Gidget Ruined Surfing

April 22nd, 2010

About five years ago at a surf festival, I met Kathy Kohner Zuckerman, a.k.a. Gidget, the diminutive female surf icon of the 1950s.

Gidget’s parents fled Europe, fleeing Hitler. It’s truly amazing, then, that Gidget’s father, Frederick Kohner, hadn’t been speaking English for that long when he wrote a book about his daughter’s surfing and on-shore experiences with the Malibu local surfers.

The book launched a Gidget franchise of memorabilia, corny Hollywood surf-centric films and television shows.

Although I found Zuckerman very friendly when I met her, I blame her for causing the first wave of Hollywood surf exploitation.

Can this first wave of Hollywood surf exploitation be somehow traced to how crowded my local break has become?

I doubt it. Yes, Gidget ruined surfing, but if her life hadn’t been documented, someone else’s would have.

The Hollywoodification of surfing would have eventually happened one way or the other.

Were Miki Dora, Mickey Munoz and other surfers of the Malibu scene hypocrites for blaming Hollywood on ruining their beloved break while acting as surfing stunt doubles in Hollywood flicks during the 1950s and 60s?

Of course!

But I don’t blame them.

I just wished that in the 21^st century, surfing wasn’t so fashionable.

I truly feel that I was drawn to surfing by a divine kick in the ass, or to be more holy, you could call it divine inspiration.

How many people have been drawn to surfing as a result of the plethora of car and insurance commercials that exploit surfing?

Commercials using surfing aren’t just centered in coast areas; you’ll find them on the TV in Iowa, Ohio and Kansas.

Surfing has been glamorized. I fled the East Coast over a decade ago, giving up living in a rat race of a town where you were primarily judged by how much money you made.

I don’t really care what people back there think of my lifestyle but there is a vain, small part of me that hopes that people don’t think I got into surfing because it’s perceived as cool by media conglomerates.

Surfing is a spiritual endeavor. I do wish that there were millions less surfers in the water. My home break seems to be infested with many surfers who are only out in the water because that’s the thing to do.

Gidget: Did you have any preconception of what your dad’s book would lead to?

Probably not. I really can’t blame her. As much as I think it’s cool to be counter culture and resent Gidget for dropping the first nuclear bomb on surfing, she meant no harm.

And it’s not like surfing remained popular till present day; surfing fell out of vogue in the 60s and 70s…surfers in that era were once again the true outcasts.

I truly wish surfing was an activity for pariahs. I wish there were no surfing lawyers and doctors and stock brokers. How validated I would feel if surfing were still equated with being a beach bum.

The stereotype still exists but in Southern California everyone and their mother, and Indian chiefs surfs.

So do me a favor and stereotype me. Please be prejudicial in your assumption of me, a surfer. Please think of me as a slacker, a bum who has no motivation to make an honest buck.

Gidget, if it weren’t for you, would I be an outcast?

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Should I Stay or Should I go now (to Ghana)?

April 13th, 2010

Although I’ve been hoping to raise my spiritual awareness and cultivate a keener relationship to the God-head within, I admit that I am a surfer who puts catching waves at my local reef break paramount to anything else in my life.

It’s a hedonistic, beach boy lifestyle that I am very grateful to live.

Still, there are many times when I think that there could be so much more I could do for fellow human beings, especially those with a lot less luck than with what I’ve been both born into and have created for myself.

As a surfing homeboy, I rarely take any surf trips. But I am seriously thinking about travelling to Ghana of all places.

It’s not a popular surf destination but because of one person I’ve been communicating with, it’s seriously on my radar.

In the classic surf film “Endless Summer”, director and narrator Bruce Brown travelled with Mike Hynson and Robert August to Ghana.

I watch Endless Summer every once in a blue moon, perhaps twice a year. One morning after watching, I was curious about surfing in Ghana. I’m not sure why, call it intuition. None of the footage in the movie seemed compelling or epic.

My intuition has led me to live in the mellow, classic beach town where I live. It’s also led me to follow a few career pursuits (such as Thai Massage Therapy) without really knowing too much about the careers before deciding to invest time, money and energy into pursing them.

So with this intuition, I searched for surfing videos in Ghana and came across a mini documentary produced by Black Star Surf Shop in Busua, Ghana.

Peter Nardini owns the surf shop (and surf school). He’s an average surfer who lives most of the year, in all places, New Mexico.

He’s a profound example of how one average surfer can make a huge difference in improving the lives of those less fortunate.

