Up On Foil
How to make viral videos for instagram - a chat with kitesurf.aaron
All right, let's put the microphone here in between. So I'm going to start this episode myself because we have an announcement, which is that Matt just broke a word record. He's the first person in the entire planet, probably. Most probably. So go record the podcast with his keys at 8 p.m. I mean, if you know another person who's done that, then reach out to us, but he's the only one. And then I-- Now you speak because I'm not good at making intros, so yeah, that's it. Well, that was pretty good already. Thank you very much. So today, we have a special episode because it's not in our current theme. Usually the podcast is called Up on Foil. And we talk all about foiling. And with you, it's not that much about foiling because you've been on foil, but you're usually not. So it's kind of an antithesis. And we're not having it in the real order. It would be 8 to 17. But it's a winter special. And it's perfect because it's topical. Yeah, right. So we sit here in a two-- surrounded by about two meters of snow. Exactly. So we're here in Grindelwald. We're here with Aaron, with Aaron Kitesurf. Kitesurf Aaron. Kitesurf Aaron, yeah. And he's probably been in all of our streams. And I've come to know you as the guy who tries to put on a wetsuit. A lot of people know that video. Yeah, right. And then I went a little deeper. And I find out you're an OG in Kitesurf. Or at least that's what I find out. You're a content creator. And well, thank you for having us here in your kitchen. They're wonderful. Super cool. So I would really like to get to know you. And maybe you can tell us first, what are you doing? Someone who wants to be underwater. What are you doing in the mountains? I know. That's a bit painful. I'll tell you. There was a story to all of this. So I started Kitesurf in the year 2000. I'm from Switzerland originally. But I have lived in New Zealand since 2010. Yeah. So for the majority of the time, I was in New Zealand. And I recently came back to Switzerland about a year ago because I have two kids. And I want them to learn German. It's not because of the wind. I promise you that, man, because, yeah, you don't get to kite a lot here in the mountains. Yeah, that is true. And we actually wanted to go for a little snow kite session. It would have been awesome. Yeah, no wind. But maybe we could do that some other time. No surprise to me, but yeah. But then again, why did you come deep in the mountains? Well, when we were looking at coming back-- I mean, this is anyway, just a temporary thing. We still have a house in New Zealand. And the plan is to move back once we are comfortable that the kids can speak the language. But the reason I went and lived in-- like Charles Grindelwald, which is a little tiny village in the Swiss Alps, is because I just needed something different. I couldn't go back to a city in Switzerland or anything of that. I needed a bit of a kick, something special. So we're surrounded by 4,000 meter high mountains. We're 1,000 looking at 4,000 meter tall mountains. It's a pretty spectacular place. Zero wind. But yeah. That's pretty much it. But you didn't grow up here. No, no, no. Would you grow up? Zero. Yeah, zero. All right. [LAUGHTER] The way that-- how you pronounce it in Swiss Germany. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had to say that it's pretty impressive what you did like just for your kids to learn German. Can I ask you why is it so important for you that they learn German? You know, it's totally selfless. Is that the word-- yeah, decision? Because my life was absolutely perfect in India. And like, I was kiting two to four times a week. Good job. Everything was perfect. Like, there was no reason to leave. But deep down, I just wanted to give my kids the opportunity because they have the Swiss passport because I'm Swiss, that they could come here if they wanted to when they're older. So that was the only reason, man. And I've been suffering. I'm telling you. You might not even notice that on Instagram. Because now I'm using all the time that I used to spend on the water to create content and stay in touch with everyone, basically. But inside, man, I'm dying. I'm not kiting as much as I really wanted to at the moment. But it's temporary. How is or how was your life in New Zealand? What did you do for a job? So I was a-- no one will guess that. But I was a bank manager, leading a team of 15 people in the bank for many, many years. So completely the opposite to my comedian sides that I finally found an outlet on Instagram to lose this thing that was inside me all this time. Yeah, as a bank manager, at the very beginning, I managed a branch far away from the ocean. I had a 9 to 5. I always had a 9 to 5. But I basically-- it's still meant I couldn't actually go out a lot on the water. And that was kind of the idea why I moved to New Zealand to just kite and kite and kite as much as I possibly could. But yeah, it ended up being probably once a week, if I was lucky, if the timing was right. With the weekends, it was not ideal. But then towards the end of my stay, the last two, three years, I managed to secure a branch close to the ocean, which meant like I could do an hour lunch break. Kite session, I was one minute from my office, I could see the ocean. And sometimes in the morning, at 6 o'clock, until 7.30, before work, or once I even went for lunch break session, lift the kite, pumped up on the beach. And I came back four hours later. At five, had another half an hour, rushed to the day here, picked up my two kids. Yeah, yeah. So it was a pretty, pretty epic life. And the other thing as well, New Zealand, it's so isolated. But we do have a few good riders, namely Mark Jacobs and Hugo Wigglesworth. They were out there quite a bit. And yeah, it's just cool to ride with people, watch them, what they do, and just learn from them here. How did they react when you told them, you're going to go to Switzerland to the mountains and leave them there? I wasn't like too close with them personally. And I didn't actually tell a lot of people. We just sort of, an hour ahead of us just like, oh, it's just going to Switzerland for a year. It's a time away. And yeah, I think people are stoked, you