Hi everyone!
Im interested in take the IKO course level 1, please someone tell me where and when i can do it?
(I enter to the IKO website and doesent appear any place in Australia)
Please help!
Thanks

Are you trying to become an instructor?

Or do you just want to learn how to kiteboard? If so, you can go to any kite school. IKO doesn't mean anything.

I take it you are wanting to become an IKO instructor level 1. If so, there are qualified schools on the east coast only at the moment. I traveled from Perth to Saint Kilda, Melbourne to do an excellent week course with Chris Sal at Kite Republic. Very well regarded and they even helped me get work soon after completing the course. Alternatively, Kiting Australia is becoming equally recognised in Australia as professional training for instructors. They will be doing instructor training courses in WA as well as the east coast. They give fairly similar course material from what I inderstand but KA will require you to have a Skippers Ticket.

IKO Course dates and locations for Australia are out already and available on the Website:

www.ikointl.com/Training-Kite-Course-Calendar?field_course_language_value=English&field_training_course_name_value=&field_usercountry_iso2=AU&field_training_start_date_value_1%5Bvalue%5D%5Bdate%5D=&field_req_trainer_value=&sort_by=field_training_start_date_value&sort_order=ASC

Same for Kiteboarding Australia courses:

kiteboardingaus.com.au/instructor-course-dates/

Make sure you read the pre-requisites well...before doing the course you'll have do to things like: a first aid course, boat course (for KA), assistant-instructor (IKO).

Consider me rude...but may I just ask why## people are doing iko courses?is it to actually teach in jobs or just for personal development. There arnt enough schools to go around and must be thousands of instrs wrking in iga.its a bit like padi
Cbulota plse answer...

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timmybuddhadude said..
Consider me rude...but may I just ask why## people are doing iko courses?is it to actually teach in jobs or just for personal development. There arnt enough schools to go around and must be thousands of instrs wrking in iga.its a bit like padi
Cbulota plse answer...

I'll have a go at answering your question from my experience.

a) some crew just want to travel and go kiting in the best locations worldwide, you won't make much money but you can have a pretty decent lifestyle for a season or two..It means for some then can justify and fund an extended stay in such locations.

b)As you said Tim, some crew just want to do it for some kind of personal development and gain the knowledge to safely teach friends and family to partake in a sport they are passionate about.

c)Some may even want to make a career out of kiting, they may actually really enjoy teaching others and see an opportunity to do something they like as a job... Increasingly harder as you're right there are a lot of instructors around.. BUT I believe if you are in it for the right reasons its possible to make it a 'real' job...

Just my 2cents worth... Just wanted to try and put a positive vibe on it before the IKO and KA bashing hots up

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timmybuddhadude said..
Consider me rude...but may I just ask why## people are doing iko courses?is it to actually teach in jobs or just for personal development. There arnt enough schools to go around and must be thousands of instrs wrking in iga.its a bit like padi
Cbulota plse answer...

I don't have much to add from Tgpc's comments which are spot on.

You'd be surprised to see the proportion (my guess is around 50%) of candidates signing up for instructor courses who don't end up (and don't have any intentions to end up) working in a school. It's usually the older guys on the course who do it for personal growth and/or teaching their friends/family and the younger crew who actually want to get a job out of it.

The amount of knowledge, technical and pedagogical skills you discover on these courses is quite impressive and goes far beyond what one could learn in any school or just by talking to your mates on the beach. Just as an example, In many instances, course candidates are learning how safety systems work, how to perform self-rescues and how to rescue other kiters from a boat for the first time If you think about it a 40 hour instructor course which cost say around $1000, that's $25 an hour, or 1/4 of the price of lessons, but lead by the most experienced and qualified instructors there is. Plus you get access to resources such as the manual, insurance, etc.

There are actually more kite schools than ever before, they may be shrinking or at least saturating in size and volume of lessons but given the fact that most instructors are foreigners and only work for 1 season, there is a constant demand for fresh instructors, especially local instructors.

Having a local instructor training organization should encourage the development of local instructors, therefore increasing the quality of lessons from having the same instructors working for multiple seasons in a row and improving their skills.

