The Kook issue -Part 5

by Emilie Marx
(Part 5/6)

The “happy family” watching fellow mates on the beach

I could write a bloody book about attitudes, pointless arguments, kook-ness, cool-ness, meaningless (and oh so unbearable) localism, but what’s the point…
As the sport is exploding all over the globe, localism and attitude issues will only raise in number, proportionally to the amount of riders on the water.

We’ve entered the era of localism, territorial attitudes and the “cool gang” has won over the “happy family” I first found in kiting.
What we’ve known when starting the sport half a dozen years ago (and even more so before) is gone. Our golden years are over.

I’m kind of nostalgic of this time where we were all excited to meet a fellow kiter, and we used to cheer each other when throwing kooky big airs!

I wrote on few occasions in my previous issue that “kiting brotherhood rocked”…
This surely is one of the things that initially motivated my involvement in the sport.

Trust me when I say kiting brotherhood was a hard thing to be found during the course of my last travels.

I only had one serious wipe out during my last kitesurfing vacation, but a very good one.

I had gone to this remote location with other riders.
Off shore wind, big swell, lots of wind turbulences. My kite dropped off the sky in a wind shadow right in front of three meters waves.

I had to wait for the water to spit me back to the shore and I was in hell for quite some time…
By the time I finally made it to the beach, there were two local gentlemen there to pick me up, however, the fellow riders I was sharing ride with had left to another spot…

I’m not one to be baby-sit, I take pride in handling myself in any condition, but still, I know I would never have left the location if another rider was in trouble, regardless if he was one of my mates or not.

Kitesurfing brotherhood is slowly disappearing and the sport is turning into some testosterone battlefield or possibly fashion event.

Don’t get me wrong though, I am not painting there a decadent picture of the community: I have met some awesome people all along my kitesurfing journey, and luckily, I am still meeting amazing characters every place I go!

Who ever said surfers and kiters couldn’t be sharing the same spot? (Photo from TPK)

There is a core of outstanding people out there, fun riders, cool or uncool, as you wish, but just fantastic human beings with great attitudes on the water.

I could list just as many inspiring people and behaviours as I’ve just listed pathetic ones, because kitesurfing is a micro reflection of our bigger world, that is –sadly enough- essentially ruled by ego and trends.

Good and bad is all over the place, and I much prefer focusing on the good, but I felt like laughing at all the crap I’ve heard during these past months, because, honestly, at the end of the day, this is all a big load of bullocks!

I have met lots of really cool people along my trips, one of them being a friend and surely one of the nicest people you will ever meet on the water: Harold Quinquis.

Harold and I goofing around (Photo: Thierry Dehove)

We had so much fun riding together, doing just as many cool as kooky things out there.

To read the end of “The kook issue”