The World Surf League would have us believe that Jordy
Smith stands head and shoulders above his fellow
competitors.
Scandal: Is Jordy Smith really 6’3?
By Chas Smith
Certain things have come to light.
The reinvention of Jordy Smith has been one of
the highlights of this year’s World Tour don’t you think? Not only
his surfing but his shiny more comfortable personality. I look
forward to his every interview with Rosie Hodge, their South
African patois doing a beautiful gumboot in front of the
step-and-repeat.
Seeing him choose a surfboard for Stab in the Dark was
equally fine, the joy he took in both praising but also making fun.
Did you catch all his underhanded pokes? Very funny. Very fun.
Stab went out of its way, just like the WSL, to mention
Jordy’s weight over and over and over again (193 lbs) along with
his height (6’3). I have never hugged Jordy and tried to lift him
off the ground so cannot speak to his weight but I did walk right
past him on the trail leading to Trestles (hereafter known as Ho
Chi Minh in honor of the people) and have questions about his
height.
He was coming down with two board caddies in tow. I was going up
with my Louis Vuitton drivers covered in dirt but spirit buoyed by
the scent of the people.
We passed and I looked down upon his Red Bull hat and thought,
“If Jordy Smith only had wings then he would be as tall as me.”
I am 6’2.
Now, there are many many variables here of course. The Ho Chi
Minh is not even and smooth, we were both walking and in different
directions, he may have stepped into a divot right as we passed,
the moment only lasted less than a second, my Tom Ford sunglasses
were smudged.
But I think there is no way in hell that Jordy Smith is actually
6’3. I think he is falling into the very common trap of adding 2
inches to his height making him 6’1.
Is this a scandal? Only if you place any value on truth. Only if
you care about honesty and hard work.
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Think you'll be doin' airs as you slide into your sixth
decade? | Photo: Tom Taylor
False: No Airs For Old Men!
By Derek Rielly
Ancient studs grow wings!
Tony Roberts is a 52-year-old surfer from Santa
Cruz whose stated public goal is to be the best over-fifty
surfer above the lip. Brad Gerlach, who is 50, is a former world
number two (or one depending if you subscribe to Gerr’s belief that
if you were, at some point on the tour ratings, number one you
should own it).
He’s also got a point to prove. He lives for the betterment of
his technique.
Two men. Same age. Same belief.
To wit, just because you’ve hit the autumn years don’t mean you
have to stop improving. And it certainly doesn’t mean your wings
are clipped.
Recently, Gerr flew to Costa Rica. He’d help Tony with turns;
Tony’d help Gerr with his airs.
Tony told Gerr, “Don’t boost too early.”
Gerr told Tony. Get that ass real low. “Your butt needs to go
down toward the Achilles tendon,” said Gerr. “Jordy surfs so good
‘cause his ass is on the ground!”
Tony grew up as a skater/surfer and was mentored between 12 and
16 by the early air pioneer Kevin Reed, who was in the news
recently when he was arrested on suspicion on murdering another
homeless man although he was quickly released.
Tony says he nailed his first real air in 1978.
“Surfers said I surfed like a skater. Skaters say I skated like
a surfer,” says Tony, who moved to Central America 20 years ago. He
divides his time between Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, the
Dominican Republic and Jamaica.
See, Tony had a little epiphany when he hit thirty. He didn’t
want a part of the American Dream. Didn’t want to throw the
physical world away in pursuit of the material He wanted to
surf and he wanted to hit new heights of performance even as he
aged.
So he went vegetarian. Got into yoga.
And surfing in warm water?
“It was like taking off the ankle weights,” he says.
I ask, what do older guys struggle with most, air wise?
“The best guys at doing airs have surfed like that their entire
lives. Not many guys my age were focussing on surfing above the lip
when we were kids. It just wasn’t cool. We were called flying
squirrels. If a surfer can stay in shape and surf every day into
their fifties, they’re usually honing the same type of surfing they
always did.”