If you are really keen and qualified as a instructor it's actually not that hard to find a job and earn decent money for what's a pretty cool job

Christian

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timmybuddhadude said..
Consider me rude...but may I just ask why## people are doing iko courses?is it to actually teach in jobs or just for personal development. There arnt enough schools to go around and must be thousands of instrs wrking in iga.its a bit like padi
Cbulota plse answer...

because you can work anywhere in the world. ive taught in .... 6 countrys now and before i started teaching kitesurfing i had to rely on gambleing, exotic animal trade, drug dealing, and prostitution to supplement an income while abroad. now when my pluggers have blown out and i can no longer afford a tuk tuk i just teach kitesurfing till im back to being a filthy rich westerner.

there is little to no reason to teach kitesurfing in australia. thats why Kiteboarding Australias program is such a joke. they offer you the ability to teach in the 1 country where it costs you more to teach then what you can earn (10k$ in insurance a year with australian sporting etc equipment's at a premium council licences and fees for **** that doesnt exist abroad like high use high impact liscences and huge costs paying instructors who are generally **** because all the good ones are in WINDY locations (NOT AUSTRALIA as a country its seasons are a joke in comparison to REAL kite spots)

anyways i could go on and on as im sure you all know.

iko also has an international jobs board. its all pretty well done really. and after a few years you can do the **** blind folded and schools will simply hire you on your own merit so you dont have to even continue paying your fees.

so if you want to teach kitesurfing its more profitable to do it abroad due to conditions and costs and MORE CUSTOMERS and even more daylight hours (remember some countrys dont get dark alllllll summer, think about it) and only the IKO can offer you that.

kiteboarding australia can apparently offer you ability to work in aus where youll teach no one but fat balding bogans or weedy office pen pushers how to kite (exagerating alot here, to be honest thats most your customers everywhere in the world and im slowly becomeing a fat balding weedy pen pushing bogan myself, takes one to know one etc)

so yeah, one more thing to mention is. you really need to think about what the global market is like. an instuctor from the phillipines where he can make $5 AN HOUR doing construction or $30 an hour teaching kitesurfing where as an aussie can make $40 an hour in construction or $30 teaching kitesurfing

ive seen children in villages get pulled out of class to kitesurf all day in hopes of olympics/tourism job/instructor its that or he just becomes a fisherman anyways. so youll meet local kiter guys now 10 years after the horse has left the paddock who cant read and write aswell as the other village blokes there age due to this.

hope that answers none of the questions you asked

That the best one kozzie and thanx cubolta and tcgp
I see no point in doing an iko course ..especially ka unless theres a free crossover..in the aus market I have known for five years.too many allready.just like master fives master fours dive,instructors the whole lot.someone tell me if I am wrong
To travel like padi &teach philippino kids I understand.but then local philippino instrs are doing it..

...so I am going to invent the jumping over a whale move instead
Bugger..someones done it..

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cbulota said...

timmybuddhadude said..
Consider me rude...but may I just ask why## people are doing iko courses?is it to actually teach in jobs or just for personal development. There arnt enough schools to go around and must be thousands of instrs wrking in iga.its a bit like padi
Cbulota plse answer...

In many instances, course candidates are learning how safety systems work, how to perform self-rescues and how to rescue other kiters from a boat for the first time If you think about it a 40 hour instructor course which cost say around $1000, that's $25 an hour, or 1/4 of the price of lessons, but lead by the most experienced and qualified instructors there is.


Christian

This I find disturbing

Pretty sure If you fill in the form on the back of a cereal packet you go into the draw for an iko cert

Not sure about that Cauncy. A trip over east, 40 hours of shadowing, a full week of training, practical examination, presentations and written exam not to mention about $1200. Some cereal packet!

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MichaelShepherd said...
Not sure about that Cauncy. A trip over east, 40 hours of shadowing, a full week of training, practical examination, presentations and written exam not to mention about $1200. Some cereal packet!

