Hi, I have a question about becoming a Kitesurfing instructor. I have almost 10 years of kite experience and am thinking of trying an instructor's course and becoming an instructor in the future. I currently have a full time job (office worker) and am not looking to change jobs, but would like to gain experience and a little extra income by teaching casual and occasional.
How much demand is there for kite school lessons? Also, is it profitable in terms of expenses to give lessons on a casual basis, say only on weekends? I am based on Gold Coast. How much does it cost for insurance or other expense? or is it easy to join a local kite school as an instructor and take lessons? I look forward to your advice!

Hi Dai,

I'm about to finish my 14th season of full-time kite instruction. Prior to this my main job was teaching snowboarding for about 12 years. Even when working full-time It was very difficult to make a comfortable living at first, until I started my own business (kite school / shop). Passion for teaching is essential for this job, much more than the passion for kiting. Keep in mind that most days when the conditions are good you'll be working, instead of kiting for yourself. You also need to be very patient and adaptable to a wide range of personalitlies and speed of progression. Most of your students will be slower learners which will put your patience and teaching skills to the ultimate test.

I suggest you start by taking the instructor course (IKO or KA), then shadow some lessons, find a mentor with lots of experience to work with. This will allow you to see if you like the job without investing in starting your own business. I suggest you get in touch with Jason from Byron Bay kitesurfing. byronbaykitesurfing.com/

To become a legitimate kite school, even a small one, you need to spend a fair bit of money every year. Think of spending at least $5-6K on the comibnation of a council permit + insurance, per year. And that doesn't include your gear, vehicle, radio helmets, etc. A lot of schools are just getting by financially and need to sell gear to be profitable / sustainable.

The best people to ask for advice are your local schools. I know that some councils in QLD don't require permits to teach kitesurfing...

In my experience living in Perth, demand for kitesurfing lessons does not stop, but again, ask your local schools, maybe it's different there.

In my opinion, the only way to be profitable doing lessons for yourself on a casual basis would be to it without illegally, with all the risks associated.

I hope this helps

Christian - KiteBud

Hi Christian....... good advice..

But something to ask you..
I heard that since 'KA' got invented the insurance for kite shops has gone up four fold in four years..whereas it was for example...just 1000 a year prior
Do u support this ?
Because they found a broker and made it more difficult for everyone
That..besides other reasons.. is why I am not a fan of them&their cult-like existence (allthough they do some good etc)...


In regards dai to your question
Just be careful u don't loose your "passion" for kiting helping numpties
It can happen

Goodluck

Gold coast waterways authority doesnt recognise kiteboarding as a vessell so even tho you can get insurance for some reason branching from around 900 to 5000 $ you wont actually be able to make a claim or use it. Because technicalitys with the gcwa

Weird right?

Also none of the normal or major insurance companys will insure you instead theyll reccomend a "broker" who is actually just someone who works for one of the major insurers.

So if you actually OWN ANYTHING OF VALUE like a house etc etc the $120 to $180 a weekend (if you work saturday and sunday) you make might actually cost you your HOUSE its very very easy for a student to hurt themselves and then claim missing work cover etc and then theyre very real very big insurance company will take your

(Almost completely 100% not insured employer) to task and theyll see that the GCWA doesnt actually count kiteboarding as a water vessell and therefore even if someone like jason has insurance it is void.

Guess where that leaves you my office working friend??

Completelllyyyy ssskrewwweeeddd

Theres a reason most kitesurfing instructors are blow in backpackers from abroad with little to nothing to theyre name.

Ill employ a 25 something yr old from anywhere but australia anyday of the week just for this reason.

So if you want my advice. Quit your job and move overseas and teach at some honeymoon island for 25$ a hour pretend its a holiday for 6 months.

If you last 4 years doing that (8 seasons) then congrats your one of the very few people who clearly enjoy yelling at fat middle aged men in waist deep water more then you enjoy anything else on earth.

Now after that you can be broke and poor and a real kite instructor! Open your own school realise that the 5k$ insurance you paid for is unclaimable but least iko will recognise it and list your school as an iko school and now your on your way to makeing $100 a hour!! Sounds awesome!!! Just dont forget to factor in that youll be spending at best 4 or mayyybe 6 hours a day getting paid to work and about 10 hours a day not being paid at all just hearsing cats every night trying to get studentd to actually turn up on time and praying that theres wind.

