscles looser so that you can strengthen the opposite and opposing muscles.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Become a Kitesurfing Rockstar…with the Symphony Orchestra?

Kitesurfing Rockstar

There have been many advancements in the last few years in the science of how we learn. This is mainly been brought around by the fact that we no longer need dead test subjects in order to understand how the brain works, this has obvious advantages to science and more importantly the test subjects themselves (as you can imagine there are a lot more willing subjects). Modern technology allows us to scan the brain and gives us a very good idea of how it works.

Introducing Myelin

One of the most exciting discoveries in this field is that of substance called Myelin. Myelin is a white substance which wraps around the neurons in our brain. Until recently little importance was given to its presence or absence in the brain. What we now know is that myelin speeds up the connection between neurons. As it wraps around neurons it isolates the pathway and speeds up any signal heading down that neuron. Think of it as the concrete on a road – as you add more it changes from a simple pathway into a superhighway.

This myelin coating is gained whenever we practice a skill. The myelin coats the pathways related to that particular skill, as we practice the skill, more and more myelin is added to the pathway, meaning the connection time is quicker and cleaner each time. Basically put the more myelin a neural pathway is coated in, the faster a more automatic the skill it relates to becomes.

Myelinization

What does this have to do with kite surfing I hear you ask, don’t worry I’m coming to that.

There was a study done recently on the Symphony Orchestra and the amount of hours the 1st violinist spent practising as compared to the 2nd violinists. (The 1st violinists being those violinists deemed the best, the 2nd the second-best) what was found was that the 2nd violinist actually practised more hours a day and the 1st violinists. This puzzled researchers until they looked at how the violinists were practising. The 2nd violinists would practice playing sections they found easy or were already good at. The 1st violinists would concentrate on the areas of difficulty and intensely focus on these areas until weaknesses were eliminated.

Deep Learning

This idea of learning through struggle, by focusing on errors and ruthlessly eliminating them forms the basic premise behind deep learning. By adopting this method of learning we can literally learn what would normally take months in minutes by encouraging the brain to dump a huge amount of myelin around the necessary pathways.

I hope you can now see how this can be applied to kite surfing (indeed every aspect of our lives). By focusing on those areas of weakness and practising them again and again we can improve our kite surfing in a matter of minutes.

Here at Tantrum Kitesurf we fully incorporate deep learning technology into all of our courses, if you’d like more information, just leave a comment below or get in touch.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Interview With 7 Times World Champion Kari Schibevaag

Kari Schibevaag

Kari Schibevaag

Birthday: 25.10.1978
Years riding: 11

  • 7 Time World Champion Water & Snow.
  • 4 Times Norwegian Champion.
  • The Most Influential Girl Kitesurfer 2011.

Where is your favourite place to ride?

My favourite place to kite is in Norway. I love my beach at Sele (jæren). I have a special place in my heart for Lofoten in the North of Norway. Here it’s possible to snowkite and kitesurf in one day due to the short distance between the beach and the mountains and the nature is spectacular.

For snow kiting the best places I have found are Hugastøl, lofoten and Coll in France.

Kari Schibevaag Snowkiting

Do you have any other hobbies or things you love to do?

I have a lot of stuff I am doing. I enjoy running and training in the gym, volleyball, making good food, making hats and other stuff, making movies and designing stuff, skiing, snowboarding, fishing, playing with my dog Truls and reading books.

What is you opinion on the women’s scene in kitesurfing…is it growing, are there more women coming into the sport?

There are more and more girls coming into the sport and I am really happy about this. On my girl camps we see that there are more girls interested every year. They’re really starting to turn the macho image of the sport around and girls are becoming an increasing common sight on all kitesurfing beaches the world over…it’s great!

Kitesurfing is a sport for everyone. You don’t need to make it extreme, you can just ride back and forth and have fun. It’s up to you how hard you want to make it. There are also more and more girls coming to competitions. This pushes all the girls to higher levels and this is great for the sport in general.

Just look at the top 4 girls PKRA freestyle competitors. They’re great to watch and they are really going for it. It also shows what girls can achieve in a mainly male dominated sport when they focus their mind and body.

Kari Schibevaag tears it up

How does snow kiting compare to kitesurfing?

For me they are 2 different sports. I feel when I am going to snow kite that I am doing something different. I could never just stay in the water and I don’t understand how riders find the motivation to go in the water all year around. For me the winter is time to have a break and go and have fun in the snow. I love the mountains (maybe more then water) and I need this break every year.

The good thing about snow kiting is that I can ride up the mountains and ski down. This feeling is just special and the best thing in life, powder, sun and a nice mountain…beautiful!

What are your plans for the future?

I am planing to do more camps for girls and kids. I also want to start running trips both with snowkiting and kitesurfing and to use them to pursue my other loves – making videos and taking pictures.

My real dream, however, is to buy a house in Norway. Either in my town or up north. Maybe on day I will have a farm…hehe!

I am also working on my company “Schibevaag”, designing and selling beanies. I am making some by hand and some I’m getting made in a factory. At the moment we’re focusing mainly on the reversible Schibevaag beanies and some hand made ones. I’ve got a few idea’s for the future though… just give me some time.

Snowkiting Solo

How did you get started in kite sports?

I was a ski instructor in Norway when I got talking to 2 guys about kiting. When I found out just what they were talking about I knew that I had to learn this sport. I started by trying to learn in Norway in the water, so by the time the snow came (and after many months spent swimming!) I finally understood how the kite worked and could take my skills to the mountains.

What is the best kite trip you been on?

My best trip was in the North in Norway. I was snow kiting in the mountains and went all the way down to the sea kiting.  I changed and jumped in the sea and continued kiting there. It was an amazing experience and incredible to practice both sports in the same place with this incredible view.

Kitesurfing in the water against the backdrop of snow capped mountains. You just have to try it!