Kevin and Kaden Pritchard- Wing Foil interview- Blue Planet Show #14

Aloha friends. It's Robert Stehlik, welcome to another episode of the blue planet show.  On this show I interview Wing Foil athletes, not only about the technique and the gear that they use, but I also try to get to know them a little bit better, their background, what makes them tick, what inspires them and how they live their best life.

It's a long form format. So if you'd like in-depth information, then you're going to love this show.  I really appreciate you. I know not everyone has time to watch it on YouTube with the visuals. I think it's great, but you can, of course, also listen to it as a podcast with audio only, just search your favorite podcast app for "the blue planet show".  Today's interview is with Kevin and Kaden Pritchard.

Kevin Pritchard is a multiple time wind surf world champion. Him and his brother, both Matt Pritchard and Matt's son, Kaden is 12 years old and he's only been winging for about a year. And he's already doing crazy moves: back flips and he's working on forward flips and he breaks down technique for me on the Flaka, which really helped me out too.

So there's some really good stuff in here. And just the whole story about the Pritchard family living on Maui, basically because a friend gave a wind surf board to Kevin's dad. So that's what led to the whole family living that lifestyle now. So I thought that was great. Really interesting story. Good to see the two generations together and hope you enjoy this show as much as I did.

And without further ado, please welcome the Pritchards!  Okay. Kevin and Kaden Prichard. Welcome to the Blue Planet Show. Thanks so much for making some time to join me. How you guys doing today? Yeah, thanks for having us. I was like, checking you out on that. On the internet and it's oh, let's do something.

Could be cool. We've got Kaden who's starting to really start to rip on the wing foil. And yeah. That's cool. Yeah. Thanks for reaching out to me. I appreciate that. And and I saw you, you just started a YouTube channel and blogging and all that kind of stuff too. So I always like to collaborate with other people that try to create content and stuff like that.

So it's great to have you guys, and you're both on Nali right now, right? And where are you at? It looks like you got a lot of gear behind you. There we are in my dad's workshop or yeah, his dad. We have a little rental. Wind surfing thing. So renting the waves and stuff over here on Maui. And my brother does a lot of lessons teaching, wind surfing.

And he's been, has he been teaching leaning to a little bit Kayden? So your dad is Kevin's brother. That's how you relate okay. What's your dad's name? Okay. And then Kevin you been a long time windsurfer multiple time world champion and stuff like that. So then what, can you talk a little bit about your career actually, let's start with where you grew up and how you got into it and all that kind of stuff.

Yeah. I grew up in California and actually my brother and I, we started windsurfing together with my parents and my mom and my dad. And like we all used to travel around, we'd go to hood river and we lived in California, so we just started my dad was addicted to it, so he just took us with us and just, we all fell in love with the sport and it was super fun and yeah, just started wind surfing all the time and we got into it and then my brother moved to Maui in 92.

I think it was. And then I moved in 94. And then we just started going, doing the world tour together and just like step-by-step got better and better. And then yeah, it was awesome. We, he won a bunch of world titles and I won some world titles. It's crazy how a sport can take you and change your life.

It's like we started in California together and now our whole family's here. And then he's had a family of two kids and it's pretty fun watching the Caden grow up to in the mix of, what we used to do as a family, go and wind surf and all this stuff. And his, my dad, his grandfather is I would say he's his biggest, person helping him go down to the beach and doing winging. And my dad's learned a wing and he's 70. So they go down together all the time and it's pretty cool. So we've got a family atmosphere that we've had all our lives and to see it getting passed down has been, it's been fun.

Cool. So how old are you now? I'm 45. And what about UK? 11. 11. All right. Cool. So how, when did you stop competing professionally as a windsurfer or are you still competing or no. I would say it's pretty cool. I won the law classic in 2000 and then I won it in 2017.

I think it was. 16 2016. So having I had a amazing career of 16 years of, still being, near the top. And that was one of my best moments was just, like 16 years later when it beaten these kids out who keep that was, it was special conditions with big waves and weird conditions, but still it was it was a good feeling to end your career on top and that's awesome.

So that was only four years ago. You won that law classic, something like that. That's awesome. And then I do a bunch of testing for the wind surfing company as he sails and. Got more into that, brand ambassador and I'm still surfing every day. It's good. And testing the equipment, testing the gear and using the knowledge of all those years of competing and wind surfing to, make products better and things like that.

So what do you do now mostly like where do you live mostly and what do you do? And so on. Nowadays I live on Maui and just have fun. I get to, go winging if it's like right now in the summertime. I haven't gone yet, but last summer I went a couple of times and I liked the just like the variety right now, just if it's good for cutting go cutting.

It's good for wind surfing, go wind surfing, unless it's there's a, different seasons of when sales come out. When it's a busy test season from testing the winter thing here and then otherwise just just having fun. Yeah. And I'm just gonna play your this is like your new YouTube channel, and this is in Mexico, right? Yeah. You spend a lot of time in Mexico or in Baja. Yeah. This is kinda, this is where my brother and I would come down and we learned, I would say we learned wave sailing here because we, it was probably an eight hour drive from Southern California.

And we would come down to this spot and learn the way. So it was pretty, it was like a kind of a. It's a long way. So you get a lot of turns and you can work on your sailing technique really easily. So it's, I think it's one of the best spots in the world for progressing your, your sailing or your whatever.

When I was down here, there's this guy out there weaning and he was catching like, I dunno, 300 waves a day or something ridiculous like that, but it's pretty cool. Definitely a good spot that got you interested in and foiling as well. Yeah. How is that going? I guess you were talking about just starting to spoil and struggling with it a little bit.

Yeah. I think the wind surfer on the foil is the hardest device. I don't know why they're either. Maybe nobody has really Stepped up the R and D with it, but the way wave, wind surf, foiling. I don't know. I've struggled with it. You just have so much power in the sale, you know where the wing, you can just get rid of it.

And same with the kite where the wind surfing. It just it's hard. I don't know. I had a hard time with it anyways, right? Yeah. I actually haven't even really tried wind surfing with the foil. I used to wind surf all the time, but with the foil, I think it's like a whole different thing.

And yeah, I think the foil and the wing just work really well together. Like you said, you can power it and ride the wave more like surfing the foils rather than the using the wind power. Yeah. It's pretty cool to watch him and see how like confident, like I was, I seem to be like carving little things with the foil and I think.

If I could do that on surf board, which, would be the goal. It would be cool, but I don't know. I guess I got to put more time into it, like he's on the water all the time, so I'm not quite used to the foil as much as I should be, so in Baja, you also have you run like camps as well, like brother does.

And that's where it would be, like I was saying, it's just awesome for just the waves are just endless. So for learning, it's incredible, it'd be fun to do a clinic with this kid down there if he could be in the cold water, but

all right. Okay Kayden, let's talk a little bit about you now. How did I guess you were 11 years old, obviously still go to school, right? Yeah. Where do you go to school? Which school do you go to? I have a homeschool this past year. I've been getting a lot of time on the water and then next year, the Seaberry.

Obviously you can drive it. So how do you get to the beach who takes you and so on? My grandpa has been taking me basically every time I want to go for since June, I would say right since June last year. So is that part of your homeschooling PE program is going wink, foiling.

Yeah, no, you got time off, but so are you born and raised on Maui and how did you get, like, how did you get into water sports? What's your earliest memory of surfing or water sports? So on I started surfing with my dad when I was like three, and then when I was like five or six, I started doing it by myself and I loved it.

And that's what I did till I was like nine or nine or 10. I still do it. But then I got into wind surfing and then one day my grandpa came to my house and just said, let's go win. And I didn't really want to go. But then I went. Down there. I loved it. And so when was this about a year ago or two years ago, or do you remember when, how long ago?

That was a year ago. On July. Wait on June 1st. Wow. So pretty much exactly in one year. And now you're doing all these crazy moves. Yeah. So you're progressing pretty quickly, obviously. Like for those of you who don't know, I'm going to share some video of you doing some of these crazy moves.

So at T talk a little bit about the back split. When did you learn to do that? And. Maybe let's try to break down that move a little bit. And what was most challenging about learning it and so on? The most challenging part is you rip your wing lot.