Gerr knows the sound of that. He was totally into airs when he
was fifteen but felt an insane pressure to work on his power. Sure
Pottz was doin’ airs back then, but he won a world title with
cutbacks and surfing at a self-confessed three-quarter pace. Gerr
got back into airs in his late forties. He says the weirdest thing
for older guys is moving your front foot in the air and sticking
the landing.
“It’s a weird thing to land on the nose of your board,” he says.
Tell an old guy to wax up the front third of his board and you’ll
know how weird.
Which makes it sounds like if you didn’t grow up doin’ airs,
don’t start. Tony says it’s never too late. You’ve just gotta want
it, even if you have to temper that excitement a little, he
says.
“If you have air fever and just try airs on every wave your
stomp percentage will be real low. So, first tip. It’s wave
judgement. You gotta learn what a good ramp looks like. You have to
know when to go, when to blow. Slater is a great example. He only
goes for airs on waves that have good sections for it. Most older
guys tend to boost too early and fly out the back of the wave.”
Tony says you have to slow the game down, even if it means
eating into your style. Stomp on the tail, stay in the pocket, wait
for the wave to set up.
“Watch any footage of Ratboy Collins. He has a very exaggerated
setup,” says Tony. “He’ll even just stand on the tail and sideslip
to let the wave form in front of him, then pumps and gets speed and
then really pauses at the last moment until he sees the coping,
then boosts.”
Gerr says: “Filipe Toledo’s whole momentum is going through his
front foot. He doesn’t get that stuck-at-the-top feeling and the
reason he’s landing so many aerials is he has a very clear picture
in his mind where he’s going to land. He’s not up there in the air
going, “I’ll see where I am when I’m up in the air”. The better
surfer you are, the slower the wave appears to you.”
“Nothing Filipe would lose a nut over but it felt
good,: says Gerr. “But enough for an older cat to look at and say,
man, that looks fun. Maybe I can try a little flight.”
What else are the old men doing wrong?
“They crank too hard once in the air and over-rotate,” says
Tony. “A nice straight air is equal parts power and finesse, like a
straight ollie street skating.”
Specifically, “the frontside edge of your front foot is what
should be guiding the board upon takeoff. Wherever your eyes go the
nose of your board follows so it’s important to eyeball your
landing on the lip or real high on the wave face.”
Gerr says you’ve got to remember to straight your legs coming
into the lip, bring your board to your chest when you exit,
straighten a little in the air, and compress to land. And, for
god’s sake, stay over your board.
Tony’s got a few drills, too.
“Skateboarding gives a man a chance to practise ollies over and
over so you develop that muscle memory. Learn proper ollies, and
there’s a ton of YouTube clips showing you how to nail ‘em, on a
head-high quarter pipe with a decent sized coping you really get
that ‘bonk’ wired.”
Bonk? The moment you hit the lip and it pushes
back.
How about the old man’s choice of weapon?
“Real important,” says Tony. “Thickness and width in the tail
makes lift-off a lot easier. The wide round nose template catches a
lot and fishy type boards, twin fins and four fins, tend to make
you surf front-footed which is okay for lateral type airs, but
isn’t conducive for vertical style squaring off the bottom to lip
launch punts. The best airs come when you are feeling that
rail-to-rail carving speed through the contour of the wave and then
you boost.”
Gerr rides a thruster setup with a small rear fin. He agrees
with Tony on board choice. “Quads do great cutbacks, carves,
floaters but only straight airs.”
More than anything, you’ve gotta live airs. Watch footage over
and over, although don’t get all hung up watching someone like
Reynolds or John John. It’ll overcomplicate things.
Know who you should watch?
Kelly Slater, who turns forty six at his next birthday. His
technique isn’t close to Dane or John, or even Craig Anderson or
Creed, but he’s coming from the same back foot era as you. His
desire to succeed, and not technical perfection, is what gets him
through his airs.
And you’ve seen those tens at New York, at Bells, yeah? You
like?
As you learn, as you progress, maybe you’ll see a little of
yourself in the greatest surfer of all time.
