hi Scott,
In general, people who havean intermediate level plus background in surfing, windsurfing, wakeboarding, power kiting, buggying and to some extent paragliding and snowboarding have an easier learning curve than people with no board or wind sports experience. Kitesurfing is not a hard sport to learn -- this is the fun AND the danger of it! It is very important that beginners take lessons as the kites are very powerful and instruction will help prevent "kitemares". We have taught students as young as 11... our oldest student was 68.....
In our experience, beginner students take anywhere from 6-12 hours to ge through our beginner course which consists of wind theory, weather theory, lots of safety info/theory, how to fly a kite, body drag with kite, various kite flying techniques and finally, how to waterstart and get onboard. Then students take anywhere from 2-7 more days to start to ride upwind and practice safely on their own and amongst others. So, ideally, 10 days but we have students that come for as little as 3-4 days to learn the basics, who then continue instruction in their own town.
Let me know if I can be of further help:-=)
Marina
www.kitexcite.com