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Re: Jamie Overbeek - Did old school flatline? Maybe not, it might have evolved

Posted: Sat May 21, 2022 11:41 am
by Toby
Desert kite wrote:
Fri May 20, 2022 2:37 am
I found the gka specifically the dominican events and strapless ones very interesting and fun to watch. I dont watch many sport events anymore but i would think they are as entertaining as downhill jumping redbull circa 2010, and snowboarding was to me..

Only racing will be olympic.

Oh thats sad i was fully expecting megaloops this olympic..
Anyways if they have ski jumps and skating in the olympics why is it impossible to put big air/freestyle/wake?
Ski and skating are HUGE industries….

Re: Jamie Overbeek - Did old school flatline? Maybe not, it might have evolved

Posted: Sat May 21, 2022 12:16 pm
by Havre
We had ski ballet in the Olympics :lol:

Love the idea of giving points through an app. There are some challenges with that of course. Especially if you allow remote voting. During KOTA (as an example) how good a jump looks is highly influenced by where the jump is performed in relation to the camera(s). So you would need to improve the filming a lot for it to be fair I think, but that should be possible.

Re: Jamie Overbeek - Did old school flatline? Maybe not, it might have evolved

Posted: Sat May 21, 2022 4:03 pm
by bataleon
I don't get it.
Take your kite and your board. Do your thing and thats it. Enjoy what YOU are doing. If the industri and the market don't like, so be it.

What I think (insignificant): jesus walks, board off and spins looks a bit lame. Although it maybe super funny to practise it still nothing that a would like to pay to watch.

Re: Jamie Overbeek - Did old school flatline? Maybe not, it might have evolved

Posted: Sun May 22, 2022 10:17 am
by Blackened
McLovin wrote:
Thu May 19, 2022 8:43 pm
Great topic - GKA could most certainly make this a thing - since they seem to be seeking eyeballs. One idea is to make the change of having no official judges - removes all the cloak and dagger and give the power to the people.

A simple APP would let the spectators judge and score the tricks based on how cool they look. Many benefits here. INSTANT and public feedback, live scoring and moves the locus of attention to crowd pleasing tricks which may or may not be the 1120 super dipty what-ever that may be technical but nobody really cares - let me see some heavy STEEZY riders with style. I want a final with Tom Bridge v. Toby for example...

:dance:
Sorry, but I've seen enough spectator judged events to know it's a dumb way to judge competitions. Spectators vote for their favourite rider/player/whatever. If they're not doing that, they're voting for what they think is cool rather than what takes skill. The most ludicrous example I can think of was some ski championship where the crowd continually voted for a super charismatic rider, who basically won doing a slow front roll. The guy who got second place also did a front roll, but it was bigger and had god knows how many twists and tweaked out grabs.

I want to watch sports because they're played by the best people in their respective fields. I'm not interested in watching popularity contests.

Re: Jamie Overbeek - Did old school flatline? Maybe not, it might have evolved

Posted: Sun May 22, 2022 10:24 am
by Havre
There are ways to combine this stuff. One could have both “professional” judges and a one based on votes. One doesn’t exclude the other.

Traditional ski jumping is a good example of how ridiculously poor judging from professionals are. It is basically just a way for the best athletes to get some extra points as those jumping last will always get more points for the same kind of jump vs those jumping earlier.

For me kiting is also just as much about what looks cool as it is about technical skill. A bit like music. Who is the best drummer? He who can play something very technical or he who sounds the best? Can anyone combine the two?

Funnily enough just reading a book about that topic. Robert Pirsig. Highly recommendable.

Re: Jamie Overbeek - Did old school flatline? Maybe not, it might have evolved

Posted: Sun May 22, 2022 8:37 pm
by nherbold
Havre wrote:
Sat May 21, 2022 12:16 pm
We had ski ballet in the Olympics :lol:
And in kiting lingo....Airstyle :bye:

Seems to me that any competition has to pick its poison and stick to it.
If some styles/jumps are too technical for the 'average' crowd to appreciate is that a good reason to avoid such tricks? Again the comparison to Airstyle is relevant with so many tricks labeled, yet the intricacies or technicality of most of those wouldn't be understood by the average crowd either. Would thats 'push' the sport forward? Is that even important and to whom?

