Do you remember being a youth and needing surf
accoutrement? I do.
I remember walking into a surf shop, smelling the wax, seeing
the pink Astrodeck, the Mountain and the Wave, the fluoro Shark
watches, the checkered Vans, the Op shorts, the Gotcha Fishman and
thinking they were the only thing that mattered in life besides
actually surfing.
The product, the image, was, in my juvenile mind, synonymous
with the activity.
Oh how I wanted it all! My parents could afford very
little/nothing so I was left mostly on the outside looking in/with
Wahlboard t-shirts from Pismo Beach but still. I dreamed.
And I wonder about kids today. They don’t lust for product,
do they. They don’t walk in to surf shops with eyes wider than Matt
Biolos’s pant legs. They don’t need anything to belong. There are
no more signifiers and thus the industry has been in a decade long
death throe.
Whose fault is it?
Maybe the Australian Surf Industry Awards!
I read this morning about them on the industry blog
Shop-Eat-Surf. Let’s tuck in!
The Australian Surf and Boardsports Association held its
annual awards in Sydney on Thursday May 26, celebrating the high
achievers of the Australia’s multi-million dollar surf industry.
Held at the Crowne Plaza in Coogee, the night attracted over
200 retailers and brand representatives from all over
Australia.
Both retailers and brands were recognised with 30 awards
presented across a number of retail, product and marketing
categories.
On the brand side, relative newcomer Vissla has announced
its arrival as a significant player when it was awarded the
Breakthrough Brand of the year. Rip Curl’s attention to technical
details was well rewarded when it took out product of the year in
the boardshort, wetsuit and surf accessories categories. The Otis
Youngblood won sunglass of the year while Reef was the number one
footwear brand.
It was also a big night for Billabong, taking out swimwear
brand of the year and the men’s and women’s brand of the year. To
cap things off Billabong also won the men’s and women’s marketing
campaigns of the year.
It was another big night and SBIA president Anthony Wilson
was delighted with its success:
“It’s nights like tonight that really sets our industry
apart, it really did have it all,” “Wilson said.
And what the goddamn hell?
There are too many wrong things happening here to fully digest
but the Crowne Plaza in Coogee?
Attracted “200” people?
Billabong swimwear “brand” of the year and marketing “campaign”
of the year?
Arbitrary award shows are, in and of themselves, embarrassing.
This embarrassing one launched in 2011, smack in the middle of
complete and utter surf market meltdown. In the five years since
things have gotten steadily worse.
Not that we shouldn’t fiddle while Rome burns (welcome to
BeachGrit!) but celebrating and awarding our
mediocrity/squandering of an entire movement/at the Coogee Grand
Plaza just seems….lame. And if I was a kid today I would want
nothing to do with any of it.
How can we fix?
I think Michael Tomson was very right when he proclaimed
size is the enemy of cool and there are many
interesting smaller brands popping up all over. Like Rolling Death
Maui or OurCaste or Insted We Smile
or Saint Laurent’s Surf Sound collection. Brands
run by people who have a finger on the pulse, who still care. A
trimmed Quiksilver is better than it has been for years and
Lost, pulled from the teeth of a management group, has snap again.
Etc.
Is the future bright? Who knows! Tune in this time next year for
the first annual BeachGrit Awards live from the Santa Ana
Holiday Inn to find out but in the meantime, fuck the other
bastards.
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Breaking: Kill Order For Great White!
By Derek Rielly
Fisheries hook Great White of 10-to-15-feet near
yesterday's attack…
Yesterday, the surfer Ben Gerring was attacked
by a suspected Great White shark an hour or so south of Perth. His
leg was severed above the knee and the twenty nine year old remains
in a critical condition in a Perth hospital.
As local surfer Paul Collier told ABC news,
“I was in fairly wide…Ben was in on the tighter section of
Gearies, and the shark came up and attacked him, and I saw a big
splash and a big pointed thing which was, I’m not sure, the shark
launching.
“We dragged him up on the beach. Of course his leg was
ripped off real bad, it was ripped off at the thigh.
“I’m just in absolute shock with the whole thing… [I’ve
been] gathering support from other surfers and being with my surfer
mates and talking it through.”
This morning, in response, the department of fisheries set three
drum lines at the beach and, a few hours ago, confirmed they’d
hooked a Great White of between ten and fifteen feet.
It’ll either drown on the drum line or be pulled in and
killed.
How do you kill a Great White?
I once posed that question to a shark fisherman. All you need,
he said, is a rope lasso.