Yeah. And, but once you get nice waves to launch off of, it's not that difficult because basically once you get halfway around, like upside down, then once you get

and to get right there, then the wind will just blow you around. So it's the hardest part is to just pull your board around. Is this where is this? Where are you? Where is this at? This is car point it's in between Harbor and canal. Yeah, but it's not like you're launching off of huge waves.

You're just launching off some smaller chop. It looks like a little swells case. So talk a little bit about the approaching the jump. I think that's something that most people overlook that when you're jumping, it's really important to come low and then get your foil at a really steep angle on the exit.

Like this, you can see how your foil is going up at it's pretty steep angle. Yeah. And especially with the backflip, what I was trying when I was first learning it is, I was just like going super fast and trying to spin like as fast as I can, but I learned. That it's easier to do it slower when you have a bigger ramp and stuff.

Okay. So getting more height and just rotating a little bit more slowly, and then you really throw back your head. Is that is it, does that, I guess that just helps you commit to the rotation. Yeah. I have three rotate better and it's just how I do it. I don't know. Yeah. So you said you've ripped a lot of wings, so is it, is that from the, when you lose your board and it falls onto the wing on the landing?

Or how did you rip the wings? Sometimes I just pop up and there's a rip in my link. So what I'm guessing, it's probably from like, when I land and say, my board gets like falls off my face. It like, that's and then it'll flip over onto the way. So that's what happened in the most, but there were some times where like I would fall on to my wing would fall on my foil.

So it's not all perfect. Let me see in the video and then get it fixed for you.

My dad, he just got he's. He's amazing. He got a sewing machine, so he's been he's been doing like all these little projects with making little harnesses and leashes that work really well for my dad. I dunno. Do you use them or not? Yeah, I have one he's like Mr. MacGyver. My dad was like the original band life guy.

Like when we were kids, we had this van that we pack all our stuff into and go down to Baja. And that was, 25 years ago, 30 years ago. And now it's the rage is band life, man life. And my dad was a builder and that's actually how we started wind surfing is he was building a house for a guy and the guy was still some wind surfing.

And for my dad's birthday, he gave him a wind surfer. And so he just started wind surfing. And I was wanting to write that guy that gave my dad the windsurfer, because it changed our lives. It changed Kayden's life just to, like this one dude. My dad had wind surfer for his birthday, and now we're in Maui.

We got the shot. We got, I, when I was traveling, I was, I traveled for a million miles on American airlines, so like from that one, dude, I S both my brother and I have been so blessed, like just like seeing the world, doing all this fun stuff. And, it's crazy that a sport can take you, having fun.

We'd sure we worked hard at it, but, we had the time of our lives just from this, from this one guy. That's awesome. That's a great story. Yeah, you should definitely contact him and say, tell him, Hey, look what you started. And our hope, my dad, mom and dad, both.

Here and family grandparents just moved here. So it's pretty cool. Where in California, did you grow up? We grew up in like the worst spot ever for wind surfing. I think it was like sand in between San Diego and LA and then inland. It was like Riverside area and there's a couple of lakes around where my dad got the wind surfer.

It was built. He was building houses in canyon lake it's called and is terrible for wind surfing, but still got us hooked, and not to, get all this, just from him doing it. We the first place I learned, I was like seven, so I was smaller than him. And they only had big gear back then, My dad had advanced to the ponds.

This is like these two, 300 meter long ponds, percolation ponds out in the middle of the desert. And it was the windy spot where you could, you wouldn't get in trouble if you drifted downwind or whatever. And my parents have been learning on the original windsurfer and then they got smaller and smaller gear.

And I remember one day I was just sitting in the car. I was like, so bored. I'm like, ah, dad, just let me try this short board, and they're like, no, you can't do that. You got to learn on the long board or whatever. And I'm like, just let me try it on. So board. And I remember it still, like probably the only thing that I remember my childhood, but I remember getting on the wind surfer and like somehow after watching them for so long, I just got on it and I went flying down this, the pond and my board as I was like reeling down full plane, like nine years old on this tiny Windsor for it.

And I was just, was flying down it. And after that I was just like, oh my gosh, I want to do that again. I had to walk back, cause I didn't know what I was doing. I was just like, somehow just watched what they did and yeah, that little, first little glide, changed all our lives. Change your, your Maui because of that first sensation or a walk definitely changed my life too.

Yeah. For that first sensation where you're like, oh my gosh, you're right. Harnessing the wind, something can't even see and the last you down the, down the water and it's a pretty cool feeling. Yeah. And then, yeah. That's awesome. Good. How does it feel when you're on the wing? You're like flying, right?

Yeah. Maybe you talk about your very first experience when you first got on the wing foiler and how that was learning it. The first time I got on the lane foil, I didn't really get up on foil, like I just got up and then I fell and then three or two days later, I got up on foil and I went all the way in on foil.

And I was just like, this is the best sport ever be better than surfing. And then since then, I just kept going every day and, yeah. Awesome. So before you started winging filing, you never foiled before, that was how you learned how to foil as well. Yeah, that was the first time I learned how to foil or actually I think I went out with you yeah, that was the first spoiling experience I think I had.

So Caitlin, how do you know, how about how much you weigh I'm about like 85 pounds, 85 pounds. Can you talk a little bit about the gear you use now? What size board and winging and foil. Yeah I've been using like, I used to be always like the guy I'm the biggest way now.

And now I realized that the smaller, as a way, you can do more tricks and spins with it. So my go-to has been two eight. And so what is, what brand is the one that you're using? The two eight I'm using the gastro wings, because they're like, they're not super, super stiff. It's like you can, when you do this stuff, they'll then you're in the ways that you need them to.

And that's super nice for me because I'm such a stiff wing. It would be really hard to do the flips because it would just want to, not it wouldn't bend for me two eighties, that pretty much all the time. Or do you have a bigger wing for lighter wind and the smaller one for stronger wind? Or how does that work?

Yeah, I have the two way is for super windy conditions and then I have three, five and four too, and then actually took my brother out foiling on five two. And I don't think I ever want to do that again. Such a big waste. Did you see that, that, did you post the video or just the shot? Yeah, let me share that.

And so there's a photo of you and your Instagram account. This on here is pretty cool. Cause I took the photo, but

Yeah, they went out and it was really light wind day. It was, I think his grandpa's birthday. Huh? We were all down there kind of cruise in with my dad for his birthday. And I went out and this is funny. Like it was too light for me, so I drifted downwind and then this guy comes running down the beach.

It's oh, I'll get that for you. And he's like sales, a backup. I'm like, Ooh, this is a, little humbling of this helped me out, but way better than carrying it back up. So I didn't care. And then he gets and he's because when he was 4, 3, 4 or five, something like that, I took him windsurfing and we did a tandem.

And we were like going out. I had a great time. He looked like he had a great time and his is his mom and dad are little conservatives. And so when I took him out, I was like, we are going to full speed out doing big old jumps and stuff. We actually jumped so high. We broke the board together. So that was pretty funny.

And then it was cool. We'll see him take out his little brother and at first they're going and I'm like, come on and get him on the foil, just get them on the foil. And finally got up and they're like cruising around on the foil. And then they even did a job on the didn't even, like who we does that I can't.

Do a job on the foil barely. So it was pretty fun to watch. That's a huge win for you to an ad board, yeah. It's like the belt size. Yeah. It was huge everything because the first time I took them out, I was on a go for at one 30, with a 17 and a half tail and the 36 inch max. And then I went back out on the Eva friendly and the Kai tail and I'm just like, oh, this is so much lift.

And then I got up and next time I want to try a smaller foils. I w I want them to put foot straps on the thing so they can do big airs.

That's cool. So you using gold foils, gastro wings and who's making your boards? Fabian I don't know how to pronounce his last name, but Fabian's making my boards. That brand is taboo and yeah, we're doing lots of experiments with the boards and I really like that. Do you have one of your boards there that you can show us how it looks and stuff to shape?