Peter’s long laundry list of achievements in Ghana includes:

• Teaching the locals how to run and manage Black Star Surf Shop and its adjacent restaurant
• Teaching some of the locals how to surf and how to teach surfing
• Establish a local tourism office that would require visitors to make a donation to the community
• Establishing the region’s first Internet center and getting computers donated to the center and teaching the locals how to run it
• Using his previous non-profit connections to acquire a cargo ship container worth $300,000 in medical supplies, delivered to the nearby hospital
• Leading turtle conservation programs
• Putting together beach clean ups
• Sponsoring the first surf contest in the area
• Sponsoring and paying a salary to a few local surfers
• Clean-water solutions to the local hospital
• Forming AfricanHealthNet.org, a non-profit that seeks to eradicate malaria through a unique mosquito netting with solar-powered fans and lights within the net

Peter has travelled several times to Ghana over the last few years. In Busua village, the chief insisted that Peter sit in on all village inner sanctum meetings and even adopt the local dress at such meetings.

I’ve been in touch with him several times over email and a few times by phone.

He really wants me to go to Ghana and document the nascent surf scene and the progress of the community improvement projects.

It’s been a professional goal of mine as a wanna-be surf journalist to break into a respectable literary surf magazine.

If I go to Ghana, I’m confident that what I would document would be accepted by at least one publication.

But here’s the big but…. It’s not easy for me to leave the comfort and predictability and first-world luxuries of the surf town where I live.

Going to Ghana might also be expensive. Once I get there, I probably wouldn’t be spending much money but with the plain ticket and the money I wouldn’t be making at home, it could be a costly trip.

But at the end of my life, I’m not going to reflect back on all the money I saved by not travelling somewhere; I’m going to remember all the travels and wild experiences I’ve had.

My intuition is telling me to go to Ghana and that it will be an amazing cultural experience.

I still have four or five months before I would go, so there is still time for me to be contemplative.

The health factor plays a role in my hesitation as well. Even though Ghana is a relatively safe country, often called “Africa Lite”, it still has widespread malaria, which Peter himself has contracted twice.

“Africa is gnarly!” several friends have warned me.

Well, if Bruce Brown, Hynson and August, as well as well-known peripatetic surfers Kevin Naughton and Craig Peterson, made it through Ghana, I’m sure I’ll be fine.

It will be a spiritual struggle for me to get out of my comfort zone, but if I go, I’m sure I’ll be rewarded tremendously, if not economically, then certainly spiritually.
And after all, isn’t that why we’re here: to help others and raise our spiritual consciousness?

My intuition says yes.

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Please God, No Surf Contest at my Home Break

April 13th, 2010

I live near one of the most well-known point breaks in California. There are very few secret spots in California, perhaps none in Southern California. If I named it, believe me, I wouldn’t ruin it for the locals. It’s been overcrowded for decades.

Still, I’ll keep with the tradition of not naming names. I don’t surf this point break because of the crowds, regardless of how superb the waves can get here.

A female surf icon, who made a name for herself by winning a prestigious Hawaiian surf contest about 50 years ago, and who has spent a lot of time in this area, wants to hold a four-day long women’s longboard championship at this premiere point break.

The break has not held a contest since the 1960s. Logistics, including a steep, long, narrow staircase with no infrastructure to support a contest, is the main reason there has been no surf competition here in over 40 years.

A quasi-religious group who owns a landmark temple adjacent to the world-famous break has a lot of influence in town. Their pristine campus hosts meditation retreats.

Having a contest here could potentially open the door for future contests. Although the city’s general plan states that this beach shall not allow for surf contests, the language in the general plan is somewhat ambiguous.

The city council voted to allow the surf icon/promoter to go with the process of applying for the special permit.

Surfers like myself are livid that such a precedent has been granted. If one contest is held here, what’s to stop numerous surf promoters from applying for a special permit.

Pandora’s Box has indeed been opened.

But what’s my motivation for not wanting the contest? Wouldn’t it be cool to watch the world’s best female longboarders put on a masterful display of grace and beauty just a couple minutes from where I live?

Wouldn’t having the contest here add to the local economy? Business owners are still reeling from the sluggish economy. The main street here would almost certainly benefit from a five-day surf festival, as the promoter is calling it.

But what about the reputation of the area on the headland above the surf break, where the meditation gardens exist? Wouldn’t it be dangerous to allow even just one contest a year?

If allowed, the threat of law suits would be high. If one promoter is denied a special permit application, they could merely cite as precedent the women’s longboard championship.

The quiet sanctuary of the meditation garden would be jeopardized.

Admittedly, it’s selfish reasons why I don’t want the contest to be held.