Let the fish swim through the noose and when the rope passes
those iconic, collectable, priceless jaws and just before it
reaches the dorsal fin, pull tight.
Four, maybe five minutes, and the White is dead. Hanged.
“Get ’em on the hook and they go neanderthal,” he
said. “Use a powerhead and if you hit the wrong spot the spot
the shark’s going to take off with half its face blown off. Of
course, the lasso method ain’t perfect, either. Use the wrong
people and they can get dragged over the side.”
“A 3.5 metre great white shark was reported by a member
of the public about four kilometres south of Falcon Beach,
just hours before the Mandurah surfer was mauled.
Another tagged great white of a similar size was detected by
receivers on the north side of Garden Island, about 40 kilometres
north of Falcon, on May 27.”
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Movie: How bad do you miss Bob
Martinez?
By Rory Parker
Looks like Bobby's let his shit go. Surfing loose,
maybe better than ever.
I don’t think about Bobby Martinez often. Not
surprising, guy more or less dropped off the planet when he retired
from tour. Though retired’s not really the right word for a “fuck
you I quit” moment.
It was lovely!
Telling a dickhead boss to go fuck himself feels great. I’ve
done it a bunch of times. Never so publicly, only at the type of
menial jobs for which I’m qualified, but still… I know how good it
feels. Especially when you’ve got something better lined up.
You’re not supposed to burn bridges, but I’ve never really
understood why. Why maintain a working relationship with someone
you think is a total piece of shit?
I worked for a largish surfboard manufacturer for a few years.
Absolutely hated the place. Caught the owner shaving wages multiple
times. Dealt with his insane mood swings on a daily basis.. The day
I changed all the passwords and peaced out was one of the best of
my life.
I’m kind of amused by the way younger kids have started getting
into the 80’s revival deal. I lived through that decade as a child,
it was pretty dumb. Kind of want to write it their trip, but I
suspect that’s colored by my unhappy childhood.
And I remember thinking the 70’s were campy and funny while I
was in high school. This is really just more of that.
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Gerr: What I learned watching a WQS!
By Derek Rielly
Small waves reveal everything says master coach
Brad Gerlach…
Recently, the surf coach and former world
number one (or two, depending on how you call such things),
Brad
Gerlach, attended a WQS event in Japan with Parker
Coffin.
We’d been back and forthing on a few things (Gerlach appears in
an upcoming episode of Like Bitchin!)and he mentioned
that he was in Japan, with Parker Coffin, for the Ichinomiya Chiba
Open. It was an enlightening experience, watching talented surfers
forced to ride one foot waves, he said. It played into his hands,
somewhat, since he will soon be releasing a book that reveals
the surf coaching method he calls Wave Ki.
I can’t wait to inhale its mysterious perfume.
“My aim is to teach my students how to harness the power of
the waves and surf without thinking.Ki means life force, energy.
Conner and Parker have been doing Wave Ki for almost
six years.”
From what well does Wave Ki spring?
“I studied a form of Kung Fu movement called inflex with
Adrian Crook for 10 years,” says Gerlach. “That’s when I rode
Cortes Bank. I tested out the movements in giant surf with boards
that turn on a dime. Then I studied Aikido, tai chi, and movement
with Laura McCormac for 10 years and am still working with
her.”
Gerlach is even lovelier now than when he was at his
professional surfing peak in the eighties and nineties. He wears
fiery little hats in bottle green, spectacles that shave years off
his biological age and his lean body betrays a carnal fluency.
Now let’s curl at his feet and listen…
BeachGrit: You’re there, right there in Japan, watching
a zillion surfers trash away at tiny waves in a WQS event. What do
you see?
Gerlach: The ASP tour came to Japan twice a year when I was on
it and a lot of the events the waves were just like this one. I
sucked in little waves and aside from Tommy (Curren) we all tried
to figure out how to go fast, do big turns and look good. Well,
maybe not all of us cared about looking good and that may be what I
see here in Japan. Some of the guys who do the best small-wave
surfing aren’t the most stylish.
The question is, does it matter?
I say yes it does and it’s impressive because it’s rarely seen!
But that’s another conversation. I believe surfing well in small
waves is the hardest thing to do in surfing. Often, it’s where even
the best can struggle. I believe a surfer who rips in little waves
could surf Mavs if he/she wants and with a lot of courage could
surf it quite well. Not necessarily the other way around because
little waves require perfect timing by generating speed from
torque, twist and drive.
