Friday 3rd April
Location: Hamburg
Words: Kate Chandler
Did you catch On Stand By with Jo this week?
We have a new biweekly live program here at the GKA. On StandBy with Jo will be live on Instagram each Wednesday and Sunday at 9pm CET. Our first guest was Camille Dellanoy, who gave us insights on how he’s coping with being locked down, his favourite harness, and just exactly who has been cutting his hair…
We will be live again this Sunday with Juila Castro, at 9pm CET on instagram stories. Our host for On Stand By is Jo Ciastula. Jo will be no stranger to GKA fans, as he’s the voice and face of the GKA along with Gemma Hamaini on our livestreams. Here we’ll give you the chance to get to know them a little better before the next episode.
You might not have guessed it but Jo is British, Cornish born he grew up playing with boogyboards or snoozing under board racks as a kid while his parents ran their board factory. His parents made the move to Tarifa as part of the infamous No Work Team and Jo joined the local Spanish school and from that point was fully integrated into the Spanish lifestyle.
Jo got the kite bug early after seeing the Red Bull sky Riders back in 2002 a friend taught him to kite and he started hanging around a local kite school Sons of Desert, helping out in return for using equipment as most kite groms do. It took him a while to get up and going but once he did there was no stopping him. He worked as an instructor and got sponsored by Wipika, competitions were never “his thing” although he’ll tell you he’d have won if wipeouts counted!