Once relegated to the mists of time, our noble
brothers are back!
I just posted a fine story about Marcus
Mariota, Oregon Heisman winning quarterback, NFL star in waiting,
not signing his rookie contract because he wants to surf (read here). But I was wrong. New information
has come to light from Portland news beacon The
Oregonian.
“…Mariota is a native of Hawaii, where surfing is a national
sport. Mariota knows how to surf, but he has said he’s more of a
body boarder. The report also explains why surfing would be good
for Mariota in terms of muscle relaxation and rehabilitation. In
addition, surfing can help Mariota unwind by allowing him to get
away from the pressures of being the face of the Titans
franchise.”
And there you have it. Body boarder. I have been made aware,
very recently, of a sea-change happening in the boogie community
mostly from following the Instagram account DickDraggers.
(you should follow too) At first I thought the posts were just
funny riffing…and maybe they are…but more often than not a total
hipster shows up shooting the sandy curl. It is amazing. And with
the Marcus Mariota news, I think true. Bodyboarding is officially
back. If you start today, you can scoff at all the bandwagon
jumpers that follow. I think it is a can’t miss opportunity. Now
get that body on a boogie!
Bodyboarder critical after hit at Lighthouse Beach,
Ballina. Attack at Lennox. Gromfest suspended…
Yeah, so, another surfer has been hit around Byron
Bay, that zeitgeist-y place you to go to escape the
madness of city life. All those rainbows, all that leashless
longboarding, miles and miles away from Sydney’s rotten urbanity,
but now rivalling Margaret River as the sharkiest joint in
Australia.
Here’s the latest attack:
A 32-year-old bodyboarder, Matt Lee, was surfing with his pals
at Lighthouse Beach, Ballina, around 10 when he was hit on the legs
by a four-metre (close enough to 15-foot) Great White.
Pals helped him to the beach, paramedics stiffed the blood (it
took ’em an hour to stabilise him), and he’s been airlifted to Gold
Coast Hospital. He survived emergency surgery but remains in a
serious condition.
(Who remembers a fatal attack at Lighthouse? Yeah, 2008,
16-year-old bodyboarder Peter Edmonds hit… twice.)
Back in February, Japanese surfer Tadashi Nakahara died when he
was hit by a suspected Great White at the next beach. Out of
nowhere, Tad was paddling back out when the (maybe) White hit him
from below. Took off both legs. That attack happened a day after
another surfer was attacked a couple of clicks up the coast at
Seven Mile Beach, Lennox.
Last September, a swimmer died in waist-deep water when he was
hit by a suspected Great White just near the Pass in Byron.
Today, one day after the attack at Lighthouse, a surfer was
knocked off his board by a shark at Lennox Head. Uninjured, but
fuck.
All beaches are now shut between Tallows and Ballina which ain’t
great news for the two million or so kids at Skull Candy’s
Gromfest at Lennox which has been suspended.
The Department of Primary Industries has authorised a
permit for the great white, which is still hanging around (see
video) to be destroyed.
Last year, the Hawaiian Mason Ho won the Backdoor Shootout
and placed second at the Volcom Pipe Pro, beating Kelly Slater in
the process. The year before he owned Sunset and finished
third at the Volcom Pipe Pro.
Dino Andino, father of Kolohe, has known Mason since “forever”
and says that Mason has an “uncanny ability to rider the tube, to
control the speed of the wave” and that, alongside John John and
Jamie O, “he’s the guy out there. When it’s heavy he’s just getting
started.”
Why should you even throw yourself out at the world’s best,
but most dangerous, wave? What have you got to gain, anyway?
“Well, first,” says Mason, “every little surf town has that
one spot where all the heavies go, where all the icons and all the
tourists go, and on the North Shore it’s… Pipe.
Have I sold his qualities? Now let’s hear his three tips on
how to cut yourself a slice of the greatest wave on earth,
Pipeline.
1. Don’t shoulder hop at Backdoor
“Okay, this is counter-intuitive,” says Mason.”You spend the
whole beginner years of your life believing the shoulder is safer.
But Backdoor is dangerous on the shoulder. You’re going to take off
with the lip on the shoulder. So! Kick back, wait for the best
wave, and takeoff behind the peak. A bonus is you’ll actually get
deep.”
2. How to make the barrel at Pipe
“It’s a series of connect-the-dots,” says Mason, who
admittedly, does it better than anybody. “Everybody sees different
lines but there’s always a certain line, an instinctual line.
There’s bubbles, there’s a double-up, all this stuff coming down
the wave. You need to draw a line across it all and
just… shoot. You beat off the chop, you beat down the
double-up, you ride-out the foam-ball.” Confidence? Yeah, you
need it.
3. Ride a bigger board than you think
Mason has got his act down to a point where he can ride a
larger-than-average board, in his case a six-three, and catch
anything. And not just the outer reef roll-ins, but even the
radical inside ledges. “I like to move around when I paddle,” says
Mason, who enjoys the momentum a larger board gives. “The bigger
boards make it easier to roll in, sure, but it’s nice to have a big
board to swing around under the ledge. I don’t die big boards all
the time but they do help me get to where I want to go.”
Want to get to know Mason? Watch this!
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You want zing? Look at what the
almost-sixty-year-old Derek Hynd learnt to do just by removing his
rudders! Photo by Steve Sherman Who doesn't want to get better,
like, now…
You know it, oh god, yes you do. When you flick
off a wave and you think… man… I just did the same turns and
covered the same tracks as I did a year ago.
You can call it a rut or you can call it getting
comfortable.
Whatever, it’s the fast track to boredom. It’s the first step in
the decline of your surfing.