Do yourself a favour and look how much money you would of made this week alone just click on the seabreeze goldcoast weather any arrows not firmly in the 15 to 25 knot windrange disreguard them completely. Are you counting the arrows mid week?? 1/4 them because in australia people have to work and cant learn to kite midweek

You should as a school be makeing like maaaybe 600 a week peak season with really really good weather... so that 5k$ worth unuseable insurance will need half the seasons income to pay it off

Still want to yell at fat old men in waist deep water to push the bar out!! Push the bar out!! or to take theyre hands off the bar?

Then feel free to pay a couple grand i believe by now and work for 40 hours for FREE "shadowing" someone

Your better off learning how to replace mobile phone screens for money and buying a bunch of screens and phone tools off ebay.

Ive seen cases when teaching abroad where the school im working for is also renting SUPS cause its a nice lagoon etc never any injurys from kiteing but youll get groups of 200kg american tourists renting these sups and theyll try step off them and because they havent been outside in a few decades theyll misjudge the depth of the water theyre stepping in and theyll literally shatter and explode theyre entire leg bones into pieces.

Ive never had any injurys happen in my 11 years of teaching kiteing apart from some jelly fish stings and sea urchins or coral injurys etc etc but injurys can and will happen and your inexperience simply means your not aware of them. An impact on someones chest can put them into cardiac arrest they can have a heart attack and die theres no real way of knowing who is susceptable to this sort of incident.

So if you want to make a few extra $$$$ i cant think of anything stupider then teaching kiteing or scubadiveing or paragliding or any adventure sport.

And thats before i get to the HUGE rant about how doing these things to your hobby and passion will inevitably erode away at it with time.

I have had seasons teaching kiteing where im only allowed to kite in the rain... think about that... any other time id be forced to teach. And even then sometimes the student has a flight back home and they paid in advance for some scammy reason from the school owner and now i gotto teach them in middle of a squally storm

But wtf do i know im just a fat old man who keeps yelling at everyone to learn to unhook

Also if you cant do a unhooked raily yet then dont be an instructor its a disgrace that they let people pay money to get a instructors licence and all they can do is ride left and right and jump up and down like a kook

As always

Step 1 : unhook

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timmybuddhadude said..
Hi Christian....... good advice..

But something to ask you..
I heard that since 'KA' got invented the insurance for kite shops has gone up four fold in four years..whereas it was for example...just 1000 a year prior
Do u support this ?
Because they found a broker and made it more difficult for everyone
That..besides other reasons.. is why I am not a fan of them&their cult-like existence (allthough they do some good etc)...


In regards dai to your question
Just be careful u don't loose your "passion" for kiting helping numpties
It can happen

Goodluck

Yeah Lisa is the one that sells insurance for KA

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Froth Goth said..
Your better off learning how to replace mobile phone screens for money and buying a bunch of screens and phone tools off ebay. Like Lofty does.

There. Fixed it.

Hahahaha too funny

Wonder if all the old vcr repairmen who went extinct were windsurf instructors and this is all some sort of evolutionary loop

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dai said..
Hi, I have a question about becoming a Kitesurfing instructor. I have almost 10 years of kite experience and am thinking of trying an instructor's course and becoming an instructor in the future. I currently have a full time job (office worker) and am not looking to change jobs, but would like to gain experience and a little extra income by teaching casual and occasional.
How much demand is there for kite school lessons? Also, is it profitable in terms of expenses to give lessons on a casual basis, say only on weekends? I am based on Gold Coast. How much does it cost for insurance or other expense? or is it easy to join a local kite school as an instructor and take lessons? I look forward to your advice!

Hey Dai - if you are keen for a decent job to travel with, kite instructing is awesome. You'll still get your water time, and meet a whole heap of interesting people. Get over to the Carribean and go nuts, I recommend Cabarete DR, such good times. But there a hundreds of epic locations to visit.

Go live it bro!

Kia Kaha

Also barrick gold is opening up a gold mine in the dominican republic so instead of being on 10k a week to turn a tap off ?nd ?n you can teach kiteing for 230$ a week minus rent and food... 30$ a week be sure to keep us the same old dozen dunny budgies informed of your new life so we can judge it accordingly

..
But...one of them brings smiles to people's faces and enhances the natural element (of air) in the form of what man knows as a 'sport' ...

The other does this..

..potentially creating earthquakes and tsunamis and unleashing Godzilla
Not a fan of mankind destroying the earth through greed i am afraid ..maybe it happened before with civilisations destroying their own worlds possibly...