What I see here that impresses me is the… improvement. I have
been watching a lot of these guys since they were juniors. Daveid
Silva looked stronger with better timing, flare and confidence. I
hadn’t seen that before with him. He impressed me, especially with
his backside off the tops. I like seeing surfers improve. However,
many haven’t improved noticeably and some are slower than before.
Maybe they rode the wrong board or ate a bad bowl of ramen?
A lot of individual styles. Not everyone surfs the same. I think
it’s cool and refreshing to watch. Some guys have a lot of drive
and lift in their surfing. The South American guys are very
impressive. They use up what the wave has to offer. Sometimes
getting a bigger turn that I expect. I imagine it’s because quite
often the waves are quick and small where they live and those are
the conditions they have to compete in?
What do small waves amplify in a surfer?
Technique and timing or lack thereof and how much time they have
spent surfing them. Are they riding the right board and fins for
them and the conditions? Some surfers use a lot of aggression and
movement and build speed quickly if their timing is good. I like to
see this. It makes it fun for the spectators because we don’t know
what is coming. Super hard to do when the waves are small and
gutless. When this is done without good timing it looks ugly and
forced. It tells me the the surfer has the drive to want to surf
good but doesn’t have the talent, technique or time in the
conditions to do it. Some people will just stand there and wait for
the wave to steepen up but that may never happen, too.
You coach little Parker Coffin. How can he improve his
play in small-waves?
This might be extra info but “coach” isn’t how I would label
what I do. I don’t stand there with a whistle, yell and wave my
hands around. Ha! However, we have thought of a few skits that we
might just have to do one day. That’s just how people are defining
it.
I’d say I am a teacher/mentor, but whatever. Anyway, I have been
helping Parker since he was 13 so I know him well. He was little
then, not so much anymore. What I did with him this week was show
him how to go fast, using Wave ki, watching others that were
ripping and talking with him on wave positioning and finishing
turns. We did a lot of Wave Ki that was custom-made for him and the
conditions. Then he would go surfing and I watched. I would call
him in when I saw something I liked or if I saw something that
could help him be more fluid, more vertical or not lose any speed.
Sometimes, I saw that he was thinking too much and or trying too
hard, so I called him in and helped him by talking about getting
back into a rhythmic state. Sounds cosmic? Well, it is man!
But who cares if you are flying around in gutless surf?
Parker’s timing improved a ton because he started using his
whole body, not just body parts. His confidence improved with
the timing, which makes me think he improved 25-30 percent in
little waves this week. He looked to me like he had the goods to
win.
Alejo Muniz’s brother Santiago has the best hair of any the
other guys. It all goes forward, like he jumps on one of those taxi
bikes and rides around the block backwards to style it.
Those WQS events are so…jock! Is that what you see
too?
No, I don’t see the jock thing as much now that I went to the
event. I feel like a lot of these guys have different styles and
approach it uniquely. I was happy about that. We stayed with a
group of South Americans and they were really cool guys. Seemed
like they were enjoying themselves, open to sharing about boards,
waves, conditions…There was a large range of ages on tour, some
guys in their thirties, some teenagers. Sponsors are pretty
scarce these days too. Hardcore group of surfers. Still a rad job
nevertheless.
Tell me about Wiggolly and Alejo’s bro’s!
Wesley Dantas is a big kid and he was going super fast on
nothing waves. He had a lot of energy from the moment he stood up.
He doesn’t exactly have the greatest style but he is still young.
It seems like he doesn’t give a shit, which I think is cool too.
What he has is flare, power and control. I loved watching him in
the gutless waves and down the beach from the comp when it got a
little bigger. Huge turns. Impressive.
I have only watched Santiago a bit and liked what I saw. Just
the energy and his drivey approach. This week was the most I got to
see him surf and I really like it. He kind of over surfs a lot of
waves and falls because he tries too hard but… man… he has
a lot of potential. His raw approach makes him spontaneous and I
dig that. I have only seen him surf in two-to-three-foot waves. He
has the best hair of any the other guys. It all goes forward, like
he jumps on one of those taxi bikes and rides around the block
backwards to style it.
You’re excited about the Australian Conner O’Leary. Why
does he excite you so? Because he’s a Eurasian stud?
Ha! Take it easy sailor! No… he surfs really good and looked
like he was riding the right board. He was aggressive, smooth, has
a ton of power. He goes for it. He looks like he will qualify for
sure. His back knee sticks out a bit and that isn’t my favorite but
other than that he looks great. And yeah, his Mom was on the tour
back in the day and I think that is rad. I can’t imagine how cool
or annoying that would be to have my mom paddle out and surf better
than me when I was a kid.