So how do we get back that feeling we used to have when every
single wave presented a new and interesting canvas, when you’d go
to bed at night dreaming of sections, dreaming of turns you’d never
made but you knew you were close to nailing?
Here are five tips to turn your lazy ass around.
1. Get desperate
Remember Bells in 2014 when Jordy Smith needed a 9.97
to beat Julian Wilson in round five? The scores are 17 to 12.
It’s a massacre. He’s gotta surf the wave of his life to win the
heat. No chance.
Forty seconds on the clock and he strokes into a
three-footer. No chance in hell is it a wave that offers a perfect
score. But Jordy being Jordy, pumps down the line, finds a section
and lays down a cutback that he sprinkles with the sugar of a rail
held longer than usual.
Immediately he swings back up into the lip and throws the dial
180 degrees, foam climb, pump, four cutbacks into the shore break
and a slightly-boned air reverse that he rides out of almost up
into the Winkipop rocks. Three judges score it a 10, two don’t.
Final result: 9.93.
He doesn’t win but it’s the perfect example of desperation’s
enlivening effect. How do you artificially create desperation?
Limit your surfs to one hour, max. 10 waves. Even if it’s pumping.
Those 10 waves are all you’ve got. Make ’em count. Add a bonus
extra wave if you try a move you’d never attempted before; two
extras if you ride out of your new turn.
2. Surf around pro’s
After a while most of us are good enough to call ourselves one
of the better surfers at our beach. We occupy the main pack, we get
the sets, we feel confident. But what happens when a pro paddles
out? He takes off later and deeper. He surfs faster and more
critical than you thought was ever possible. And it pushes you to
try harder. Whenever you can, maybe it’s around a contest, maybe
there’s a pro who lives at another beach, surf around their times.
You want to grow? Follow the best. Kolohe Andino still remembers
Clay Marzo going ham at the 2005 NSAA’s. “I just remember thinking
to myself, I really want to do that,” says Kolohe.
3. Find a new shaper
So you’ve ridden the same boards for the last five years. That’s
great! Now find someone else. Unfamiliarity is a great stimulant.
Ask anyone who’s fooled around a little on the side.
4. Focus on one move and nothing else
One day you’ll swing into your beach and you’ll find conditions
perfect for, say, alley-oops. Problem is, you’ve never done
’em. Steep little sections, a puffy breeze sticking your board to
your feet. No cutbacks no reverses. Alley oops. Alley oops.
Everything you do has to revolve around setting up the Turn You’ve
Never Nailed.
5. Look stupid
During the filming of Bending Colours on Reunion
Island, Jordy got one hellvua shock. All that ultra-HD footage
showed just how contorted a surfer has to get to make turns.
Dignity? Forget about it. “I looked like a monkey,” Jordy said
after. It’s a lesson to savour. The best surfers in the world?
They’ll do whatever it takes to get rad. Leave your
self-consciousness in the car park.
Who doesn't feel a wash of contempt for these
powerless chumps, these quasi-militia?
I’m back! It’s been an exciting week in
Roryland, what I thought was going to be a relatively simple
surgery to remove an infection in my shoulder was instead an object
lesson in the utter hell that is hospitalization.
Sitting in bed all day pumped to the gills full of assorted
opiates sounds like fun, but it gets old really fucking fast.
Especially when you’re getting hourly blood draws and aren’t
allowed to leave the hospital floor.
But I’m free now and the future looks bright. Another six weeks
of pumping antibiotics into my bloodstream twice daily via the PICC
line inserted in my right arm, running through a vein into my
heart, but time continues to pass and it’ll be over before I know
it.
I think I’m relatively easy to deal with as a patient. I’m
friendly, more than a little stoic, and I follow medical
direction.
Usually.
Want me to take pills, hold still while you cut on me, or shoot
stuff into my body all day long? Whatever, let’s do this. Tell me
I’m a prisoner who’s confined to a small area because I’m all doped
up and might fall down and sue the hospital? That’s gonna be
a problem. I can handle my drugs, and I’m going batshit stir crazy.
The best thing for all involved is to cover your ass by telling me
the rules, then pretend you don’t see me dragging an IV tree down
the hall in a stupor on my way to the cafeteria to buy a root
beer.
The nurses understood, the security guards did not.
I’ve got a real problem with security guards. It doesn’t take a
whole lot of insight to understand why, growing up skateboarding
and being hassled by the type of wannabe authority figure that
embraces his position as a powerless enforcer of pointless rules
has instilled in me an utter contempt for the job. To the point
where I welcome any chance to engage with them. Go ahead and tell
me what to do, I’m just going to ignore you.
Press the issue and I’ll tell you to go fuck yourself. Because I
know the secret: they can’t actually do anything. Their entire job
is built around the idea that most people will do what they’re told
by a person in a uniform. But not everyone plays by those
rules.
Which eventually escalated into an overweight little man telling
me he was going to have me declared absent against medical advice,
or something similar, meaning I would be forcibly removed from the
hospital, treatment discontinued, if he saw me outside my room
again.
The problem with bluffs is that people can call ’em. I’d,
eventually, die a pretty horrible death without treatment, and I
had in no way checked myself out. For this guy to assert that he
had the power to basically kill me because I wouldn’t listen to him
didn’t sound very true. Because, of course, it was not.
It became a bright point of my stay, making his job more
difficult. But, really, it was his fault. If he wasn’t so
wrapped up in his ridiculous pseudo authority we might’ve got along
fine.
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Jon Pyzel and Matt Biolos by
@theneedforshutterspeed/Step Bros