know? Trying just good sometimes, yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely, yeah. Let's go into the start of your kite surf life. Why or how did you get up, get to the water? How did you start kite surfing? Because back then, it was dangerous. It was not easy. Yeah, how was that? Yeah. So I was 12 years old, year 2000. I had just saved enough money to buy a new bike. I went to the bike store and just kind of, you know, as a 12 year old, starting to like, look at the bikes on a bike. And then it was, the TV was on, it was Euro sport. And they had a kite surf competition. You're 2000. And I was just like, I just mesmerized, I looked at the screen and I was like, I need to do that. I want to do that. I need to do that. And then I went online, 2000, the old dialogue internet things. And I bought a kite online, really, in the US festival. There was possible men, a gun sale kite. A two line kite, a foil kite, that when you dump it in the water, it sank. And like, literally, it was like, you could not afford to sink that thing. And when you let loose, the kite would literally, the safety leash was attached to your wrist. The kite would just like, keep turning in the air. It literally dragged me through the field once, just in the air. Until it hit the tree. And that was just insane. That's terrifying. My god. Yeah, but nothing ever happened. No, no, no, no, good. I mean, a year later, the four line kites arrived. That was a game changing thing, although actually looking back, they didn't really depower a lot. But then you learn how to control a kite without depower, meaning like you just have to move it really low in the wind window and push against it in the gust. And so that stuff really still helps. Super technical, huh? Yeah, yeah. Super fun. Do you still have that kite, that first one? Not the first one, but I think the second one. But it did, actually, it was an ARX and it popped as I tried to blow it up. So it's, yeah, yeah. And the board's probably huge compared to, yeah. Man, it was a directional board. It was about two meters long as a New Zealand brand super session. And you had to learn how to jibe, which was a very frustrating part. When you just learn how to kite, and then you need to jibe. I mean, on the foil these days, you still have to do that, right? Driving, unless you right switch, but it's a similar sort of challenge that everyone had to go through at the very beginning. Yeah, yeah. Well, well, but you're still tight surfing. You're not that much on foil. But you've tried it. Oh, yeah, yeah. I have a foil. I have a race foil, an excess race foil and New Zealand. I did take it out actually quite a bit in low wind, like 10 knots sort of days. Oops, did I press some? No worries, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that was just good. Yeah, took it out. So my foiling story was like that. I saw people start foiling in the New Zealand stuff. I wasn't really intrigued, but then I saw one guy, Mark. He's my friend now. He did some cool stuff, like sitting down on the foil, 360s. And I was like, I want to do that. I'm quite competitive, you know? Before seeing the people just go back to some fords, it wasn't too interesting. But I saw this guy doing tricks. I was like, I need to do that. Like I have to, I'm competitive, you know? So I bought a foil and then learned how to do all this stuff, you know, like sitting down, which is a pretty cool feeling. Like just sitting down chilling on the wall. Sitting down is one thing. Getting back up is more difficult. I think yes. I can't do that actually. I mean, I've tried a thousand times, I think. But that, yeah, that's difficult. I usually cut the video before that point. Yeah. So it looks cool, you know, you know how to do it. We're going to come to that later on. Did you bring all your kite gear with you when coming here? Nah, I just brought two kites, my nine and 12 and an air board. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I've since had some kite strip to me. I've seen that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. People know about my kite, my fake, yeah, which I still haven't, I haven't even unpacked the kite. It's still sitting in my garage. No, don't you have some lakes there in Zurich, close to the Italian border, where there are quite a few kite followers? Yes, we do have lakes. Most of them, I would say, I call them lulisie. You know what that means in German? Yes. Yeah. Like not enough wind for my style, like 20 knots kind of kiting. Yeah, well, maybe you correct me because, you know, it always depends what you compare it to. Yeah. But I, as I have nothing else. Yeah. Like Nesheter. If there's a westfully wind, where you see that's a good deal. Yeah, and you get it on forecast. You know, next week, on Thursday, there's going to be wind the whole day. And that's what I think pretty cool. But of course, compared to the ocean, that's not the thing I like. That's another thing why I chose Grindelwald. Because once you're used to the good life, like we're talking, I just looked at the forecast now, actually, in New Zealand, just out of curiosity. Like, you have about four days this current week of 20 knots, in sunshine in New Zealand. And so when you're used to that four times a week, 20 knots, 22 knots, 23 knots, you know? And then you're like, OK, you might get a day every 10 days or two weeks or three weeks. I'm not going to move to that lake, just to score that one day in two or three weeks, you know? And that's all I thought, you know what? I'm not even going to focus on piding right now. I'm going to focus on the mountain life, not right now. Snowboarding and summer, it's hiking. I fly a lot of airplanes too. Yeah, and just basically, yeah, just completely stop ciding for a bit. I mean, I get it, except when you're on vacation, right? And you've done some incredible vacation, from what I've seen. And maybe you can come into that life, into that crazy, create your life. And first of all, the last one that I saw was on that cruise ship, look super luxury style. Yeah, that was nice. How did you find that? How is that finance? I mean, it looks super expensive. Yeah, yeah. So men, so Kite, let's look at Safari. Yeah, tell us what was it. I mean, it's a Kite Safari, Egypt. It's