Another tip, says Tony, is to “ride logs and stiff single fins a
lot because when I get back on my little board it feels like a
skateboard in comparison. It gives you that fresh lively feeling.
When the board feels like that it feels like I can do
anything.”
Tony says his best air was a Hail Mary frontside 360 three years
ago.
“I was going really fast and just threw everything at a meaty
section on an overhead wave and ended up really high and rotating
super slow. I wasn’t planning on trying to land it but when I came
around I looked down and saw the most pillowy landing and I knew I
was going to make it.”
Inspired?
Or maybe the whole thing just frustrates you?
“Listen,” says Gerr, “they’re just fucking hard. Not hard
technically, just hard because you need to do a lot of ‘em. You
have a have a certain type of wave, a consistent wedge, that you
can go and do fifty of ‘em a day. To think you’re going to pull one
off just once in a while? No way. Those kids, they’re spending
eight hours a day practising them, and then several hours watching
movies of guys doing airs.”
Thing is, says Gerr, “Surfing is something you just can’t force.
If today isn’t your today, maybe tomorrow is. Getting mad isn’t
going to change a thing. Don’t set yourself up for failure by
having unrealistic expectations. Yeah, you’ll learn airs if you try
hard enough. Just don’t panic when it doesn’t work straight away.
Surfing shouldn’t be painful.”
(Note: This story first appeared in issue number 336 of Surfing
Life magazine, which you can buy here.)
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Jordy Smith spending time in his living room thinking
about stocks and bonds.
Stab in the Dark: “Elitist and Slimy!”
By Chas Smith
But come and revel in a new competition. One built
for you and for me!
Before becoming The Man of the People™ I loved
Stab magazine’s Stab in the Dark featurette. It
was such a simple concept so elegantly packaged. Ten shapers
shaping anonymously for one professional surfer. He riding all then
choosing his favorite. The winning shaper lauded. The losing
shapers shamed.
Then in year two Stab blew its wad and had Dane
Reynolds do it.
This year it was Jordy Smith and while Jordy’s personality
sparkles who really cares what he thinks about surfboards?
Do you? I don’t. His opinion on functionality, hold, rail, curve
etc. doesn’t interest me. A 1% surfer’s critique clanging like a
gong in the ears of the 99%.
Jon Pyzel won for the second time in a row and how much do you
think this irks other shapers? Does he lord his superiority over
them over drinks? He should. The only remaining question I have,
though, is can Mr. Pyzel shape a board for me and for you?
Does he understand the people?
And it is with the humble honor that you have bestowed upon me
as your voice that I announce our upcoming Grit is for
Mark™ competition. BeachGrit will find the most
average surfer in the entire world. Average weight, average height,
average build, average ability with an average name (Mark) and we
will have him ride average off the rack boards in slightly below
average beachbreak.
He will choose the one that allows him to maaaaybe complete his
cutback. The one that allows him to get the tail of his board above
the lip for his flyaway airs. The one that allows him to slip
inside a closeout tube. The one that doesn’t so easily ding when
being wedged into the backseat of a ’17 Porsche Panamera. The one
that gives him a little extra squirt as he is taking off. Enough to
make it up to, but not around, the SUPer dropping in down the
line.
These are the things the salt of the earth need to know before
plunking down their blue-collar dollar for a new surfboard.
Stab can keep its Jordys and advertisers and private
boat trips. BeachGrit doesn’t need luxuriant Macaronis. We
live on the simple bread of the people.
Grit is for Mark™ will premier at next year’s U.S. Open
of Surfing.
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The lady and the champ.
Jon Pyzel: “People are volume
obsessed!”
By Derek Rielly
The champ's shaper on biases that keep us from
nailing the perfect board…
I’ve learned by now that unless a surfboard
conforms to a set of very narrow, and specific,
strictures, I’m screwed.