If allowed, all the regulars who surf this popular point break would paddle out a few hundred yards north, to the reefs where I usually surf. Not only the locals, but many visitors to the area would catch on to my favorite break, which has already gotten exponentially more crowded just over the last year.

There would definitely be a spillover effect on the reef break where I surf.

I went to the city council meeting, in which the council, by a 3-2 margin, allowed for the promoter to apply for the special permit to host the contest.

On a certain level the meeting seemed like democracy at its finest. Both proponents and opponents of the contest were able to address the council to state their case.

I have to give credit to the opponents of the contest who in my opinion didn’t come across as angry, self-righteous, selfish surfers whose only motivation was to not have to share waves.

Instead, they focused on the absurd and seemingly-impossible logistics of having to host the contest.

Even the lead brother of the spiritual organization was in attendance, stating his case that the organization had some vital concerns about the contest being held, especially since it would be in conjunction with an all-female silent meditation retreat.

On the other hand, you could see the machinations of local politics in gear. You could almost see the back scratching of the promoter and mayor, who is one of the five council seats.

Who knows if his decision was made before the council meeting, I wouldn’t doubt it.

Is praying to God to not allow the surf contest a waste of time? Is it totally self-serving? Instead, should I be praying for world peace and clean-water and food abundance for all humanity? How narcissistic is it to pray for something simply for the fact that it will allow me to catch more waves?

In the end, I didn’t have to pray much. Just days after the council meeting, the promoter decided to abandon her hopes to have a world-class contest at this world-class wave. It was out of respect to the spiritual organization, she claimed.

So for now, I am relieved that my beloved local reef break will not be threatened with even more people. I am also happy that the spiritual sanctuary nearby is saved from megaphones, bullhorns, jetskis and other surf contest cacophony.

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Smoking Pot and Surfing: Spiritually Enhancing or Destructive?

April 2nd, 2010

Waiting for the next set, I’m captivated by the ice plants on the bluff and their different shades of green, roots dangling impossibly off the rocks and dripping mini waterfalls of dew.

Turning my head back to the horizon (a surfer learns early on never to take their eyes off the horizon for too long), the sky resembles a psychedelic Jimi Hendrix-worthy “Purple Haze” with blueberry clouds and fire-red streaks stretching for as far as the eye can see.

It’s about 15 minutes after sunset and I’ll soon be catching my last wave of the day. What an amazing session it’s been. Head-high sets tapering and feathering perfectly, producing several rides in excess of 100 yards, with few people out.

This blissed-out feeling will saturate my soul for the rest of the day and beyond.

Would my session have been enhanced by smoking some pot?

Several people I know seem to think so.

I don’t judge people who smoke pot or the act of smoking pot. Everyone is so unique. For some people, THC may have a positive effect on people; for others who abuse it, it could knock them off balance and become a crutch.

I personally would never smoke before a session, primarily for two reasons. Cotton mouth is number one. Surfing for two hours, no matter if it’s a one-foot day on a longboard or an 8-foot day shortboarding, always drains me.

Before every session, I make sure I drink at least two glasses of water. Smoking anything dehydrates the body. Why would I want to dehydrate my body even more?

Having dry mouth out in the water is not a pleasant experience. Yes, I’ll admit, I’ve learned this the hard way, many years ago.

Being closer to age 40, I have no problem admitting to younger people that yes, I have smoked pot. But I personally think that anyone under the age of 21 shouldn’t smoke. Most people don’t have the willpower to just occasionally smoke, especially nowadays with pot being so prevalent. People who haven’t finished high school or college and smoke lots of pot, for the most part, are at risk for becoming apathetic underachievers and chronic abusers of other narcotics.

I don’t think pot is a gateway drug, but from my experience and observing friends I went to school with, the younger you start smoking pot, the more of a chance it does lead to being a gateway to partying with harder drugs.

Rare is the responsible teen who can smoke pot once in a blue moon with friends, giggle till their jaw hurts and then go back to being a good student.

The other main reason I wouldn’t suggest smoking pot before surfing is, especially on a big day, you might need that extra breath if you’re being held down for a long time. True, smoking pot before a session is not likely to cause you to drown but on a long hold down, I want my lungs to have as much air as possible.

Smoking pot can enhance an experience but it can also detract from one. Different strains of pot cause different reactions.

The best thing to do is to live life without relying on pot.

But if it’s the only way you can meditate and really focus inward, a puff or two might be the solution.

Some people use it to enhance creativity. Perhaps this journal entry (or should I be more hip and use the term “blog”?) would be better if I were under the influence of pot.

