Where are the competitors???

Where are the competitors???

Post by sfer.. » Wed, 07 Jul 1999 04:00:00


Is it my imagination? Or has the number of competitors dropped off in
the past few years??? I was just on the AKA web site looking at the
competition results that were posted since 1996. I was expecting to see
the numbers of competitors to rise steadily through the years. But I
saw decreasing numbers instead... How could this be? I thought that
sport kiting was on the up and up. I saw some well known names on the
list that are now major influences on the sport kite industry. But not
all of names are kitemakers or kite store owners. It couldn't be that
they all "grew up". Or could it? Call me a kid or whatever! But, I
don't want to grow up!!!
 So, I guess this is an invitation to all of those "old-school" kite
flyers to start competing again. Dust off those old Team Hawaiian
kites, get some new lines and start flying again and show us young
whipper snappers a thing or two.

 Take a friend kite flying.
 Bob and Danielle Fermin

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.

 
 
 

Where are the competitors???

Post by C Lemon » Wed, 07 Jul 1999 04:00:00

I think if you look at the buggy pages you will see a lot of old
competitors names showing up. Once you get to the top what else is there?
The buggy thang just keeps growing.

Collette

Quote:

> Is it my imagination? Or has the number of competitors dropped off in
> the past few years??? I was just on the AKA web site looking at the
> competition results that were posted since 1996. I was expecting to see
> the numbers of competitors to rise steadily through the years. But I
> saw decreasing numbers instead... How could this be? I thought that
> sport kiting was on the up and up. I saw some well known names on the
> list that are now major influences on the sport kite industry. But not
> all of names are kitemakers or kite store owners. It couldn't be that
> they all "grew up". Or could it? Call me a kid or whatever! But, I
> don't want to grow up!!!
>  So, I guess this is an invitation to all of those "old-school" kite
> flyers to start competing again. Dust off those old Team Hawaiian
> kites, get some new lines and start flying again and show us young
> whipper snappers a thing or two.

>  Take a friend kite flying.
>  Bob and Danielle Fermin

> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Share what you know. Learn what you don't.


 
 
 

Where are the competitors???

Post by Jean Lemir » Wed, 07 Jul 1999 04:00:00

Hi folks.

Just my opinion on that.

I give you two options:

OPTION 1:

You practice team flying on every tuesday evening and thursday evening after
a day at work.  You practice every sunday afternoon.  The month before a
competition add to that every sathurday afternoon.  Add to that individual
practice.  Add to that the stress of performing really well to get decent
scores.  Add to that the hours spent to build a choreography for a nice
ballet.  Add to that numerous sticks practice to hone all manoeuvers to near
perfection.  You litterally hide in a field to be able to practice
seriously.  You are no more available to show other peoples what team flying
can be.  You do not take part in many small local kite festivals.

Then you travel nine hours to get to a competition.  You stay on the stage
for a five minutes (approx.) precision routine on Sathurday and five minutes
for a ballet on Sunday.  In your free time before each event you practice a
lot, shielding yourself from the other stuff going around like single lines
display or other demonstrations.

Then you travel back nine hours to get back home.

OPTION 2:

You practice occasionnaly to keep the team to a decent level of flying.  You
try different new moves.  You try different kites, stacks, etc.  You go to
every kiteflyers gatherings around.  You stop flying often to chat with
spectators or other kite flyers.  You try other's kites and have others try
yours.  You build and fly single liners.  You go to nearly all the kite
festivals around.  This gives you many days of relaxed practice and exposure
to a lot of peoples.

You travel from half an hour up to 5 hours to a festival.  You fly on stage
for 5 to 20 minutes non stop, entertaining a crowd.  You do that many time a
day.  In between these official demonstrations, team members put up
individual shows (quads, multiple kites, pair, whatever) on an informal way.
You put up single liners.  You chat with everyone around.  You are relaxed.
You make a lot of new friends.  You have a lot of fun.

CONCLUSION:

Guess what option our team choose.  That's one less team in the competition
arena but one more having a lot more visibility and helping, I think, to
promote our hobby.

Note that the opinions expressed in this post are mine and do not
necessarily reflect exactly other team members opinions.

Also, this post is not aimed at discouraging peoples from competing.  On the
contrary, I think we need competition to advance tha state of art in our
hobby.  Hey, I might someday compete in some single line kites making
competition, who knows.  I just wanted to explain why competing is not the
only way of having fun.  And I must add that while we did compete we had
some fun, but I prefer it the way it is now.

