Change is good.
You have certainly heard the quote, misattributed to the great thinker Albert Einstein, that the definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” In truth, there is no record of Einstein ever uttering such a thing, the earliest reference likely being recorded in a 1981 Knoxville, Tennessee newspaper describing a meeting of a local Al-Anon, the organization that helps families of alcoholics.
It is, nevertheless, a nice quote and I was thinking about it, today, while chatting with David Lee Scales during our weekly get together.
I had watched very much of the just-wrapped Boost Mobile Gold Coast Pro. Too much, perhaps, and was left with the impression that those who filter in and out of the Challenger née Qualifying Series to the Championship Tour are insane. That is, they surf the same exact way but expect different results.
It’s exactly good enough to get out of the second tier, exactly bad enough to drop them right back in.
Why don’t any radically experiment with technique, board choice, strategy? The great Kelly Slater, love him or adore him, has never been afraid to throw absolutely wacky design into the mix. Sometimes it serves him, other times it does not but it certainly keeps things interesting.
No?
But wouldn’t you be refreshed by an angry Leonardo Fioravanti back-paddling everyone and causing water fights or an airborne Sally Fitzgibbons committed to launching whenever and wherever possible?
Change is good.
Yes?
Listen here.
Chas, on the topic of Keala trying to get back on tour after fighting to have women’s events included at places like Pipeline. She didn’t fly out and compete at Snapper “to be equal”, she wants the opportunity to surf Pipeline (and other heavy waves) on the world stage. She was already in the women’s heat at the Da Hui Backdoor Shootout. Whatever people think of her, it’s rad she fought for women to get into those events, and it’s even cooler that she’s trying to get into them herself. Come on Chas, that’s Grit.
C for Campbell brothers?
It’s unjust for the already qualified CT surfers to come down to the Challenger series for a bit of fun and to pillage the top honours like Robson did here. Rampaging through the line up of young kids, and freshly demoted and heartbroken vets, with not a care in the world. No pressure. And it is to continue with dozens of them to fill the CS event line ups for the rest of the campaign.Taking the spots of nearly qualified regional surfers worldwide, desperate for a shot at the big time. I can only imagine it’s the WSL keeping their top boys and girls busy, and not hanging round doing nothing more productive than having “fun” as surfers have a propensity for doing. Though the truth might be more simply explained.
Basically the WSL is show business and thus the top leaguers will be paraded out at this level to sell the new burgeoning product. The Competitions Committee (if they have such a thing) or it might have been JMD, said in a memo at the end of last season they were aware of the fact, after much criticism about it, that, plundering CT surfers lining their own surf short pockets with QS series wannabees points was not on and would be changed.
Well they appeared to be going down that trail but somehow in a roundabout way it’s still happening. Unjustifiable, morally, in my book. But I’m not Eric Logan. Thankfully.
It adds 20 surfers (who are only allowed to enter one event) across 8 contest.
It might not be “fair” on the CS Surfers but it certainly helped make me tune into Snapper and become aware of many Surfers I’d never heard of. I’m now invested in the challenge series. That’s a win for the WSL and for those Surfers profiles and the viewing public.
yeah you’re wsl’ sugar baby anyway…
The Tour is the closest it’s ever been to something palatable.
No matter how you sugar coat it there are a lot of young surfers trying their level best and battling to qualify in the regionals to get the first step on the ladder to the CS. The pathways are being baulked by senior surfers taking their spots who are already qualified for the main events on the CT. That’s a fact.
That said the WSL have a decent product and are doing a good job overall in my judgement. I look forward to more fun and frivolity in the season ongoing served with the inevitable side salad of controversy, which spices up the experience for all and especially for the posters of Beach Grit to get their teeth into.
I fucken shit myself from the mouth when they start talking “step ups” that are 2 inches (or Wiggoly’s willy) bigger than their normal boards. Fuck off with your 2 inch step up you pretentious wankers. Pull out a fucken 10 foot glassed on single fin glider and then call it a step-up. Dickheads they are.
Love my glider..
Oh guys… your superstition is so cringe.
Ouija boards:
https://99percentinvisible….
I’ll listen to it later
I doubt that very much Pete
Just as a lot of the rest of us won’t…
“I’m tired,”
http://www.tzr.io/yarn-clip…
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
You laugh but day Alex Ribeiro will be world champ.
