Has competition riding changed?

Does the angle of you kite when you do a trick make or break?

Some words from Mr #1, Aaron Hadlow...

surfing was the same for most of the 80's and pretty much all the 90's, do the safety dance to win the heat.

you'd see these guys ripping on video and free surfing but come to the competition and boring 'cut back' and 're-entry' to the beach.

then the format changed and it took on an amount of credibility (still not much, to me professional surfing is pointless)

maybe kiting needs to take on some format changes

Now the X^1000 world champ says it, it must be true... I hate to say I told you so... but I really did tell you so

On a slightly more serious note, this is great, now maybe people will realise what they are doing is not legit or pushing the sport in a good direction, because even their idol says it's ghey... and hopefully we can have a world tour that gives some sort of credibility to the sport.

p.s.
Aaron Hadlow UPDATE 2!!:
Aaron Hadlow has just had another realisation, foot hook wakestyle is totally Aids.
(wonder how long it will be for real...)

If the judging doesn't change, the game won't change.

p.s. Stop red thumbing me Aaannnnnndyyyyyyyy.

If I was a judge I'd have 2 criteria:
1.) who can do the highest boardoff guitar strum.
2.) who can spray ****loads of water into the air and ride away at speed

nothing else matters. Nothing progresses a sport like 20m high guitar strums...nothing.

Any competition sport where judging is subjective, such as gymnastics, figure skating, freestyle snowboarding, surfing and of course freestyle kiteboarding, will have controversial outcomes. Judges have their own preconceived ideas of what looks good even when they have criteria right in front of them. And the general public, kiters or not, don't know what scores high, what scores low and I'm sure most moves look pretty similar. Surfing has struggled for decades to attract big sponsorship dollars and changed competition formats many times even with 1000x more people in the sport than kiting.

A friend of mine who has been surfing for 40 years came to the Freestyle Nationals a few years ago and commented on the similarities to surfing competitions in the 1970's. He particularly noted that competitors never seemed to question the judges scores allocated to their moves or put in formal complaints when they felt ripped off. This happens in surfing comps all the time. His son is a professional surfer who tourers the world on the pro circuit. He doesn't make much money from comps but makes a meager living from sponsors. Travel gobles up most of his cash.

Remember, to draw big dollars to a competition requires sponsorship. Sponsors want bums on seats to display their product. If competition does not have mass appeal with easy to follow rules and outcomes then competitors will remain poorly paid and the sport will remain fringe.

Look at swimming, tennis and golf. Eazy for a spectator to follow and a clear non subjective outcome. This translates into big sponsorship dollars.

I don't think freestyle kiteboarding wiil ever attract big dollars simply because of what it is. Mr Haddlow is still poorly paid compared to other professional athletes. So it's pointless quibling over what scores high or not (low kite - high kite who cares). For people to devote a good percentage of their lives to a poorly paid sport only shows they love the sport for what it is and money is secondary. Life after competitive kiting without a back-up plan or a rich dad can be pretty cripling.

Also, remember our Australian comps are run by volunteers. People with real jobs mostly outside the industry. They don't do it for money. In fact it costs them to provide you with a spectacle. So if you have a complaint about how comps are run lend a hand to change it.

Sadly for kiteboarding to become an Olympic sport it will have to go the way of windsurfing and offer course racing as the only competitive option. Clear outcome, easy format to follow by spectators fom outside the sport.

Rant concluded.

Hi Rowdy

I remember his comments as an outsider looking in were that it was friendly, relaxed and amateurish, low budget, small sponsors. Not that these are bad things.

Professional surfing is much more upbeat and slick in presentation. Go to Bells at Easter and you'll see a media circus with a lot at stake. I was there in 1968 when we had a world comp. It was then pretty low budget compared to today's madness.

Yah, I'd hate to see course racing on Sydney Harbour. Ugly.

im sure for a olympic event theyd get permission to be the only water users of that area during that time

besides that stop getting off topic we are here to discuss the lameness of current freestyle comp riders and how every1s idol says they are ghey.
how does this make you feel?

Can't believe he was pulling that stuff in 06, pretty amazing.

Also he has zero cred talking about legit tricks and talking about how a "low" mobe 5 is better than a mobe 7. Check out this video of my sick low late mobe 7 airpass.

