Learning
Winglish While
kiting his wing one day, Andy, heard a distinct and quiet
voice saying, “Hello”. “What?”
asked Andy. Echoing through his risers and brakes, the
wing quietly whispered, “You must listen closely,
and I will help you become one with my fabric and the
air you fly in. I will teach you to speak the physical
language called ‘Winglish’.”
Andy,
lost in thought over this unexpected communication, let
the wing fall back to the ground. He attempted to talk
to the wing by asking questions in his head, but no response.
Finally, he gave up and decided to go back to his practice.
As soon as the wing was airborne again, he heard, “Hello
again, friend. I can only communicate with you through
your risers and brakes.”
Andy
had always struggled with kiting and how to anticipate events
while flying. When his instructor had been teaching him the basics
of kiting, he coached him with his braking to enable him to keep
the wing up. The teacher would often say “left brake”
several times before Andy could react as the wing moved to the
left. At first he took too long to react and the wing would fall
to the left side. Eventually Andy began to learn to react quickly
enough to catch the wings movement. Still, there were many times
when his reactions were not quick enough.
Andy
began kiting again and suddenly heard, “The key to kiting,
is more than using your eyes. Winglish can only be communicated
through your risers and brakes. Before you can ‘hear’
Winglish, you must relax your entire body and feel the changes
in riser tension and brakes. Winglish is a physical language,
so the way to hear it is through the body”.
The
wind gusted suddenly and slightly changed directions. The wing
said, “Feel the pull changing on your harness!” Andy
noticed that the pull did change the feel on his harness. The
wing began moving to the right so he reacted by pulling the right
brake a little after it began moving. His pull was too late and
a bit too much, causing the wing to overreact to the left side
and fell back to the ground.
When
Andy had lofted the wing again, it continued, “You see,
I have a delayed reaction to the wind when it changes. In Winglish,
I can only tell you of the change through your risers and brakes.
I always try to warn you of a change before I move, but you have
not been listening.”
Andy
had always thought his eyes were his best tool for kiting.
But he now put his attention toward the feelings in the
harness and brakes more than before. He waited for the
wing to talk to him. Finally, he heard “Your arms
are too stiff and this makes your entire body stiff,”
Andy immediately he noticed that his arms and body were
too tense. He concentrated on relaxing his arms and body.
Like magic, the sound from the wing’s communication
became clearer.
The
wing spoke again, “Close your eyes and try to feel
the wing move to the side”. At first Andy laughed.
To continue this amazing experience, he tried it. At first
the wing remained overhead, but then he felt it move to
the side. The wing asked, “When I moved to the side,
could you tell which side it was?” Andy admitted
he had snuck a peak and checked which side the wing had
moved to, but that he did guess which side the wing had
drifted toward. The wing laughed, and said, “You
will get this yet. Once you feel this a few times your
body will become more connected to me. You see, since
you got more relaxed, your kiting has already become more
connected.” Andy asked what specifically he would
feel in the harness when the wing moves to the side. The
wing answered, “Winglish is too complex to explain
that simply. It is more general of a feel than that. Your
body will learn it as long as your mind is observing.”
Andy
kited for a while, trying to ‘hear’ the Winglish.
He worked on becoming more relaxed, specifically his arms. He
also began to sense and become aware of the wing’s pull
on his risers and harness. He noticed that just prior to the wing’s
moving to the side, he would feel it in the harness. He closed
his eyes and began to be able to feel the wing move to either
side. He realized that when the wing surged forward, just before
it would collapse, the lift would diminish. The first few times
this happened the wing would shout, “Going, going, gone!”
as the wing surged and collapsed. Andy soon learned to become
aware of the diminishing lift that related to a surge so he could
catch them before the collapse.
The
wing spoke to Andy for the last time, “Andy, you now have
learned my language. The truth is, I am really communicating to
you through your body and the words you are hearing in your head
are not part of the language. I will continue to speak to you
in Winglish whenever you fly or kite. And if you continue to use
your senses fully we can look after each other.”