a boat that can host about, I think, 25 people. And I actually started Kite surfing with a guy called Marco in the year 2000 and 2001 in Silo Plon. And then we lost touch for 20 years. And through this Instagram, me going a little bit viral, sometimes a lot of people have reached out to me. Old friends reconnecting, it was super cool. He was one of these guys, Marco. And he owns big days Kite Safari's, which is the brand that runs these Kite Safari's down in Egypt. And I mean, I've known him since 2001. And he just said, hey, you should come to my boat, you know, come and have, you know, we do some cool content together and stuff. And that was my first sort of taste of what it could feel like to be a professional Kite surfer, you know, like you go somewhere, you film content, like it was an incredible boat. The crew was super supportive. I said to them, yeah, I want to jump off the boat, boom, four people helped me with the Kite, you know, camera, the guy was flying the drone, it was just nuts, man. Yeah. But I mean, actually, like, what I later on found out, I mean, it's kind of a luxury. It's a very serious experience, but it's not that expensive. I think if you could early enough with early bird discount, you can get it for like $1,200, $1,500 bucks, maybe $1,500 a week for one week. That's like your stay, plus the flight, which is another like $4 or $500, yeah. So it's not cheap, but I mean, hotel is not far off depending on my goodness, it is such a nice experience, man, because like, everyone in the boat, their kiteers, everyone has the same goal. You just talk about wind sport, kiting, you get up in the morning early, you know, everyone goes out kiting kite for two, three hours in the morning, go eat lunch, go again, kite until sunset, completely, you know, dead on the boat, drinking beer, having some good conversations. Next thing you repeat, you know, that's a fantastic experience. Yep. Yep. So we would do that again. You go there again. I'm the same. My God. Yeah. I've already been talking as like, please, let me, let me come back and I think I'm going to go in April. So yeah. Nice. Nice. Very cool. How long are you going to stay in Switzerland before coming back to New Zealand? Yeah. The plan, it's a good question. We don't know that. We don't know that. Yeah. We need to see it. The kind of plan is maybe end of the 2025 to go back to New Zealand. Yeah. And in between, we probably going to, my wife's just Brazilian. And so we've probably going to spend two, three months, hopefully in Brazil and Kite there a bit. And hopefully there can fuel up all the, all the time on the water that I've been missing. Yeah. Makes sense. She's a character too. She kites sometimes. Yeah. She can kite. Yeah. Yeah. But she likes surfing. Yeah. Yeah. So that's actually a challenge, man. If anyone in the world could recommend a spot that is really good for surfing, like beginner to intermediate and really good for kiting, that perfect balance, we haven't found it yet, because we are looking for a sort of a new spot to kind of place ourselves where both are happy as soon as you have it, it's going to be full. Yeah. All right. All right. And then you decide when did you decide to make videos? I scrolled down your timeline and I couldn't find the end really. What was that? I, I, I, I started my Instagram channel maybe two, three years ago, but I wasn't too serious about it. I just uploaded a few videos. Mainly my, the reason I started this channel was to help people learn the board off because for 20 years, I thought I thought this trick was too hard. And I thought only pros can do this trick. And then suddenly I committed to this journey, basically, trying to also off the water and within a month, I landed a trick and then I wanted to share that with the people. So if you go all the way to the very bottom, you'll see some board of tips and tricks. But it didn't really take off my Instagram. Only in June this year, I posted a video and it had like 20, 30,000 views. And that was quite a lot for me at the time. And then I was like, wow, this is, this is crazy, you know, and then I've posted more. And then I had a viral one, one million view. I did another one. Which one was that? Which one was the first one? I think my first real viral one was where I did the board off. What are you training for? Yeah. The board off the tea bag. Yeah. Yeah. I chose this video of this Swiss cider. I was doing this beautiful tea bag in Lake Siddloplana and I just made fun of it basically that I'm practicing for it. And that went pretty viral. And then I was like, wow, this is crazy, you know. And I did another one and another one and then I had a few viral videos, I, and I started having really a lot of fun doing it, but you didn't expect them to go that viral. But I mean, when I had my first, first real viral video, I was like, I'm going to do that again. And then it was another viral one. I was like, what's going on? Like some, I actually felt at the time that somehow Instagram picked me up to the algorithm and just, favored me and just showed me two more people and I was like, I need to write this way. Yeah. And I did. And I managed to grow quite a bit, yeah. So yeah. But I mean, the words you want, it's so relatable. Did you plan an advance or the first, you got the viral video and you say, all right, how can I do something similar maybe? Yeah. And then you just, how do you come up with that? So the way the thing is like that, because I've been doing this for 20 years, plus the sport, I know exactly every single pain point. I've gone through everything, you know, like the no wind, the go to the beach and you forget your bar or your pump and I mean, every possible scenario happened to me. And the way to one, that one, actually my partner, she always, every time we go surfing, she's like, Oh my God, this is so difficult. And I don't actually find it so hard, I've sort of medium, you know, but she just struggles a bit. And I said, you know what, I'll do a video about that, you know, and then I did that. And that that's probably my, my, my most popular video. Yeah, you get a lot of feedback from all over the world. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I mean, most people always say, Oh, exactly like Luke, so, so relatable. It's exactly how I feel and, and, and stuff. I mean, my audience is usually like America, Germany, and generally Europe. That's my audience. Yeah. And I get quite a bit of feedback. I mean, I tried to, when I do these videos, I have a philosophy. I want to do something relatable, that is shareable and repeatable. So if you know, if I have a good idea, then I can do it again, kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. And that's exactly the secrets also to produce a good idea, actually, something that resonates and something that people can share between each other, something fun because at the end of the day, especially on Instagram, people are just there to chill out and to have fun. Yeah. Yeah. You are doing absolutely absolutely good. Thank you. And do you want to take it to, to summer? Because I'm, I'm pretty sure that after your explanation, it started out of nowhere. But now they have like some, some goals, some goals, uh, such a good question, man. You know, like, as I said to you before, like, I kind of fell into this Instagram thing. And then suddenly I was like, man, I, I got to stay with it. You know, I posted one video a day during the summer season here and grew quite a bit. And it takes a lot of work, like I spent an hour to two hours every single day. Really? Yeah. To, to these video ideas. Some of them, I filmed videos. I've never posted them. Where I posted them and I realized they're not good. So I've deleted them again. So you need a goal for it to be worth it, right? Like you cannot just spend two hours a day for the rest of your life because I don't get any money from Instagram. I got, yes, a free trip or not a free trip, a really a good deal on a trip to Egypt now with this boat and a few other small things, but it does not really pay for the hours that I put in. Obviously. And I now start thinking quite a bit and said, you know, what can I do? I don't want to sell t-shirts like even now, you know, I want to mug. Yeah, mug or something. I mean, it's cool if it's a cool image, but I just wanted to do something that maybe I can even help people in a different way. And I came to the conclusion that back to where I started this Instagram is, as I started exercising at home and I learned this board off. And so I know quite a bit about board offs. And so I put together an app, actually, really, yeah, I put an app together that as an exercise app was exactly the right exercises that you can do from home, 15 minutes a day, no equipment needed. And basically, the philosophies that you train when there is no wind so that you can land your trick, dream trick when there is wind. And I'm about to launch a set next year. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm just a name or anything on it. I want to share. I do. But it's actually, yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no. So we have to follow your account, Kite Turf underscore Aaron, to find out when it launches. Yes. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Yeah. Product out there. Super exciting. Yeah. I hope that it really helps people to land their board off. So I'd love to see the general level of tiding be a bit higher, you know? Yeah. I went to Hawaii recently, like last last year, last year, yeah. And every time I go to spots, most of the spots, I'm always just surprised how people just go backwards and forwards and backwards and forwards. No one tries stuff, you know, it's like, I'd love to raise the bar a little bit, you know? Yeah. And you doing crazy stuff, like walking up buildings and chopping off of them. Yeah. That's actually not me. Oh, that's not you. I mean, you just try. Sorry. That's some flavor of everything. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I saw that video of this guy. I did link him in the description. All right. Always give credit to the people. All right. I saw that as like, man, that's cool. You know, I want to share that. Yeah. When I do videos, I think most people don't mind if I share their stuff because it's kind of like advertising for them, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So I've never had any complaints of people saying, hi, don't use my video, you know. How you said that you plan a lot, you work one to two hours a day for that. You have like folders where you have ideas you want to do of videos because the ones I saw that you did on that cruise, you have to bring a lot of stuff from home and film stuff, maybe afterwards or maybe even before you went there. Yeah. Yeah. That takes a lot of logistics. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I plan everything. I hate it. Yeah. I literally have on my phone. I can show you. I have my real ideas second on the list because I keep adding to it. And these are all my ideas that I still want to film. Oh, wow. Kevin's filmed it. I mean, if he's going to still do that, there's a lot of ideas. So it bullet points. That is cool. Yeah. People are going to understand your ideas. Yeah. Yeah. It's not going to be a super high resolution here, but if you listen to it, you can also watch it on YouTube. So maybe you can find this one of those good ideas. But now you have to have his list. And then you say, all right, I'm going to film that. If you have it, someone who helps you with filming or you, everything by yourself. I have two assistants. One is the tripod. Anyone is my wife. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now I feel most of it. Yeah. Alone here. Yeah. Basically. And you know, the crazy thing is, is when you don't have wind, like I live here in the mountains out two hours away from, like, one and a half hours away, like, and you want to create tight content. I was surprised myself. How much you can do at home. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, and a lot of the popular videos are the ones that I did at home, you know? Yeah. And that blew my mind. You know, you just have to stretch your imagination a bit. Exactly. When you're limited, you like, you cannot go to the beach and I sit there and think, I was like, that would be a good one, but I can't go kiting. So how could I, you know, present that in a funny way and relatable ways? Yes, and one of your points under your, your handle is making kite surfers laugh. So I used to kite surf. I don't anymore. And then I saw this, uh, this video where you said, well, there's someone who wings that's cool. And then you change to pair a wing and then, uh, it's kind of the other way around. What would it take for you to go wing following? Uh, you know, it's actually quite a, um, a funny thing. There's a background story to these types of videos that I post because I actually, I tried wing foiling, uh, twice, once or twice, I tried it. I couldn't get up. Um, I think my friend had too small of a board, um, like, I couldn't, it didn't float properly, but, uh, I'll be open to it. I think right now I just have two kids, you know, um, I mean, now I live up here in the, in the mountains. If you go back to the ocean, I think if I have a bit more time, um, one thing that really intrigues me was kind of wing foiling is riding out in a big swale day, just holding the wing and just gliding in, you know, it's kind of like powder snowboarding, you know, it feels similar. Yeah. Yeah. Really. Plus. And then if you can do it with the pedal, which I'm struggling, but we're trying to do that, that would be cool. That's really, really like, right. And it's, it's not a mountain. It stops. I mean, this, uh, these guys, they fall down like national, which is like 42 kilometers. So that's a long hill going down. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, that, that's cool, you know, and you know, the reason, the reason I post sometimes a bit of these edgy jokes against spoilers, there is a reason to this, um, because it's not that I don't like spoilers, uh, but it's because, um, when I first time, I, I copied a sort of a format that I've seen on a mountain mountain bike channel. Um, I think about three, yeah, three, three ways have to be a happier, uh, wing foiler by a kite, fly kite, sell your wing foiler. Thank you. Kind of sold that idea from a mountain biking channel or something. And um, I just thought it was a funny idea, you know, like not, that was my first video sort of about wing foiling. And that went off like crazy. Six hundred thousand views of people commenting and I was like, and then actually that video, some people, they commented saying like, go Aaron, exactly these wing foilers. And I was like, whoa, was like, I don't actually see it this way, you know, I was like, I just thought it was a funny idea, but I actually figured out is there's some kite is that really you know, kind of, it kind of gets the comments going, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but if you want to teach you one day, I'll be keen. Hey, you're a bit taller than I am. So you probably need a big, bigger board, but I still have stuff. But we said that we're gonna one day go to like tune into a little pump file session. Yes. That is. Have you ever tried that? I tried it once. Yeah. And the guy who did the Olympic foiling, you know, the rice foiler for New Zealand, and it was cool. It was very difficult. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I managed to pump a few times, you know, but man, it's a very good, it's a late burner that one. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. That guy is actually the pro of us three. What's your next time? Uh, I think I did like five minutes or really no more to pro. Yeah, now I'm focusing on his motor and his motor foils. I'm more on that side than a marathoner. Let's, let's call it. Man, October four, it was like one thing that I really love to get into is that surf foiling, you know, pedaling. Yeah. Run foiling. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That, that looks cool, man. 100%. That looks terrible too. Yeah. Probably not here though. Probably back in New Zealand down. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That is. That is. Speaking about New Zealand besides the wind, how were the conditions there like wave wise because like you, you are a kite surfer kite border. What, what do you prefer? Yeah. For me, I definitely twin tip, um, I like my favorite tricks to do are the, the Jesus walk, you know, um, just that feeling taking the board off and sliding over a water, uh, board offs and stuff. Wind tip is, is my, my go to, um, but New Zealand has a, has a, like where I lived in Auckland. Um, I had two flat water sports, two flat water spots within three minutes of drives. Yeah. Like one, one east spot and one a southwest spot, like both wind directions was in three minutes from my house. I literally lived in the middle. Um, so I did quite a bit of flat water riding, um, the spot in Auckland itself, you don't get a lot of waves. Um, in the city, maybe like a meter, you know, on the big swells, a meter and a half. Um, but then there's this other spot where Mark Jacobs, he posts a lot of videos. It's, uh, on the west coast, it's Meriwai and you get some pretty insane big waves. You can't really surf them like they're too big, you know, they're like four meters sometimes. And, um, but as a result, again, you get flat water sections on high, uh, mid tide. You get really nice flat water sections. So again, actually a lot of flat water. Yeah. So if you're willing to travel in New Zealand, man, you get some insane good, um, kite surf waves spots. Yeah. Mount Theranek, he has them up and up north as well, Ahipara, um, just some endless lift tender waves. Yeah. Some really nice waves that you can also kite on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That is very, very cool. Like, I kind of like that it's not like Brazil or Egypt where it's just like 20 knots every day. Um, it's like you get four days of wind. Um, sometimes it's like, yeah, mostly it's 20 knots. Sometimes it's like 35, 40, you know, in a big storm, uh, but then it's again quite for like five days, seven days, you can use an old guy. You can relax and recover, you know, give yourself a bit of a break. Um, so I really enjoy New Zealand. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Temperature-wise. So low with the wet suit. Uh, yeah. Yeah. Winter is 15 degrees. Yeah. Um, so you go with a four, three, uh, summer, it's like, uh, the year temperature 15. Summer's like 28. So you go in a shorty. The water always kind of stays a bit cold. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's not too cold, but yeah. You can't really go to board shorts. Board shorts. Yeah. Like other places in the world. Yeah. All right. All right. We're to live and, uh, did you move there like, uh, for, uh, any specific reason in the first place? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because I learned, I mean, first of all, my dad's from New Zealand, his Kiwi, although he lives in New Zealand, uh, he lives in Switzerland. We grew up in Switzerland, um, so I always had the passport, um, I never actually planned to go to New Zealand to stay there. Um, but I just knew, I started kiting when I was 12. I really just, I was so frustrated being in Switzerland as a young kid, just wanted to kite. You know, it was my dream to just be a kite pro, basically, you know, but like he couldn't only kite in winter, he can't kite, you know, in Zurich, and then in summer, he cannot kite in Zurich. I mean, you need to drive two and a half hours to like school, and I didn't drive. So it was quite a frustrating time for me growing up, just like it had this fire inside of me is like, I want to kite on a kite on a kite, but I couldn't kite. And I always knew I just, I needed to leave Switzerland then. I just, yeah, it wasn't the place for me long term. Um, and that's why I left. Yeah. When I was, um, I did my apprenticeship, I did my work experience in the bank. You know, what my parents told me I need to do, and I'd like to see you later. I'm out of here and, uh, and I traveled the world. I actually went to Hawaii because I really wanted to become a kite pro. Um, this, we're talking 2010 and, uh, I spent a lot of time in Hawaii. I even went, uh, filmed some videos, had a meeting at a headquarters at Nash to get sponsored. And, um, they liked me a lot. They said, look, we can, uh, give you some skier and stuff, you know, and, uh, you can film with, I think Sam Light was coming or something, but I ran out of money and I couldn't stay anymore. And I was like, uh, I had to move on. So I thought, you know what, not ready to go back to Switzerland. So I went to New Zealand and got a job there, um, in the bank as well. And, uh, just tried to keep kiting there, but yeah, working full time, it's just, it was a game like a little bit, couldn't kite as much as I wanted at the early stages. Yeah. But looking back, was it like an opportunity miss or, I mean, you're still doing pretty well. You kite a lot. Well, not now, but you usually kite a lot. You have a family. Are you happy with how you turned out? I am. I'm happy. Of course I'm happy. Yeah. You know, but kind of this Instagram, like being a pro kite boarder, I don't know if a lot of people have their dream, but that was certainly my dream. It felt like that at some stage, I realized like, that's not going to happen anymore, you know, and that dream that died. And now I feel I have almost got the second chance was Instagram to be able to kind of be someone in the industry. And I've been enjoying that, you know, um, and it's completely different way than I ever thought, you know, and I'm using my strengths, uh, which is a humor, you know, and, and my kite skills and, and it's a, it's a really cool journey among at the moment. So I am happy. Yeah. That's perfect. How did your family react when he started producing this funny videos? Did they like them? Did they even watch them? Man, my family wasn't surprised because they know me, you know, they know I'm always a joke. So I'm always a guy who pulls jokes and pranks and apron. I was just worried really about my work colleagues in the bank, my big team, you know, like, I was a bank manager man. I was super serious during the day, you know, like hair comb to like doing these silly videos, you know, that, that, that took a bit of a mental hurdle that I had to cross. Still now, you know, still now, sometimes when I post, I was like, Oh, I don't know. Like it's everyone will see that, you know, possibly, but, but yeah. That's, that's more probably what I mean with, with the numbers you get now. I mean, they can't, they can't say anything. That's, that's the thing. That is a thing. You know, I'm kind of glad and going back to that way to video, which has now, coming over to million views, my best one, when, when I posted that, it was as not going anywhere with like a few thousand views, which was unusual for me and, and I was about to pull it off. People don't like it. It's silly. It's not good. You know, and I, I really, it was for Friday night, I was like, I'm going to pull this video. I'm not going to leave this on. This is a silly video. I look stupid. You know, all these things in my head. And I just left it. And now it's the, the most popular video. And it's so funny what you say is like, well, when you, once you have the views, you're like, that's a great video, you know. And so kind of backs you up that it is a good video. So yeah, it's good. So you even had second thoughts, that's, that's, that's incredible. Yeah. Absolutely. So maybe as you pull other videos out, there would have been some nuggets there as well. I don't know. Maybe. I try not to pull the videos anymore. Yeah. I'm in pressure. Yeah. But it's, I think a lot of people face that when they post stuff online, you know, it's like you, especially if you do like funny media and stuff like that. It's a challenge man. Still now. Yeah. It's still like, do you want to post this or not? Is it crossing the line or not? Yeah. At the end of the day, you're doing like comedy online. So it's pretty much more or less the same feeling that you might have when you're doing like a standard comedy, you know, it is like you make a joke and nobody's loving. So you say like, you feel like weird. And then like, it starts to laugh and it's okay. Yeah. Exactly. You know, so I can give you guys an insight when I, when I upload a video, I always look at the first few minutes, I look at the view to like ratio. And if I get 5% of people liking my video that viewed it, then I know it's going to be a bomb. It's going to be a good one. Sometimes they even get 10% liking in the first few minutes. If I only get 2%, it's going to be an average video. Yeah. If I get 1% like, I pulled a video. So really? Yeah. This is not going to be a good one. Sometimes, you know, after a thousand