Becoming IKO certified kiteboard instructor with IKA

“ITC Water. English”, is the quite crypthic name of the course that is turning messy unstructured kite surfers into ready confident instructors. Ika, our examinor, greeted us on Monday at 8 at the surf shop, and we continued in quite high pace during the whole week until we finished on Friday. I felt like I was back at work, almost. At least it was at a comparable intensity. We had lot’s of theory about technical stuff related to kite surfing and psychology of teaching as well as some practice on real life students, which was really fun and valuable. We got pretty lucky with the weather, and had strong winds all days. Too strong actually as it was a problem to get small enough kites to the students for them to practice, as well as the shore break got pretty intense with all the wind.

Practical lessons and topics at the beach. From the left is Ika, behind Ika is Julia, and then Nier, Harry, Jos and Carlos. The only participants not in the picture is Gray and me.

 

Devotion, courage, sacrifice. Yes, this was definitely needed during the course. Some kind of Thai red bull.

 

We went studying at one of the cafés here in Pak nam pran during the morning. Thanks to this detour I almost failed the exam, as we arrived 1 hour late for the practical teaching on the beach. Carlos convinced us we were supposed to start at 10, when it was actually 9.. :-)
Anyhow, I had a really bad start that day. That, together with difficult conditions and not having the right gear available on the beach made it difficult to please my first student who actually got much bigger interest in drinking beer than learing how to fly a kite.
Luckily I got another chance to teach the day after, with the right gear, and a student that actually was interested in learning the sport. That lesson, and some sweet talking, helped me to pass.

 

Some of the things in the course required a lot of work. Like the boat license course, which I didn’t have, and therefore had to do during the night. We went to a restaurant with WiFi nearby to complete the online training, which ended up to be really heavy. So much that we stayed until the owners politely asked us to pay and leave.
In any case if you’re ever at a place so late that the watch dog gives up and fall asleep, then it’s probably time to get going. Here’s Gray at the bar, paying for one of his countless fruit juices. I think he had at least 3.

 

And here it is!!! The reward for a week of sweat.
I learned a lot of new stuff and filled in a lot of blanks, so yes, I consider myself a much safer knowledgeable kite surfer after this week, as well as a capable teacher. I’m glad I did this, not only for the knowledge, but also for meeting a lot of great people.

 

 
Graduation party! On Friday night after the completion of the course, we all went to Hua Hin to have dinner. Later on we went for a couple of beers at the bar street. It ended up being a pretty long night out..
The party had really good momentum and was great fun, and I could have gone on for much longer regardless of being more sleepy than a zombie as I studied until 1 am the night before. :-)
I was contemplating going home at around 4 am, and after a thai lady boy grabbed my nuts while I was having a water outside the seven eleven, I decided it was the right thing to do.
So half an hour later we were all in a taxi back to the surf shack where I crashed until 11 the day after. In spite of being even more tired the day after, I managed to complete my first couple of back rolls!!

 

 
Take a look at this dog, guarding groceries at the restaurant in Hua Hin. Do  you notice that he’s sleeping with the nose in a bowl with ice cubes? Maybe he had something spicy to eat. :-)