Position of hips, tell me how that relates to small-wave
surfing.
They have to move, that is how you get “squirt”… you should know
that by now I trust. It’s how they move that is the trick.
The surfers that rip in small waves are moving them back and forth
to create drive and keep control. It is quite complex. I teach this
with Wave Ki. I call it pendulum glide.
For most of us, the semi-competents, what are the three
things we could that would improve our relationship with small
waves… now?
Mmmmm… get a wider board that is an inch to two inches
smaller than your everyday board. I like to ride one with a wider
tail block too. In beachbreaks I mostly ride a three-fin with a
smaller back fin. Play around with a quad if the waves are running
or you are on a point. Quads do great cutbacks, carves, floaters,
straight airs. Three fins are good for wind-swell, if you go left
then right then left again. Also good for vertical surfing.
Wave positioning is key: Most intermediates surf/pump
in the middle of the wave. All the power and speed is in the very
top of the wave, the steepest part. I know the wave might be
one-and-a-half foot but still try to pump up there and only go down
to the flatter part of the wave when you want to come back up. This
was huge for me when I learned to grovel.
Take off and get your feet in the right spot so your
body is positioned to turn up to the top of the wave. This is shown
in my up coming Wave Ki book.
Play around with changing your stance. If your
stance is too narrow it will be hard to get speed.
If your stance is too wide it will be hard to turn. I run a little
narrower stance backside in little waves.
I am always talking with my students about their stance for the
conditions.
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Kelly Slater and the burden of being!
By Chas Smith
Isn't being hypocritical what makes us human?
We all live our lives by various woven together
standards, be they religious, philosophical, metaphysical,
conservative, libertine.
Me? I’m as Christian as Beth Hamilton. More heavily Calvinistic
less evangelical but these differences are merely academic. I
wander far from the path, egregiously, but that’s what makes being
human very fun.
Hypocrisy!
Kelly Slater, fourteen time World Champ, is also not shy about
broadcasting much of his belief structure. Pro healthy foods, clean
living, yoga with various touches of conspiracy thrown in for
flavor.
One of his primary stances is environmentalism. He loves
Mother Earth very much and is not shy about lending a hand, or his
name, to different planet first causes.
OuterKnown, his clothing label, makes a specific point of
producing in a sustainable way. Buzzy but very admirable. He
says:
I created Outerknown to smash the formula. To lift the lid
on the traditional supply chain and prove that you can actually
produce great looking menswear in a sustainable way…the last two
years have been a huge eye-opener for me. It’s clear now just how
challenging it is for any brand to put sustainability at the
forefront of their business and I’m proud that we’re one of the few
taking the lead.
Manufacturing creates massive waste and pollution and so to cut,
where possible, helps but do you know what pollutes more
grossly?
Air travel!
Nothing befouls like airplanes. They pump more CO2 into the air
than almost anything. The New York Times called air travel
our “biggest carbon sin” and FiveThirtyEight.com added, “Every time
you fly you trash the planet.”
And so you can imagine Kelly Slater’s dilemma as he flew around
the world in a private jet belonging to OuterKnown’s parent company
Kering to check on his OK supply chain.
Flying private is far worse than flying commercial as it adds an
almost unnecessary layer of pollutants on top of already critical
levels. The Wall Street Journal reported that a passenger
flying private contributes five times as much carbon-dioxide as a
passenger flying commercial.
A friend of a friend of a friend of a friend was on this private
jet with Kelly and said that he could not stop wringing his hands,
fully aware of his gross duplicity. He told his friend who
told a friend who told a friend who told me that Kelly spent all of
his time trying to come to terms with what he was doing.
His wave pool, also, is a complete and utter ecological
nightmare. The amount of power it takes to run that thing, no
matter how it is sold to the public, is massive and serious. Rory
Parker did a wonderful job of pointing out the inherent falsehoods
in the fact that it is advertised as being 100% solar powered.
Still, I would like to ease Kelly’s emotional burden. It is so
much better to have ideals and break them into a million little
pieces then to be hopelessly pessimistic and droll. He should
stop worrying about his casuistry and celebrate being all too human
at least for a few moments in elevated life.
Don’t you think?
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Jon Pyzel and Matt Biolos by
@theneedforshutterspeed/Step Bros