Jeff Greenbaum
6-30-05
--- And now, a more direct
approach to explain the same thing ... (Read Below)
There
is no Secret to Kiting
I
wrote the above article titled “Learning
Winglish” several years ago to enlighten
new students about the roles of “feel
and relaxation" while kiting.
With
many years of teaching sports, experience has dictated
how feel is the key to good actions and reactions. Stiff
muscles block the connection between mind and stimulus.
As simple as it may sounds, relaxation should the 1st
priority on your list when ground handling a paraglider
.
There
are occasionally students who can achieve a solid level
of kiting without being loose and light handed. To achieve
a higher level of kiting, any pilot must find a way of
relaxing his muscles to enhance touch and reaction time.
The mechanical and technical moves that help a pilot center
the wing come secondary to being relaxed. Each task needs
to be executed with supple arms enhancing how much touch
can be done with the hands.
Tight
muscles override the feedback that the brain requires
for feel. The cycle between stiffness and intensity during
kiting can also be compounding. For example, when a wing
moves to the side and the pilot becomes more intense and
might react by becoming stiffer, losing the touch that
provides awareness of where each brake is and how much
tension each one has.
I
add skills little by little when teaching kiting. The
biggest progress is always when the student pilot finds
how important touch is. So, the secret to kiting really
is not a mystery, it is simply to feel “what does
what” during practice.
Leave
the stiff arms in your car and try to feel all the way
to your fingertips. When you pull one hand to move the
wing, make sure your other hand is not pulling at the
same time. This is the biggest giveaway of body tension:
when a student lifts their elbows and pulls the other
arm at the same time they are pulling the intended brake.
With light touch and continuous awareness of relaxed arms
you will get it much quicker.
If
you watch pilots launch and ground handle, the best ground
handlers will always be smooth and relaxed. The ones who
look awkward and often out of control are usually the
pilots who have not learned to relax while ground handling.
The
first step in developing feel is the awareness of stiffness.
Once awareness is there, then you can begin to learn to
eliminate the muscle tension part of the reaction. This
is one of the Zen like parts of ground handling. The mind
needs to learn to react to intensity and situations without
tightening the muscles.
Different
levels of intensity can trigger increased fear and tightness.
A pilot might be able to achieve relaxation in a steady
8 – 10 mph wind in the park, but put him on a higher
hill for the first time and his ground handling can fall
apart. I have seen this over and over through the years
and it is easy to see the mechanics go south as a result
of intensity translating to muscle tension.
Learning
to stay focused and relaxed during kiting transfers directly
to flying situations. By learning to remove the transfer
of stiffness to the muscles from your muscle memory, you
will effectively become a more capable pilot. Freeze-Ups
are just not an option in aviation.
Sometimes
repetition and practice can take a pilot above the threshold
of fear that creates the muscle tension. The problem is
that without the pilot’s prioritizing relaxation,
the muscle tension can become a built in reaction to intense
launching and flying situations.
For
anyone who joins my classes, it will become ultra clear
in the first few lessons that my focus is mostly on keeping
feel and relaxation at the top of the priority list. It
is critical when learning a sport like this that you have
to manage your wing regardless of situation, from launch
till landing. When you are practicing ground handling,
it is critical that the more intense a situation, the
more important it is to find a way to relax and feel.
For instance, when the wing is coming up to the side and
pulling you hard both downwind and sideways, if you learn
to relax you will develop the ability to get the wing
back overhead in such a situation.
The
basics of kiting and feedback will allow any student who
is relaxed to receive the physical language of Winglish.
I often say to the students, “I cannot teach feel,
only the wing can”. Each student must find his or
her own awareness of the muscle tension and how to release
it. Once the awareness of this is there, learning to kite
with relaxation ever-present is just around the corner…
Jeff
Greenbaum 6-3-08
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