So I guess you'd also so after you started a wing filing, you also started prone, surf, foiling. Yeah. This is my circle board and I also wing it and I love this board for wave riding and stuff cause it's really turny. And then it has. Nice nose and rocker and all that stuff. It's the bottom shape too.

It looks like a double concave, pretty hard edges. And then a kind of concave rails with concaves and then show us all what the size and volume is about on that board. I think this board is 25 leaders and it's a four. Oh.

And then you just have two foot straps that are in the center. So do you, when you switch directions, you always switch your feet or most of the time, or with the feet in the same place.

Or do you switch feed or do you keep them in the same position? Mostly I switched my feet most of the times, because when I do the back flip, my feet are switched in goofy foot, but I'm regular flip. That's also what made the back foot a lot, little harder. So can you do the back flip going both directions?

Can you do going into, I haven't tried yet because I haven't really got like a good ramp to do it often. Cause it seemed like Jeff, like Jeffrey, Spencer, does this backflips always going in right. Coming in? Yeah. I want to try I'm up on a wave or like a wind shop. Yeah. I was talking to the guy Tetouan Galera from new Caledonia.

He, they had a contest and they were doing back flips in saltwater, basically straight off shore, wind, total salt water. And there were, I guess it's definitely possible to, you just have to really get some height and push off on the jump, yeah. I want to try it on flat water, but I'm scared.

Yeah. Yeah. It's here with a shorter mask cause you can rotate it. What you didn't talk about your foot and then maybe yeah. Maybe show us your foil set up to what length, how long is your mask? My master's at 36 inch max. Oh, that's pretty long. Yeah. It's really long. But for the flips and stuff, I was on a 32 here and I'm on the L 100 for 'em go foil and the 12 and a half tail.

That was what I did for the flip. And then I also was on the TKR 80 for that one video that you were showing of the flip, a nice changes or what you're hoping to do in the future. I am hoping to like, make some foil, I don't know how it would be shaped or what, but this was for surf boiling and wink boiling too.

But I would want something that turns. Super well, and then pumps super well for surf boiling. And then for weighing foiling, I would want something fast and really turn. So I like turning. Yeah. So fast, probably thinner than her profile and so on. Yeah. But yeah, that's one nice thing about the Gofoil stuff is Alex is down at the beach and he's been very generous to Kayden, like with prototyping stuff.

Then before Kayden this guy, it was a he's a bit stubborn on changing stuff. Once he like something he's nah, not going to do it. I'm going to go on my four, two are going to go on my 42. And I was telling him, I'm like, oh, okay. Didn't you need a smaller wing. You can go higher, faster. And this and that.

And then yeah. Alex will be like, Hey, maybe you should try this. Maybe you should just try that. And then yeah, but it's great to have Alex. Alex is such a pioneer of foil design and so on and always experimenting and tinkering. So it's

yeah, for sure. Yeah. So w what do you mean by pop when you say you want the foot to have popped? Is that just like to get more height when you jump kind of thing popping out of the water? I I think more pop for me. It's usually like a short tail, like really sure there, cause I can lift out of the water and I already have a lot of pops, so I like, and I think more prof would be great.

So that those are the fails of the Backwoods. Okay. You can go from May 8th, ourselves to June 8th and the totally nailing them. So what are you doing differently now? What were the mistakes that you were making at first, this not getting high enough or rotating the sale differently? Or what do you do differently?

Not do you know? Yeah, I was rotating the sale where I would put it behind my back like that. And then I would like, you see how I put it, like behind right there. And now I'm like letting it go under me. And that helps a lot with the rotation. And then I just needed a little more. That was at the Harbor too.

So that was Flatwater and that was pretty flat wide. Like this one, I had a little ramp to make it look so easy. Yeah. Amazing. But yeah. And actually, let's talk a little bit about the this other move the Upland or the upwind 360 or Slaka, and it looks like you're doing these ones now where you rotating them rotating the other way and then flipping her on.

So like first rotating and then doing that, the Flocka move. So can you talk a little bit about that move and how, break it down for us? Yeah. I think with that, that first tweak right there. I do that too. It helps me almost get a faster rotation because I like go and then they just fit, lining up the spring kind of thing.

Yeah. And then it also cause before when I used to do them, I would do them straight, like out of the water. But I've been realizing that it's a lot easier when you jump, wait, and then when you start coming down, then you do it. Okay. So it's like in windsurfing when we do forwards, like sometimes you do you go up first and you stall and then you throw yourself into the rotation.

So maybe it's.

Yeah. So I've been working on that moves too, and I've been pulling off maybe one out of 10 or something like that, but do you have any tips on for me, I always struggled with the landing and the CA the wind coming around and then like what, do you have any tips on that? Yeah, I think what I do is I really try to keep the wing as high as I can, so that it doesn't hit the water and it helps a lot to have the small, the smallest wing that you can be on.

And, yeah, it definitely like with the rotation, it's a lot easier with a smaller wing and then it spins better. And for the landing, yeah. It just like it a whip you around in that last part. And then that'll pull you right up on, back onto the foil.

Have you tried doing this move on, on the, on a wave? Yeah, I've done some on the waves sometimes. Like I can't really get up on foil straight away. What I did on that one. It's hard to do that for me. So most of the time I would do it land and then I would have to like pump and then I would go out the back of the wave, but then I would just go back into it

and trying to figure out too. It looks like he almost pretty much rotating the wing at the very end. Like when you. When your foil already touched the water, like the last part of the rotation, really? Through the wind. Yeah. I liked doing that because since it has a forward momentum, it'll just be straight up onto the foil, like what I did there.

Yeah. It's amazing how you just pull out of it right up on, back on the foil again, without like, when I do that, I don't I do the last part of the rotation almost in the water and while I'm bringing the wing around it and then pump myself back up, but it's almost like I stop new kind of still moving forward on the landing.

So it's pretty, pretty cool. Yeah. That's why, like, when you do the wing rotation for their further, towards the bottom, it'll give you that forward momentum to get back up on the foil. Yeah.

So and what about the wing? Do you have any tips for like how you hold the wing or do you try to have less power in it? Or what I try to do is I tried to, I try to go off of a little chalk or something. And then when I do it, the, I like to do them in holes of wind, like where there's a hole so that you can rotate.

So it's not too, you don't want super strong Gus when you're doing it, right? Yeah. I would rather do like underpowered, not because it's harder to do in super strong winds. I think too, though, his definition of strong lens is really strong because this summer it's been 40, 30 to 40 every single day.

Yeah. Pretty crazy window. Over here on Molly.

Yeah. Yeah. And it's not too, it's like you bringing the wing through the wind after the foil touches down really or after you've already touched the water. Yeah. So it's pretty, pretty late in the move when you actually spin the wing around. Yeah, definitely. It, I liked doing it towards closer to the water.

Because what sometimes, like when they do it above the water, I would just have a bunch of extra time to rotate again or whatever. And then I usually mess up or something. It looks like you almost pump it. It's almost like a pumping thing when you with that. Yeah. And that was the first fact loop I may ever.

So then that looks like a pretty big ramp too. Yeah. I needed a bigger rant, more in the start.

And there were some where I had too big of a ramp where I over-rotated an ate. So what happens when you over-rotate? What happened once was like, I did it and then I like had the perfect landing and then I like landed like that and back flopped and got the wind knocked out of me. I try not to go off of ginormous ramps anymore.

Cause it really hurts land. Yeah. I've seen Zane Schweitzer does them like off of big ways that he'll keep by like really throwing himself backwards and it looks pretty, pretty crazy, but I guess that way you can definitely rotate all the way around. Yeah. I think the bigger, the way of the slower you have to rotate and back when I was first doing them, I would just rotate as fast as I could.

So I did a lot of over rotation. So let's talk a little bit about based more basic stuff for a lot of the people listening are just getting into wing fighting. And then also actually Kevin, maybe you can talk a little bit about your first experiences with four thing with the wind surf board and what are the challenges and so on and any advice you can.

Yeah, I think for me, the, actually for me, I think the wing is almost the easiest platform to learn on because you even when T with like, when I was first towing, because I thought, oh, that's going to be the easiest you're in control. You're in the jetski driver is in control. Like you just want to let go a little bit, slow down a little bit with the wing.

