Ability is relative, but sometimes not.
I like to believe that 90% of
BeachGrit readers can complete a roundhouse cutback, have
been tubed, are not virgins of (attempted) flight. How could one be
enthralled by our blend of sado-masochism without having
put in the necessary hours?
My logic? The stages of surfing!
Stage 1: It begins with the pre-engaged
sentiment of: Surfing is a pointless endeavor, championed by
hippies, derelicts!
Stage 2: These are the rose-tinted years of
progression, wherein the prevailing majority screams:
Surfing is the best! So beautiful, enlightening, sexy! Fuck me
Laird!
Stage 3: Once plateauing/having kids/brain
bleeding most of us arrive at the realization that
surfing is, in fact, quite pointless. Fun, but pointless. Also we
are often derelicts.
Occam’s razor cuts deep.
So, assuming BeachGrit has stage three locked
down, and knowing that Surfline and the
Inertia have an ongoing custody war for stage two,
what do stage one-ers like to read? Maybe the New York
Times!
I was recently sent a piece (thanks, Mom) in the Times
about our derelict sport. The story is called (It’s Great to) Suck at
Something and in it the author, Karen Rinaldi, revels
in her kookdom! She writes:
Over the past 15 years, surfing has become a kind of
obsession for me. I surf eight months a year. I travel to surf
destinations for family vacations and seek (forgiving) waves in the
Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. I have spent thousands of dollars
on boards of all sizes and shapes.
And yet — I suck at it. In the sport of (Hawaiian) kings,
I’m a jester. In surfing parlance, a “kook.” I fall and flail. I
get hit on the head by my own board. I run out of breath when held
down by a four-foot wave. I wimp out when the waves get overhead
and I paddle back to shore. When I do catch a wave, I’m rarely
graceful. On those rare occasions when I manage a decent drop, turn
and trim, I usually blow it by celebrating with a fist pump or a
hoot.
Once, I actually cried tears of joy over what any observer
would have thought a so-so performance on a so-so wave. Yes, I was
moved to tears by mediocrity.
So why continue? Why pursue something I’ll never be good
at?
Because it’s great to suck at something.
I was surprised to find Rinaldi’s writing incredibly
stage-twoish in nature. How on earth could she, an adult woman,
suffer such indignity with a smile on her face? She goes on to
explain:
When I do catch a wave and feel the glide, I’ll hold onto
that feeling for hours, days or even weeks. I’m hooked on the
pursuit of those moments, however elusive they may be. But it’s not
the momentary high that has sustained me. In the process of trying
to attain a few moments of bliss, I experience something else:
patience and humility, definitely, but also freedom. Freedom
to pursue the futile. And the freedom to suck without caring is
revelatory.
Think about how focused you become when you’re presented
with something totally new to accomplish. Now, what happens when
that task is no longer new but still taps into intense focus
because we haven’t yet mastered it? You’re a novice, an amateur, a
kook. You suck at it. Some might think your persistence moronic. I
like to think of it as meditative and full of promise. In the words
of the Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki, “In the beginner’s mind there
are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind, there are few.” When
I surf, I live in the possibility.
Oh how I love Mitsubishi’s quote. It is so very true for
multiple facets of life. Just this weekend I went to a dressage
competition and after watching for ten minutes thought to
myself, They could be doing such cooler maneuvers on these
horses. Chop hops, fin blows etc.
Yet when I brought this up with my dressage-savvy compadres,
they scoffed at the concept. “Horses can’t do that. Horses don’t
even have fins,” they snootily informed.
But the joke is on them! These folks have been around dressage
for so long, have had certain practices ingrained in their
minds for enough years that they’ve become incapable of
peering outside the blinders. The world is not black and white
but a million shades of gray! And horses do have fins, if you just
believe.
But then I would never try my hand at dressage, because sucking
at something sucks. You might think you’re having fun, but the
world, it laughs!
I’m not sure about barn culture, but in my neck of the sea,
rookies are treated with more disrespect than
Kmart coupon-books. They are considered for one, maybe two
seconds before being hurled in the metaphorical bin. Their
offense? Paddling for waves. Getting in the way. Smiling.
Rinaldi’s failure to state this fact is grossly negligent and,
in my opinion, deserving of one-hundred drop-ins, stink-eyes and
paddle-arounds. Though that was probably coming
regardless.