It’s gotta be short (five-six for little waves; a five-nine if
I’m gonna chance my arm in waves up to six foot), wider than the
norm but thinner than recommended, almost no entry rocker, a dirty
big straight section through the guts and a pretty wild kick in the
tail. Outline-wise, I like curves. I get my speed from the
rocker.
If I get a board from a new shaper and he deviates from the
formula, I’ll surf it on one wave, maybe two, then throw a For Sale
sign on it.
It’s not that I won’t try, I just don’t…know…what to
do.
Sweet spots are sweet if you can find ‘em. If you can’t, surfing
becomes tedious, difficult, impossible.
Which is why I lit up Jon Pyzel, John John Florence’s shaper
since the champ was five. I wanted a shaper’s angle on how we
should approach different boards purely on technique. It’s true
that kids should come with an instructional manual. Surfboards
ain’t any different.
Here’s how it would work in my perfect world.
You’d buy your model, Stubby Bastard, Bottom Feeder, Sub-Driver,
Toledo 77, whatever it is, and you get a square of paper, folded
six times, that clearly states in diagrams and words where the
sweet spot is, how you should apply your stance (is it a
fixed-stance sorta board, do you need to roam up and down?) and
where the board can and can’t go.
For example, is it a straight-up-into-the-lip sorta shape or a
nurse-your-bottom-turn-but-tons-of-down-the-line speed sled? You’d
read, you’d ride and adjust your game accordingly to the
manual.
I got more questions, theories for Jon, too.
Let’s clear up a few mysteries.
BeachGrit: I’m going to posit something. We all lose our
minds over volume but I believe a forgiving rocker can solve a
multitude of evils in a board. Tell me your
opinion.
Pyzel: Volume is so hot right now! People are getting
volume obsessed and overlooking the other aspects of design that
make a board less or more user friendly. Yeah, sure, added
volume (read floatation) can make a high-performance design more
user friendly but as you theorise bottom rocker plays an essential
role as well. A flatter rocker equals a faster board while
surfing and paddling and is your best friend in
average-to-below-average surf (most peoples’ day to day).
BeachGrit: And coming from the other angle, a beautiful
board (perfect outline, foil, bottom curve, foil etc) can be
unrideable to a certain surfer if the rocker is too
high-performance.
Pyzel: Unrideable is a strong term but I agree that the
lower-level surfer could be losing out on too refined a
board. Average drivers don’t drive F-1 race cars to the
market, so why would an average surfer choose the F-1 version of a
surfboard? Here volume can help. If the surfer is a
little better than average, surfing in good waves and trying hard
to improve, a bit less rocker (especially up front) and a fuller
outline and foil will give you a huge advantage and turn struggle
into joy. I can’t tell you how often I paddle by some guy on a
“Pro” type board who is not having any fun. I wish I could just
hand them the board they need and change their whole way of
looking at surfing.
BeachGrit: Now, I want our readers to up
their ability. I want ‘em better after this interview.
Tell me. How do you ride a high-performance board, a JJ special?
And don’t just say y’gotta do turns. Give me specifics, Jon, I
know you got the key…
Pyzel: You can have the same characteristics of a
pro-level board, sensitivity, carveabilty, quick response and
liveliness, but this brings us back to volume. Everyone can
ride the same designs that I am making for John John, but they need
to super-size up a bit. Add some width and thickness (how you
adjust volume) and you are gonna have a board that paddles better
and carries speed easier.
BeachGrit: It ain’t as easy as that. God I wish it
was.
Pyzel: Of course. And then you have to put in the effort,
work on wave selection, wave positioning, keeping the board in the
power zone, keeping your weight in the right place, centred, not
pushing too much on your front foot and bogging. Yeah, it’s harder
but the rewards can be huge too.
BeachGrit: Now let’s talk stance. Where the hell do your
feet (going fast, doing turns) have to be on…
a.) A board with a continuous rocker, fair bit of
a nose and tail kick.
