Its been a good February with quite a few sessions and a lot of lessons taught! Been really excited with the last few lessons being advance lessons. We worked on backrolls both ways with my mate Ian and by the end of the session he was sticking them both ways! My buddy Anthony is a young rider I started working with a few weekends back and he is not riding up upwind and working on transitions and jumping! Really exciting watching them progress!

Last week I got out on the water before sunset with my buddy Luis Chavez in the water and we walked away with a few pretty sweet shots! Check them out below!

 

The longest running event in the US “sort” of happened this past weekend. With a 3 day weekend event in store everyone was hoping for wind… Unfortunately as you know when you want to run a kiteboarding event on set dates the winds don’t seem to always be in your favor. Especially in Florida it seems this season has been off to a bad start but while I’m typing this its windy so go figure.

Needless to say it was still a fun event that was kicked off with some fun surf and standup paddling throughout the 3 day contest with winds that seemed to tease all of the kiters on and off everyday. Not really anything worse then that borderline amount of wind to prevent you from getting on the water. Pretty good turn out of kiters coming from all over North America and Aruba. Many seasoned pro riders mixed in with the rookies made for a good blend of skills when we all got in the water doing something that wasn’t our first sport of choice whether it was surfing or sup. Excellent conditions on Saturday to watch everyone try and get through the Jupiter shore break which made for a good laugh 🙂

As always a kiteboarding event isn’t complete with a few details missing and I guess there wasn’t a permit for the event so basically it was canned on the second day and the third day moved to a new location down the beach. Regardless there wasn’t much wind so it didn’t affect us much other then the mood of the event a touch. Still a fun event to attend without wind with a huge thanks to Jeremy at the Jupiter Invasion bringing food and drinks for the riders during the whole event and having a good time out there regardless of the conditions. Also a big thanks to Mutiny and my sponsors for helping me get over there and making the trip happen!

Time to get in the water we have wind!

-Drew

So far Florida this season has not been the best for kiting, although not to complain too much it has been around 80 degrees nearly everyday! So regardless of there not being a lot of wind, with all this perfect weather we’ve been outside a lot to say the least. Pretty amazing to be surrounded by all FL has to offer year around with great weather to boot

With a new Canon 60d in my hands and no wind I seem to think I’m a photographer all of a sudden but with all good fun pretty neat stuff!

Good Winds to come!

Was a fun Sunday for me spent teaching an early morning lesson and then dashing over to the East Coast of Florida for the first CKA event of the season! The CKA stands for the College Kiteboarding Association which was formed by former Eckerd College student Matt Sexton. After Matt graduated it was tough without a driving force to keep events and contests running. Fortunately now with the help from Ryan Druyor and the growing interest in college kiteboarding from the universities the CKA is back up and running and have a sick schedule of events to come!

This seasons first event was held in Cocoa Beach, FL at the 520 Slick. With prevailing north winds this spot sets up for butter flat water with some unique lift off the mangroves to say the least. The afternoon meeting started off with 30+ riders from all different school all looking forward to getting on the water. The decision was to run 3 different heats with the top 2 riders in each advancing to the finals. I was very impressed with the overall riding level gathered from around the state of Florida, and a little worried about making it into the finals myself.

The finals shaped up with a lot of talented riders and I managed a good heat myself and took 2nd place at the event behind Tommy Fields which I feel is acceptable 🙂

After the event was over we all went back out for a sunset session as the wind continued to build! One of the best sessions of the season so far, can’t complain when your on the water with your mates and have good winds!

Here are the final results for the CKA East Coast Roundup

Freestyle All Around – Men

1st Tommy Fields – U of Miami
2nd Drew Christianson – USF
3rd Brett Sullivan – FAU
4th Sean Buells – FAU

Women Freestyle Finals
1st Jaime Fields – Stetson
2nd Maya Robert – USF

Super Stoke/Smooth Riding – Jaime Fields Big Air/Best Trick – Eric Hough FGCU

Wanted to give a Big Thanks to all the sponsors that helped out and to the 3 judges Ryan Druyor, Oli Berlic, Billy Bosch for taking their time to score all the riders! Also thanks to Andrew Grossmann for taking the shots above!

For more about what the CKA is all about check out collegekiteboarding.com

Can’t wait till the next events, and the season final in The Florida Keys!

Before cleaning out the hard drive I decided to throw together the scraps and make something of the leftovers.

Huge Thanks to Katherine Pyne, Stephen Sullivan and Hannah Christianson for getting in the water and shooting!