You can just let it out where, if you're on a, behind a boat or whatever, it takes a lot of coordination, especially in the swells, like maybe on a Flatwater it's different, but I was always learning on the waves and no for me, the wind surfers, it's pretty fun going back and forth and stuff.

Actually the other day we were out at . Yeah. I heard about him doing backflips. So I'm like, Aw show and how to do a back flip with the Windsor for, so doing that. And it's interesting to watch his rotations and stuff, and there's just so much lift with those boils. If you get them in the right, right way, you can just flip off with nothing.

So the wind surfer. Yeah, it feels to me when I'm doing it on the winter, it feels super low, but then you see a picture of it and maybe it's cause you're 36 inches off the water when you start or something, but it looks high. Yeah. It definitely a lot lower than what it is. Yeah. Even like your shots, you're going pretty dang.

Huh? Yeah. It feels like I'm probably going four feet.

Yeah. I think for, it's pretty fun how the foil can work through all the different sports, whether it's surfing or stand up. I think that's how my dad got into the foiling is he was doing standup paddling. And then, you paddle down tile, you get a little ride, his little glide, and then you're done unless you're Zane's weights or something back out in circles and stuff.

You can pump out. Yeah. That's like a nice thing that I like about profiling is you can surf the wave in, it helps a lot with footsteps, but you can surf the wave, like you're surfing regularly, but then when you kick out, you don't have to paddle all the way out. You can just pump to the next wave or pumped back out to the lineup.

You should see this kid's legs. They're like, look at his muscles. They're like math for 11 year old was down the beach. And, he comes in and he's got six pack, abs muscles ripped off. And you're like, dude, what are you doing? And just winging every day and using those muscles. That's great. So you said Kevin, you're just starting to wing foil.

Yeah, I Do it, I did it with when my dad was down there for his birthday and stuff, but it's pretty fun. And the different spots, like in Baja where I was, it was perfect for winging, like a slower fatter wave, so you're get that cruisy feel. And like you said, you don't have to paddle back out, which is nice with the wing.

If you're not a super oil back out person, which I'm not, but yeah. And just learning a little bit it's always fun to just different sports and stuff. And, I can go out and back and do tiny jumps, but that's about it. I think, I think having a windsurfing background helps a lot with wing foiling.

You know what I mean? Because the wing handling is very similar. You do have to learn how to control the height of the wing. Cause that's, windsurfer it's attached to your board, so you just can cheat in and out. But this is like a three dimensional thing where you have to actually control the direction of the wing too.

That's what I was thinking about one time with the wind surfer. If you can have those old wind weapons attached to the board twisted up, I wonder how it'd be fun to get one of those nowadays and see how it works, maybe that, it might just be some different, but it'd be cool to try one or see what it is.

And, I was always thinking maybe because that's the hardest part is once you're on a Wade, you need to get rid of the power. If you have to smallest sale, you can barely get on the foil and. I dunno, the wind surfing with the waves is hard on the foil, I think. But again, I just probably need to do it more.

And

As going to ask you Kayden on your wing, it looks like you have like one of your straps is, or the handles is like a rigid handle in the back. Is that right? Or I don't, let me see if I have a closer video where it shows

it's like a boom as the back one. And I feel like that's nice because you can move your hand, like whatever way you want. And it's nice for the three sixties and stuff. Cause sometimes you come down and like you're not in the perfect place. And you need to slide your hand forward, slide it back,

but it, so it's just attached with like nylon straps or something though, or

it's attached with just fabric that.

Yeah. So it still moves around quite a bit. Yeah. I keep thinking it would be nice to have like rigid handles that are just give you really direct control of the wing, where they don't flop around at all. But yeah, that's what I wish think that's what I'm trying to work on right now.

It's like making some more rigid handles. Yeah. W gash is actually coming out with they're scrapping the boot. They're making that gloom thing basically, but they're having it on with plastic. They're mounting it on, basically. Yeah. And then they're gonna put up carbon pipe in it and it only gets super rigid.

Right now he's PTC wing. It's called it's psych New Zealand company that makes wings. And that's kinda my favorite right now. Do you do the blue planet boards or yeah. We make pho foil boards and Wingfield boards. We've been doing that for quite a while now. And yeah, those are good.

Are they made on a wahoo or no we we make prototypes on Oahu. The production is in China. I've been looking into making boards here, but it's just so expensive. Just the overhead and the labor costs and stuff like that. It's and then yeah, regulations and permitting and all that kind of stuff.

It's a nightmare. So I haven't made that step, but on Molly, I guess the cannery is a pretty cool place. Cause there's so much innovation coming out of there. Yeah. It's pretty wild. It just, now he seems to breed that in innovation of stuff, different athletes and different, from surfing the wind surfing to stand up paddling and it's wild to, to me, like how kind of wind surfing gets a shuffled under the rug.

90% of all the athletes from the last 20 years have come from wind surfing, layered rush Randall, all these guys, all wind surf, and whether it's their kids or whatnot, it's Alex amazing wind surfer, all and all the brands too are from Windsor thing, and the, and there's a lot of the technology as well. With, I think surfing's has been so stuck in, the polyester construction and thruster tens and whatever they get, it's just not a lot of innovation happening. And then when windsurfing came around, everybody was like trying so many different things and the whole composite construction and making boards later and stronger and all that kind of stuff.

That all came from wind surfing not from surfing really. I think too it feels like wind surfers are more techie than surfing maybe. Maybe it's changing a little bit now, and the foil that's half the reason I don't really love the foiling is because for, 25 years, I was just tinkering with wind surfing stuff.

And, it was pretty D when you're at the top level, couple of millimeters here and there, it makes a huge difference. So to come and start tinkering with a foil, I don't, it's a lot of work for me. So it's just. It's nice to come and you go out on the dad's stuff, it's all trimmed.

Perfect. You just hop on it and go, and it works. And you're not like, oh, this change this. Now you're talking about millimeters and wind surfing. I think on the foil, it's even more, it's like micro millimeters. Yeah. You guys have so much less surface area in the water and like any little change makes the noticeable difference.

Like even a half a degree angle in your tailwind can be noticed or whatnot. So it's pretty amazing

if you do it any skinnier, it'll make it faster and better. I don't like slower. So do you, so Kayden, do you play around with that? Do you tend to play around with your first setup? Kevin was saying you liked it when you find something that you like, or that works. You just tried to keep the same thing.

Now that like foils are getting so new technology and stuff, I've been trying a lot of stuff and I'm liking so much more stuff. And all these new foils that are coming out or Alex will bring him down, like a couple of different foils, like custom wants to try. And it's probably opening his mind a little bit, just to you just gotta try it, so I was learning a lot about Lyft and all that stuff. So it's all the homeschool year was also foil homeschool year. Yeah. Cool. I mean that, that's definitely a pretty high tech stuff that everyone's working on. I interviewed Kandel while too, and he's really into like foil design and computer design.

And all that engineering type stuff I've been totaling in with my tow partners, Jason Polk, also another great. And we've been using cane stuff for the toe foiling. Again, Jason and I were just out there just Muppets, just like why can't we do this? Why can't we do this? Cause we, we're okay.

Talented people and we'd be sharing it and we'd be like, oh, this doesn't work. We'd move it. Two inches didn't work. And we had Kane come out with one of his foils and we took it out and he's just boom gets it set up. And they're like, oh, there you go. Yeah, hold on.

Something, two inches is probably like way too much, right? Yeah. We burned not clean. I got so frustrated with it, cause you're, especially on the toe in with the bigger ways that it's, yeah. The fi I'm not going in huge waves, you're going down that way so fast and it's pretty scary when the cane stuff is really good.

Cause he, he's on it and he's, making custom foils up at the cannery up here and he knows what he's doing. So it's pretty nice to have a little bit more stability and for what we're doing, probably the production stuff. Isn't really, there's not many people that are towing with foils, out in Maui stuff.

It's kinda cool to have him do some stuff with us. Okay. What something I always like to ask everyone is how much of your skills is like just natural talent that you have, naturally, and how much of it is, practice time on the water training. And I think Katie and I are very opposite in that answer where I for me, I'd take repetition.

