DailyWake

If you’ve been around the sport long enough, you’ve probably heard it somewhere. Usually it’s a senior that just can’t keep up with the lingo of your life. For me, it’s my grandma. No matter how many attempts she gives, she can’t seem to remember the name “wakeboarding,” and on more than one occasion has called it “waterboarding.” Anyways, I was shocked this morning while browsing the web, when I stumbled upon the act of “waterboarding,” and saw what it actually is.

Waterboarding has absolutely nothing to do with wakeboarding. As similar as they both sound, I was surprised to see that waterboarding is actually an act of torture. The ever-wise Wikipedia sums up waterboarding as this…

Waterboarding is a form of controlled drowning used to extract information. Numerous experts have described this technique as torture. Waterboarding consists of immobilizing an individual on his or her back, with the head inclined downward, and pouring water over the face to force the inhalation of water and induce the sensation of drowning. Waterboarding has been used to obtain information, coerce confessions, punish, and intimidate. In contrast to merely submerging the head, waterboarding elicits the gag reflex, and can make the subject believe death is imminent while leaving no physical damage.

So, there you go. Now when you hear someone erroneously call the sport “waterboarding,” you can not only correct them, but also give them a little nugget of knowledge about torture techniques. How fun.

[Editor's note: Most of you that follow current events probably have or will be hearing a lot more about waterboarding, since it is a heated topic right now concerning the US government and it's interrogation methods]