Check out Katherine’s work at Fitbodynow.wordpress.com and Stephen Sullivan’s at StephenSullivanPhoto.com

Music by The Clean- Beatnik

The Season is now starting to get in full swing here, keep an eye on my page for new edits and what I’m up too!

Forecast seems to be shaping up for some solid wind in The Keys this weekend! If the forecast somehow fails us we got the The Keys Cable to keep the sessions going! See everyone down there!

 

I’ve always had an eye on Mauritius and enjoy the short videos that come out of the area for kiting. Combined with the recent videos and live feed from the KSP Mauritius One Eye Kite Surf event the conditions look amazing!

To wrap it up Jeremie Eloy has come out with one of the best videos I’ve ever seen showcasing a destination kiting location! Unbelievable

Now I need to find a way to get over there 🙂 And work on my strapless skills “a lot”!

I’ve had a lot of guys coming up to me at the beginning of are season here locally asking about why I wear wakeboard boots every time I go out kiting. And it kind of got me thinking about it more and thought it was important enough for me to share my opinion on it here. Just cause there are a couple of kids at your local spot riding boots with baggy ass tees and somehow always seem to be listening to dubstep… Don’t let this turn you away from trying out some boots, believe me the boots don’t make you start listening to dubstep. Don’t worry

First off if you haven’t ridden boots before I’d recommend you have a few skills under your belt before you semi-permanently attach yourself to kite more so then with your strap set. I’d say if you’re riding “Upwind” and have a good understanding of kite control and body control under the kite your ready 🙂 By “Body Control” I mean your ability to get your feet back infront of you after a crash or unexpected pull of the kite. With Boots on you can’t take your board off and start over as easily. But with every negative there is something positive, and to get that board in front of you, your abs will be feeling it. The lady at home will thank you for the switch to boots if you don’t feel anything else changing in your kite game.

The big perks of boots that keep me riding them as my main choose of connection to my kiteboard are a simple few.

1)Power- With boots and the new found control on your board you will feel more comfortable with your edge control and ability to lay back into your boots and have a lot more control over your heelside edge and toeside edge. Allowing you to control that extra power!

2)Landings- You might think the landings would be worse being locked in, and this could be so on a nice edge catching wipeout. But when you learn to ride with boots you also learn how to fall properly. Something that the Street and my Shinn kiteboards have learned to do with me 🙂 When you stomp that standard trick it is considerable more controllable with the locked in footing and more comfortable with the extra stuffing under your feet. No more one footer wipeouts and that injure way too many riders.

3)Rocker- Not everybody is going to get a board with more rocker to try out their boots with but with more rocker you will find it to suit your boots better. Increased rocker helps soften your landing and provides better control over your board when riding powered. It will crave more power from your kite so remember to rig a little bit bigger then what you would for straps and unhooking. I ride The Street by Shinn as it’s a great board for boots that has just enough rocker but not so much that will kill your speed and seem like you’re dragging an anchor around with you everywhere. (Below is Mike Campanaro booting it off a kicker with the Street)

4)Kickers/Rails- Don’t look like a wanker and hit rails or kickers with straps… For some reason it’s really frowned upon. I don’t care but its basically in the rule book. Also some boards have a better base for sliders then others, I like the Street by Shinn for the P-Tex bottom base as it can handle session after session on the rails and kickers without you having to worry about increasing your chances of a snapped board from a worn base.

If you find these 4 reasons aren’t enough then your probably not ready to try boots. I’m not telling you to ride boots for life but to just try them out and see how much they add to you’re kiting. Have fun out there! Good Winds

Just got word recently of the release of a new SuperShinn! I’ve loved my SuperShinn right from first time I slipped into the Shinn Sneakers. So needless to say I’m stoked to get my hands on the new board soon! Hopefully only a few more weeks before we see them in the US! Also looks like some new pads/straps on the new boards? Will be interesting to see how they are trying to improve on the sweet pads already!

Check out the New Product Release Video!

 

Its been a while seen I’ve posted here. Probably due to the lack of wind and school has started back up and in full swing.

However we had a decent few weeks of wind and hope it continues to keep blowing! Been awesome to come back to St.Pete after being in the Gorge this summer and to have flat warm water to ride in with no hidden rocks or logs in the sand has been awesome! Not as much wind as what the Gorge offers but I’ll take a smooth 12m session anytime of the week 🙂

Can’t beat new gear either! Really liking the new Mutiny P-Series!

Here are some photos of the last couple weeks here, getting sessions in with your friends is probably the most rewarding part of kiteboarding. Just picked up a Canon 60d! Its been fun trying to learn how to use it. Here are some photos off it along with some screenshots of video shot.