Should we bring back "classic freestyle"?

22 December 2007

CLASSIC FREESTYLE- an article from the "The Newspaper" , on line .
What is classic freestyle?...
Why is it lost? Is it really an ‘art', and why should I do classic freestyle when I could just be sailing around? More to the point; is it really fun and why is it? Does this mean there is no fun if one doesn't freestyle? ..........

The term "classic freestyle" refers to two different concepts. Firstly, it refers to all freestyle as used to be done in the early days, on early windsurfing equipment - floaters, flat water, mostly one-designs, non-planing stuff......
....the 2nd definition of classic freestyle: it is freestyle as it used to be - just for fun and with little pre-requisites, but this time on modern equipment. Classic freestyle on modern equipment, as opposed to modern freestyle on modern equipment, the latter being waves and twirly stuff you see all over the Tube. The former is for us laypeople, it is fun and social. The latter - by pros (I'm sure they have fun too, it's just that it's for 1% of the population to do double loops). Freestyle and fooling around is now possible again! .....................

A personal note: I never stopped freestyling. I moved a few years back from my wind-guaranteed, shortboard wavesailing, idyllic tropical beaches in Australia, to somewhere inland North America. Not everyone lives in Hawaii, and I'm back to more mainstream conditions: inland, flaky offshore winds, cold, no waves - and a winter. So I came back to my old-style klunky freestyle in order to keep in shape and agile. Since there was no suitable gear for this kind of fun (up to recently with Konas and others), I had to use old vintage garage sales boards. Have a laugh and see the result in the Tubes under www.youtube.com/profile?user=pierrec45. Not tropical or anything, no professional camera - just good old-fashioned swimming and falling, and more important very inexpensive fun!...

For the full article visit :
http://www.exocet-original.com/newspaper/07Dec19/classic_freestyle.asp

Thanks to: Pierre Coupal and Exocet.