Are you a slightly better than beginner or sub-intermediate surfer who believes he surfs "kinda like Kelly Slater"?
One day, I suppose, we’ll stand before our maker and she’ll ask: what kind of surfer were you?
Now we all know that there is enough complexity and variety within surfing to keep us amused from the day we start, early teens perhaps, to the cold morning we decide enough is enough twenty, thirty, forty years later.
What will you say?
What kind of surfer were you?
Where I live, a rotten-to-the-core beachbreak exposed to plenty of swell in one direction, but none in the other, which rarely has a sandbank that allows you to promenade more than three turns, the majority of surfers, short-term visitors to the town mostly, are of the belief they are Kelly Slater.
It is, as if I have to explain, a feeling of overwhelming superiority very common to the slightly better than beginner but still sub-intermediate surfer.
Do you remember the feeling? When every takeoff isn’t a fifty-fifty proposition anymore. When your tail moves slightly at the apex of a turn. When you start to see parts of the wave that feel utterly new and dangerous and radical. When you’re yet to see video of your heavy-footed, rarely-in-the-pocket jerking.
It’s elevating, until it’s not course. But that comes later.
My Kelly Slater moment came while I was living near one of those easy-to-surf Gold Coast points where even parallel stance longboarders can wrangle accidental five-second tubes. I was riding a Greg Webber surfboard, a six-two, and for an entire wave, I felt as if I’d drawn the perfect line. I remember wondering, have I mastered surfing?
I felt just like Kelly Slater.
(A video reveal one year later would show what looked like an aged colonel sitting down between turns, hands twitching as if he was manipulating the dials of a bedside radio.)
Now tell me about you. Do you think you’re Kelly Slater?
And by Kelly Slater, I mean, 1996-era etc. Unstoppable, brutal, aesthetically gorgeous.
I believe that was Alexander Guerrero from the inertia with his own special form of propaganda
I am super good at rarely in the pocket jerking, well my wife thinks so any how.
Where’s the vid?
You small? Or did you climb mt. BBW
I think I am Occy in his fat stage!!!
Exactly! The same for me! I’m a goofy.
And I’m so bad at surfing my maker won’t even bother asking me what kind of surfer I am! She won’t even know I’m surfing…
Derek your video wave has a lot to answer for ,being the inspiration of Alex Knost’s entire career .
The stiff back? The inability to wrangle a clean, one-foot tube?
No the HAND JIVE silly ! The Bitchy Twitchy Handy Reilly Crab Grab ?
If only Kelly could find himself in Layne Beachley’s shoes ,coping with a male version of Steph breathing down the neck of his record . I wonder how his 1996/1997 ego would cope ? Would he pass on the baton beautifully or beat on the brat with it ?
Brat…but in that creepy way where they latch onto the person and “cheer” for them, thus making the story line about them
Like Kelly, I’ve always fancied myself as an advanced to the point of slightly freakish barrel rider.
Translation…
Rides dead straight and gets barrels instead of attacking vertical sections, Cant be knocked off because extreme poo-stance is stronger than most lips. Totally unlike Kelly bar receding hairline and a tendency to troll online.
Negs, wots up wi de lack of button wot makes us put up stupid pitchers for no one to laf at.
?
I’m a visual learner (picture books only). Please reinstate
First I’ve heard of it??
Yup. Maybe it’s a Disqus-wide thing?
And the new advertising is getting even worse! Bottom of the barrel stuff. ( nothing to do with you, maybe more Disqus rubbish)
Yeah, must be Disqus {but i’ll check thanks} and the terrible adverts pay for LT, Jen…
I’m used to the Taboola ones now, which are naff enough. These were much worse. Seem to be gone now. Not begrudging Jen and LT their pennies.{and thank YOU}
Video is a cruel kick in the balls for any surfer and my sack has taken a beating over the years. 2 rules I live by are never ever ever talk up your own turns, they never look as good as they feel and photos.. always photos.
Is it possible for anyone, anywhere to actually think they are like Slater? He is an enigma.
Should be mandatory for every surfer to watch themselves on video. Crowds would crumble to manic levels of depression.
I don’t need it. I remember asking my wife to videotape my pathetic efforts, and after a while, she always answered: “are you sure”? When you surf an hour in front of family or friends, and they don’t talk about it when you come out of the water, don’t ask, don’t talk about it.
… only when I blow-out candles and unwrap gifts at others’ birthday parties.
In the soup I’m Tom Curren!
The amount of times I’ve thought I am BEFORE a session is too many. Blowing a few whitewater takeoffs usually sorts me out.
I distinctly remember a session long ago where I didnt blow any take offs, and thinking yeah, I got this.
At my peak I thought I was Russel Winter. Never even fantasized beyond that.
Oh but Russ really was something. Jerky yet radical.
Underrated!
One night when i was tapping Bar Rafeile.. Hard.!
I slowed, rhythmically.. and pondered, *I’m just like Kelly Slater*
But never in the surf…. never.