Playing hide and seek with my kitesurfing mojo - Part 3

by Emilie Marx
(Part 3/4)

I started painting again, I’ve changed home, I’ve just been busy with other things… All together, there’s really nothing wrong with that….

Apart from the fact that kitesurfers suffer from a terrible sickness called “the missed out session guilt”.

We all struggle with the idea of missing out on a session, whether it’s because we can’t or just because we don’t feel like it, the latter being a lot worse psychologically, actually.
Not kiting because you’re stuck at work is politically correct; but having your whole day off while the wind is cranking and just not going feels like a complete offence somewhat.

We know the next day might not be windy and that terrible guilt will kick in then: “why, why didn’t I go yesterday?”

My friends and I had a deal back in Oz: whoever had had a chance to go was forbidden to tell the others how good it was.
I remember lying many times for the wellbeing of my kitesurfing mates: “Don’t worry, it was crap, gusty as hell, cold and everything, it was a drag…”

With every now and then a moment of weakness – the incapability to hide my after session high: “Man, that was unreal, this was a sick session!”

The other party would then systematically reply: “Bitch….” -proof that honesty doesn’t always pay.

As I was deeply anchored in my “kitesurfing mojo loss”, I decided one day to have a change and went to another spot in the neighbourhood (everything is kind of in the neighbourhood when you live on an island I guess).

I had dozen of tortoises popping out next to me, great waves, plenty of space, was awesome…

Another day I went to kite twenty meters further up than I usually do: the swell was big and the wind side shore, the spot was glassy, it was gorgeous.
The scenery was magical, and suddenly, a dolphin came to the surface few meters next to me….

I had never kitesurfed with a dolphin before.
I came back to the shore feeling blessed.

Mojo supposedly gone or not, that was still beating it all!

It’s few days later that the miracle happened…

The wind had been on for few days in a row and I had shown very little motivation.
I rigged in a fairly light wind, there were only couple of sails out, and the guys were barely staying upwind.


It wasn’t strong enough to do jumps, there were no waves, but the wind was steady… I thought “Bugger that, I’m going unhooked…”
I did couple of railey’s that went on just fine (“cool, I’m on a good day!”) so I thought there was a first for everything…
Not many chances for me to ever land that silly S-bend I’ve been wanting to for only two years now, if I never try, right?

“Come on girl, you can do it!”
-And don’t make fun of me because we all talk to ourselves (and most of us to our kites as well) when we ride!-

I loaded, keeping my sail low, I unhooked, I popped, that’s when I added to the choreography the bit I had never tried and spanned.

I saw the landscape doing 360° around me in what seemed to be half a second and finished my rotation just as my board was hitting the water, my sail exactly where it was meant to be.

That’s when everything went on hold for a moment, just like when you put the DVD on pause -or that moment the fireworks goes off when you win a spider solitaire (yeah, I did allocate a fair bit of my time to these lately, I confess).
Small moment of bliss.
Mesmerized.

Landed.
Just like that.

Alleluia.

In shock –I did it, I did it- and stoked, I went to hook back in. It’s when I grabbed my chicken loop that I noticed it had accidentally opened….
Shit happens…

Everything then suddenly went back in real time motion, with the expected following of cause and effect you can imagine…

Once the whole thing gone in the water, the chicken loop closed and the kite relaunched, I thought I’d give it another go –because crashing five seconds after landing it isn’t really landing it, is it…
So I did it all over again, minus opening the chicken loop while unhooking, and it seemed to help (…).

Woohoo!

Okay, so that’s done.
S-bend?
Tick!
And coming out of the blue, just like that….
(yeah, just by actually trying….. doh)

To read the end of “Playing hide and seek with my kitesurfing mojo”