Fruit loop

Through observation , having an iko cert doesn't guarantee quality instruction, in some cases maybe but many see it as a certificate to a lifestyle not a livelihood, but those livelihood seem to need a cert to operate, if your serious enough about quality instruction and passionate try to seek a placement with multiple schools, I'd say you'll soon figure who's in it for the money

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Kozzie said..

because all the good ones are in WINDY locations (NOT AUSTRALIA as a country its seasons are a joke in comparison to REAL kite spots)

You know Australia has a West coast right??????

Ive taught in perth
No lessons until seabreeze kicks in. In a real kite spot abroad I could have made $100 by then

You get like 5 hours work a day in perth and no kiting for yourself. One of worst places to teach. And all the schools slag off at eachother. Hide in bushes taking photos reporting to councils etc its a mess under pay to they think $30ph is normal it is ment to be $40ph in australia

Skipper's Ticket???
Hate to burst some bubbles. But.
A skipper's Ticket is a new word for e recreational boat license. If you are an instructor and as part of that role you use a boat with or for your paying customers, then you at a minimum need a Coxswain ticket by law. No ifs buts or maybes it's the law.
You are using the boat commercially.
So if you don't have one then it's a 2week full time course plus documented proof of 360 days at sea experience (1day is min 7hrs in open waters, not lakes and bays), then a written exam followed by an oral exam at Transport Safety Vic. (Or state equivalent)

Now just to add another interesting point. A kiteboarder travelling on the water is a "Vessel".
So a commercial kite instructor kiting on water with his/her students for instructional purposes, by definition needs a coxswain's ticket.
This could also apply even to body dragging with a student.
It's law and thus may have insurance implications as most don't cover you if you are acting unlawfully.

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cauncy said...
Pretty sure If you fill in the form on the back of a cereal packet you go into the draw for an iko cert

There was a well known world champion who got knocked back his first instructors course. It is less about kiting more about instructing.

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RAL INN said...
Skipper's Ticket???
Hate to burst some bubbles. But.
A skipper's Ticket is a new word for e recreational boat license. If you are an instructor and as part of that role you use a boat with or for your paying customers, then you at a minimum need a Coxswain ticket by law. No ifs buts or maybes it's the law.
You are using the boat commercially.
So if you don't have one then it's a 2week full time course plus documented proof of 360 days at sea experience (1day is min 7hrs in open waters, not lakes and bays), then a written exam followed by an oral exam at Transport Safety Vic. (Or state equivalent)

Now just to add another interesting point. A kiteboarder travelling on the water is a "Vessel".
So a commercial kite instructor kiting on water with his/her students for instructional purposes, by definition needs a coxswain's ticket.
This could also apply even to body dragging with a student.
It's law and thus may have insurance implications as most don't cover you if you are acting unlawfully.

Ral inn. No board no vessell. So you only would need a cox ticket if you were doing kitesurfing tandem and collecting money for that. OR possibly chargeing money for piggy back rides but then they arent on the vessel so I dont think that would float so to speak.

If your teaching using a boat the boat is not a paid ferry so no cox ticket required unless your chargeing for trips out or back.

Same goes for driving if you were to charge for rides to the spot you would need comeercial operators ticket.

Thats why these things are allways free, but the money gets tacked on elsewhere.

Another nice way around this is you take people out on boat trip you have your comercial licence they all pay you for the trip there but you kite back. Leaving your lackie behind with no comercial licence. So he cant charge money to take the kiters kids or nanna back so its free there for no need for comercial licence.

Your suggestion of instructors needing one for body dragging is miles off. But that would be quite funny.

I thought WA was ok for wind, but clearly not!! The places that I've travelled overseas all seem to have windy seasons and non-windy parts of the day.

From those who have been, where are the best places that blow strong all day, everyday, with super long seasons?

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Jono77 said..
I thought WA was ok for wind, but clearly not!! The places that I've travelled overseas all seem to have windy seasons and non-windy parts of the day.