Had a surf around Leo at Margs prior to the contest, loud mouthed (with a seppo accent – thought he was Italian for some reason?) and although a good wave catcher otherwise unremarkable as a pro surfer ( as were a number of them from an outsiders perspective), happy to see him knocked down a peg or 2 , child prodigies meet reality eventually
cunt backpaddled me at snapper many moons ago
you could have pick one of those dogs asshole pic with an adjacent jesus image tho…
Change is bad! Scary. Protect the status quo at all costs. Most CT guys idea of changing it up is to ride a board 1/8″ wider. I wonder why there hasn’t been a major design jump a la the thruster in 40 years?
The last great design change was single to double concave with v out the tail.
Or maybe riding quads because they are faster due to less drag, even though 4 fins have bigger surface area than 3.
Sometimes I think shapers just fluke upon something that works, make up some bullshit reason.
Yep…lost control of the planer most likely
I’d put out an argument for Tomo’s planing hull designs or asymmetricals, but they never really got enough support to be mainstream
I have often wondered why there seems to me to be no experimentation by shapers on the deck of a board…always thought a concave, like a skateboard, would be worth checking out
Doesn’t sell, a lot of people want something like the pros ride
The cut is pure genius. Create a drama by cutting surfers and than put the same surfers back on the CT via wildcards.
Its so pointless, I love it !
“Why don’t any radically experiment with technique, board choice, strategy?”
Because surfers are a bunch of scared little conformist bitches terrified that people will laugh at them and call them kooks if they do it any different.
Except for the surfers who do it different. They’re a pack of laughable kooks.
Except for a few Brazos,everyone is doing a version of Callum Robson. I’d kill to see Kelly ride that Twinny in a CT heat and watch the judges run and hide
That was a quad with a smaller trailer fin .
Five fins
damned if you do, damned if you….
It’s about time we saw Sally hop onto a genuine mid-length. I reckon I’ve probably got one she would like downstairs. She’s been bouncing around with that little choad, Trent for a few years with unsatisfactory results. As tempting as it is to go back to what you know, she needs to start thinking outside the box and expand her skill set on some slightly bigger equipment. I’m expecting to see big things coming out of Sally’s back end of the year.
Holy shit!
I used to think I was mid-length til the wifey said I was longer than most
My missus keeps telling my dick is tiny. I think she is attempting to lower my self esteem so that I do not leave her. Jokes on her though. I basically have left her. I’m not sure how this is relevant to my coaching advice above though?
That’s why she went to the winery with the girls. You should have screened her with a black light upon her return home.
Evidence, not assumptions.
Mid Length?
Time to cop the 10,6 log
Thanks to Weet-Bix sponsorship it’ll be a solid performance.
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
You need to monetize your genius.
If only. My day job is sucking my will to live.
Try marriage.
It’s on the cards. I shouldn’t complain. I can work whenever pretty much, and from home. Plenty of water time.
what yo ud
oops. what you do for work?
Nothing that involves needing higher education, put it that way.
Inquiring minds want to know!!!
And when that doesn’t work try a second time
Retire early, SELL BITCOIN NOW!!!
Sucking my willy to live!
Perhaps if all these kids treated the ‘Challenged Series’ like a TickGramBook Challenge; “Hur hurr !! Hey! It’s teh Challenged Series Challenge!!! Can you do it?!?” then their outlook might be more optimistic.
Kellys wave on that twinny in the mouldys heat was pure art.
I agree. That was fantastic.
Asher Pacey in a CT heat would make the judges implode
Is he 60?
I think it had trailing fins behind the twins….
BUt he looked very spicy
Missed it–link?
Youtube.com
Tomo boards still setting themselves apart at snapper 10 yrs after Stu Kennedy brought them to tour events – when even Chas gives props to Slats for something you know it’s special.
What’s additionally odd, now that someone explained things to me, is that with everyone agreeing that the pre-cut total of surfers is bloated and the cut did a good job of, well, cutting the chaff, does everyone realize that come next season the tour balloons back up to the same overbloated size we started out with this year, and then there’s the cut again? What’s needed is quite simple: first, keep the field lean and relevant, e.g. our post-cut numbers, and then at the end of the season the bottom 3-5 are axxed (or in soccer terms, “relegated” and just the top 3-5 (or whatever) are “promoted.” but here you have a fair consensus that post-cut field makes sense, but now expecting a different result, they are going back to the very same thing they tried and blow the field back for half the season. Seems goofy.
Do you also try to apply real logic to the WWE, or the gritty fly-on-the-wall series ‘My Little Pony’?
Take that back about the WWE! Hulkamania is running wild on you!
Spot on, Paul.
It’s Groundhog Day …..