views, I get 1% likes, I was like, no, that one needs to go. How long did your most popular one take until it skyrocketed? Man, it's been so different. Like the way it took like maybe a month or so until it just suddenly went crazy. That's a long time. It's a long time. And you know, and then other videos, they went pretty fast. You know, within a week, usually within a week, you have about 100,000 views. And then it just keeps on going. Yeah. Yeah. Was it clicks? It clicks. Yeah. Yeah. I have a question about the videos where, or the video when you jumped off the boat and all these videos you did in this, in this part, the one where you took the wrong suitcase. Ah, yes. How much, how much did I take you to do that, actually? I mean, it must have been, yet, you must have had second thoughts before putting on that. Funny enough, I, I posted it with a lot of confidence because I was like, that's funny. It is funny. But, but going into the store by the, the dress and the pink top. Yeah. And I actually had to go into the changing rooms to see if it fits. That was the most stressful part about it. And there were people looking, you know, and, and that's just, that was, that was, yeah, that was the weirdest part about that video. Yeah. But I mean, I got, I saw a lot of people jump off a boat, you know, and I saw, I can't do that. I wanted to jump. It was a scary thing, man. It was like 13. It doesn't look so high in the video, but it was like 13 meters, I think, plus a lot of sharp things that you could eventually. Yeah. Yeah. And, and so I was like, I wanted to do that stunt, but I don't want to just jump off a boat. I've seen that a million times. You know, everyone does that. Not even, but a lot of people. I was like, I'm going to jump off in a skirt. Yeah. That is nice. They say nice. Yeah. And then was that you who kiteboarded on a Lego board? How was that constructed with the leekers in the living room there? So do you place it on a board or do you, yeah, then those things together? So I bought these four by 30 centimeters by 30 centimeters Lego plates, spent a hundred bucks in them. More than a board. Yeah. Let's leave it. And that took like two nights with my son, we had to take all his Lego creations apart for him. Everything we had to break. It's a family. And that didn't even still didn't quite have enough, you know, like Lego bricks used even the smallest ones. You know, the ones was two on there, even one I used, you know, just to kind of do it. And then by that, because I saw this, I saw this, this, this wakeboarder do it. Yeah. I saw that too. Yeah. And it's like, I'm going to do that, you know. And then after two days, spending a hundred dollars, I lifted the board up and it was like a banana. It's like, it's like this, it's like, how did this guy do this? Because like, this is not going to work, you know? It's not stable enough. It's going to break into a million pieces. And then you have to pick it up. My God. Yeah. And I mean, no one wants more plastic in the ocean. And then I was like, okay, if I put another layer on top, like flat, I tried that didn't work. Still was just not large enough. And then I was like, well, I could possibly glue every single piece, you know, which would take me another week or so. And it would completely like my little boy wouldn't have any legos left, cause it might still not work. Yeah, exactly. And so it's like, I just cannot afford to do that. And then what I did at the end, I put a very tiny little wood board at the bottom of the legal board. And I did glue the little wood board with the legal board. And that was just enough to keep it in place. Yeah. So I did glue it. Yeah. Kind of a little bit fake, but in a way it's, I didn't want the plastic to go in the ocean now. I want to play safe. So it's like, it's a good, it's a good sort of compromise. And then I analyzed the skies video that this way purported idea man, I spent like minutes to do. Right. You're right. Yeah. I didn't actually, I should have. Yeah. But, um, it's like trying to analyze has he got a little board at the bottom. And when you rewatch that video, you will never see the bottom of the border. So it must be like that. I think it is the same way. So sorry to disappoint you wasn't completely legal. What I think is really funny is that the, well, that's probably why you did it because of the stepping on Lego because it hurts that much. Yeah. Yeah. And you are. Yeah. Cool. But so you brought the board finished to Egypt. Yeah. You didn't bring a bag of Legos. No, no. I was finished. I just had to assemble the, the, the strap size and, and that was it. Yeah. And I bought a surfboard as well. Sorry. I bought a snowboard to the desert skateboard, skateboard, which was really surprising that I got them off on that one. Were you overpowered? Way overpowered. Makes sense. Way over. Wow. Like I was 25, 30 knots on my 12, you know, and I was just hanging on to it basically. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then you brought the skirt. Do you bring more things? You didn't roll out? Yeah. I had a boogie board video. I tried on a boogie board. Funny enough, I didn't work because I didn't actually post that one because the boogie board broke. It was like a styrofoam. Oh. That was the yeah. And I do have some other videos still from the strip that haven't posted just yet, but just a handful of all I was looking forward to more of these funny videos. And then you went to Florida and do it as well, right? Yes. Very frustrating. Because no wind. Yeah. We were there in the fall of last year. Yeah. We were there for two weeks. Yeah. And actually me on the windfall, I was able to to win for maybe altogether one hour, my dad and windsurfer, he windsurf for maybe 20 seconds. He actually planned in an entire two weeks in the entire two weeks. Uh huh. Let's see. This is this is bad for me. Terrible. Yeah. Yeah. I was at a very low point in first and two at the end of my stay because like when you don't get too kind a lot and you put the strip and you're so excited, you know, and then you're a week of just, I mean, I had once really just a session I could barely stay up wind, you know, um, and there's like, it has painful men. It's very bad. But you were there on your 20th or did you bring your foil as well? Does that matter? Yeah. Yeah. That, that could have worked actually. Yeah. But I didn't add some music on my foil. