There was a wake last night for
Surfing magazine (RIP) that was very well attended. A
veritable who’s who of surf industry stalwarts, lower tier
professional surfers, surf media personalities and hangers-on said
goodbye to Surfer magazine’s better half by drinking
booze, fighting, cursing, fighting, getting drunk, kicking,
cursing, drinking booze, puking, throwing bottles, fighting,
drinking, kissing, kicking, cursing.
I didn’t feel sad, personally. Surfing magazine was
most useful at bringing people together, I think. Some of the
greatest I know from Travis Ferre to Evan Slater to Taylor Paul to
Jimmicane to Peter Taras to Chato Aganza walked those halls and
none of them are dead so… whatever. Right? So long,
Surfer. I mean Surfing.
As fate would have it, I got a chance to speak with Taylor Paul
and Chris Binns yesterday during the Volcom Pipe Pro about the
state of surf media. Taylor once edited Surfing and Chris
once edited Australia’s Surfing Life (RIP) (RIP). I used
my time to shit on The Inertia and will also crash its
wake when nature finally murders it.
My memory of specific events from last evening is, anyhow, very
fuzzy but I did manage to catch some video.
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Technique Critique: Gabriel Medina
By Michael Ciaramella
World's best surfer? We say no!
Considering how much you all loved the first one, I decided to do a technique
critique of Gabriel Medina.
The first step would be to find a clip that visually
demonstrates the points I’m trying to cover. This proved to be
harder than anticipated.
Isn’t it surprising that Gab hasn’t produced a single video
of himself in years? Sponsor flicks aside, Medina doesn’t have a
single rip-clip of his own making since 2011. Pundits are
quick to highlight John’s modesty and aversion to attention, which
in most cases is used to juxtapose Medina’s snarky
attitude. Yet, who is the one with two films, countless individual
edits, and an entire web series dedicated to his life? John!
Eventually I stumbled upon this single-session edit from
Hawaii.
Gabriel’s surfing is incredibly different from that of Jordy.
Let me explain.
Stance
Medina’s positioning on the surfboard could be described as
ultra-neutral, meaning that if you were to take a photo of Gabby
and remove the surfboard, it’d be hard to tell whether he’s regular
or goofy. His legs appear very boxy, with knees hovering over
ankles and his torso always centered. In my opinion this stance is
good for general balance and backside surfing, but detrimental to
style and forehand surfing.
Backside
Backhand competitive surfing can be summarized in one
maneuver — a hard, snappy, vertical tag of the lip, perhaps with a
fin drift if they’re feeling frisky. As seen in the video
above (1:05), Gabs has mastered that maneuver. This is majorly
thanks to the mechanics of backside surfing, wherein the rider
can utilize his hand to administer weight to the front part of the
board during the latter stages of a turn. This is mostly impossible
frontside, though some old-school guys used to do it on
occasion.
The hand-on-board maneuver is advantageous because it provides
extra stability, plus it removes the need to shift the front foot
forward (something I explained in detail in Jordy post) during snapping maneuvers. This
then facilitates speed and flow between maneuvers, as there’s no
need to reposition your feet after every turn. When combined with
impeccable timing and explosive hip rotation, Gab’s boxy
stance and manual weight distribution allow for technically perfect
backside turns. Though frontside is a different
story.
Fronstide
Gab’s apparent lack of flexibility and natural hip displacement
force square, clunky turns on his forehand. Where Jordy and John go
full-Gumby through their maneuvers, often knocking knees and
contorting their bodies, Gab remains stuck in the poo-poo position.
This is not only aesthetically unappealing, but it actually
detracts from angular mobility and leads to less impressive and
a smaller variety of turns. Unfortunately this is a flaw
in his body mechanics, so he hasn’t much room to improve in this
field.
Airs
Gab is a wizard in the wind. He consistently lands some of the
biggest, highest-scoring airs our sport has seen, and all of them
without soft feet.
You know how in football or golf, someone with a surplus
of “feel” is considered to have soft hands? The phrase refers
to a person’s ability to smoothly absorb the pressure of
impact through impeccable timing and dexterity. The same principle
applies to the feet (really more like knees and ankles) of
surfers.
Soft feet enable a smooth compression of the knees and ankles,
so that landings are less abruptly impactful. A couple guys who
retain this flexible quality are Yago Dora and John Florence.
Meanwhile, Gabby’s rigidity would be considered disadvantageous
in landing colossal punts, yet he manages to make
them time and time again.
So then how does he do it? Commitment and recovery.