Like my windsurfing day is I was out there every day, any condition whatsoever, just hammering on it and that was what I think separated or put me into, world title scene is that I was like one of the first guys to my brother and I, and, we had a little group of people and we were the first guys to take it seriously.

Like weren't going out partying weren't you know? Oh, it doesn't look good. We're out there every day, any conditions? Cold, stormy, oh, here comes a storm and Mally, which we don't get, oh, we're going to go chain for when we're in Europe. And we're in this miserable conditions we're out there.

So we're he starts one thing even as mountain biking, when he was like four years old, he was like doing these huge jumps down the hill and he won't do it for two months and then I'll be better than me. And I'm like how did you do that? You didn't have even written your bike in six months.

Yeah. I can think I have read with my team. Yeah. I know we have this cool mountain bike up in McWell forest, then you flow trail down. And I remember taking him up there and just this little tiny kid, just sending all the money. And maybe that's why you enjoyed the ring. Cause you get to jump so high.

Yeah. Yeah. But even then with his backflip, you saw on may 60, tried it the first time and then on May 12th, he's landing up and now he's boosting huge stuff, so yeah. So yeah. But maybe you can answer it on Kayden. Like how do you feel? Is it talent or practice? My one talent that helps with everything that I do what's on the water is I would say I have pretty good balance.

And that helps me with a lot of stuff. Yeah. I think too, he's got a trampoline, every kid who has a trampoline, it's pretty cool because you can do those backflips and. I remember you had a skateboard with straps on it, so you can visualize what do you think? Oh, cool. Yeah. I always think of balance as not something that you're naturally born with really, but it's something you can practice, right?

So if you doing all that, if you're doing sports all the time, that require you to have good balance, your balance is going to naturally get better. And then that helps you with everything you do probably, right? Yeah. It's definitely if I didn't have good balance, I doubt I would be worried I'm down.

What about visualization or like doing moves in your head? Do you do that? Do you try to visualize it before you get in the water? For me, I like try them in the water, like just with my weighing and without my board, I would just like visualize. Pulling the wing backwards. And then I did some, I do some flips on my trampoline, like with my hands doing the back flip and that helped me so much.

Oh, you know what else I saw him do? It's pretty cool. Is winging with the one wheel that looks like a good thing for beginners on a one wheel

for that. You just, but you get the feel of the wing. And then

that's interesting. Baltz Mueller was saying the same thing. He was practicing his backflips on the trampoline before he was doing them on the water. Just to figure out the wing. Because that's pretty tricky. Cause you can really kinda get back winded or falling on top of the wing. That's the tricky parts.

I bet I didn't take the wing on a trampoline, but I feel like it would definitely help with taking, knowing I'm a trampoline on a bigger trampoline. Cause mine's a lot smaller. It would be a lot easier than doing them with the foil, like straightaway and then landing on top of the way.

Like my friend tried them straight away with not really knowing how to do a back flip on the trampoline and then he just couldn't get that flip dialed in. Now he knows how to do it on the trampoline, so he'll be landing. So he learned that, oh, he learned it on the trampoline and then he went. So for you Kayden, like what's a typical day, like for you let's say you're doing when you're homeschooling and just like a typical day for you?

Homeschool for me, I would start at nine o'clock. So what time do you get, what time do you wake up? Do you wake up early or do you try to sleep until the last possible moment? Or I wake up at six 30, so I try to wake up early and then I do sometimes I just, I'm super tired and I don't want to get out of bed and I'm just like, okay, I'm going to go back some of the AAA to get my blood flowing.

Then I go do that. And then I have breakfast. And then I sit and do stuff until nine o'clock and then from nine o'clock to 12 o'clock I do my homeschool. And then from my grandpa comes and picks me up at 1230. And then we go to an wing to like four. Then I come back here and clean all my stuff and put it where it goes and then same thing the next day.

But if there's no wind, then I would probably wake up at six and then go prone for a Lang before school conditions are usually better early in the morning, Molly, where the wind kicks in. What about your typical day Kevin? What is your day look like? Pretty similar, except for, without the schooling.

Homeschool. Usually I do a little computer work and see what's happening for the day. Check the conditions if it's, yeah. You have a morning routine. Like when you get up, do you do like exercises? Do you have coffee? Like I exercise my scrolling through the Instagram, wake up and get right on your phone and just look at Instagram.

Yeah, I kinda recently I've been looking for a sailboat. That's been my like focus. I wanna, that's why I was on a wahoo. I was over there checking out boats. I got a slip down at my Elias. I need to get a boat in there. And I I have a van over on the mainland, the sprinter van, and a lot of exploring.

That's like when I like go into Baja so much. Now my dream is to have that sprinter van in the water in a sailboat and kind of checked out the islands, be able to go over to a wahoo and, hopefully get these guys into exploring a little bit more, go over there and be able to, wing and kinda do fun stuff off the boat.

So that's been my focus recently. All right. That's cool. So is this going to be for as a hobby recreationally? Are you also planning to do like charters and stuff like that? Or is it more time? Just the house it's hard right now. Cause for me. Maybe, but it seems like everybody on Maui is making money doing like Turo or this and that.

And then I'm just like, I'm just cruising and I'm like, no, maybe I should do that. That's great. If you can, if you don't need to make money, that's good. To make money. Yeah. Good. So where do you see the future of the sport going? What for wing fighting? And what are your goals like?

What do you hope to do in wink filings, Kayden? I'm hoping to learn how to do a front flip before I'm 12. So when are you turning? 12? August 17th. Okay. Yeah. That's enough time she learned to back slip in one month. So the other day I was down there's this guy dictionary, have you heard of that book?

Yeah, he's doing a wing book. And so I went down to take pictures of of Jeffery and doing that forward thing and Finn and holy smokes. I'll be impressed to see you do that. Cause like we're like you guys were talking about with the the stall when he's doing the spins and stuff, like he goes up and, just goes up and then he kicks it out too and then throws it forward and was just like, whoa, like scary.

Yeah. But I think it does look similar to doing forwards on the windsurfer. It's like you're throwing yourself sideways more than forward. But yeah. Are other people besides Jeffrey and them doing the forwards or yeah. Tetouan is doing it. I was talking to him about that. That was asking him for pointers and he's I don't have any pointers.

I'm just trying to figure it out myself. I don't know yet

on your podcast. Yeah, I interviewed him. I haven't published it yet, so that'll be all probably before your guys, this one goal post. So I always, it takes me a while to edit the footage after I do it all. So yeah, I enjoy interviewing more than the editing process, but cool. So what about D do you think you can Kayden that you're going to do this, as a job that professionally, like making money with wing funding or is it just going to be fun for you?

Or what do you think? I have no idea what it's going to be. It's either I. I don't know. Do you think you're going to try to do any of those events like the world? What is it called? The world furthering tour or whatever they having those world championship events. Yeah. I want to do one here first and see, cause I think they're going to do one over here soon, or I don't know, but they're supposed to be one this summer for something, but I don't know if it got canceled or whatever, but I want to see how I do and one over here.

I get really good. Then maybe I'll start doing this. I don't know. Isn't there like a full contest on Maui this last weekend? I thought there was like, I donated some prizes for full contest to be here. I heard about it in behind it. And it was just a standard era. Did it prone and stand up. And the second day it was supposed to be wind foiling.

I dunno, you didn't okay. You should have done that. But the level over here, there's quite a few kids that are really ripping, like some of his friends, you're just like so that will be a good if there's a contest here, it will be pretty high level. Yeah, no doubt. I'm always, definitely the epicenter of the progression.

So it's pretty wild him grow up here. Like we grew up on this tiny lake in the middle of California. I always say to my brother, I'm like, man, just imagine if we had this set up we're kids, we were done with it when it turned out to be pretty good. I think, I think one of the, what you guys had was that sibling rivalry, right?

So like brothers, two brothers, you guys trying to do each other. So you always pushing each other. And I think that's also very valuable, I think, in sports, right? Yeah, for sure. That was like a hundred percent. That's for sure we were. We were best friends. We trained together, we lived together, we pushed each other, when we were young, he'd do a move and then I'd be like, oh, I can do that.

