Why go Snowboarding?

Why go Snowboarding? - The Benefits of Snowboarding

People usually stumble upon Snowboarding through friends or by word of mouth, decide that snowboarding does look like a lot of fun, and resolve to give it a try. More often than not, after their first encounter with Snowboarding, they get hooked with it. In fact, you'll doubtlessly have a hard time finding someone who tried Snowboarding and was afterwards disappointed with the experience. Consequently, Snowboarding has exploded as a recreational physical activity over the past two decades.

One of the reasons why Snowboarding industry has been a boom is because it gives you freedom to choose between high speed adrenaline rushes, complex Snowboarding Tricks, and taking a simple relaxing ride down the mountain. Not only that, Snowboarding has so much to offer:

Different Snowboard Riding Styles to choose from and develop yourself in

Breathtaking terrains as you Travel Across the World looking for the greatest and most exciting runs

Amazing adrenaline rushes in performing Snowboard Aerial Tricks and High Speed runs

A great variety of very cool Snowboard Gear at Surface2Air sports that will further improve your Snowboarding skills and make you look like a snow pro in no time.

A steep learning curve with most Snowboarding newbies being able to hit their first slope after 2-3 days

Enough challenges, techniques, and styles to keep you hooked for years

Different kinds of Snowboarding terrains to master ranging from well groomed ski slopes to Backcountry wilderness

Different kinds of snow conditions to master, ranging from fresh Powder (lovely) to Ice (not so nice)

International competitions and events to either visit or to compete in

Hundred thousands of fellow Snowboarding enthusiasts that all share your passion

Imagine this. You are surfing through knee-deep powder on a steep mountain slope in an weightless state.

As if you're flying, you feel the swooshing of air on your skin as you pick up speed. The sun warms your face as you carve one high speed turn after another. The mountain is yours. You have complete freedom to cruise your Snowboard wherever you want it to take you. As you slalom through the trees, you notice an excellent take off platform and decide to go for it: you bend your knees a little more as your speed increases, you lift off, make a perfect 360 turn before landing safely on both feet. Adrenaline rushes through your body as you gradually decrease your speed and take it easy to enjoy the exceptional views as you head to your favorite ski lodge for a nice cup of coffee with your buddies.

Looks enticing? get down to S2AS.com to get yourself your Snowboard eequipment and lets get rolling.... Surface2Air Sports www.s2as.com has a massive range of Snowboarding equipment from the worlds best brands...

Snowboarding an Olympic Sport?

History of Olympic Snowboarding

Snowboarding is a relatively recent addition to the list of official games in the Winter Olympics. Although it was already gaining popularity in the 1980s, it was only in the 1999 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan that it became a part of the quadrennial event.

But before that, its bid for inclusion in the Games became the center of controversy. Prior to the 1998 Games, many snowboarders became upset when the International Olympic Committee gave the jurisdiction of the event to the International Skiing Federation (FSI) instead of the International Snowboarding Federation (ISF). The IOC made the move in spite of the fact that the ISF was already sanctioning snowboard events way before the Nagano Games. That fact became the major source of disappointment among the supporters of the sport.

The snowboarders' disappointment was best exemplified by Terje Hakonsen of Norway. Hakonsen, regarded as one of the world's best snowboarders, declared that he would boycott the 1998 Games and the succeeding Games after that.

It was not the last controversy to hound the Games in Nagano. Canadian snowboarder Ross Rebagliati won the gold medal and was stripped of it after only three days after testing positive for marijuana. However, Rebagliati's camp argued that it was second-hand smoke that he inhaled during the send-off party back in Canada. They further argued that it did not affect his performance in any way. The IOC eventually reversed the decision because marijuana is not a performance-enhancing drug. Rebagliati got his medal back.

Currently, there are six Olympic snowboard events: men's and women's halfpipe, men's and women's parallel giant slalom, and men's and women's snowboard cross. The halfpipe and parallel giant slalom events originally were the only snowboard events. Snowboard cross was a later addition when it was held in the 2006 Winter Games in Torino, Italy.

Halfpipe Snowboarding traces its roots from skateboarding. It is basically an event where riders move from one side to the other of a u-shaped bowl or the halfpipe. They then make jumps and perform tricks while in mid-air.

Meanwhile, the parallel giant slalom is where the top 16 riders of the event battle it out in two-race face-off matches. It is in a bracket format which means rider 1 faces rider 16, rider 2 faces rider 15, and so on. Matches are held until the two top riders are left.