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the thing is like, you know, if you have a family, um, you can't really, you can't really, yeah, kind of need to balance your needs, their times, you know, there's a schedule of sightseeing and stuff like you kind of need to, um, yeah, go with the flow and so you go, you go visit a place and then the wind starts and you're like, yeah, I mean, I mean, thankfully my wife is pretty supportive. Like if there is a day, like if there's an opportunity, as she will just usually, uh, let me go because I think she has learned that if I don't go, it's an incredible, I guess she gets an incredibly frustrated ear and husband for days. Um, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But a lot of that stuff, you know, like, I think a lot of people can relate to this whole balance of like, you have to work with a swing D or you have other responsibilities with kids. And so I tried to bring that into my videos. Um, yeah. Yeah. And it needs to be, I mean, thank you to my wife if, no, she's not listening. She didn't have to listen, it's boring for her, but I'm super grateful that if there's a win, she lets me go. Yeah. And, uh, we had Lucas on for lonely. I don't know if you've seen him or videos of him, um, but he's well, he, he, on the podcast, he thanked his wife for letting me, letting him go out on the water. So that's a recurrent thing. Super important. You know, one, one thing I've discovered in the museum is, is that you can have a ghost session, you know what a ghost session is. So it's in summer, if you go out in the early mornings, like five, 30, and you're back in the house around seven, and then you go straight from the car to the shower. I mean, if people wake up, it's just like nothing ever happened. You know, and then you just like, just remind the, the wife that tonight, it's your turn to put the kids down. I'll go kiting. Right. And so you get a situation. Nice. All right. I'm not sure if that was your video or another video I saw, because when I, when I go wing foiling or now as I'm trying to, uh, the downwinds, the soft sessions, I'm always late. I was like, I'm going to go there for, no, I think it was your video. We said, just five more minutes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's what happens at the moment. Cause usually it would take me maybe 20 minutes to foil down the way that I go up with a train, 20 minutes down. But as I'm not on foil, it takes one and a half hours. So, uh, yeah. Yeah. That's how it is. Where did you go? Usually, uh, we go from Samba is Lake Marshall town. We take the train and then we go up and it's super last time we were seven downwind foilers with the paddle with the whole year set up on the train in a way. So it was, it was, it was so cool and you go the entire like, no, no, no, no, I don't, uh, yet. Hopefully. No, just from Samba's to Noshadil, which is like six and kilometers, maybe, maybe five. I don't know. I'm not sure. It's gonna be the day. Yes. Westerly wins. And, and you get decent bumps actually. Last time I was, I was out there, there was the, the lake police. I don't know what, uh, who came and asked if I was okay, because someone from a hotel saw me out there, as I'm always falling in. Yeah. I can't remember. Yeah. And you've been hot. It was, that was, but yeah, it was out of December, it was thick wetsuit and, and to put water in. Cause it was that hot. Oh. Terrible. Crazy. And it's, it is really cool the possibilities that the foil opened up, man. Really? Yeah. It's amazing. I, like, especially for people who live in not windy countries, like years with slum. Yeah. It opens up so many new, uh, water sports and possibilities. I, that is really cool. And as there is no wind off from the pump phone thing, amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Super cool. Well, I, I'm pretty much through. I mean, you told us so much about your awesome videos, uh, that's the, the, the, the, the, you have to, you have to clean up now. Yeah. Well, that's going to be a 20 minutes. I don't, I don't even know what it's called in English. If you put the fur on this keys, the walker, I have no idea. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. Well, yeah. Whatever. I'm going to do that. Thank you, Aaron, very much. Yeah. Do you have anything, uh, you want to tell the audience anything that's, that's about to come out, except for your app, obviously. Um, yeah, I mean, I'm working at a, in the background behind the scenes. Um, I have one thing I could show you. Check. Yeah. Um, how do you not appreciate my wife? She's pretty good at drawing. So I, we have created this memory game. So she, uh, did all the images herself to have a look at this, uh, with all the kind of, uh, kind of, uh, kite things, you know, like we have the dark slide. Um, yeah, all the kite tricks, toe side, all the stuff because we love to play memory games and it's a good thing to do when it's not wind, you know, with the kids. So we're going to design this and we're trying to manufacture it now and see what happens next to you. That is so cool. Yeah. That's so cool. But, uh, and it's not a t-shirt. No, it's not a t-shirt. That's the main thing. That is so cool. And then people are going to be able to order that from, from Instagram and yeah, I'll have a link on Instagram. Um, exactly. That is so nice. Yeah. Yeah. So they're actually, that's a sample of Chinese, uh, guy produce for us cost 250 US dollars to just, just one. All right. But the thing is like, of course, when you order like a large quantity, like 500 or so, they need the price drops quite a bit. So that is really good for it for you. So, uh, yeah. So you're going to really be professional creator and, uh, you know, that's my dream. It's my dream to, to, uh, had a dream of being a pro-kind boarder. Now I see this as a second chance, um, I'm going to go with it and see what happens here. That is amazing man. That is super cool. Thank you so much for having us, uh, learn about your projects is really interesting. Thank you for having me. Uh, it's been awesome being on the show. Cool. Thank you. Cool. Bye.