Christian Fletcher, Ozzie Wright, Dion Aigus… new world champ Adriano De Souza!
Has a major stylistic shift happened in surfing with the Adriano de Souza victory? A massive sea change? The sort of surfing generally praised over the last few decades is like ballet, in my studied opinion. Fluid, graceful, essentially feminine. But is there something new that works? Legs wider apart? Bottom pointed outward?
“Fucken hell the Poo Man Conspiracy…” wrote the brilliant Nick Carroll in our message board recently “…The League of Extraordinary Poo Men. Founding members Christian Fletcher and Ozzie Wright. They pretty much get away with murder those poo men.”
The “poo stance” as it has come to be called is a very functional position. Hard to fall off with such a stable base! And the wonderful Adriano de Souza employed that stance to the highest victory. Christian Fletcher employed it too when he was hucking in the pages of the magazines, early on, and world tour competitors threw up such a stink! They refused to recognize his art.
But it is now recognized?
A conspiracy? Maybe.
Do you think kids will get wider and wider and wider on their boards? Will surfing look like sumo wrestling in the near future?
UPDATE:
Matt Warshaw, surf historian, artist and renaissance man informed me today that the League of Extraordinary Poo Men has a founder!
Greg “Da Bull” Noll.
Hi, i have a poo and fart stance
Let us not forget the extraordinary poo lady, Sally fitz, although it seems this season someone finally got to her and told her that poo ain’t coo, and she’s less pooy
Peterson Rosa is offended you left him off the list.
As well as Laird
There is nothing pretty about bum dragging thru a backhand tube, but still it gets the love.
Looks like Stab are suggesting some sort of BLOOD FEUD
Hello my name is Negatron, and I am a poo-man.
A reference to surfing Westport or your stance?
As a grommet my pooman stance was so pronounced, that the older guys at my beach used to gleefully yell “stand up” As I surfed past them.
I’ve got the opposite problem. Short legs that won’t spread far enough apart. Makes for a shit center of balance.
this happened 10 years ago when Kolohe got on tour (not that he’s a poo-stance offender) but that air-reverse got you a 7.25 in the NSSA comps every time and you have a better chance of riding out of those with one foot on your nose logo even though you’re only on flow anyway
Dion and Yadin are both guilty of an unconscionably wide stance as well, as was Medina his first year on tour (his style has gotten so much more fluid, it’s unbelievable. I think somewhere in the last 2 weeks I converted to a believer). But whereas Dion, Yadin, Ozzie, Medina, etc are all using that wide stance to perform acrobatics that push the limits of progressive surfing, Adriano is using it to keep himself stable through classic lines that look disgusting with a stance that wide.
Between now and Snapper, put that motherfucker on a longboard at a point break anywhere in the world. His surfing will look thousand times better when he shows up to flop on Jeremy Flores.