And then he'd be like, oh, I can't let my little brother do it so better than me. So he'd push it. And now one cool story we had was when you were, he was 16, he just got his driver's license and I was 13 and 14 and my parents let us to take our van. My dad's. We had a Windsor fan. It, let us take it from Southern California, drive all the way up to the Gorge, just the two of us and spend a month up in hood river, just wind surfing and having fun.

And I'm like, I couldn't imagine sending him. You're going to be like that. He has a younger brother too, obviously, so well, but he's right. Maybe when you can drive it, you can do stuff like that. Yeah. But still, that was like one of the best summers ever. So it's pretty wild that looking back like that my parents let a 16 year old and 13 year old drives, what is it?

Thousand miles by themselves. And it's pretty fun. But we had, we learned a lot and we had a lot of fun. Is your, is Matt older than you? Or younger? Older? Yeah. Oh, so you were not even 16 yet. You were like 14 or 15 or how old are you? I was like, that's cool. And then you were friends around that, her old, like all our lives.

We've been around older people, because windsurfers are old, but like our best friends were our parents growing up because they wanted to win. Sir, my parents are super young there. My dad just turned 70, I think. He was when we were 15, he, he was only 35 or whatever.

I miss doing the mapping now, but, so he was super young and we wanted to go wind surfing. And so we were like, we want on the weekends at school, we'd rather hang out with my parents, then go party or whatever. It's pretty cool. Okay. I have a question for both of you guys. So for me personally, and I know this happens a lot of people, like some days you're on the water and everything's just like every you're totally in tune with your gear and the conditions and everything's working, you can pull off all kinds of moves and you're just in the zone.

And then the next day, sometimes you'll go out in the same kind of conditions with the same kind of gear, but like everything, you're just like a kook and you keep falling in and nothing's really working. So how, and it seems like it's not necessarily like the conditions or the equipment.

It's more like your state of mind. So is there any, anything that you do to get into that state of mind, or do you have any pointers on how to avoid being that kook, or changing your mindset from being a cook, to being in the zone? For me, I feel like I try to always be in the zone because every time that I'm feeling like I don't want to, I'm just not in the mood or I don't really want to go I'm super tired.

Then I would just I wouldn't try any crazy tricks or whatever, or I would just not go winging that day. But the times that I do go in and I'm just not in that state of mind, I just I don't know. I land one move that's hard to do. And then I get fired up and I'm like, okay, now I'm good. Again, like that's I feel so sometimes you get into the zone while you're doing it.

Like kind of thing, but yeah. And what about you, Kevin? Sometimes when you, that, that makes sense that not just don't go out when you're not, when you're not feeling it, but like sometimes if you're competing you don't have that choice. Like you're up and you got to go and is there a way you can switch from, how do you switch on that, getting into, I dunno, I wonder if that's like something I think that was one of my strong points competing is as I was like, never really the best guy, but I was always just there, and just keeping that mentality of just being steady and, going, performing at a level all the time.

That's high and. There's those certain moments where you're in the zone, for sure. You always talk about it, you hear about it. And then, in your there's certain moments where throughout my career, where I was like, oh, man is what was he in conscious almost, I was just going through it.

And that's hard to, it's hard to get into that, but, just happens, but I think just the more you train, the more confident you be, you are. And so I think that kinda just, for me, it was always the training and just going out there all conditions and always pushing yourself.

I think Caden's a little more smart, smarter than I am he like when he's not feeling it, it just doesn't go well, I've always pushed through, don't be a whiner. Just go. Yeah, that makes sense. I know some people are, it seems like some people are actually better when they're competing.

Like they get, they like, it pushes them to perform even at a higher level. Would you say you're like that, like we're when you're competing, you're actually better than when you're just practicing. I would say so. Yeah, for sure. For me, I was like, yeah, like I said, never really the like wildest one out there, but then when it came to game time, I would would be able to, land all my moves and my strategy was just do the moves that you can make.

And, let the other people fall by the wayside. A lot of times these, I go up against these kids and they just be, sending it huge, which is cool, but then they would land it. And then I just do my little job and advanced a lot of times.

Okay. So like a little bit playing it safe and doing the things, you can do and not trying to do crazy stuff that you don't really have mastered. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That makes sense. Okay. Kayden, would you say you're obsessed with foiling or is it just a hobby for you or would you say that obsessed and addicted to it or not really?

I'm definitely obsessed with, yeah. So what is it about foiling that makes it so addicted. It just feels like you're flying basically. And that's like with surfing, it's really hard to get into the air, but, and when you do get an air, you're only in the air for a second, but, and then it was winging.

It's just like when ever you're up on foil, it feels like you're flying. And then when you're in the air, you're also flying. So it's like, all right, I'm up on the foil? Probably I'm like in the air on foil, probably like 98% of the time. And then surfing I'm in the air, like 0.5% of the time. Yeah. What about prone foiling though?

Even that you're on the foil a lot less than when you're winging for it. Yeah, but I love riding waves, like in any sport that has wave riding in it. I want to try it. And it's prone flailing. I'm starting to like that more than like when you're in perfect conditions. I like it more than surfing in perfect conditions.

Because you have that glass, you smooth water, those perfect long wave rides. And you can like, when you're really good, like Kailani and Zane and all those people, you're up on the foil, like 50% of the time pumping around, and that's what I want to get to that level. I can pump out and touch like 15 waves before I get tired, but I get tired after five.

So yeah, pumping back out is takes a lot of energy. I can't even imagine 15 ways, maybe two ways. That's pretty much it for me.

That's awesome. So other hobbies and cross training and stuff, I guess you do mountain biking. Anything else you guys do for like when it's not, when you're not in the water, I guess not in the water. I have a one wheel and that helps with my balance and with the wing sometimes. Go and practice my tricks.

And it's like a lot harder when you're on land than when you're in the water on the wing. So it definitely helps me like, get the moves dialed. And then I tried to go on the biggest wing that I can be on when I'm on land so that I can practice doing the bigger way. And then once I get like good at that, then with smaller wings, like it makes it so much easier because you feel like you can, you're spin super fast.

And then that's like my biggest, my favorite thing to do on land is probably one wheeling and trampoline.

All right. It's a question for both of you guys. So during the pandemic, a lot of people felt isolated and the kinda lonely or depressed whatever anxious being at home, being stuck at home. And I know for us, it's always easier to be like, ah, just go in the water and have fun and everything's fine, but let's say you, you're stuck inside and you can't go on the water or you can't go outside.

What do you do to if you have an off day or if you're not feeling great, like what do you do to lift your spirits or to stay positive? On those days where it's like horrible for any sport and you just don't want to move or whatever. I usually like. Watch some winging videos of like new moves that I want to try.

And then I like stop them and watch them over and over again. I see how they do it and then I want to do it like that. And then sometimes I play like board games, like monopoly. I love monopoly. It's it's fun. Thank you, Kevin. I guess a little computer time would probably be, I don't have, I don't have TV in my house, so not really a big TV watcher, but yeah, I dunno.

We're so we've, it's bad to say, but for us on Maui, it's been just like the, I dunno, the best year ever having COVID, it was. So much fun, like all of the spots that normally are actually now it's back to normal, but like we'd go to twin falls, which is this little waterfall and you go there now there's like parking directors, like telling you where to park it's fault, blah, blah, blah.

During COVID you'd just go out there. There's insane waterfall and be like two people, one person. And for me it was like probably the, it was the best year I've ever had on my, after 30 years. So you got to, I stayed here during the summertime where normally I go to hood river, to around in my band and explore.

I stayed here on Maui and it's forced me to explore my backyard and there's so many cool spots out there, like just hidden spots, different spots. And I would take my E I'm an E biker. I love biking and I would just ride every day. I went out there so many times I can't even count. And I would just ride my bike and explore and explore and go to different waterfalls and different things.

And so for me, the COVID was just. Unbelievable is awesome. I totally agree. Yeah. The thing about like that, the thing that I missed about traveling really was the adventure of seeing new things or exploring and things, but you really don't have to go that far to explore it and you can, yeah, you can go some, just go on a trail that you've never been on and it's oh wow, this is cool.