Finally, the snowboard cross event is where four riders race to the finish line. But the course is in no way easy since there is a series of different obstacles that they have to pass through. Aside from the obstacles, the course is also narrow making it difficult for riders to control their boards. Thus, crashes are not uncommon in this event.

Snowboarding, as mentioned earlier, is still a new sport in the Olympics. Therefore, it can be safe to say that some changes are still inevitable in the coming Winter Games. It may be new rules, or even new events, but what's sure is that the Snowboarding will only get more exciting in the years to come.

A Bit of Snowboarding History

In the grand scheme of things, snowboarding is a very young sport. It draws inspiration from several preceding sports - notably surfing, skateboarding, and skiing and it is not surprising that the origin of snowboarding lies with those.

Although it is hard to pinpoint the pioneer of Snowboarding, the ‘History of Snowboarding’ tells us that it was initiated around the 1950s by a few surf and skate enthusiasts using self-made boards to convey their skills to a new terrain: the snow. At that time, due to the novelty of the snowboards, those contraptions often resulted in many broken boards and a lot of bruises.

The first real snowboard hit the market during the 1960's in the form of Sherman Poppen's Snurfer (see the photo at the top of this page). It appeared like a weird crossover between a plywood sled and a skateboard deck. The rope attached to the front tip of the Snurfer offered the rider some control, and the steel tacks poking through the upper deck held the rider's feet in place.

During that time, snowboarding appealed initially to a small group of surfers, skateboarders, and backcountry enthusiasts. Brave souls who rode their own snowboard contraptions were highly frowned upon by majority of skiers (something that to some degree continues today); they weren’t even allowed to ride the regular slopes used by the skiers. Consequently, and to snowboarding’s benefit, snowboarding started Off-Piste; not having to conform to the regulations of the Piste meant that the snowboarders cold experiments more freely, without interfering wit the skiers.

As snowboarding became more popular in the 70's and 80's, true snowboarding pioneers such as Dimitrije Milovich, an East Coast surfer, and Jake Burton Carpenter came up with new snowboard designs, materials and machineries that had slowly developed into the snowboards, snowboard bindings, and other snowboard equipment we know today.

In 1983, less than 10 percent of United States ski areas allowed snowboarding. But by 1997, few resorts excluded it. Today, Snowboarding is now as accepted as skiing in most ski resorts worldwide and its popularity and fan base is growing at such a pace that the number of skiers in the US has declined by 25%. In contrast the number of snowboarders has increased by 77%, making snowboarding the fastest growing winter sport in the United States.

Presently, more than 3.4 million people Snowboard. This number comprises about 20% of the visitors to US ski resorts. Also, the number of people who snowboard is predicted to overtake skiing by 2015.

It can be said that the sport has undergone a lot of changes and developments, making it a fun and enjoyable winter sport activity that millions of people enjoy doing every year.

If you fancy trying snowboarding to see what all the fuss is about, then visit S2As and we can hel you with all your snowboarding equipment needs. We stock snowboards, snowboard bindings, snowboarding gear and snowboarding clothing from top brand names at comeptetive prices.

OK.. So What is Snowboarding?

What is Snowboarding? Well lets cover some basics about this awesome sport.

Snowboarding is a winter sport that evolved from skateboarding, skiing and surfing; combining elements of all three of these high adrenaline sports it's not really that surprising the snowboarding caught on pretty quickly, and has evolved into a major winter sport that is rapidly gaining more and more popularity as time goes by.

Developed in the 1960s, Snowboarding was believed to have originated in the United States, where several inventors explored the idea of surfing on the snow. The sport, however, quickly evolved, and the early, rudimentary snowboards gave way, and boy were the original snowboards bad!

It's highly unlikely that there's anyone who has never seen nor heard of Snowboarding. But if you really have no idea what Snowboarding is, just imagine it as surfing or skateboarding but only on snow, or skiing on one ski... and without the ski poles!

Snowboarding is a relatively new winter sport wherein you ride an epoxy-wood core board (resembling a large skateboard) with your feet strapped on it, and manipulate gravity to go down a ski slope. The principle of snowboarding is to maintain your balance as you surf down a ski slope with both feet securely attached to the snowboard via a high-back snowboard bindings.

