Monday, January 26, 2009

Learn To Wakeboard - The Fastest Growng Sport On The Water

By Lane \"Dawg\" Bowers

Wakeboarding has been gaining popularity over the last few years. People are attracted to wakeboarding as a sport because it has the thrilling benefits of water skiing, and it also allows you to do tricks and jumps like snowboarding does. Wakeboarding is a safe and easy sport for anyone to learn, even with minimal to no instruction.

Wakeboarding got its start in the beginning of the eighties. At the time, it began as a boat pulling a standard surfboard. Since surfboards are hard to control, only the experienced surfers on the wakeboarding scene were able to participate in the sport before new equipment was developed. As the sport became more popular and people began investing money in equipment, wakeboarding and surfing equipment companies began to create specially designed boards with anchoring bindings that were lighter and thinner, and easier to control for the more inexperienced wakeboarders.

The boards were refined further over the years and today the wakeboards available make the sport accessible to even the most novice rider. In some ways it is easier than skiing and a whole lot more fun because of the speed and tricks you can do on the lighter and faster boards.

Most of the water skiing shops around offer equipment and lessons for pay which can teach you how to wakeboard, but wakeboarding is actually easy enough that it is easy to just pick up a board, get behind an experienced board operator, and try it out. Even if you are unskilled at skiing, or if you have never done skiing, water skiing or snowboarding of any type before, you should still be able to wakeboard easily.

All you need to get started is a boat with a ski tow rope, a wakeboard that you can either buy or rent, and a life vest. To ride the board you can simply jump in the water and slide your feet into the bindings on the board, grab the tow rope from the boat and once the slack is pulled slowly out of the rope, have the boat speed up and youare off. As you get more comfortable with the board, you can start trying a few tricks and in no time youall be giving wakeboarding instructions to all of your friends.

There are many websites and publications that will give you advice on how to do wakeboarding tricks. There is also a wakeboarding magazine that is a popular way to follow the sport. Wakeboarding magazines give details on the latest boards and follow popular trends in the wakeboarding community.

Unlike surfing, wakeboarding can be performed under many conditions, in any weather. The more calm the water is, the better conditions are for wakeboarding. You can wakeboard in the middle of the ocean, or you can also perform the sport in a calm bay.

Wakeboarding is an easy, safe, thrilling sport which is also very simple to learn. Wakeboarding is a lot of fun and great exercise. Wakeboarding can be done at every skill level, because riding around on the board is very easy for everyone, but if you want to make it more difficult, you can start to learn tricks. It is an easy sport to pick up and go without a lot of time learning difficult techniques. - 20896

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