Wind or no wind, fly for fun :-)

Jean (Johnny) Lemire of team S.T.A.F.F. from Montreal, Canada.

 
 
 

Where are the competitors???

Post by chadki.. » Thu, 08 Jul 1999 04:00:00


Quote:

> Is it my imagination? Or has the number of competitors dropped off in
> the past few years??? I was just on the AKA web site looking at the
> competition results that were posted since 1996. I was expecting to
see
> the numbers of competitors to rise steadily through the years. But I
> saw decreasing numbers instead... How could this be? I thought that
> sport kiting was on the up and up. I saw some well known names on the
> list that are now major influences on the sport kite industry. But not
> all of names are kitemakers or kite store owners. It couldn't be that
> they all "grew up". Or could it? Call me a kid or whatever! But, I
> don't want to grow up!!!
>  So, I guess this is an invitation to all of those "old-school" kite
> flyers to start competing again. Dust off those old Team Hawaiian
> kites, get some new lines and start flying again and show us young
> whipper snappers a thing or two.

>  Take a friend kite flying.
>  Bob and Danielle Fermin

> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Share what you know. Learn what you don't.

 I'll have to agree 100% on the fact that the numbers are dwindling...
Where are they going??? "Old kite flyers don't die... they just fade
away into an axle..."
 By the way, great job at Huntington Beach last May. You and your
daughter have something very special and I'm sure you'll be a team to
reckon with in the future. If you didn't catch it yet, see the article
Mike Dooley wrote about you two in Kitelife. Keep up the great work!!!
 Also, wasn't Huntington supposed to be a National? I know a team from
Seattle showed up as well as the regulars from BASKL and the Vegas
area. I actually expected more competitors, but as we agree, the
numbers weren't there.

 Support your local kite store
 Chad

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.

 
 
 

Where are the competitors???

Post by Steve Batema » Thu, 08 Jul 1999 04:00:00

Quote:

> >  Take a friend kite flying.
> >  Bob and Danielle Fermin
>  I'll have to agree 100% on the fact that the numbers are dwindling...
> Where are they going???

Other interests I suppose.  Traction flying draws alot of
us away, and fighters.  And kite making.  And boredom with
dual liners I'm sorry to say.  One can only flip a kite
so many ways.

Quote:
>  By the way, great job at Huntington Beach last May. You and your
> daughter have something very special and I'm sure you'll be a team to
> reckon with in the future.

I fully agree.  Bob and Danielle are something to see, I'm looking
forward to seeing them fly this weekend at Belmont.

--
Steve Bateman    geokite at sprintmail dot com
The best health info is at http://www.healthcentral.com

 
 
 

Where are the competitors???

Post by Mike Dool » Fri, 09 Jul 1999 04:00:00

Quote:

>Is it my imagination? Or has the number of competitors dropped off in
>the past few years???
<snip>
> Take a friend kite flying.
> Bob and Danielle Fermin

>Sent via Deja.com http://SportToday.org/
>Share what you know. Learn what you don't.

Bob, I think you're correct in your assessment of the dwindling
competitions.  My kite pal and a frequent competitor, Alan Brooks of
Las Vegas, is facing the possibility of dropping from the competition
rolls for the remainder of the season, due to the cost to him to
travel to the competitions, and to the lack of opportunity to practice
new routines for his ballet.  Time is just so precious, to many of us,
these days, and the costs of travel so high.  Those of us who are
lucky enough to have lived most of our lives on the beaches of
California have had more opportunity than most to participate... alas,
I didn't get into sport kite trick flying until I'd moved 500 miles
inland to Las Vegas.

I had recently decided to take up Allen Stroh's challenge to enter
competition, and had resolved to enter the novice precision and ballet
events at the upcoming July 10th event at Belmont Shores.  I began to
practice my tricks with the thought of competition in mind, and found
myself growing anxious about it, and enjoying my flying much less.  So
I changed my mind.  I'm a park flyer, and a buggy rider, and I don't
need additional sources of stress, outside my daily work schedule.  I
felt immediate relief from the pressure, once I resolved not to
compete, and see no reason, at this time, to waffle back to
competition as a pursuit.  It just, apparently, ain't my "bag".

