Talented Santa Cruz goofyfooter switches stance for an entire year! Why?

I’m a thirty-two-year-old goofyfooter  from Santa Cruz, California. I was good enough to get free shit and swipe a little travel budget off sponsors, but not good enough to make a real living. Only Nat Young has done that.

For the past year I’ve been riding switch.

Only switch.

Am I a masochist? Not exactly.

I’ve had severe neck, back, and hip arthritis that’s been giving me hell since I was eighteen. At first it was a degenerative disc disease, then it was Ankylosing Spondylitis (the auto-immune disease that Mitch Crews has), and even Lyme disease. I was doing intravenous antibiotics for a year!

My hips are the worst, bone-on-bone and covered in cysts. It’s clear that I have severe arthritis and widespread pain and fatigue, which has been dubbed “fibromyalgia”, but I reckon the doctors know fuck all so I’ve stopped worrying about the diagnosis and now concentrate my focus on managing the symptoms-which has been pretty much a full-time job.

After my second hip arthroscopy last November, where they shaved another bone spur off the head of my femur, I made a decision. As a goofyfooter, I pivot off my back left leg pretty hard. And the arthritis was so severe in my left hip that I decided to do an experiment to see if switching my stance for a whole year changed anything

Fuck, it was brutal.

Winter had just started and I was weak and fat from being laid up. I started like every surfer should: soft-Top. Longboard. Gun. Fun Board. I could barely pop up at first. The waves were starting to get going that winter and I was putting myself in some really dumb situations. Every wave I actually made were the early markers, then I transitioned into bottom turns, cutbacks, foam climbs.

Riding switch for a year, I discovered how hard it is to rewire your brain. It’s like writing in cursive with your non-dominant hand. It’s just so damn tough for most people. I found it as exciting to work on this handicap, even though I was getting consistently pummelled.

That’s about where I’m at now, spending as much time as I can on a surfboard with my left foot in front. I’m working on linking turns and trying to work on consistency through repetition. I’ve gotten a couple of sweet tubes on my forehand, but pig-dogging is awkward, so I’m workin’ on that.

My lowest moment was this summer in Costa Rica. I decided to bring a 70’s inspired Travis Reynolds 6’6” single fin to surf a heavy beachbreak. The single fin would have been sketchy going goofyfoot. Beautiful board, but Christ, I’ve never taken so many donuts. That’s when I started really second guessing my resolve.

Best moments?

I’ve had some barrels, some large waves, and survived a session at my favorite local slab. I think setting a goal, and sticking to it feels the best. It’s cool to step out of your comfort zone.

Riding switch for a year, I discovered how hard it is to rewire your brain. It’s like writing in cursive with your non-dominant hand. It’s just so damn tough for most people. I found it as exciting to work on this handicap, even though I was getting consistently pummelled.

I realized that there are ways to keeping surfing fresh, even with a body so torn up. I’ve been told by countless doctors to tone down, or even quit surfing, which is horrifying. So, ultimately, if I learn to switch at will, this may extend the shelf life of my surfing. I just need to learn to hold back when the surf gets hairy.

And let me say something, it feels… good… to be a kook again.

God, think of paddling out to overhead surf and committing to getting scrubbed across the reef nearly every time you surf. How is that not appealing?

Santa Cruz is a place where people can take you down and throw salt, so embracing being a kook is good for the ego.

I won’t lie. I was self-conscious about it at first.

All my friends know and have given me props and set waves, but it’s the blow-ins out in the water that get to me. They don’t know me, so they paddle around or burn me. That gets me riled up, so I have to remember that I’ve been doing the same things to kooks practically my whole life!

Full circle, man.