From those who have been, where are the best places that blow strong all day, everyday, with super long seasons?

earth.nullschool.net/

go here

then play with the height generally due to a number of things there is 4 bands of wind 2 either side of equator and one next to the poles

im not going to go into a full on lesson here because it takes alot of energy and time. but i am tempted but no doubt ill be banned for ranting about the weather yet some people just demand enforce money for nothing and thats okay but anyways weather weather

so as you work your way down from 10hp to 1500 you should notice the upper level of wind actually determines what the lower level of wind will do and behave in time* so lets say its a strong westerly at 850hpa in a few days even if its a northerly at sea level itll start switching to that westerly

now the closer we get to sea level the more obstacles mountain ridges land masses etc and like a large rock in a stream just as the water moves around and over that rock so does the air.

add to this temperature also controls where the air will be going and what side of the globe your on etc

trying to keep this brief...

so the air thats lower is much more varied and turbulant this is partly why jets fly in the high altitudes where the air is thin and somewhat less turbulant the higher you are faster you can travel etc

NOW kite spots

given all this turbulant air that is heavily varied by all manner of things the ideal kitespot needs a large geographical climate or microclimate to be consistant

so thats where seasons come into play. trade winds famously used by sailors for tradeing but there are even better more reliable seasons out there such as south east asias monsoon season.

that particular season is created every year by the cold air coming down from the himilayas (and you should be seeing this right now on that link i posted) and it meets the warm air from the ocean and sweeps off to the east over asia. BUT not before being venturied between the bottom of india and little sri lanka there.

go ahead and have a look at the wind reports for sri lanka. i know from personal experience during this time of year your going to get 20 -30 knots every day for 4 months in 2012 we got a couple days of rain (normally its to hot to rain) a couple days of straight west wind (that cut the runs in half but extended the distance oh and was like 35 knots) and i believe 2 days of light wind.

we also have the doctors both fremantle doctor and cape doctor called so due to there seabreeze pushes out the pollution and heat but the doctors arent the only ones there is many many winds all with there own names and personalitys and why and how they are formed


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_wind_patterns

gotto go

couldnt edit
www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/learn-about/weather/types-of-weather/wind/wind-names

ggweather.com/winds.html

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_local_winds

so in general if your kite spot doesnt at the very least have a name for its wind then sadly it is not even close to being a "kite spot"

never forget that kitesurfing IS sailing. you want to call yourself a sailor having never ventured further then your local estuary and maybe a couple nearby beaches then go right ahead but on a global scale you have not even dipped your toe in the water. kite schools operate ultimately where councils will allow them AND where there is a high population. students are being signed off having never kited in 20knots. i have personally only ever allowed my students 1 light wind day 1 high wind day and 1 moderate wind day. the light wind days generally those very sad 10 knot days and then a 15 for moderate and ill make sure they get a 20 aswell. if im faced with a week of 10 knots i pull them aside and tell them exactly what the deal is and ill usually swing them a trainer kite and some dvds until we get a decent 15+ knots. kite lessons are expensive. i spent alot more money on lessons then most personally i believe around $1k so i made sure none of my students would ever have to do that. due to this sort of wind snobbery i have generally only taught abroad where wind is a bit better. of course every case is different if someone is super keen i simply dont charge and we hack it out in the sub teaching strengths i wouldnt be working anyways so why not and as you all know by now i have sweet **** all better to do anyways then rant and rave about bull****

weather... okay so ISLANDS islands are great typically you get the 4 months on one side 2 months of a change then 4 months but lighter on otherside then 2 months of change and repeat but the golden rule to this is not only the islands location but its size and its terrain. is it a big ass volcano island in middle nowhere where the mountain itself will create its own weather patterns or is it one of those deserted little ****ers with nothing higher then the fringeing coconut trees, also is it going to be big enough to generate a seabreeze effect? will its shape and curve give it a bay effect is it 2 volcanic ones nect to eachother where wind gets squeezed between them so you can get 20 knots in a channel 30m wide when its only 10knots ? (these are particularly my favourite kite spots because all i need is a short run to practice freestyle so they are often deserted and no swimmers/dogs/fisherman/useless for teaching/no kooks i find compressed wind to be more consistant to and often the run itself is sheltered from the swell so its flat, only issue is you must stay in that box and may require a kayak to get to.