HOWEVER:  I will continue to attend comp events, and to lend a hand as
pit crew for any flyer in need.  I will buy raffle tickets.  I will
play chauffer for my friend, Al Brooks, who works nights, so he can
snooze on the way down to Long Beach.  I will drag out everything in
my bag at these events, and fly on the beach, answering questions and
assisting others, especially those brand-new to the sport.  I will
write articles for KiteLife, praising the talents and efforts of folks
like Bob and Danielle Fermin, who compete for fun, and so obviously
enjoy it, and whose joy we all can share.  I will contribute my
energies and efforts to any kite-related event in my area, in the hope
of growing the hobby side of kite flying, as well as the sport (comp)
side.  And, I will continue to hone my buggy skills, until perhaps I
choose to compete in that venue.  Or not.

Will there continue to be enough Shane Snowdens and Susan Shampos out
there to keep competition flying alive and well?  I think so.  Will
Bob and Danielle kick some serious ***in pairs competition?  I hope
so!  Will the many, many contributors to kite flying competitions, who
never compete themselves, still show up at 6:00 a.m. to set up the
fields, hook up the sound system, tinker with unruly scoring software,
and lug heavy paraphernalia to and from the beach?  I bet they will.

And will Corey Jensen still drive all night, just to provide his
colorful commentary and velvet vocal tones to the announcements of the
events?  Is there, gawd help us, some way to stop him? :o)

Nothing is foolproof, to a sufficiently talented fool!

 
 
 

Where are the competitors???

Post by Jean Lemir » Fri, 09 Jul 1999 04:00:00

Hi Mike, hi folks.

Very good points.

To add to my previous post on this thread I migth say that competitions can
be a part of a big show offering all kind of kites and kite flying to the
public.  Even if the public is only other kite flyers.

I dont mind seing 10 or more routines one after the other since I am always
interrested in grabbing good ideas as far as manoeuvers flyers ground works
aand choreographies, and etc. are concerned.  However if I put myself in the
shoes of Mr and Mrs. Joe public I can see how someone can get bored after
seing too many similar routines one after the other.  For example, I am not
a fan of ice skating.  So, after seing two or three routine I get bored of
seing the same double or triple axel done at the same spot.  Skating maniacs
will find this fun, not me.

The secret migth be variety and short dose of each stuff.  Festivals with
huge area, like Wildwood, can offer that.  You can watch the dual line stuff
on one field, turn around and watch quad routines on the adjacent field.
Then, if you get bored, you move along and go see the single liners or the
figthers competition.  Or move again and look at a Rok battle.  But, for a
smaller area, quite often the organisers have to stage many things in one
field.  So, alternating between different types of kites is a sure way of
keeping spectators attention and keeping your public captive.  The only
possible drawback is that it may impose some stress on competitors.  Having
competed, I know what can be a long wait before staging in for a routine.
In Ajax in 1997 we had to wait till the end of sunday afternoon to perform
back to back, master team precision and master team ballet, ouch !!!

Maybe some team can compete without too much stress.  They do not need to
practice too much, relying on huge experience and very well known
manoeuvers.  They can walk in the field and just fly for fun intead of
flying only for points.  They dont mind the score.  Cool, but I am a
perfectionnist as are my other team mates.  We like each manoeuvers to be
perfect.  We are like most other competitors.  We want to perform at our
best and get a good rank and even win.  This is our reward for competing.
On the other hand, doing a demo still imply we do our best.  We do not have
judges at our back but we migth have up to a few thousands peoples watching.
We dont want to do sloppy stuff.  Even if the majority of these people will
not make the difference between a simple manoeuver and a complex one, we do
not diminish the level of our flying.  Hearing a WOW when we do some cool
stuff and hearing applauses when we land at the end of a routine is our
reward.  For us this is worth a lot of points.

I have read the article in Kitelife about the father and daugther flying as
a pair.  I can only congratulate them and encourage them to continue.  One
thing they dont face is the problematic of coordinating the free time of
four flyers for practice.  This is not obvious at all.  I lift my hat to
large teams such as After Shock, Chicago Fire, The Sundowners, High
Performance, The Decorators, and .... sorry if I forgot some.  We are only
four and these teams comprise from 5 to 8 flyers.  This is an aspect that
must be factored, especially when starting a team and if you want to get to
the highest level.

I wont talk about the cost aspect involved in competing, since this has
already been covered by other posts.  I can simply add that doing demos is
less expensive since quite often we get lodged and sometimes feeded if we go
to some festivals.  We even got transportation for some events.  So, not
only do we have less stress and more fun but it is also less expensive doing
it that way.  This allow us to go to more events and promote kite flying to
a larger audience.