So you can have an adventure without getting on a plane and sitting on a plane for 12 hours or whatever, you don't really have to go that far. And you're on a Waldo to like some, when like you would drive during rush hour and there's no cars on the freeways.

Like what's going on there. I love this, get somewhere in 10 minutes that would take 45 minutes on a normal day. And also, I think it kinda like over here too, a lot of people are like, do, why do we really need 30,000 people arriving every day? Maybe $10 or enough, but I guess our economy is pretty dependent on tourism, but it sure is nice to have a little bit less traffic and less people everywhere and stuff like that.

For sure. Here, I always said it's like the whole world was playing musical chairs of w where to go. And we won the game, like being in Hawaii is like, we're one that is pretty safe, I would say. And for two is the best place in the world to be this last year. As far as everybody's pretty healthy.

And we were, I would say the rules were very relaxed compared to my friends in Europe, so it was pretty, pretty awesome spot to hunker down and and enjoy what the islands have to offer. Cool. So Caden, if somebody asks you what foiling is like, and they've never foiled, like how do you explain that sensation of flying a foil?

Why would you say it's like the fly you're going to fly though? What if somebody does not to fly? Like just, it feels like once you get up on the foil, it's like the first time that you get up on the foil whinging, it's there's nothing else. Like it. Cause it's you the wing board and the toilet, and you're just floating across the water.

It feels but those are the really good days for doing it in those flat water and not super strong ones. So what's it like when the wind is super strong, then it's a little bit more hectic, some nights for me, it's like I'm holding on for dear life, but then, it definitely balances out because there's spots on Maori where you can go, like when there's really light wind, there usually there's usually enough wind to get up on foil in Maui, like every day.

Yeah. That's crazy. You lucky for sure. So who else should I interview on this? On the blue planet show about wing filing? Who do you think I should talk to? Alex started like the whole surf foiling thing. So I think that would be cool. Cause I just read this interview thing that someone typed out on a website and it was really cool to learn about all that stuff.

So yeah. Yeah. I already Alex actually to be on the show, but he's been busy. So he said when he has some time, you'll let me know. Maybe you can tell him that he should get on the show. Anyone else you'd recommend talking to?

What about Annie? Have you had her on there? I had any record on there right yet on the show. I'm trying to, obviously I'm trying to get Jeffrey Spencer Kailani. I don't know. Been able to get them on the show. They're busy, but I had seen Zane Schweitzer at Allen kid is mark Rapa horse. A bunch of people from Mali.

There's a couple of cool guys on, on the mainland. Like Brian , he's one of the, he's a good winger and, pioneered a lot of stuff in California with the wind surfing. And now he's doing winging and he's into photography and video and he made all those used Houston make like side off video with doing all the, how tos and stuff like that.

And then he switched to kiting and now he's in the wings. Okay, okay. Off slide on video. You can find them through that somehow. Okay, cool. All right. So yeah, that was awesome. So what are you goals with with your YouTube channel? Kevin? Just for fun. This kid loves that. I said D LA he's it's not called a B log.

And I'm like, yeah, I knew that. I knew that, but I kinda like the logs better than blog anyways. So yeah. He's yep. I'm doing my new V log out here, guys in Mexico.

But I think, I've been on YouTube for like over 10 years or, time. And it's I think the main thing is just being consistent, like posting on a regular basis, like maybe once a week or even once a month or whatever, but just always coming out with new stuff and not, that's the key, I think just then people start following you and once you have subscribers and your videos get more views right away, and then that's how you build limit 10, but it takes years mean really it's hard for me cause I just see on Maui, it's just the same thing, for years and years, but that's where it cool.

The log is, you can show your personality and different stuff and it's not just like this beautiful imagery, I'm I've been in the making videos for awhile and stuff. So I get if I don't do it like to perfection, a lot of times like a nice, like I love John's stuff.

View or whatever, and it's pretty awesome. So this is just, thrown together a little bit more rough and stuff, and trying to be funny a little bit too and not take it so seriously. So this jacket is classic. It's like some kind of pimp jacket, or do you get that truth to that?

As I was going to burning, man, and then I got all this stuff in my van and so I was like, oh, I might as well busted out with this jacket and stuff. So it's pretty great outfit of it.

Yeah. For me from like Instagram stuff, I post something like every week, but it's hard to do it consistently. Yeah, but that's what sponsors want to see too. Your sponsors when see your social media presence and all that kind of stuff. And then his parents probably don't want them on social media as well.

So yeah. Yeah. They're like, don't be like Kevin and scroll your Instagram. First thing in the morning, you wake up right off the bat. First thing in the morning, Instagrams. That's funny. So is there any anyone you want to thank for their support in your sports? For me, I would think everyone at go for taboo and gastrocs and burn helmets and Matt at end point too.

So all those people. So much with my winging and then my grandpa, my dad, him professional photographer and yeah. Everyone. So amped on the new wings and it's super, it's great to have all these people supporting. Yeah. You're lucky you got your grandpa taking you down to the beach. Cause it'd be pretty hard to do that without having someone drive you, right?

Yeah. It will be a long walk. What about you, Kevin? Yeah, same similar thing. Like my, my brother probably was my biggest influence and help, getting to where I was and my, my mom and dad for sure. But it's been an amazing career for me. Still even to this day, still in the industry and still having fun.

So yeah through Caden, I wrote to Alex for that Bob video, I'm like, Hey, do you think I can borrow a toilet just to go down there and play around on it. So as cool. And he's yeah, no problem. Here you go, blah, blah, blah. And probably Caden was working with them. I probably wouldn't have even thought about it.

It's cool to have somebody that supports him and, Alex has been, I would say is pretty cool with you, like helping them out. And even like you were saying that the homeschool learning that, oh, a little shit, I'm here. What that does to the water and stuff. He's been he's been pretty cool with with him, for sure.

Yeah. I mean that, like foiling is definitely an aeronautical engineering. You're really, if you figure out how things work on the floor, that's pretty complex stuff. And a lot of it's just theory too. Like the theory of how the foil generates lift is actually not as just a theory, right?

It's not like a proven thing, is it the displacement? Is it the pressure difference? Is it, like how did the lift is actually created? It's not like a clear, easy answer, right? Yeah, the speed of the water moving over either surface and stuff like that. So pretty interesting stuff for sure.

So yeah, maybe you can study more about that. Yeah, man. So it seems like, wind surfing seems to be I guess when kiting came out, they said windsurfing was canceled or whatever, but there's still hardcore windsurfing, Siemens, stuff like that, but it seems like now winging is taking over from both cutting and windsurfing.

I mean the, just the hype about is crazy. Yeah. How do you see windsurfing going in the future? Servings just takes a beating. Like every time a new sport comes out, they're like but you still get those hardcore guys. And one of the, one of the awesome things about when surfing.

Falling by the wayside is you can go downhill, keep it in there. The Mecca is like 35, 40 guys out there or surfing. I don't even go surfing because I hate all the crowds and there's a hundred people out and all this stuff. So yeah, that's all about windsurfing. You go down there and, anywhere in the world, basically it's pretty uncrowded compared to a surf spot.

As far as the industry goes, it's definitely, not a thriving industry, lot of the brands have taken up the weaning and so they're still doing well, but it's still an amazing sport that you never get tired of because you can never master it. I feel like with the kiting, I love kiting and the feeling of it, but I can see too after, If I get better at it, I could probably get bored with it.

We're wind surfing. You're just, you're always trying to learn that, whatever. Yeah. I wonder if winning is like that, where the progression is so fast that you eventually get bored with it. I don't know. It seems like you can always learn new stuff too when you're right. Like we're just in the very beginning.

Are there any crazy moves that you've thought of other than the Ford loop like that you want to try or learn? Yeah, I have I don't think anyone's ever done it yet, but I want to pull the board off my heat with the straps and hold it in my hand. You know how they do that and then put it back on my feet, but that's pretty impossible.