Pyzel: Centred to back-foot weighted is the best call. Keeping
your speed up and pivoting off the tail through turns.
b.) A board with a three-stage rocker, not much nose or
tail kick
Pyzel: This type of board allows for a lot of movement and has a
large sweet spot so you don’t have to overthink it. Weight
forward for speed, step back onto the tail to turn. Just the
basics.
c.) A goddamn super-curved high-performance
board…
Pyzel: If I have to tell you where to put your feet, you
shouldn’t be riding this board.
BeachGrit The fabulous Terry Fitz famously said, build
your style around your boards, not the other way around, unless you
rip. What do you think?
Pyzel: That is rad! He’s right. If you’re riding a board
that is good for you, it’s gonna lead you in the right direction
and help you improve. Maybe the best thing you can do is to
really take a look at how your board is working for you,
paddling and surfing-wise, and see if you can’t imagine
something better. Maybe a board that would help improve the chinks
in your armour. Are you struggling to catch waves? Do you have
trouble keeping speed and making sections? Can you wrap through a
smooth cutback without digging rail? Do you want to smash the
lip harder and more vert? These are things that a surfboard
design can help you with. Don’t keep riding that piece of shit
your friend left in your garage two years ago!
Goddamn!
BeachGrit: Are the old beginner, intermediate, advanced
surfer categories outdated? I know intermediate surfers who can
rotate, advanced surfers who throw their boards away? Do you think
there are better, and more specific, categories? Front-foot, former
skater, back-foot-learned-to-surf-in-the-nineties kinda
guy?
Pyzel: Surfing is a rainbow of styles, abilities, skill sets and
desires. I’m the same as you. I see kooks land airs and
rippers doing old-school cutbacks to the beach. There is merit
to the beginner, intermediate, advanced categories, but who really
even cares? Go surf. Do what feels good. Try to have some
style when you do it. Style is always in style.
BeachGrit: Average guy, wants to be front foot, but
mostly isn’t. Surfs terrible beachbreaks eleven months of the year,
three days when it’s six foot and goes to Indo once a year.
He’s five-ten, 78 kilos? Describe his quiver.
Pyzel: The Ghost 6’1” x 19.63” x 2.63” x 31.70L round pin, for
his Indo trips and when his beachie has a decent bank. He’s
gonna get in easy and can push it into the two-times overhead range
in clean conditions. It’ll fly, turn on a dime and hold as
hard as he can push.
Voyager 1 6’0” x 19.00” x 2.44” x 28.80L squash, for
the good days at home and the fun-sized days in Indo.
High-performance with a touch less entry rocker to keep it
flowing. This is JJF’s new shorty he debuted at Snapper.
Stubby Bastard 5’11” x 19.50” x 2.44” x 29.30L squash for your
every day board. The volume and width pushed up front, relaxed
entry rocker for speed and paddle power, plenty of tail rocker to
keep it loose and snappy. High performance with hidden
help.
Sure Thing 5’9” x 19.63” x 2.44” x 30.10L double-bump squash
with baby channels. The Electralite EPS construction for a great
strength-weight ratio and lively feel. For weaker, slower waves or
just to liven up a normal session. Take it to Indo and get
loose or make the most out of blown slop at home.
BeachGrit: What about a teenager, average ability,
sixty-five kilos? What’s his dream craft?
Pyzel: Get ‘em on 25 to 27 litres. This may sound like a lot of
foam, but it’ll be helpful at that stage of their surfing. Get into
waves early, flow through turns. It’ll allow them to progress
faster then if they struggled through on an overly refined piece of
equipment.
BeachGrit: Tell me, how do you feel about fins? Are they
the classic Pandora box? Dare we open?
Pyzel: How do you feel about wings on an airplane? Fins are
important and complex because they can play a giant role in
the performance and feel of your surfboard. I’ve had people
tell me that they weren’t happy with their new board until they
switched out the fins and it became their Best Board
Ever. That said, fins can be both overwhelming and confusing,
so I always like to try my boards with the same fins (setting a
baseline) before I change ‘em. That way I am always feeling
how the board works first and then I can fine-tune to
maximise performance or adapt to different surf conditions.
