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By kiting I mean groundhandling your glider up the hill because you are too lazy to carry it. Kiting is good because it saves a lot of effort when you can't stay up and have to slope land.

The general idea is that you get dragged up the hill by the wing, so not only do you not have to carry the wing itself, but you also get some help to pull your fat arse up the slope.

For this to work you will need enough wind to keep your glider in the air. It doesn't have to be perfectly consistent groundhandling weather - if there are enough strong bits to keep the glider up for few seconds at a time you might still be able to do it.

It will generally be easier with a decent bit of wind, but if there is plenty of wind you won't be bothering anyway because you can just take off and soar up.

Lesson one is glider positioning. You don't want the glider above your head when kiting it. If it is above your head it will be overflying you as soon as you start walking up the hill, and it won't be pulling you uphill like you want it to. It's like when you launch - you get pulled towards the glider when it is half way up, but not once it is above your head. I suppose this is pretty obvious anyway.

Unfortunately (for kiting purposes) this half way position isn't a stable one for your glider - it will naturally want to fly up above your head or fall back onto the ground. So you will find that you have to switch between the brakes and the A risers quite a lot.

This means you should forget about that cross-handed launching technique you spent ages learning and do it the old fashioned way with the brake lines (not the handles) in your hands (and not crossed over). Actually, if it looks like the glider will come up straight, don't bother finding the brakes until you've pulled the thing into the air. We're trying to save time here.

You don't want to be faffing around building a wall for ages either. If a third of the leading edge is open and there is a bit of wind, just drag the thing up as far as you can. It will stay in the air surprisingly often, and even when it doesn't it usually helps open out the canopy a bit. The best technique for these silly launches is to pull up both risers with one hand, and have the other hand on the brake line at the side that is going to come up first. If less than half the wing is open you can even just pull up with one riser and one brake, and sometimes still manage to get the wing open and flying.

Once the glider is in the air just try and keep it there. Switch between risers and brakes, or one riser and the opposite brake, or both risers in one hand and one brake in the other, etc. as necessary. Don't try and sprint up the hill, just let the wing drag you when it wants to. Sometimes it helps to step backwards a bit just to keep pressure in the wing.

You can get a certain amount of turning control by pulling one riser towards you more than the other - this might save you switching a hand on to the brake lines sometimes.

You'll have to be quite lucky to kite all the way up the hill in one go - if the wind was that consistent you wouldn't be on the deck in the first place. So you'll be dropping the glider back on the ground sometimes. You'll want to try and avoid this as long as possible - even when the wing is down at ground level it is a lot easier to get back up when there is air in it. But don't leave it too late - if the wing really isn't staying up, it is better to try and drop it in a controlled way so it will be easier to pull up next time. This means you should move towards the wing and, if you are quick enough, pull the brakes as it touches down. This helps to keep the leading edge open.

You can still kite when the wind is across the hill - you just have to turn the glider a bit so it is at an angle to the ground, flying up the hill. You'll see when you try it. One wingtip can be dragging on the ground if the wind is a long way cross - it still works.

Finally, some safety notes so you can't sue me. Remember to look out for people in the air who are skimming around the place at fifteen feet and not expecting you to be pulling your wing up. And if you're doing what I said above, pulling up the glider without finding the brakes first, and without building a proper wall to check the lines aren't tangled, you should be reasonably sure you aren't about to get lifted off by a sudden thermal.

Well, that's it, you're back at the top of the hill, still with the wing in the air ready to take off again, and you haven't even broken into a sweat. Easy. You wouldn't think it was possible to write so much about this simple topic but there you go. Next time, 5000 words on how to tie your shoelaces.