...I don't understand the difference between wakestyle and freestyle. Can someone much cooler than me please explain...

There's a world of diff between the two styles ... world of diff lol
... as you guessed... I have no idea my self lol

wakestyle = newschool freestyle + foot bindings

Wakestyle is what you do behind a motorboat.....the rest is kiteboarding.

not much difference and all the difference in the world at the same time.

Freestyle is kind of associated with competition... heats with judging and scoring. It started pretty old school and used to have a lot of flow in the days of Shin and Jaime, but because its competition it evolved towards big scoring moves with less focus on what's in between. the handle pass was a step up in degree of difficulty and killed tricks like board offs and deadmans. Now they throw double handle passes with a kite loop! Height is cool so its fair game to use a kite to boost as well as land. In the time pressure of heats you lose a lot of flow in the riding itself and its more important to throw your moves on the pass downwind then mow mow mow or run up the beach. Watching it is a pretty boring presentation of hugely difficult and ballsy tricks. Of course there is freestyle outside of competition with plenty of style, power, skill and flow, but its skewed to simplify itself down to a crazy handle pass in straps.

Wakestyle has no tour as yet but a growing number of annual events that will eventually be a de facto tour. The emphasis has never been competition. Skewed toward freeriding its heavily focused on style and amplitude is judged with risk as the measuring stick. The kite is a fantastic power plant, but it all becomes less impressive the moment the rider dangles. Height is super cool when mixed with equal parts speed and no brakes. Flat water is key and that means toys.... kickers, rails... features. Speed and unhooked commitment are required, but style is the goal. The handle pass is of course a major factor in degree of difficulty, and other than park riding, the rest of it is often simplified down to a crazy handle pass in boots.

Freestyle is doing tricks - any tricks you like to express yourself with - it can include wakeboarding tricks, hookedin stuff, board offs even - free do do anything

wakestyle is kiteboarders emulating wakeboard tricks but using a kite instead of a board, no stupid gas bills.. that usually means kite at an angle closer to a wakeboard boat pole/cable angle and boards with bigger rockers to reduce stress on knees/ankles as kites does not soften your landings so much (not so much parachute effect on way down) - big rockers suck in marginal winds though due to extra drag and boots suck in onshore winds.

I don't know the difference between the two styles but,
all i wanna do is get through my next
double back-roll with my right leg still attached ; then i'll spend the rest
of the day learning that transition jump with a down-loop thingie !

Kite boarding is a BLAST, no-mater what Ya do, as long as it's something
do do with standing ON the water & not "In"-- it .

Bille

Good question, I'd guessed that's what they'd meant, but I have never really seen anybody call themselves a wakestyle guy.

Is this big in places like Hatteras? No waves, lots of rednecks unable to afford wakeboats?

I went wakeboarding for the first time last week and I'm still sore. How do you not get hurt doing that?

So is everyone saying that wakestyle is a sub-form of the wider definition of freestyle? I read only yesterday how we were so lucky that our sport is "so diverse with Freeride, Waves, Freestyle, WakeStyle, Racing and now Airstyle." Are we not in danger of over categorising here?

Sure I'll give you RACING, and WAVERIDING as very separate categories but unless you are in a very well defined and narrow field of competition, surely freeride, freestyle, wakestyle and airstyle are just (slightly) broader terms that group together some of the moves we ALMOST ALL aspire to doing/trying out on the water...???

My comment comes purely because I fear we are overcomplicating the sport to outsiders and newcomers. I say keep it all SIMPLE so a wider cross section can understand and buy into our sport...

For sure there is cross over. The spectrum would have aistyle at one end and wakestyle at the other with freestyle developing in between.

Now really freestyle is supposed to be free from catagorization, but thats just the name. In the reality of competition its a rather specifically judged style of riding at any one point in its evolution. Way back in the first few years of PKRA and KPWT tours, big airs, board offs and hooked in tricks were a big part of it. Like I said, the degree of difficulty went up with the intro of the handle pass and now its no longer really competition worthy if its not unhooked. Now were seeing riders like Alex Pastor kill it on tour in boots. Two of the sports biggest freestyle names, Hadlow and Lenten spend a lot of time in boots, and even Youri Zoon has strapped some on his freestyle board. There are hold outs like Kevin Langaree, but its plain to see that boots are almost the norm among both the guys and the girls currently on the pro freestyle tour.

I think there is enough difference between this:

http://vimeo.com/44102311



and this:

http://vimeo.com/46520615



With this as a current example of the ever changing face of freestyle:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ee4Q7xjALQ



Not really risking over classification. They are as different as road and mountain biking. (Then again with bikes you have bmx, trials, downhill, etc...) The fact you ask this question shows freestyle is moving toward wakestyle in its equipment, aesthetic and slowly adopting the same criteria for evaluating magnitude.

If your looking for an inclusive umbrella term that covers most of what the day to day rider out there is doing, you can go with, dangling or mowing the lawn, or maybe freeriding. That one has some consistency with other board sports!