The Strapped Crew also tested the original kiteboarding equipment, launching a 60-foot aerial vehicle before the crowd realized the game was in place; they more or less discovered the artwork, cutting off the hydrofoil from a mysterious contraption called the Air Chair; and was responsible for re-establishing the ancient Hawaiian practice of paddleboarding.
Unusual as the Strapped Crew was – there was no group of like-minded boys anywhere in the world – for Lenny he was a superhero of ordinary life, “like the Avengers or the Justice League,” as he puts it.
Lenny’s parents helped him imitate the Strapped Crew team as the Jet Ski family went on a swim, hired a family study contestant, and bought one of the oldest wooden boards.
Martin and Paula worried that Lenny was missing out on her childhood. “He’s talking about fins, board development, marketing,” Martin explained, referring to Lenny’s early life. We thought, ‘God, he has to deal with children his age.’ We would push her to go to bed one weekend and she would say, ‘Daddy, I don’t want to go. All the kids do is play Nintendo. I wish I could swim with you guys. ‘”
This must have deeply disturbed Lenny’s culture, as well as its declining popularity, in the early 21st century, the game of Strapped Crew. As the floods hit, in particular, the loss of culture, many young water kids in Maui dropped out of the game.
“All the children in her class were flooded,” says Martin, “and all of them started filtering.”
Lenny, who had never changed his approach — except for the fact that his actions were about constant change, weapons and competition — began to lose the competition for the young professionals. Soon, she stopped participating in small swimming competitions.
With a small wave filter, unfortunately, I just mean a constant competitive filter – like, no big waves waves. There is no hard line separating the two subjects, but frequent surfing, such as by Kelly Slater and every other swimmer, occurs about 20 feet below the surface. The fact is that this type of martial arts was, by the 1990s, becoming a major event in wind and wave sports. So Lenny left it was not in vain.
“I would see him foggy all the time,” says Martin. “And I went and said, ‘Kai, you know, do you want to play one game, maybe just swim?’ And he looked at me, and said, ‘Why would I do that? Dad, the game I play is so much fun. I do not want to leave them. ‘”The tears welled up, Martin recalled, as Lenny added SUP to his song. “Oh, God,” he said, “that was a great setback.”
For a while, Lenny dispelled the frustration through home schools, traveling around the world to compete in air sports and all other sports, as well as playing big waves at the Jaws – like Hamilton, his childhood icon. However, Lenny was close to 2010, when some men and women in Jaws decided to sail the old boats in a wave larger than the common sense thought was possible. Capturing the 60-footers with nothing but their muscle strength, the new Maui team re-launched the popularity of the big waves.