All sports start with, or eventually develop a “soul”, a connected set of underlying themes and principles driving the participants. The soul can be hidden, uncovered in steps and emerge over time, it can also become co-opted, molded by motives and commercial interests. We saw unusual trends in hydro sport, we talked to people about the directions, X could not see a healthy hydro soul clearly emerging. Knowing that a strong, fun soul is key to the survival and vitality of any sport, we wanted to find and help to build the soul of hydro sport. We embarked on the search for the soul of hydro sport. We call this the Hydro Soul Project.
We knew the ingredients we needed, a wide variety the best riders in hydro sport, a great location where we would have the freedom to play and explore, the time to relax and discuss what we discovered, good machines to power us, great equipment for us to fly, and some new tools to play with. We invited 12 of the best riders on jetpacks and jetblades and set up with our friends in Koh Samui Thailand, the historical test flight home of Stratospheric. We know how cool Koh Samui is both on and off the water, complete freedom to relax, play and evolve. Build the environment, keep the atmosphere open, free from competition, dogma or favoritism, this is about the riders and giving them the tools, time and freedom to explore. We brought along a killer video crew to help us record this moment and get close to the action. And naturally X was there to listen to the feedback and evolve.
Tens of thousands of kilometers flown from across the globe, the group assembled after midnight for the first time at a hotel near the airport in Bangkok, a recon team headed down the road to obtain a case of beer, had a very short night, took the short morning flight to Koh Samui. Arriving to the open air terminal, the search for the soul of hydro had begun.
Pictured from left to right: Lyle, Carey, Chris, Tim, Jordan, Dean, Ben, Chase, Amber
