get onto kevin langeree he loves to dangle!

Hey mate

I think thats a personal preference, as to which style is better to watch. I myself like both. I think there are many people out there who would both agree and disagree with you.

I think the days of seeing top level riders doing old-school big air tricks in competition is over as they have pretty much pushed this style to the limits. Remember many of todays top level riders, (Hadlow, Lenten and many more who would be considered young by most), were top 10 competition riders back in 2003/2004, (even though they were only 13 years old) and had some of the best board-off, big-air dangle pass combinations going. They haven't ignored the old-school they've already done it.

I know where your coming from though, seeing old footage of Robby Naish jump 20 metres in the air, spin round several times with one foot out the board still looks fooking awesome!!! If you did this on your average beach you would be grabbing more attention than some one popping a perfect Raley 2 Blind, unless the beach was packed with pro-kiteboarders and wakeboarding fans

One person who I believe would agree with you is actually Ruben Lenten. You watch some recent interviews with him and although he will hit sliders, rails and is pretty good at wakestyle, he finds it pretty boring. His thing is going huge, looping his kite like a maniac in the strongest winds possible.

I think one of the best things about kiteboarding is the freedom we have to go out and ride any style we want; Speed, Surf, wakestyle, freestyle old and new.

TenBerri said...


One person who I believe would agree with you is actually Ruben Lenten. You watch some recent interviews with him and although he will hit sliders, rails and is pretty good at wakestyle, he finds it pretty boring. His thing is going huge, looping his kite like a maniac in the strongest winds possible.

To be fair though, that is also his job... If he didn't say that and didn't do big kiteloops he would be out of a job.

TenBerri said...

Hey mate

I think thats a personal preference, as to which style is better to watch. I myself like both. I think there are many people out there who would both agree and disagree with you.

I think the days of seeing top level riders doing old-school big air tricks in competition is over as they have pretty much pushed this style to the limits. Remember many of todays top level riders, (Hadlow, Lenten and many more who would be considered young by most), were top 10 competition riders back in 2003/2004, (even though they were only 13 years old) and had some of the best board-off, big-air dangle pass combinations going. They haven't ignored the old-school they've already done it.

I know where your coming from though, seeing old footage of Robby Naish jump 20 metres in the air, spin round several times with one foot out the board still looks fooking awesome!!! If you did this on your average beach you would be grabbing more attention than some one popping a perfect Raley 2 Blind, unless the beach was packed with pro-kiteboarders and wakeboarding fans

One person who I believe would agree with you is actually Ruben Lenten. You watch some recent interviews with him and although he will hit sliders, rails and is pretty good at wakestyle, he finds it pretty boring. His thing is going huge, looping his kite like a maniac in the strongest winds possible.

I think one of the best things about kiteboarding is the freedom we have to go out and ride any style we want; Speed, Surf, wakestyle, freestyle old and new.

Never thought of it like that, you are most probably right. Again, you are talking about someone (me) who listens to 720am and triple JJJ now and then, I may need to move with the times. The things that attracted me to the sport, the fluidity, the arial acrobatics have been replaced by hard core, powered up, spiked up, crazy freestyle moves - alas, I must live in the past. I would argue about the limit being reached, no such thing, but the sport evolves as it has meant to. Obviously hadlow and the like needed more and more technical aspects to their riding hence what we witness now.

Still don't like it - However I do like it when they perform these tricks with height and fluidity and that includes the landing. I was sitting with a dude who had never really seen kiting and he kind of went, yeh, cool moves. I remember the naish shinn days when people went..fark did you see that, that was unreal!

Yeh each to their own... bring back fluidity and height i say! Base the technical stuff around that.

Cheers, for ya reply, makes a lot of sense.

If you don't like a style of music it all sounds the same. To me most squigglepass stuff looks the same. I really couldn't give a toss which way his body's spinning and which way the bar's passed, the angle of the kite, etc.

kiteboy dave said...

If you don't like a style of music it all sounds the same. To me most squigglepass stuff looks the same. I really couldn't give a toss which way his body's spinning and which way the bar's passed, the angle of the kite, etc.

Yeh maybe that is it, it all looks the same! good point. But I'd be one stoked due who could pull some of that off, too old, too slow and got kids at home to feed and a mortgage, can afford to be in traction! Each sir rowdy has said...twice, each to their own, the sport is differentiated. I just wish to see more of the other stuff that's all. Would even prefer to watch a kite-surfing comp actually, you are right man, looks all the same to me - all happens way to fast...ha ha

sir ROWDY said...

sir ROWDY said...

If you're not into wakesktyle you're not going to get a thrill out of watching it, same goes with wakeskating or waveriding... Not many people are involved in all the facets of this sport hence there is always going to be people claiming something is boring.

Are you seriously quoting yourself???? mate, you will need a loooooonnnnng bath when you finaly emmerge from that journey up your own ars#

watched it and turned it off, boring ,boring, dont deserve to be on tv. freeriding waves make it exciting at least. they dont need akite , get to the cable park !

sebol said...

sir ROWDY said...

sir ROWDY said...

If you're not into wakesktyle you're not going to get a thrill out of watching it, same goes with wakeskating or waveriding... Not many people are involved in all the facets of this sport hence there is always going to be people claiming something is boring.

Are you seriously quoting yourself???? mate, you will need a loooooonnnnng bath when you finaly emmerge from that journey up your own ars#

This is rowdy we are talking about. He's like a kitesurfing god. I once heard that Death had a near Rowdy experience.

sebol said...

sir ROWDY said...

sir ROWDY said...

If you're not into wakesktyle you're not going to get a thrill out of watching it, same goes with wakeskating or waveriding... Not many people are involved in all the facets of this sport hence there is always going to be people claiming something is boring.

Are you seriously quoting yourself???? mate, you will need a loooooonnnnng bath when you finaly emmerge from that journey up your own ars#

I was meerly trying to bump said thread closer back together with other stupid thread I made that looked the same but got deleted... But hey whatever, I can run with quoting myself, if it makes people this angry I will probably do it more often.

If you are talking about competitions then the actual trick doesn't really matter. What matters is the style of the execution. A twiddly move with a crappy setup and landing is ugly.

Possibly the most beautiful move in kiteboarding is an ultra-extended, powered unhooked railey. My personal favourite to do is a high speed, toeside carve with a big rooster tail and full speed in and out of the move. It's not that hard to do but when it's perfect it feels great and I think it looks great.

There's video of Aaron Hadlow doing beautiful, powered unhooked mega loops with perfect landings. On the other hand there's video of Ruben Lenten doing massive unhooked multiple loops with crappy landings and the kite flopping all over the place.

Kiteboarding competitions in general, and wakestyle in particular, has always been the same as figure skating. All that keep the kite at 45 degrees stuff and different moves with different names depending on the bit of rail you grab, and wearing the proper boardies and trucker's caps and t-shirts over the wettie. Pure figure skating. It needs to be judged using the same criteria.

You should get points for technical difficulty, execution and style.