Wakestyle

Wakestyle is a discipline within wakeboarding and wakeskating that emphasizes performing tricks on wake-generated obstacles, such as rails, boxes, and kickers, with a focus on technical control, precision, and style. It emerged as riders began to ride park features and to execute complex maneuvers while towed by a boat or a cable system.

Riders may perform on a wakeboard with bindings or on a wakeskate, depending on the event and preferred style. Wake parks provide artificial obstacles, including straight and kinked rails, ledges, and ramps, along with kickers and banked transitions. Tricks combine rail slides (boardslides and lipslides), flips and spins (360s and several-in-one rotations), and variations that incorporate grabs and body position.

Competitions evaluate runs for difficulty, execution, variety, amplitude, and overall style, with scoring reflecting how smoothly tricks connect, how well obstacles are used, and the rider’s consistency. Formats can include fixed obstacle sets, multiple-run programs, or best-trick segments, and events are organized by wakeboarding and watersports bodies around the world.

Wakestyle traces its roots to the late 1990s and early 2000s, when riders in wake parks and on cable systems began adapting skateboarding-style tricks to the wake scene. The term denotes this stylistic focus on technical rail and obstacle work, and it has driven ongoing progression in trick variety and park design across the sport.