In skiing, skiers shift their weight from one ski to the other. In snowboarding, riders shift their weight from heels (heelside) to toes as well as from one end of the board to the other. To stop the boards' motion, they push their heels or toes down hard to dig the edge of the snowboard into the snow. Although most people compare snowboarding to skiing, snowboarding techniques are far closer to skateboarding and surfing than to skiing.

One of the most iconic moments for snowboarding, back in its relatively unknown heyday, came in the 1985 movie 'A View to a Kill', where James Bond ended up on an improvised snowboard after losing a ski in a chase scene in the beginning of the movie, and to be fair it was a great way to give the sport a big boost.

Since those early days it has become a major winter sport, with three main styles of competition exist: Alpine, Freestyle, and Boardercross. Snowboarding has even joined the Winter Olympics, having been part of it since it was introduced in 1998 at Nagano in Japan. Originally in only covered 2 disciplines - Halfpipe and Giant Slalom, but since then it has evolved to now include 3 disciplines - Halfpipe, Parallel Giant Slalom and Boardercross.

We at Surface2Air Sports hope this helps your under standing of snowboarding and we will keep adding info here.

Thanks for reading.

The S2AS Team

IKF and KPWT Have Entered into a Cooperation Agreement

Below are two press releases from the IKF (International Kiteboard Federation). the first gives information about the cooperation agreement between the IKF and the KPWT (Kiteboard Pro World Tour), the second is a press release containing information about the IKF themselves.

Press Release 1

The International Kiteboard Federation (IKF) and the Kiteboard ProWorld Tour (KPWT) announced that they have entered onto a long-term cooperation. All events of the KPWT tour will be sanctioned by the IKF.

This is a huge step forward for Kiteboarding and promises to further the sport into a hugely successful future.

Both organizations look to govern the sport with a unified system of rules and rankings, which will only benefit the riders and all involved.

IKF president Andrea Siqueira Silva says: “It is exciting for us to work with the KPWT, who started the first world tour back in 1998. We are looking forward to this collaboration and to develop the sport under one umbrella and successful system.”

“I have been working on and building the KPWT since 1998. I have seen the sport grow from year to year and will continue to do my best to take Kiteboarding into the future. This is a great step for the KPWT and I look forward to the 2010 season.” Frederic Gravoille tour promoter of the KPWT stated.

Both KPWT and IKF agree that all future endeavors are to unify the sport under one ranking and rule system and to develop Kiteboarding into a structured, well-governed sport.

Look out over the next few weeks for the ranking systems to be published as well as the schedule for the 2010 World Championship season.

IKF/KPWT

Press Release 2

About the IKF:
The IKF (International Kiteboard Federation) is the World Governing Body for kiteboarding. The IKF have been granted full World Championship Title rights for the sport

The IKF is an organisation that is working to develop the sport of Kiteboarding at all levels. This includes competitions, education within the sport, judging courses and stringent criteria for judges, kitesurfing activities for the young riders (junior competitions) and a unified blanket under which the sport will fall.

The IKF provides guidance and advice to its members around the world on matters such as competition, judging, education, anti doping and other areas of development of the sport.

The IKF creates added value for everybody involved in Kiteboarding on a national and international level and will offer manuals and other forms of feedback and advice.

Objectives:

• To work with the national associations
• To protect the interest of the Kiteboarding athletes
• To guarantee Kiteboarding continues to encourage the freedom of selfexpression
• and creativity.
• To promote and support the sport of kiteboarding in order to further it’s stand in
• the future.
• To establish and maintain an international association to promote the interests of
• kiteboarding in all its forms throughout all countries of the world.
• To promote the values of good sportsmanship, particularly amongst the younger
• generation.

Future:
The IKF creates added value for all parties involved within the sport of Kiteboarding on an international and national level. The future will depend on cooperation with all parties, including pro-riders, national association , eventorganizers and the sponsors to further the growth and development of kiteboarding worldwide.

The IKF is taking the steps towards positive development of this sport. It is supporting the riders by implementing strong criteria within each IKF event and encouraging the brands and sponsors within the sport.

It has now become possible to compete under consistent rules within each sanctioned IKF event. Thereby the sport becomes more attractive and evident to athletes, spectators and the media.

Members:
The management is located in Brazil - Ceara, financed by membership-fees. The board members consist of delegates from Czeck Republic, Canada, Spain, France, Brazil, England, USA, Australia, South Africa, Italy.

IKF
International Kiteboarding Federation
World Governing Body for Kiteboarding

Best regards,
ANDREA SIQUEIRA SILVA
IKF/PRESIDENT