Ornithopter Research by Prof James DeLaurier MRAeS
This talks about the swing test, for kites instead of model rockets, using just your arms, which looks like an excellent first test of your kite to me:
Learning About the Flight Stability with a Tethered Paper Plane:
Rocket stability explanation and testing with swing tests: Rocket Stability - YouTube
This is doing manually what a whirling arm can do non-manually.