Everything old is new again!
Any true student of popular culture knows that nothing is permanent. What is considered en vogue today will be ruthlessly mocked tomorrow. Conversely, what is considered a fashion faux pas today will be celebrated as the standard tomorrow. Oh it’s a wild pendulum swinging back and forth, catching the flat-footed in awkward repose. Say in a pair of wrap-around Black Flys sunglasses, which may even be cool again, or tiny pair of Keds sneakers instead of Balenciaga-like foot boats.
One might have thought the proud and ancient “Hawaiian Handshake,” the shaka would be immune to such flippancy but nothing is immune. For years and years the shaka has gotten looser and looser and looser. The true, in-the-know shaka thrower would barely raise a pinky, barely extend a thumb and leave the middle three fingers gently curved, as if the whole hand had become paralyzed.
Well, it appears that now the “cool” thing to do is the opposite. A pinky extended wide to the left, or right, depending on the preferred shaka hand. A thumb jutting in the opposite direction. The middle three fingers balled into a tight fist and let us examine some of these new extra-tight shakas and see who trew it best.
New England Patriots’ quarterback Tom Brady. Here we see the world’s alleged greatest football player making a shaka almost as big as his torso. Teeth gritted for maximum stretch.
World Surf League President of Content, Media and Studios Erik Logan. Here we see our shining light morphing the extra-tight shaka and “call me” symbol into one functional jive.
Australian Rules Football fan as found on the very funny @browncardigan. Whoa.
Billy Madison and one-time Saturday Night Live star Adam Sandler. Here we have a chubby, tight shaka being passed down to the next generation, though by the time the little one is of age we can assume that the loose shaka will be trending once more.
So?
Which do you prefer?
Also, did you know Mormons claim to have invented the shaka? It’s true! Read here!
Jesus, what techniques did you use on him? I might have to teach some to my lovers.
I quote Wayne Lynch .”you got no idea”
I’ve actually learnt something.
Jason looks like he really needs a wee-wee.
Another groundbreaking breaking article!!
I have a Hurley shirt that says Aloha with the Hurley H. I am a top notch KYUNT!!!
I’d suggest not using the shaka in Hawaii if not from Hawaii. That said, I still love the casual hand on the top of the steering wheel shaka to the car passing in the opposite direction
I’m in Latin America right now and noticed everyone I mean every native throws a Shaka at the beach! I’m like fuck I think I may have unknowingly dropped a few in response. Fuck I’m a cunt!!
I remember boys around my home town throwing up a scissor hand gesture that was a symbol for “chopping up a bowl”. If you see anyone doing it outside of Perth let me know.
Love em!
Ô putain – Oh damn!
putain – whore
My first run at the translator resulted in the second translation. That Ô sure makes a difference.
Coolest Russian leader ever
Whoooohooo Brahdah’s
Shaka!!!
Ops!… sorry… Poka!!!
Give me a High!…
Uhh… errr…
Kelly???!!!… Rob???!!!!…
Brahdah’s???!!!!…
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
Whooohooo Brahdah
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
In Amish country they use a Shaker.
Would Aquaman win The Eddie?
I think you’d terrify him.
Is it the cheeky smile? Or do I need to develop upside/downside shaka skills?
Here’s Nick Carroll’s account of the Shaka’s origins as it ran in White Horses, Autumn 2016.
(Hope you don’t mind me taking the liberty NC)…
Some people love the Shaka, or at least its modern incarnation. I am not one of them.
God knows this is not in line with White Horses’ stated mission to bring positivity into our debased and excessively sarcastic surfing culture!
But it is a sad fact, a dark reflection on my own tendency to cynicism and irony, a tendency unaltered by many years of raw exposure to the ocean and its moods. I see that waggled thumb and little finger being used by, say, a Brazilian surf corporation as its logo, or by some straining-for-effect Baby Boomer launching
a SUP into the sheltered waters of Byron Bay, trying to pretend to some sort of Island Lifestyle, and think, Fuck off! If only you KNEW.
For the tale of the original Shaka, like most origin tales, is far more interesting than all the rubbish it’s spawned.
Let us journey together back in time … before Brazilian surf corporations, before the Baby Boom, before the Second World War, before the Depression … all the way back, indeed, to the time of surfing’s modern birth, when Duke Kahanamoku and his brothers and their friends frolicked in the “bluebird” waves far off the then-swampy Waikiki shores … but did not throw Shakas at each other, because the Shaka was right then in the process of its own birth, far to the north, in a little town called Kahuku.
At the time, Kahuku’s sugar mill, about five kilometres east of the spot that would eventually be called Sunset Beach, was one of the few revenue generating businesses on the North Shore. (The sugar mill at Waialua, at the other end of the North Shore past Haleiwa, was another.) The mill employed a number of local men, including a guy called Hamana Kalili.
It was dangerous work, like a lot of work back then, and indeed like a lot of sugar cane farm work still is. The cane had to be passed through a series of rollers to extract the liquor before refinement. It was a process not unlike you’ll see by the sides of roads these days, when council workers can be spied shoving foliage down the guts of one of their excessively violent chippers.
So Hamana was a cane-shover by occupation until one awkward day in 1908, when he went where only the cane was supposed to go, and had the three major fingers of his right hand — index, middle and ring — sheared off.
This was the sort of thing that really put a dent in a man’s employability at the time, not to mention the lack of worker’s compensation insurance, legal redress, or anything of that nature. But Hamana Kalili was a well-liked employee of the mill, so management conjured up a new job for him: security. Specifically, security on the little railroad that fed the mill from the canefields.
I suspect this is where the real connection with surfing comes in, because if the local Kahuku kids had been equipped with surfboards, etc, the way they are now, Hamana might have been out of a job. But as it was, the local kids were hard up for kicks, and one way they got their kicks was jumping on that sugar train and
riding it as far as they could before being caught.
Hamana, being a conscientious employee, would watch for these proto-grommets, and when he saw them jumping on board, he’d run along yelling and waving at them with his stumpy hand to get the hell off.
Well you only imagine what a legend Hamana and his stumpy hand became among the kids of Kahuku.
You can also imagine now how they used that imitation of a stumpy hand, shorn of all but a thumb and a little finger, to indicate the presence or otherwise of Hamana Kalili in the general area of the sugar train and its illicit thrills. And how over time, this gesture grew into a generalised demonstration of goodwill and a certain cheeky freedom to misbehave, if the opportunity arose. As Hawaiians being Hawaiians, it did arise from time to time.
This is the actual tale of the creation of the Shaka. You can check it out yourself next time you visit Kahuku. A workplace injury and a bunch of naughty kids has given rise to one of the most overplayed gestures of modern surfing times.
And you know, I think maybe I have written my way out of my cynicism! All I ask is, next time you waggle your thumb and finger at someone, remember Hamana Kalili.
Kooky shakas < West Coast fingers are getting sneaky hot especially among snooty white teens
https://youtu.be/6UQVwiNAGk4
“Brown mokes with no hope sell dope”. Is it cultural appropriation if taken from the islands and applied to Mexicans?
Asking for a white guy with dreadlocks.