Gab’s courage when approaching large sections is genuinely
disconcerting. Remember his massive backside rotation in France a few years ago? That’s a
section most CT surfers would float warily, if not avoid it
altogether. But then there’s Gab, who decided to throw knees,
ankles, and caution to the doldrums, only to magically ride out on
his feet. Great timing combined with one-hundred percent
commitment is what keeps Medina over his board and allows
him to stick these hellbent rotations. But not all airs are
stuck so cleanly.
That’s where recovery comes into play. Next to Slater and John,
Gabs is the best at pulling it back under him. This seems
contradictory to the Jordy piece, where I sated that
non-knocked-knees provide insufficient leverage for resurrection;
what that idea fails to recognize is that Gab is a freak of nature.
His ability to recover can be partially attributed to impeccable
physical conditioning, but believe it or not, much of the recovery
process is mental, and Gabby’s drive to win has him doing Superman
shit. You know those stories of people who lift cars off of loved
ones? Medina’s doing that with his abs.
Long story short, Gab lands huge airs because of his natural
ability and mental fortitude — not superior technique.
Tube riding
Gabriel is one of the best forehand tube-riders in the
world, mostly because of strength and positioning. When in the
tube, Gab rides forward on his board — a technique that allows the
rider to gain or lose speed with ease, hold a line
with great efficiency, and remain evenly balanced throughout the
ride. He accompanies this positioning with a flat-footed approach,
which is a structurally superior technique to the drop-kneed,
cocked-foot stance of most RVCA riders. When you combine a
solid base with efficient positioning and sprinkle in a
couple thunder thighs, foamballs no longer seem so
treacherous.
But backside tube-riding is a completely different animal, and
for me, Gab has some work to do in this area. Medina’s pigdog
consists of a firmly planted front foot and a completely flattened
back leg. There’s no space whatsoever between his back knee and
front foot, making him unable to effectively pump or stall. A
small stance also limits your balance, by the simple principle that
the closer your feet are, the easier you are to knock over. If
I was Gabby, I’d start watching videos of John at Pipe to
learn how to properly utilize the legs and body in a backside
pit. Then again, they don’t surf many right barrels on Tour, so he
probably doesn’t care.
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Girl goes into orbit! It ain't a make, but watching a
girl huck warms the blood. | Photo: Bruno Baroni
Project: Can a girl nail a full-roter?
By Derek Rielly
Lakey Peterson, coached by Filipe Toledo, wants a
game change…
Women’s surfing fascinates me.When
it’s good it draws blood. Carissa Moore’s slices, Lakey Peterson’s
grab-rail tail throws, the impeccable style of Stephanie Gilmore.
It’s damn rich.
But does it strike you as odd, as it does me, that there ain’t a
gal on tour who has an air-reverse on tap? Silvana Lima showed
promise and disappeared (back this year on tour). Even half-way
good twelve-year-old boys can throw ‘em as an afterthought on a
weak end section.
So why not the girls?
It isn’t a strength or flexibility thing. Yeah, there’s the
numbers. Ain’t as many players, ain’t as much progression. But that
doesn’t account for nearly every single kid girl surfer I see is
usually one of the best in their age group.
I blame a contest culture that shovels girls into their own
divisions by the time they exit the micros. All these promising
girls who used to haunt the boys’ finals suddenly plateau. If three
turns is going to win a contest, no one’s going to toss the fins.
By the time they’re competing at the highest level, they’re missing
a fundamental element of the game.
How can a surfer be so good and yet so inept at the same time?
My posit is that going into orbit is the last great barrier for
women’s surfing. Big waves are getting done. Jaws (sorta) and Mavs
and Teahupoo showed that.
And when I’m talking about airs, I don’t mean straight airs. And
not one-eighty lippers into reverse. I want real, tail-high,
vigorously hucked full-roter airs.
Can you imagine the response to a full spin, hucked a few feet
above the lip? Meltdown, right?
A few weeks ago, BeachGrit kicked a proposal at the Hurley Surf
Club and GoPro to take Carissa Moore to some wedge for a week and
coach her into a full-spin.
Carissa tapped out. Didn’t want to break a leg. Wants another
world title.
I asked Lakey Peterson. She was thrilled at the challenge.
Who nails the best full-roters in the world? Filipe Toledo.
“How about you coach Lakey?”
“Of course! “
Two days ago, Filipe and Lakey, along with another coach, HB’s
Brett Simpson, landed in mainland Mexico for four days of intensive
tutelage. Down there, behind electric fences and barbed wire
(gorgeous part of the coastline is mired in a war between the
Jalisco and Sinaloa cartels) and in the middle of the Virgin
Guadalupe festival where firecrackers pop like guns and bombs from
before dawn and into the night, chasing something that’ll send a
girl into orbit.