BeachGrit: Should boards come with a fin-type
recommended by the shaper?
Pyzel: Man, you’re better off finding a set of fins that you
like and use those as your baseline. Everyone has different
approaches to how they surf and having one set of fins for
everything can work, but it’s nice to be able to play around and
change the way a board performs and feels. Also, and this is a
generality so don’t shoot me, but you are going to want bigger fins
in smaller surf and smaller fins in bigger
surf. Counterintuitive, no? But listen. If you imagine fins as
wings on an airplane you get a good idea of their effectiveness.
A fighter plane (think gun, big waves) going super fast only
needs small wings because the speed is creating a lot of lift. A
larger, slower plane (grovel board, slow waves) needs big wings to
help keep it up in the air.
BeachGrit: Customs still worth persisting with, you
think? Or are we all better off chasing a pre-existing
model?
Pyzel: First. It is really cool to connect with a shaper
and talk about what you’re looking for in your board. He
can guide you in the right direction and for some the anticipation
of waiting for that board to get shaped and glassed is a gratifying
part of the process.For others, the joy comes when you walk in the
shop and choose the board that feels good. Right here, right
now! You can walk out of the shop and go straight into a surf. If
you’ve done your homework and are dealing with someone with a bit
of knowledge you should be able to get exactly what you would have
ordered anyway. And, with the beautiful benefit we all love,
instant gratification.
BeachGrit: Okay, how about this. Local shaper who
actually touches your foam or a board that’s been sliced by a
famous brand’s ghost shaper?
Pyzel: How about I explain something. As the local shaper grows
his business he inevitably finds that he needs some help keeping up
with orders. He finds another local shaper who doesn’t have
that sort of problem (volume!) and takes him under his wing and
shows him where he likes his rails tucked, his edges crisp, his
round-tails just right. You have to know that both the local
shaper and the ghost are doing their very best to make a great
board. The big difference is the ghost is making a board designed
by someone with (usually) more depth of experience and a higher
level of development that has been, hopefully, tested and refined
with the input of talented surfers. I am certainly not saying you
will not get a great board from the guy down the street, because
there are a lot of highly talented shapers around the world that
just keep it local and do their thing! Every well known shaper
in the world was that guy too.
BeachGrit: Tall, skinny guys. Any particular angle you
take with ‘em?
Pyzel: A touch wider, but thinner is route that works. Being
tall gives you a higher centre of gravity so you can easily go rail
to rail on a little wider board, but being light you benefit from
as thin a board as possible for sensitivity’s sake. The added width
allows for the thinness while still retaining enough foam to float
you around.
BeachGrit: Tell me a
secret about surfing technique you’ve learned from
your phenomenal team rider.
Pyzel: Never claim
John John not claiming, post-oop in
Bali.
(Note: This story first appeared in issue number 336 of Surfing
Life magazine, which you can buy here.)
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Verified: Surf is Anti-Depressive!
By Giancarlo Guardascione
War vets find quietude in surf.
Surfing is a trivial pursuit. A sexy sabbatical
from the monotony and minutiae of life.
Of course, there are tedious stories of How Surf Saved My
Life and so on, mostly click-bait trash.
Then there is the rare occasion when surfing does pull a person,
people, away from the darkness.
This Netflix film, which is called Resurface, is
the story of how war veterans with post traumatic stress disorder
or PTSD (two out of every three vet gets hit with it, turn to
surfing to steal a little joy out of lives ruined by the spectre of
war-time atrocities.
“Surfing was on my bucket list. I was going to surf, and then go
home and commit suicide,” says one.
He ain’t alone. Twenty two vets kill ’emselves every damn
day.
Here, watch as men crippled, smashed, ruined by war find
quietude in the water.
“When I caught that wave it wasn’t death and destruction and
hell. The ocean is the one place I can go for peace.”
Watch.
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Jon Pyzel and Matt Biolos by
@theneedforshutterspeed/Step Bros
