It's not cool, or nice, or casual. Gabby slit the throat of the competition and they still look grey and bled out with the tour three weeks away from kick off.

Not to take anything away from Gabby’s title last year but apart from him, Italo and a couple of Julian’s heats did it not seem the most exciting developments were “off the ball”?

The Shark retreat from Margies to Ulu’s, Sophie’s “reversal” on the Tour restructuring, the way a Brazilian beachbreak all of a sudden looked fabulously exotic and new in comparison to the wave tub debut contest, Mikey Wright and Jesse Mendes’ board poke in the North Point carpark etc etc etc.

Know what I mean?

Through the back half of the year an absence stalked the Tour, blowing like Camus “slow, persistent breeze” from the dark horizon of the future. The absence of John John Florence didn’t quite asterisk Gabby’s second title but it did change the stakes. Gabby and John at eight-to-ten-foot Pipe would have elevated the final day of the Pipe Masters into the heavenly realm.

Now he’s back from a long period of exile with a teaser clip from Surf Ranch.

And it’s weird.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bu7JoqyB8uY/

Pre-season footage serves a dual purpose of both making a psychological statement of intent and implanting a vision of good surfing into judges minds. The effect of Florence’s surf ranch footage was equivocal on both counts.

I’m not sure Ross Williams has caught on. Italo has dropped clips of a style of surfing completely unrestrained in it’s neo-pagan manifestations. It’s not cool, or nice, or casual. It’s dancing around the maypole in a dioynsian blood frenzy. Gabby slit the throat of the competition in the final stages of last year and they still look grey and bled out with the tour three weeks away from kick off.

It was nice. It was casual. Skate.

But lacking, no?

Lacking: aggression? Innovation?

There was Ross, on the back of the sled. Going over the footage. Coaching. At the only place on earth where a coach can really coach. Maybe the statement, after JJF’s lackadaisical showings at Surf Ranch last year was designed to soothe the nerves of Sophie before season kick off… just to reassure her that her biggest star in the Northern Hemi was still in the game.

Still committed enough to swallow his obvious distaste and get in the Tub for a practise session.

The Game has changed since he’s been gone.

I’m not sure Ross has caught on. Italo has dropped clips of a style of surfing completely unrestrained in it’s neo-pagan manifestations. It’s not cool, or nice, or casual. It’s dancing around the maypole in a dioynsian blood frenzy. Gabby slit the throat of the competition in the final stages of last year and they still look grey and bled out with the tour three weeks away from kick off.

While that was in progress, Ross Williams was in the booth with Ronnie Blakey calling the quarter-final heat between Jordy Smith and Sebastien Zietz.

Fifteen minutes into that heat Ross made the not so astute analysis that lack of aggression was the problem for Jordy. By way of comparison he advanced a view that John John suffered the inverse problem “John tends to be too aggressive” he said.

What? The fuck?

I don’t know what exactly a coach has to do to skin his ten percent off the top, but I assume one of the core responsibilities is to at the least be some kind of conduit to reality.

John is too aggressive?

I can pull half a dozen losses straight off the top of my head where John has been too sleepy, too casual, too nice. So can you: Zeke Lau. Mikey Wright. Jesse Mendes. Jordy Smith. Mick Fanning (J-Bay final). Kelly Slater (Teahupoo final).

Cool, casual and skate will not make judges eyeballs twitch in three weeks time. The most important 30 minutes of John’s professional career awaits. His opening heat will set a tone of intent. There will be no hiding, even behind a talent as prodigious as his. Casual is an indulgence John can afford only at heavy water.

To be objective you would have to describe it as his chief competitive flaw. Maybe his only one.

Cool, casual and skate will not make judges eyeballs twitch in three weeks time. The most important 30 minutes of John’s professional career awaits. His opening heat will set a tone of intent. There will be no hiding, even behind a talent as prodigious as his. Casual is an indulgence John can afford only at heavy water. Failure to present primate aggression will see him flensed by Mikey Wright, a Brazilian or an Aussie rookie.

Wonderful things visit in the night. I dreamt I was at Snapper Rocks, staring into the low slung sun nestled in the volcanic rim. A straggly chin beard aflame with sunlight sat beside me. John Florence.

“Hows the knee?” I asked.

“Fine,” he said.

“Do you read?” I asked.

He nodded.

“What are you reading?”

“Way of the Peaceful Warrior,” he said.

“Why can’t we give love one more chance?” I replied.

Makes no sense, I know, but like years on the Pro Tour, thats the way dreams go.

Meet a man who never rides backside…

It is a winter’s day in Lemoore, California. The day after Kelly Slater’s forty-seventh birthday, if you want specifics, which makes it February 12, 2019.

It’s cold. The air and the water is 48 (nine degrees celsius).

There is quite the pack at Surf Ranch, including Momentum-era vets Kalani Robb and the Weatherley brothers Jason and Benji, commentator and steroidal-tit owner Strider Wasilewski, the photographer Todd Glaser (whose wife will ride a “hot left” from launch to evacuation), a crew filming for Outside magazine and Dan Mann, the head shaper for Slater Designs.

Mann, who is forty-six years old (“Nine months younger than Kelly,” he says), thrills the crowd when he rides a right as a regular footer and, on the return leg, takes it as a goofy.

“The frontside warrior,” says Kelly.

As it transpires, Mann doesn’t know how to ride a wave backside. He became a switch-hitter when he was a kid learning to surf in Hawaii. His pal was a goofyfooter; his dad was regular.

He copied ’em both.

“That was the late seventies, early eighties when Jeff Hakman and co were doing that thing. It was cool. One of the tricks,” says Dan. “And, then, where I live now in south San Diego, the left barrels kinda bend so it’s easier to pull in frontside. When I hit twenty-five I think I realised I’d actually been a regular-footer the whole time. Ever since then I lost my goofyfoot comfort but I can’t go backside. I’m more comfortable frontside both ways.”

Does he identify as a regular-footer now?

“Yeah, that’s what I identify as and that’s what got Kelly all mad at me. He said, ‘You’re missing half the excitement of what it’s like to go backhand!’ I didn’t know what to say. Now I’m old and you can’t teach an old dog a new trick.”

I ask, how many waves have you caught backside in your life?

“Probably a dozen, if that. I would never even think to go backside, especially on a barrel. The only reason I would go backside would be to cutback and go right.”

Can he describe, as a switch-hitter, the feeling of riding backside?

“It’s awkward. Probably how a normal person switching stance would feel. But in that clip, I was faking it on the left. If you watch it again, I’m not that comfortable in that little carve but pulling in, barrel riding, I’m comfortable as a goofy.”

Over the course of the day, Mann was there at the pool’s seven-thirty opening, rode it for five hours until it shut for one hour for lunch, and was still riding waves at five pm, when it was just he and Kelly trading waves.

“I got a ton in that last hour,” he says.

Watch!

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bu7E0ApHBnW/