Intensive video coaching in full-roters via the
best in the game Filipe Toledo, with a dazzling cameo by HB’s Brett
Simpson, who ain’t afraid to launch either.
We hired three skis so she could step-off into a hundred waves a
day in the rampy, if slightly too powerful and big,
beachbreaks.
The pack’s got the Hurley Surf Club program that runs
split-screen footage, Lakey’s throwaway hucks alongside Filipe’s
oily landings, and a dashboard of tools for drawing arrows,
highlighting sections and drawing lines she should take into the
lip. GoPro records an intimate account of proceedings.
I believe that women are only good technique away from the same
airs as men. And that Lakey Peterson is going to be the first woman
in history to ride out of a full-roter air?
Am I right?
Or am I right…
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Mike "Snips" Parsons pictured here coming for Kanoa
Igarashi.
Huntington claims best surfers in USA!
By Chas Smith
But Mike "Snips" Parsons is ready to steal the
crown for Laguna!
I have always enjoyed civic rivalries very
much. People should be proud of their cities. They should think
other cities are not as good and use vulgar language when
describing. “Fucking San Clemente.” “Shitty San Clemente.” Like
that. And so it was with much pleasure that I read about surf clubs
springing up along California’s southern coast. Let’s read briefly
in the Orange County
Register (Orange County sucks).
There’s no prize money at stake, on Saturday, or points to
advance a pro career in surfing. This new surf series is all about
bragging rights.
Some of the area’s best surfers from four Orange County
cities will be battling it out in big surf on the south side of the
Huntington Beach Pier as part of the West Coast Board Riders Cup
Series, an event aimed at proving which city can stake claim to
having the best surfers.
The event is the brainchild of three Orange County surfers –
Casey Wheat, Ziggy Williams and Chris Moreno – who took inspiration
from Australian surf culture, where world-class pros such as Mick
Fanning and Joel Parkinson regularly compete for their board clubs
to prove which region is best.
The three local surfers created Huntington’s Board Rider
club in 2016, then started asking other surfers from nearby cities
if they wanted to create something similar.
“Basically, what we did was spark the movement and started
calling out other cities. Anytime you call someone out, it’s going
to tap into their ego,” Wheat said. “It was easy to start, it was
all about us getting the Board Rider clubs together and going from
there.”
Saturday’s competition will be stacked, with World Tour
surfer Kanoa Igarashi, and his brother Keanu surfing in a younger
division.
But don’t count out Laguna’s team, which will have guys such
as big-wave rider Mike Parsons and former pro James
Pribram.
“This is heavy, heavy bragging rights,” Wheat said. “There’s
going to be a lot of heckling. We all grew up surfing together.
It’s cool we get to come back together and have some fun.”
And this all seems very fun and wonderful. I would like to start
Cardiff by the Sea’s club alongside the great Rob Machado and
together we could dominate and win etc. But wait. Are surf clubs,
or boardriders clubs or whatever they are called in Australia
considered lame? I did not live in the Lucky Country long enough to
get a sense.
Is it silly to be part of one?
Is it like being part of a wine of the month club wherein four
different varietals get sent to your house every month and you can
sample and learn and improve your palate all while having lots of
fun with your best friends?
If it is like being part of a wine of the month club then I want
nothing to do with it and Rob Machado will have to dominate all by
himself.
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Albee: “Scariest paddle of my life!”
By Michael Ciaramella
The wave of your dreams? No!
It pains me to think how many perfect setups
exist around the world, only to be plagued by incessantly poor
winds or extremely rare swell windows. Surfing‘s Jimmy
Wilson sought one out this summer during Hurricane Matthew, and I recall Taj
Burrow found anotherin West Oz a few years
back.
Well, this thing that Albee Layer and Billy Kemper just tried to
surf is the same… but different.
Maui is known for it’s wild wind and massive swells, but this
slab is in another stratosphere. With just the right swell, wind,
and tide conditions, it became “surfable”.
“Scariest paddle of my life,” says Albee. “Jaws included.”
The wave looks more Australian than Hawaiian. Akin to
something Mark Matthews or Russell Bierke or Kerby Brown would
tow into. That Albee, Billy, and friend somewhat successfully
paddled into this mutant is beyond logic. Like nominating a climate
change denier to lead the EPA. Choosing Filipe for your Teahupo’o
Fantasy team.
In short, I have no problem knowing that waves like this
are breaking, or not, without me. For the sake of Albee and Billy’s
health, I hope it never breaks it again. Albee’s wave was fucked up
though.