Column 1: Why Kiteboarding is PERFECT for Women By Julie Gilbert July 5, 2004

COLUMNS

Julie (Prochaksa) Gilbert Courtesy of Pete Cabrinha

Email this story to a friend»

I have been kiteboarding since the explosion of the sport on the scene, so I was around during the days when the number of women kiteboarders was dramatically different than the number of men. I knew back then (the Summer of 1999) that things would soon change, and for that I was happy. It used to be me and a few other gals holding our own against the onslaught of men charging into the sport. No matter where I traveled, though, there were wide-eyed women eager to pick up a kite, so I knew in time things would change. And change they did. Now as I kiteboard around the globe, I often see little disparity in the numbers. Sure, there are still more men kiteboarding than women, but it’s a much smaller gap these days. Women have learned the secret, and for that I couldn’t be more stoked. And the secret is, you ask? That kiteboarding is PERFECT for women!

So why is kiteboarding perfect for women? Well, there are a number of reasons. Don’t let the initial complexity of the kiteboarding “contraption” fool you. You may look at the kite, board, bar and lines and think…”How am I ever going to figure it out?” Well, lucky for you these days there are great lesson companies, and they reduce your introduction into the sport into manageable steps. Kiteboarding is much easier than it looks, but it’s still imperative to have lessons first. That brings me to my first point, which is that women aren’t afraid to take lessons. We see something we want to do, we pick our path, and away we go! Guys are that way, too, you may say…but we aren’t talking about guys now are we? We’re talking about women, and although this may not be true for all women, it’s true for a lot of them. So anyway, back to my point that women figure out how to learn something and how to get help, and they do it. We not only take lessons, but we listen well, and with kiteboarding that’s important.

Kiteboarding is also perfect for women because if you learn it methodically, like in a lesson, it’s a fairly easy sport to pick up. Like I said, it may look complicated, but the time it takes to get up and planing (skimming across the water on your board with a huge smile on your face) is a wink-of-an-eye compared to other sports like windsurfing (which is also a great sport, but a little more time consuming to learn). For some, they are up and cruising in a day; others a few days; others a week…but no matter how long it takes, it doesn’t take long to catch the bug. That bug? The addiction to kiteboarding.

"That kiteboarding bug is what gets you through the hurdles of learning...hurdles that you come face to face with when learning any new sport."

That kiteboarding bug is what gets you through the hurdles of learning…hurdles that you come face to face with when learning any new sport. The hurdles may look a bit different in kiteboarding than in say tennis, but they are all overcome with determination, and that is something that women have a lot of. Women are typically patient, and patience and determination go hand in hand. When learning to kiteboard it is inevitable that to get to the next level—maybe it’s learning to turn and go in the opposite direction—it often takes a try-and-try-again attitude. Because women are willing to just keep on trying, and we have the patience to get us through that process, we often methodically move on to the next stage of the learning curve. If we hit a hurdle, we ask, listen to the advice, and keep on patiently trying. True, we may have a few outbursts of frustration along the way (I must admit to some of my own), but my determination always gets the best of my frustration in the end. I believe that to be the case with most women I know.

Don’t you need to have a lot of muscle along with determination and patience, you ask? Not necessarily. Because women are generally not built like two-ton trucks, we know that we have to use our strength wisely, so trying to “beat” Mother Nature is not something we typically do. We know we cannot outsmart or out muscle her, so we work with her, and that is a beautiful thing. In fact, it’s a critical lesson to understand in kiteboarding, because guaranteed…in a battle with Mother Nature, she will always win. For instance, if the wind is gusting pretty strong, we naturally know that we need to use our body weight and our smarts to hold on, get back to the beach and put the kite away until the wind calms down. We don’t try to muscle the heck out of the kite, thinking that eventually the wind will give in.

» Back to Julie's Jive Main Page