anyways hope that helps

Kookaburras!
A vessel under maritime law is anything that can transport people or goods on water.
Board or not Kiters being powered along by a kite in the water are vessels.
A vessel being used for Commercial, governmental, or research use. Is a commercial vessel and has to be skippered by a commercial operator ie: Coxswain's minimum.
If you are operating a vessel as part of a commercial operation this all applies to you.
Simple as that.
Furthermore there are requirements that certain vessels have to have a certificate of Survey.
There are about 4-5 categories and it lists these as if your vessel falls into any of these, not all, not some, but even just one.
The last is "vessels used in high risk activities".
So when it goes pear shaped and your insurance company bails because they claim you have been operating outside the law.
Good luck with your previous arguments.

Hi Tony,

You are spot on in most of what you say, however, there is a loophole that allows you to use a "Rescue" boat to retrieve students in trouble. This negates the need for a Cox's ticket. In addition to your thoughts on the Coxwains ticket, you also need to use a boat which has been surveyed by a nautical engineer. I've gone down all of these roads and so long as the boat is only used for rescue, then you only need a skippers ticket (RST) and the boat only needs to be registered, not surveyed.

If the boat is used in the course of the lesson for anything other than rescue, then your comments are bang on, plus survey required.

DM

Thanks. I have an unrestricted Coxswain's ticket plus we run a boat tour business with an 8m RIB. So we have to be in survey and all the red tape that goes with it.
If a boat is only used for rescue that's fine, and in case of emergency any and every boat should be prepared to help.
It should however be clear in any course material what you can and can't do with your rescue boat. And even the course examiners need to be aware of the legality of teaching rescue from a boat, as that is definitely commercial.

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timmybuddhadude said..
That the best one kozzie and thanx cubolta and tcgp
I see no point in doing an iko course ..especially ka unless theres a free crossover..in the aus market I have known for five years.too many allready.just like master fives master fours dive,instructors the whole lot.someone tell me if I am wrong
To travel like padi &teach philippino kids I understand.but then local philippino instrs are doing it..

...so I am going to invent the jumping over a whale move instead
Bugger..someones done it..

Hi Timmybuddhadude

Totally agree around the need for KA quals to be recognised worldwide. We currently have recognition from the UK and are working with the International Kitesports Association about developing the recognition system for all countries. Lots of national associations are keen to be involved - the good thing is that we are actually on the committee developing how it will work! A similar system applies for sailing instructors already.

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RAL INN said..
Skipper's Ticket???
Hate to burst some bubbles. But.
A skipper's Ticket is a new word for e recreational boat license. If you are an instructor and as part of that role you use a boat with or for your paying customers, then you at a minimum need a Coxswain ticket by law. No ifs buts or maybes it's the law.
You are using the boat commercially.
So if you don't have one then it's a 2week full time course plus documented proof of 360 days at sea experience (1day is min 7hrs in open waters, not lakes and bays), then a written exam followed by an oral exam at Transport Safety Vic. (Or state equivalent)

Now just to add another interesting point. A kiteboarder travelling on the water is a "Vessel".
So a commercial kite instructor kiting on water with his/her students for instructional purposes, by definition needs a coxswain's ticket.
This could also apply even to body dragging with a student.
It's law and thus may have insurance implications as most don't cover you if you are acting unlawfully.

Hey RAL INN

Further to what Darren said above, not only is having a skippers ticket for driving a rescue boat sufficient but also it is important to have the skippers ticket for learning to drive a boat on the KA Course.

We obviously recognise that the less than 5% of schools teaching from a boat would need to do a Coxswain ticket but don't require everyone to do the test as most would not use it.

Cheers

Alexandra

Alexandra, is learning to drive a boat part of the instructors course?
The consideration of so, is that if such boat driving instructions are on water in a boat. Then the boat and driver need to comply

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RAL INN said..
Alexandra, is learning to drive a boat part of the instructors course?
The consideration of so, is that if such boat driving instructions are on water in a boat. Then the boat and driver need to comply

Hi - sorry I just saw this. The regs are varied around Australia and the way it is taught depends on what is legal in the situation.