5 live Sports Extra gets into extreme sports

"White Air Festival in Brighton," they said, "Europe's largest Extreme Sports event." "Oh fine," I replied, without really thinking about it...

But now I do come to think about it - what exactly is an extreme sport anyway?

There are, apparently, 30 vying for our attention as 5 live makes its extreme sports debut on Saturday. These include kitesurfing, street boarding and capoiera (your guess is as good as mine).

According to the official website, the White Air sports and music festival in Brighton is "back for another year of hardcore action" from September 18th to 20th. They invite us to come and watch high divers throw themselves off a 90-foot platform, enjoy all manner of fast and noisy activity on the sea, and look upwards for Red Arrows and Chinook helicopter displays.

Originally, an extreme sport was one deemed too dangerous for the mainstream, but lately others have come under the umbrella - even some you'll find at London 2012 (BMX racing, windsurfing).

So I'm heading down with two experts - Luke Wilkins and Christian Stevenson - and reporter Charlie Watson, and we'll try to bring you some of the flavour and colour of the event - as well as trying a few of these sports for ourselves.

On Friday afternoon, for instance, I'm off Thundercat Racing, which is a kind of claustrophobic powerboating (you should have seen the health and safety forms...). I'm only a little bit nervous.

And I just looked up capoiera, by the way... It's "the dynamic art form that incorporates dancing, martial arts and acrobatics". Come along and have a go...

Vassos Alexander is a sports reporter on BBC Radio 5 live

• 5 live Sports Extra will be covering the White Air festival on Sunday between 1100 and 1445.
• The picture, by Seamoor, shows capoiera and is used under licence.