I'd like to see more young guys in the sport. They're the ones pushing the envelope, taking the risks to produce amazing new moves that are worth watching.

Because our sport is so expensive we'll always find it hard to attract the early teens. Unless their dad is into it or the family's got money to throw at the sport then the young guys will surf, skate or snatch bags in the shopping mall as a passtime.

kite height has correlation to height in pop so that can barely count - maybe angle of dangle vs height in trick can be looked at.

kite height is negative correlation to style - as angle of dangle increases flow of trick decreases, flow decreases style decreases. style= a trick done with your own uniqueness with fluidity throughout the move and making it look easy. watch nick davies ride cable and hes pissing out style left right and centre, all his moves flow from start to finish and he makes it look like he's not even trying. hadlow is the same when he drops his kite angle in freeriding, his tricks start flowing from start to finish and yes even in straps it looks awsome.

compare this with kevins mobe 7s n such you can see its not a fluid trick he makes pass one hangs there then does a pull up into pass two. the big pause and then just the physical power to pull into it to finish does not equal style.

as for the word DANGLE it refers to a person hanging under their bar being carried by the kite's power and not their own pop, so there for a low kite with a greater horizontal pulling component than vertical pulling component as opposed to a high kite with the opposite makes it impossible to DANGLE with a low kite, yes i understand even people with low kites can look sh!t when they go in super slow and pop like .2 of a meter off the water and wriggle for gold to make what ever spin they are trying to make does look stupid BUT the term dangle is not appropriate to describe this, lack of power or under powered would be more suitable.

if hadlow himself says a mobe 5 kite low is harder than a mobe 7 surely he must be right, or if he says a blind freddo 7 (landing blind) with kitelow is harder than a blind freddo 7 ("air passed") with kite high then who are you to question this? surely you cant question a superior rider can you? isnt that what i was told in the previous dangleree thread?

now lets compare apples with apples to do a kitelow mobe vs a kite high mobe you need more power kitelow to get the same height in pop to complete the trick, more power = harder to pass = better.

hadlow clearly states that they pretty much will mark same tricks the same regardless of whether ur kites at 40 or at 70 degrees which makes a considerable difference in actual difficulty there fore crippling the people who want to push for more power lower kites etc to add more style and consequence.

its not that he is just targeting kite height on its own its just that kite height is interlinked with many other aspects of riding and has the greatest effect on style, consequence and difficulty. thats 3 things that makes one trick better than another completely changed by just 1 aspect of kiting.

A PERFECT example of this is watching a nick davies cable run, then watch his video on the sysitec 2.0 at the projects. at 2.0 the rope is short and angle high and his style pretty much dissapeared, sure he was throwin down just as technical on what could be a harder system to do air tricks on but it looks crap compared to his normal riding

Well there you go. I think we have 2 representatives from Australia for the PKRA judging panel... Pity they dont agree..

Aaron Kitelow Vs Kevin Dangleree. hmmm, Kitelow gets my vote.
I'd still give it to Dre on pure style as my brain is too slow to keep up with all the squiggles.

I meant I disagreed with Jammin, Charl snuck in before me.

of course you do, I didn't expect anything else. Doesn't really matter what I've got to say, its hard to pull the blinkers off and open your mind to outside ideas...

Hey Charl, kinda got lost in your post, you got some good points for sure, I know that low kite powered tricks look heaps better and are harder than the same move with kite high. And I'm not disagreeing with AH calling a mobe 5 as harder than a high pass 7.

All I'm saying is that kite angle should not be a defining specification on a hard or stylish move. There are alot of great stylish moves out there by good riders with kite high too, Judge a move by its power, flow, style etc just like you said, but we shouldn't have to issue judges with protractors and theodelites to calculate kite angles. There's alot of riders doing gay little moves with their kite low, scared to death that the style police are gonna bust them for dingle dangling, and they are missing out on a whole different world of possibilities and fun.

And hate to bag out Dre, but I watched an old kite DVD the other day, and all his passes were with kite 'at lunch'. Unfortunately thats how good moves start, looking pretty sloppy, learning the move, and the pass, then with time and practice dialling it in and making it better and adding the style.