My wife and I have been learning how to wakeboard this summer and were finally getting the hang of it and started to try a few basic tricks. We both took a couple of nasty spills and decided to put the wakeboards down for a little bit and buy a wake skate and see what it was like. Wow we are both in love with it. First of all I bought a decent skate for $100 and both of us can ride the same board, with the wake board we both had to have different sized boards so it was much more expensive to get into. Our first time out on the wake skate we both got up on it on our second try and with in a few minutes we were comfortable riding and even trying a few surface tricks. I have not mastered switching feet yet but I can say the the falls hurt much less than wakeboarding. I am sure that if you are good enough to jump from wake to wake on a wakeboard it is more fun but for just a couple of regular people out having fun on the water the wake skate was an awesome addition for us.