Fighter kite games...

Just to keep a fighter in the air requires some skill. To have fun, you need to push your limits or practice what you already know. The items below give some areas that you can work on...

On your own

Self launches (From prop, hand, foot, ground, and the Nagasaki). Once you can successfully self-launch you don't need to be so worried about hitting the ground - or so demanding of your spouse or kids to “get it up again”. Work on mastering all of the above launch methods.

Dives passes and turning:

The basic precision moves are good practice, so that you learn to drive the kite - rather than it driving you!

Lampposts:

Tall lighting poles are good to play with. The basic idea is to do various manoeuvres as close as possible without getting tangled. Optimists play this game with trees...

Kite touching:

Put a stable single-liner such as a delta or rokkaku up, and play as you did with the lamp-post.

Two on a line:

Two ripstop fighters. Second kite is on a 6m line attached to the first kite's line 8m back from the kite. Drive the second kite and the first will follow - keep well away from the ground! A bit tough to launch without help.

Cup on a pole:

Put a poly cup with a couple of stones in it on top of a six-foot pole 20m away and try to knock it off with kite or line - once mastered, go for speed.

Balloon popping:

With a pin at the nose, go after balloons attached to a stable kite, or on a pole.

Velco pickups:

A short Velcro tail can be used to pick up Velcro-covered items.

Balloon catching:

Release a helium filled balloon and catch it by spiraling round its line. The expert kite-flyers in India and elsewhere use this technique to capture cut kites. (A favorite show item by British fighter fanatic Stafford Wallace)

With Others

With two or more flyers, you can try some of the "combat" games.

In India, the general term is to “play” with kites, and a fight is a “tangle”. In the West, most descriptions of cutting line fights are over-dramatised with descriptions of razor-blades, knives and lines “coated with shards of glass”. In real life manjha is much tamer, and while it certainly can cut hands, the sport/art can probably do without some of this imagery.

(Mind you, in Cuba and elsewhere in the Caribbean they do use razor blades...)

Line touching:

American Kiting Association style combat involves touching your opponent's line from below or above. No cutting line is used, and generally a match involves several touches (e.g. First “point” is for a touch from below, second from above and third from below again - or variations at the whim of the judge. Touching from below is the hardest.)

Cutting line:

With the exception of Korea, flyers in most countries often handle the line with bare hands, perhaps with tape on strategic fingers. The classic Indian reel is important mostly to ease the task of winding up line (which is tricky with manjha), rather than being used in directly by the flyer. In some cases an assistant will be working the reel to keep too much line from being on the ground. (Some flyers do fly direct from the reel. Stafford Wallace can be seen using both techniques on the Manjha Club video)

Korean cutting line is industrial diamond-powder on silk (yes, really!), and all flyers use a very large distinctive reel which they fly directly from.

In most places the complete line is cutting - in others just a section near the kite. In India and Nagasaki very long lines (500m +) are used and often flyers never see their opponent. Very roughly it's King of the Hill - with every flyer in the neighbourhood aiming to “own” the sky.

In other places, and in the West it's generally a one-on-one battle on much shorter lines (generally much less than 500m). Generally first kill, but can be played to a time period, putting up new kites as required and counting kills.

Wolf and Sheep:

The lone Wolf - a "gun" flyer - has cutting line, all others are paper kites on cotton, and trying to take the Wolf down. Good to have the sheep and Wolf distinctive colours (White and Black?). Normally any kids about get to keep the cut kites. First played by Manjha Club, this should be a good crowd-pleaser.

Indonesian “guard-the-kite” game:

One team puts up a stable single-liner “target” kite on thin cotton. They then guard it with two fighters on cutting line, while the other team try to “take out” the target kite with their fighters, using cutting line.
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