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When we wakesurf, the wakeboarders stop and watch. When they come over to us, it's to ask how it works, not to complain about the water quality.
Having done both for years, I think wakesurfing takes considerably more talent to do right than wakeboarding does. With wakeboarding all you need is the guts and the flashy, bone-crushing tricks just happen automatically due to the forces at play. "Look this way", "pull on the rope like that", and bingo, you're flipping and spinning and hoping you don't break something. Technique is simly a matter of doing what someone told you to do. Not so with wakesurfing. It's more like real surfing in small waves (the most challenging conditions in my opinion). You need balance, judgement, talent, and a little bit of magic to make things happen. It's not something you can learn very well by reading "trick tips" online, or by having your friend tell you to "stand tall", "load the line", "keep the rope in" and "look over your left shoulder"...
Whenever we take newbies, they want to try both, but it's only wakeboarding that they're able to do. That's a no brainer. I have yet to teach anybody, not even some of the ex-competitive real surfers that I grew up with, how to wakesurf by the end of one day, but newbies are usually up on the wakeboard by the 2nd or 3rd attempt. In fact, I had one guy doing 180s on the wakeboard on his first day out...
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