Postby mz16 » Thu Jan 24, 2013 5:55 am
+1 for what Jens is saying.
And to be fair, the criticism of "how many handle passes do you do...it all looks the same" is valid in my mind, style needs to go beyond technique for me. Yet that sentiment, which seems to be the most popular criticism of the wakestyle vids, is doubly accurate for the lauded airstyle. Huge airs are interesting, maybe a sweet tweaked out grab 50 feet of the air, or even some huge board off, so are different kind of glide tricks (darkslide stuff) equally fun to see, but twirling the board once, then twirling it twice, then touching it with your left foot, then your right foot, is boring as hell after you see 5 variations, just as boring as seeing the same kite to lunch quintuple handle pass from 15 angles.
Whats next? Im going to jump twenty feet in the air, and as i slowly descend im going to unscrew my fin, then screw it back in?
Different strokes for different folks in the end i reckon. I think the main distinction here is some people want kiting to be like Olympic sports, with the long distance ski jump, and the acrobatic ski flipping thing, and figure skating, and some people prefer X-games style stuff where (at least in spirit) the emphasis is on style (though wtf snowmobiling?)
Every action sport has too much tech in it from time to time, thats just the way it goes. Sooner or later the emphasis comes back to style. If you are doing it with style (not just calling it _____-style) then you are doing it right.