For those who don’t know, Freestyle is a form of canoeing/kayaking that involves performing and linking tricks together on the features found on white water rivers. It is easiest to grasp by imagining it in the same group of sports as skateboarding, surfing and snowboarding – which you’ve probably seen on television. Freestyle’s origins are in the white water adventure paddler scene and it was first and foremost a type of ’showing off’, self-expression through skill combined to innovation.

The competitive sport, which to all extents began in the early eighties, was a formalisation of the down river paddler’s just-for-fun activity, with competitions largely used as an excuse to meet up with river friends and, it’s fair to say, get drunk. However, with the innovation and rapid development of skills and equipment that was part of the sport,  the attention it received from the traditional canoeing disciplines grew very quickly. It may not have been immediately apparent to freestylers, but Freestyle was having a dramatic affect on the development of every branch of paddle sport – most often expressed in better equipment.

The one constant of Freestyle throughout this period was that its development was always steep. Every year participants could count on new, even better, equipment being released and for one of their peers to perform a trick that no one else up to that point had even dreamt of. That is, until the early-mid 2000’s.

By about 2003/2004 most of the principles of the main trick groupings had been created and the equipment had become more or less standardised. This put freestyle in the same situation, also known as maturity, that other ‘freestyle’ sports, such as snowboarding and skateboarding had reached some years before. It was here that Freestyle had a choice to make, whether to stay true to its roots or aim for professionalism.

For the next thrilling episode in the story of Freestyle see ‘Part 2′, coming soon to JF.com.