What about freestyle strapless?
And seeing the new video from Tom Bridge (light work)....Yes there are way to many videos out there of people throwing handle passes, but watching this guy is poetry in motion.

The competition will cater to sponsors just like any other sport and if that is Airstyle where the demand is then that's where the demand is.

Re: Jamie Overbeek - Did old school flatline? Maybe not, it might have evolved

Posted: Mon May 23, 2022 12:07 am
by Desert kite
Having judges on bridges style would be more of a clusterfuck than judging board off 25knot mega loops is already… anyways his style is a dance with the waves and the air plus his endless talent..not many would be able to compete with him unless it’s strapless.

Re: Jamie Overbeek - Did old school flatline? Maybe not, it might have evolved

Posted: Mon May 23, 2022 2:30 am
by Blackened
Havre wrote:
Sun May 22, 2022 10:24 am
There are ways to combine this stuff. One could have both “professional” judges and a one based on votes. One doesn’t exclude the other.

Traditional ski jumping is a good example of how ridiculously poor judging from professionals are. It is basically just a way for the best athletes to get some extra points as those jumping last will always get more points for the same kind of jump vs those jumping earlier.

For me kiting is also just as much about what looks cool as it is about technical skill. A bit like music. Who is the best drummer? He who can play something very technical or he who sounds the best? Can anyone combine the two?

Funnily enough just reading a book about that topic. Robert Pirsig. Highly recommendable.
I think they should just stick to letting the public decide on "rider of the day" or whatever. It has no bearing on the competition, but allows the fans to feel like they're contributing. Judges, like refs or athletes have off days. They miss things, interpret poorly, variably score, etc. You just hope they're professionals, watch some replays, and learn from mistakes. To be honest, I don't know how the big air judges do it. I can't keep up and I primarily only do/watch big air riding. BAKL seems to be on the right track with a score matrix (I don't know much about it, so it may not work at all) and single riders to limit mistakes.

I agree, kiting for the layperson is all about style. I much prefer watching fluid simple tricks like darkslide variations or big and slow back roll board offs. I loved Jamie's video in the title post and personally find these stylish videos more enjoyable to watch than Toby's technical tricks. However, I don't think for a second that JO is 1/10th the oldschool rider that Toby is. Toby would annihilate JO in any skill based Airstyle competition.


I made this argument a few years ago on this forum that all sports eventually become too technical for the layperson to watch. In kiting, freestyle was long on this road, but now airstyle is in this category as well. It's about cramming more tricks into the time in the air rather than what's enjoyable to watch - which is completely fair as skill level and technicality rise. Big air kiting wasn't super technical until the last couple years or so. Now it's becoming harder for the average person to enjoy because it's about how many rolls the person did, or when the board came off, or what part of the board did he grab, what angle was the kite, how far did he travel, etc. It's hard to understand because almost all of that happens in about two seconds from 200m away. The average person understands: "Fuuuuucccckkkk! That was huuuggeeee!!!"

Re: Jamie Overbeek - Did old school flatline? Maybe not, it might have evolved

Posted: Mon May 23, 2022 9:44 am
by Havre
I do find it a bit odd that what is primarily a “visual” sport - jumping with a kite - for whatever reason becomes a technical event. In my opinion people are trying to make something objectively measurable when there is no reason to. And the KOTA scoring for Janek kind of proves how silly it can become in my opinion.

I honestly think judging based on woooohooooo is a better way of doing it. When I watch a jump on Instagram or whatever I enjoy wooohooo jumps more than something that might be technically perfect (often the two will go together of course).

Anyway. The technocrats are winning these days - so having a “rider of the day” thing would be a good compromise.

Re: Jamie Overbeek - Did old school flatline? Maybe not, it might have evolved

Posted: Mon May 23, 2022 10:14 pm
by andylc
I’ve not really enjoyed Freestyle videos that much for a while but Tom Bridge has brought a new dimension to it. The wave freestyle stuff was amazing. Could do with improving his music choices though…