Duotone Diversity Magazine No.02 2020

Because snowboarding was formally my dominant activity and one I am naturally more familiar with, when I approach a trick in kiteboarding I often do not think about the kite in relation to the trick. Instead, I envision the physical movement and then try to add the bar as an additional element of the technique. Most of the time my inspiration from kiteboarding manifests into an emulation of what I do on snow. Many kiteboarding tricks are movements with the upper body in an attempt to pass the bar or hang below the kite. Looking in from an outsider’s snowboarding perspective, the board often becomes obsolete, acting as a vehicle to plane on the water as opposed to an extension of the body and a part of the trick’s style. However, within kiteboarding, sliders, kickers, and wave riding is much more board oriented, and I find it to be the most similar crossover into other board sports such as snowboarding. The trick in the snowboarding photo is a type of hand plant called an “Andrecht”, named after the professional skateboarder, Dave Andrecht. Essentially, you allow your legs to swing backside over your head, and you plant your back hand on the coping or on top of an object while your front hand grabs the board. The most difficult aspect to a hand plant is judging the speed necessary for the approach in order to launch to the top of the object and balance without falling off. To my knowledge, an andrecht or hand-plant has never been done on a kiteboard. In order to do an andrecht, you need to be able to use both hands simultaneously, making it nearly impossible to do with a kite. with the kite I tried to tweak a stalefish grab to look similar to a grab I do on a snowboard. Photo Toby Bromwich Photo Dean Blotto Gray P E O P L E 28 29 P E O P L E I N S P I R A T I O N o T h o D