..... Food for thought .....

Ill be shareing your post with the crib room so that were all motivated to mine even harder

Hi Dai,

Kitesurf instructing is a great job if you do it for the right reasons. The right reason is you want to share your passion of the sport with others and enjoy helping others to progress and seeing them experience the joy of learning this dynamic and exciting sport. In my experience, most other reasons won't sustain you at it for very long. Although you can make money from teaching kiting, it's more of a lifestyle job which enables you to travel and swap a desk job for a beach lifestyle.
I taught kiting for many years and also taught teaching kiteboarding instructors for IKO as an examiner for about 5 years. I loved doing it, travelled fairly extensively, met great people and had an amazing time.
My advice is "go for it" if you don't need the money and just want to give back to the sport and your fellow water sport enthusiasts. Find a good quality school who has good standards and work for them. It's just too hard and expensive to set up properly as a solo instructor and not worth gambling with the liability on your own.
It's a very satisfying job to do, especially if it's just part time.
DM

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ActionSportsWA said..
Hi Dai,

Kitesurf instructing is a great job if you do it for the right reasons. The right reason is you want to share your passion of the sport with others and enjoy helping others to progress and seeing them experience the joy of learning this dynamic and exciting sport.

If thats it then why not do it for free?!?

Oh yeah.... cause the REAL reason is because its nearly impossible to get kiters to buy new kites so you have to try lure them in with "trade in" deals last year discounts woolies 1/2 price specials etc etc

So rather then even bother trying to deal with that whole market of selling kites to kiters you can just

MAKE A CLIENT

Yep by just getting any old joe schmoe off the street with STUPIDLY CHEAP LESSONS (cauze the shops and schools dont WANT the lessons to be expensive. They want the lessons to stay as CHEAP as possible so they can pay the instructors a BARE MINIMUM and that means the students *customers* are happy cause they saved on lessons.

The pay rate for instructors hasnt changed in over a decade. Except at my school where i just paid all my instructors double what anyone else was and even then i still felt like i was ripping off my friends. (Apparently thats called business )



So how do we sell all these ****n new kites when all the existing kitesurfers already have some....

Just bring new kiters from across the boarder offer them super cheap lessons even offer them a phone a couple grand and a bus ticket to where theyre people smugglers told them theyd have a job at a laundromat do WHATEVER it takes to get new students

because its only with new students that you will be able to so so so so sooooo much easierly be able to sell some of that STOCK



Whats stock? Oh thats just the thing distors demand you hold even tho they know you cant pay for it all but dont worry the stocks FREE .... for now..... just make sure you sell it all tho otherwise itll be worth a fraction of the price youll be paying back.

But what if you cant pay that back? Dont worry we have a plan for you! We will just take over ownership of your school! And you can work for us now!



So yes become an instructor keep the stupid ponzi scheme going

Dont just help people for free because you love helping people. Thats not allowed! And very frowned apon! Have you even payed your 2k$ to certify that you can yell " push the bar out" ? Have you paid your 5k$ insurance to make sure when you do say push the bar out and the student doesnt you can just wipe your hands of them becoming the latest carpark or tree feature?


We need more instructors (oh i just own the shop i dont teach anymore... i really wish i could but i just love shareing good vibes and whatever bollocks i can come up with as an excuse so i dont have to actually stand in waist deep water and yell at boomers in the sun all day)

More instructors means more kite sales

What kites are we selling by the way? Are we selling the premium puahing the envelope of the sport sorta gear or the cheapest price point barry basic crap that any REAL kiteboarder would destroy after a few sessions 3/4 of the boards today cant even handle boots its a joke. And the less said about ya 3 strut garbage *all rounder* kites the better


So

More instructors!

More students!

More kite sales!

At any point is any consideration given to the actual kiters? Or is this all just a bunch of gimme $$$$ gimme more $$$$


?ah bro its just about shareingthe paasio? of a sport i love BUT DONT DO IT FOR FREE

GIMME YOUR MONEY ILL SHOW YOU HOW TO GIMME EVEN MORE MONEY

MOOOORRREEEE MOOONNNEEEYYYYSSS!!!!


MORE!!!

EVEN MORE MONEY!!!


is kiteing dead yet?
No cause of big air?

THEN GIMME EVEN MOORREE MONEYS!!!

i just love the passion for the sport

That one went out to my homeboy rusty01


Boomers just be keying cars ?n parking lots yo rip dem mirrors offadat campervan