Just ideas.

Wind or no wind, fly for fun :-)

Jean (Johnny) Lemire of team S.T.A.F.F. from Montreal, Canada.

 
 
 

Where are the competitors???

Post by Eric Alle » Fri, 09 Jul 1999 04:00:00

I enjoy competing, I enjoy coming up with a ballet routine and perfecting it and
practicing it and performing it. While there is a certain amount of stress
involved, I like the process enough to overcome the stress part. (I've been
doing well, though, and that certainly helps!) I look at it as a lot like the
process of making, recording, and performing music, a process I also enjoy.
If you're nervous about competing, the best thing to do (IMO) is to forget about
the formal process of selecting music, choreographing a routine to the music and
practicing it until you can fly it in your sleep and just get music you like and
fly to it. That way you're having fun and if the score is good, great. If it's
bad, well, at least you had fun! (I can't speak to precision, as there's no
quadline precision where I compete)
Just my $.02...
I'll be at Belmont Shore this weekend and at Berkeley too! See you there if
you're coming (I'll try to put my Rev stack up so you'll know who I am if you
don't already-I'll have a blue alien cap on anyways)
l8r
-Eric Allen
 
 
 

Where are the competitors???

Post by Jean Lemir » Fri, 09 Jul 1999 04:00:00

Hi Eric, hi folks.

I must agree with you and add that the stress level is not the same for all
the members on a team.  On our at least.  What we do now, is put on some
nice music and fly cool moves on it.  Judges and seasoned kite flyers would
notice that not every move is in sync. with the music but the general public
do not and have a great time :-)

As for going to Berkeley or Belmont shore, its a bit too far from Montreal
(about 4000 mi) and, this coming weekend, our team is taking part in a kite
festival in Quebec City :-)

Wind or no wind, fly for fun :-)

Jean (Johnny) Lemire of team S.T.A.F.F. from Montreal, Canada.

 
 
 

Where are the competitors???

Post by Pierre Bellemar » Fri, 09 Jul 1999 04:00:00

[SNIP]

Quote:
> As for going to Berkeley or Belmont shore, its a bit too far from Montreal
> (about 4000 mi) and, this coming weekend, our team is taking part in a kite
> festival in Quebec City :-)

> Wind or no wind, fly for fun :-)

> Jean (Johnny) Lemire of team S.T.A.F.F. from Montreal, Canada.

What kite festival? when? where?

Pierre B.
(from Quebec City area)

 
 
 

Where are the competitors???

Post by Jean Lemir » Sat, 10 Jul 1999 04:00:00

Hi Pierre, hi folks.

The Quebec Kites Festival is schedule for Saturday July 10 and Sunday July
11 on the "Parc des Plaines d'Abraham".

You shall be able to see Vent-en-Fte big Peter Lynn inflatable kites (Fugu,
80 feet Octopus, Trilobite and Manta Ray) and a few of his other new stuff
like a Dean Jordan's paraform and a big parafoil and windsock by a Belgian
kitebuilder, not counting huge bowls of about 30 and 50 feet.  Of course,
team S.T.A.F.F. will be there doing demos with Flexifoil Matrix, Dynakite
stacks and Rev. 1.5.  Not counting continuous individual and pair demos,
multiple kite flying, etc.

Normaly we arrive on the field around 9-10 AM and the show is in full swing
by noon till about 4 PM were we begin to pack up.  There are probably music
shows scheduled in the evening on the big stage that has been installed, in
this same Parc, or the "Festival d't de Qubec" (Quebec Summer Festival).
That's why we migth have to leave early.  Otherwise we could fly till
darkness.

The weather forecast do not look too good for Saturday but Sunday shall be
nice.  We will see, after all these are only forecasts :-)

If you want to check all the other kite festivals or festivals featuring
kites go to Vent-en-Fte web site at:

http://www.ventenfete.com/

The site is bilingual and has a comprehensive calendar of events.  The next
one not too far from Quebec is in Becancourt the weekend after Quebec.

As you will see we have a very busy summer (as well as winter) since our
team is joining Vent-en-Fte for just about all the events shown in this
calendar.

Wind or no wind, fly for fun :-)

Jean (Johnny) Lemire of team S.T.A.F.F. from Montreal, Canada.