So I wanted to, I want to do one of those before I want to try, because that means you would have to hold your wing with one hat and then hold the board with the other hat and do yeah you have to have a middle handle where you can hold the wing with one hat and it's balanced. Maybe that could like, with the boom on the dash grads, there's like this certain spot, like right at the front of the handle where you can hold it and you can just one hand, like the whole way.

Yeah. I've gotten that dial next. I just have to I want to start doing like the one footers, like getting them super dialed. I have them pretty good. He actually got a really cool shot of me doing one, not on purpose. Let's do it. That sounds like a good way to really hurt your son, your ankles or whatever.

You have to be careful with that. Yeah. You can recover quickly. But have you Kevin, have you ever hurt yourself and the sweatshops or the ankles and stuff like that? I broke my foot one time getting stuck in the strap. It's yeah. But other than that

major injuries you had in your career, then my brother, I saved those all for him. Cause he was he? Yeah. He like totally broke his leg in half and then he saved him.

Is in Bali is out there and we were jumping and he just snapped his leg in half is narrowly rescue them in and stuff and then had to fly home. Luckily there was a plane there, so pretty bad, but breaking, taking it, overall water sports are pretty safe, like compared to like skateboarding or even mountain biking, cause if you do fall on hard on a hard surface, then you're much more likely to hurt yourself. Like professional skateboarders usually have 20 broken bones by the time you're age. Or motocross, those guys like all the presser first, they only have it's rare for a surfer to break like a bone.

Doing turns. And then I don't, I haven't heard of a winger breaking a bone yet, but I'm sure there's been some bruises. There's a lot of bruises. Yeah.

People even break their ribs, descent, falling on a standup paddle board and stuff like that. Yeah. I'm sure there's stuff that stuff happens all the time, but but yeah it's relatively safe, all right. And anything else you want to share with people that are still listening? Like I always say by the, by this time only about 5% of the people who click on the video, I actually still watching now.

So it's a very elite group of people now that are still listening. Do you have a special message for them? My grandpa's probably going to be one of them. Yeah. I'm sure you will be watching.

Basically all the ones that you've done and he's always like telling me stories like, oh, you got to listen to this. Oh, this

so and and he's always watching them all the way through, so I'm sure he'll be on it right now.

Yeah. Right on. Thanks for having us is fun. Good experience for the kid to be on live TV, so yeah. It's not quite TV it's YouTube, but yeah. How do you feel about the community of wink fighting? Is it different than like other, like surfing or other sports that you do wind surfing?

I think it's great. I'm not a huge fan of the surf community so much, there's a couple of cool. Couple of cool people, but in general it feels like the wind community. It's a little bit more positive and happy to help out, where the surf community gets a little territorial.

So for me, I enjoy seeing him in the wind community. And how often is, good surfers go in and help him some kid out oh, they do Ian Walsh is awesome and Kailani, those guys are amazing for the community, but they're few and far between where I feel like everybody, when they see him do a big air, they're stoked for him, so I think, yeah, like I feel like with all the wing foiling people, there's 1% of the people that aren't always absolutely stoked to the, after. Yeah. It's weird to see someone with a scowl on their face, unless yeah, because they're so worried. Their scowl is like yeah. And getting started for as it can be pretty challenging. I think for a lot of people it's not an easy sport to get right away, but I guess for you, it was not fair everybody. Yeah. I think once you get up on that, the foil, that one time they hear hooked forever.

That's how I felt. Yeah. So when people, like when strangers come up on the beach to you, like that has never foiled before and they're like, what is that? What are you doing? Or like what's the most common question that people ask you. How do you do that? Yeah. Yeah. It seems like the question I get a lot is like, how much does that cost?

Like they always want to know how much everything costs and yeah, it's not an easy answer, but it's pretty expensive. Yeah. I think too, everything's so new that there's not like use gear so much, so when people ask you, how do you do that? What do you tell them? I just explain it.

They're mostly like, there are people that Windsor or kite and they always like they want to learn a new sport or something and I'm like I don't really know how I do it. And then I just tell them once you learn it, you're hooked. So I'm very bad at explaining stuff. Yeah. Kayden, I guess when Kailani first posted I dunno, do you remember that when Kailani posted on social media, when he was like foiling on a big race for downgoing downwind on a Molly co-run or something like that, sweating on this huge long race board, do you remember watching those videos?

That was probably like three or four years ago. Yeah. I think the first video I watched the foiling from was from Laird Hamilton. Oh yeah. Towing. Yeah. Tell foil. He got the like snowboard boots on Very old back then. And then I saw some of Kai doing downwinders on January MIS like Nash oil wards.

And then now he's doing prone foiling downwinders on a four foot board just gets up on swells that are even breaking it's pretty mind blowing and yeah. Have you done any of that downwind foiling? Have you tried that? And do you do that? I have that one down winder. The other one that we tried, it didn't go as planned, but I'm planning on doing a bunch this summer.

It was winter and it was always perfect for way Redding and the waves were too big to do a downwind, their windows, good wind for it. So it was always either like weighing foiling and the waves and prom foiling early in the morning and surfing in the afternoon. Yeah. There's quite a few guys here doing downwinders on prone boards and they usually, they catch it, they catch the little whitewater waves closer to shore, and then they pump out and then they go, did they do a dominant or just on their short board?

And if they fall, then they have to paddle all the way back in and try to catch another wave, because usually over here it's not windy enough for the wind Winslow. Isn't big enough to catch it on a prone board. But. Pretty scary. Sometimes they end up being like two miles out and then they have to paddle in on the tiny prone board.

And it's not a lot of fun. That to me, that doesn't seem that exciting. I'd rather take a wing with me or a paddle or have a jet ski or boat with you that can tell you back into the next one. That's like my first my first try we're pronoun winder. I think that's what I'm going to do. Jet ski alongside.

Cause my friend just got a, his dad just got a jet ski. Nice. Then he could be a company. Both of you guys, maybe. IBM. Yeah. So pronouns too. And I think if the worst case scenario would be like, we just have to go in. At the next stop, but it would be nice because he can just tell you back up on the floor, right?

Yeah. That makes it a lot easier. Plus, he can also tell me guys, but then stuff like that, we have more footage for Instagram. Yeah. And he's a, like a professional photographer oh, that's a plus. Perfect. Awesome. All right. You guys thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it.

And keep posting on Instagram, cadence. Those cool moves. Inspirational. Yeah. And make sure you follow up. Yeah, I'm sure you have a bright future as a wing further or whatever you decide to do with your life. And that's awesome. And Kevin, thank you too. And keep posting on YouTube. Try to do it regularly enough.

Okay. Right on. Thanks for having us. And that was fun. Yeah. And then maybe in a year or so I'll hit you up again and we'll talk some more about what's new when you're 12 years old or almost 13. Huh? Just him on his own then. Cause then he's going to be doing such mindblowing things.

I won't even understand them. Yeah. But if you're getting into wink, filing a little bit, you'll have some stuff to talk about as well. Cool. Cause most of the people that are listening to this podcast, they're not at your level. They're more at my level but it's cool. It's inspirational to watch those moves you do, and just keep progressing and show us how it's done. Thank you. All right, guys. Have a great day. Okay, bye. Okay, there you go. On another episode of the blue planet show. Thanks so much for watching the whole thing. As I'm making this show for you, the people who watched the whole thing and enjoy every minute of it and for Jayden's grandpa.

And I just wanted to let you know too, like every Wednesday morning, I'm doing a live show now on YouTube. So anybody can listen in on the live show. Post comments is like a live comment feed. So you can make a comment. Let me know where you're watching, from what time it is and stuff like that. It's always cool to see that people are watching it.

And of course, if you have any question. Just throw out your question. It's more fun to have a conversation with people than to sit and speak with the camera. So I'm enjoying that. So every Wednesday at 7:00 AM, it's the blue planet live show and go over some news. Talk about questions I've had on YouTube from other people that have asked questions that are too hard to answer quickly.

So then I just answered them on that live show. And then any other questions that come in during the show, I'll answer them. Hope you can join me next Wednesday at 7:00 AM. Wait time on the blue climate live show. Hope you enjoyed this show. Please give it a thumbs up if you liked it and so much for watching everything and I'll see you on the water a little hot.