When you learn to kitesurf our first way to change direction is the sliding turn, a crucial technique used by every kiter at some point in a session. But there are many other ways to change direction and the carving turns offers a smooth powerful movement that can offer varying challenges and exhilarations.

Whether you’re carving a super hard arc on flat water or slicing across the face of a wave, the carving turns are a must-have technique for any intermediate rider.

There are two ways to attack the turn, start on your heelside and carve around to your toeside. Or the reverse, starting on your toeside ending up on your heelside. Both versions obviously share many similarities, namely their use of toeside riding at the beginning or end, and it’s this element that will decide our entry point to these techniques.

You can generate a lot of speed and power during the turn, and holding this power, on the exit, is far easier on your heelside so we suggest that you start with the toeside to heel side carves. This is what we focus on in the First Progression of Carving Turn chapter of the Progression Intermediate Volume 1 Collection/DVD before we move on to the heelside to toeside turn.

Here’s a short exert from the full 20 minute Carving Turn video, with a tip for the exit of the trick.

This is another technique where the co-ordination between the kite and board is vital. Once you get the timing worked out, you’ll have learnt some vital skills which will help improve your overall kite flying awareness.

Common Mistakes

So what is the most common mistake during the turn? Losing power on the exit, which kills the fun and thrill of the whole trick. It’s that kite and board co-ordination that we discussed earlier. So your timing maybe off or you may find you’re just not being aggressive enough when flying the kite back down in the new direction. If start with the toeside to heelside carve then you can handle a lot of power as you exit the turn so trying being a little more adventurous with your kite flying.
There are lots of issues that crop up, we cover the 5 most common in the full Carving Turns video, so we should have you covered.

If you have found this interesting then check out the other exerts aim at Intermediate riders:

Next up you can start looking at Aerial Transitions.