NorCalNomad wrote:First off...sorry for the thread drift with this post. I'll try to dig up some solid info on the juice this weekend.
Sure doing huge loops and airstyle certainly has a cool look and feel to it but I'm about to speak very objectively so don't take it personally.
A lot of airstyle tricks can look easy/ hooky/ novelty, where as wakestyle looks hard and ultimately more "marketable", let me explain why.
Look at most airstyle riding you see out there the person has a pretty smooth landing and plenty of time to do their trick and get their board back around on their feet in from the air they're getting. Now you look at wakestyle riding where they are doing FAST multiple rotations, bar passes, and board grabs low to the water.
Even most people who don't do extreme sports will easily make a judgement that the things performed faster and in a shorter period of time to do the trick looks harder or more exciting.
Also the fact that wakestyle riding is more closely resembling other extreme board sports so they already can draw similarities and levels of difficulty to those. This is also where the marketability aspect comes in, it's familiar enough for people to understand it, and the potential scoring therefore enjoy watching it. This is something that plagues many other extreme sports that I've seen grow or try to attract attention from outside the sport.
These are some of the reason why airstyle and competitions for it have fallen by the wayside in the evolution of kiting.
Appreciate you point of view but honestly, the general public, including most kiters do not appreciate the technical difficulty of most of the moves. They have no appreciation for the time, risk (to the body) and dedication it takes to ride at the top level in the PKRA.
pKRA events remind of my a group of highly skilled and those that want to be, electric guitarist standing around at a small jazz club commenting and appreciating the technical nature of the moves. The majority don't get it and honestly even I get tired of watching it after a while and I know what each move is. I get it, I dig it I appreciate it, but the general public, nah.
Also I don't subscribe to your use of the word evolution in this context. There should at the very least divergent evolution in all areas but I would win very easily a bet on which style would attract the most crowds, media and ultimately financial exposure. Airstyle has not been given the opportunity to evolve, Christ I was watching a clip last night from 2004, some awesome stuff. Imagine what a pro rider could do given the opportunity to develop their skills in this area. Evolution...that's sound suspiciously like the born again strapless Sb riders who bang on about their superior skills and crew like myself who have been surfing since the age of 5 just shake our heads in amusement. It's not that bloody hard! The aerial SB riders now that's something. But hey the pro surfers are still kicking your ass and they don't have a method of power generation apart from the waves themselves!
Hanging upside down 50 foot in the air doing a king deadman, what's more spectacular than that, seriously for the mass audience. Imagine what a fearless young buck could do with that!! Just stand on the beach for while (or listening carefully if your ego needs a stroke or two) and listen to the 'wohs' when someone goes big and does some spectacular stuff up there with smoothness and grace...then there's the one kiting geek (who probably can't even kite) appreciating some guy in boots throwing down some complicated unhooked powered move.
The basic theme of your conjecture has been banged on the drum in the name of kiting progression for far too long now. It's time to respect and evolve all the areas of kiting and a kite company with even a small measure of common sense would be wise to take this commercial opportunity.
It's a good discussion to have.
