Shoot longboarders. Don’t ride a fish.
Sooner or later, you’ll breed. Throw a gallon
of sperm into someone and it’ll stick eventually, often sooner.
And along will come a kid. And because you surf, he, she, will
surf.
And they’ll be so into it you’ll watch hours of heats (answering
every question about boards, waves, sponsors), every web clip, and
they’ll ask you to read every vaguely surf-related story to
’em.
Before you realise it you’ll be the daddy sitting on the beach
pointing his phone camera at the surf, hearing… Dad!…
before the kid paddles into a wave.
Dad!
You can’t miss a thing! Oh, and if you do, the tears, the
gloom!
And this kid will progress, maybe he’ll do contests, get
sponsors, maybe he’ll tap out and keep it in his pocket as an
occasional recreation. But, you will be required, as his icon, as
surf god to this kid, to create the foundation upon which is
surfing experience will grow.
I’m laying the bricks with a kid, eight, and a kid, eleven. The
more I tell ‘em the more I realise what a lying, hypocritical
son-of-a-bitch I am…but I never did suggest perfection.
Gives the kid another lesson in a dozen years. (Daddy ain’t
perfect.)
1. Longboarders should not be shot, despite all evidence
to the contrary: A little two-foot swell, a peak, and it
gets owned by a longboard enthusiast. Kid can’t buy a wave.
Longboarder swings on the peak, fades right, kid pulls off, goes
left. Fades left, goes right. Takes off on every set, goodish
enough to get enough speed to render a drop-in a collision.
In the real world, you’d push it. Confront the guy. Make it
uncomfortable. Paddle under him. Deliberately collide. Grab his
leash. With a kid? Who’s never seen a fight? You cut the session
short. Those are the breaks etc.
2. No wave is worth fighting for: Multiple
drop-ins, collisions, everything that gets you and me fantasising
about smearing a nose with one beautiful head-butt or forcing
another man’s head underwater until the struggle stops, don’t mean
a thing, kid. Laugh about it. There’s plenty of waves etc.
3. Don’t get caught riding fishes every day:
Fun? Of course. But you really want to grow into a surfer whose
back foot never touches the tail-pad? Who finds quads…stiff? Whose
whole game is race to the shoulder, nurse cutback to the pocket,
race, nurse, repeat? Give yourself a little rocker, always.
4. Anyone can be a pro surfer, but do you
really want to? Become a good surfer, sure. Nothing, at least so
I’m told, comes close to the feeling of owning a wave, of being so
in control of your board and the moment, you’re able to do
precisely what you want.
But who wants to turn their fun into a job? Who wants to travel
the world, sitting in hotel rooms looking at Facebook or stabbing
your phone with your finger all day building your “social”
following, in between frantic, ultra-high pressure heats in front
of judges who still have a crush on floaters and “full-rail
wraps”?
5. Old boards go just as good as new boards:
Kid, you don’t need a new CI. You don’t need a damn thing except a
board that floats you. Ride it. Master it. Move on.
6. There’s only three things you need: A board,
a leash and a wetsuit/trunks. All those accessories? Wax, yeah. The
rest? Forget about ‘em. You don’t need to look or act like a
“surfer”. You ride, you are. Don’t make “surfer” your identity.
7. Y’ain’t curing cancer. Surfing is as
pointless as football, as basketball as everything. So don’t think
of yourself as some kind of elevated species because you like
catching waves. As surfing’s only Pulitzer winner, Bill Finnegan,
put it: “You could argue that it teaches its devotees a few things
about self-reliance and the grandeur of Nature – maybe even a
little humility – and I guess I wouldn’t argue with that. But
in the end surfing, in my opinion, does little or nothing to build
or improve character. As we all know, a lot of assholes surf, and
some of them surf well.”
8. There’s a lineage. Know Kelly. Appreciate
his overwhelming influence on modern surfing. But also know Simon
Anderson, Tom Curren, Tom Carroll, Shaun Tomson, Rabbit
Bartholomew, Michael Peterson, Steve Lis, Miki Dora and everyone
else all the way back to damn Rabbit Kekai, may god rest his
beautiful soul.
9. Wear zinc on your face and a tee or wetsuit
on your back. I ain’t real sure about rubbing chemicals into the
skin of your body but who wants a piebald face when you’re forty?
Who wants to look like your daddy?
10. Just…surf. Don’t say it’s shit and you want
to wait for the tide, or you want to check somewhere else, or
whatever. It is what it is, son. Ride it.