I didn’t need pot to enhance today’s session. Long gone are my days of enjoying psychedelic enhancements through pot. I personally don’t need it. After a session though, I often times feel drained and don’t feel like doing work.

One small hit and it’s like I’ve drank three shots of espresso. I’m focused and energetic. Mother Nature’s magic weed in this case is highly beneficial for me.

I will never, though, smoke it in a social situation. I feel it detracts from fully expressing myself verbally and emotionally.

Some surfers I know, who are 20 years older than me, still take bong hit after bong hit. Is that enhancing their spirituality or merely a habit developed over years? It’s the latter, I think.

Only you know deep down inside if smoking pot enhances your human experience or makes for a bad trip.

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Why I Pray Before I Paddle Out (and why I won't surf on a holiday again)

March 2nd, 2010

I’ve had lots of close calls before, but finally, after 10 years of surfing, I got ran over.

It was a beautiful Monday, a holiday, President’s Day. A summer-like day in winter with an overhead-sized swell.

I should have listened to my intuition, which told me the lineup was too crowded. But the water looked so inviting.

Merely ten minutes after paddling out and catching my first wave, I found myself caught inside, scrambling to get past the break.

A 7-foot peak was forming in the middle section. A longboarder lined up for a right that would seemingly take him for a nice long ride, but at the last second the wave walled up. The longboarder wasn’t skilled enough to make it down the line, so instead he dropped in straight down, barely angling his nose at all. I attempted to paddle to his inside, as surf etiquette calls for.

With the longboarder headed straight for me, the only thing I could do was duck dive and pray, which I did. I asked God to keep me safe and not get hurt. I always pray for my safety before each session. Can’t hurt to do that, I figure. I truly do believe in a divine universal energy.

God, or what others might call, The Force, listened. But I also forgot to pray for my board, which seems silly anyway, to ask the incomprehensible, all-encompassing, creative energy of the universe to keep my toxic, polyurethane plank safe.

I felt something bump my board. When I emerged from the soup, I examined it. It didn’t take long to notice one glaring new defect.

One of the longboarder’s fins dislodged and found a new home for itself in the deck of my board. It went through the top, all the way through, poking out like a shark’s fin on the underside of the deck.

I calmly took the longboarder’s fin out, handed it back to him, and told him, “I guess that’s the end of my board.”

We checked in with each other to make sure neither of us were hurt. Without saying it, we both seemed to be on the same level, knowing that these things happen sometimes in surfing and it really wasn’t either of our faults.

After telling this story to some friends, nearly all asked if I asked the longboarder to pay for half of my board. After he ran me over, I caught one wave in because time was of the essence if I didn’t want my board to be water logged.

Too late. Upon inspection, nearly a quarter of the underside deck was totally delaminated, foam completely exposed, with two massive gashes. My board was mortally wounded.

So should I have asked the longboarder to have compensated me? My friends argued that since he wasn’t adequate enough of a surfer to avoid hitting me with his log, then I was in the right.

But I was so thankful that I didn’t get hurt, hurt real bad, as in the fin going through my skull or lacerating my calf. Instead of my board being mortally wounded, I could have been.

Even as I write this after the fact, I am still so thankful. Later that day–and the feeling still continues–I savored every bite of my meals and every swig of beer and every beautiful plant and flower and hug from my girlfriend.

I thought I was pretty good at living in the moment, but getting run over and contemplating mortality as a result has bumped up my appreciation for the present several notches.

I said goodbye to my 6’8″ Byrne shortboard, taking out the fins, and placing it by the dumpster, hoping that somebody might be inclined to attempt to bring it back from the dead. Thankfully, I wasn’t attached to that board. It would have been interesting to see what my Buddhist inclination would have been had I been riding one of my other boards that I have more of an attachment to.

Would I have been able to practice the spiritual discipline of non-attachment?

I hope I never get run over again. After ten years of surfing, I guess it was bound to happen. But from now on, I’ve learned my lesson. I’ll stay out of the water when it’s really crowded or go find a break with less people even if the wave quality isn’t as good. After all, my ultimate modus operandi in life is: “Live to Surf Another Day.”

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Surf Lessons: What I've Learned after Surfing 10 Years

February 21st, 2010

After 10 years of surfing consistent, mostly beginner and intermediate level waves here in California, I think I’m good enough of a surfer to be featured in a photo spread in a surf magazine.  If only there were a publication called Average Surfer, my mediocre surf chops would be immortalized on a glossy page for life.

Of course, being glorified has never been my intent.

Having a daily spiritual connection that I absolutely love doing more than anything in the world was and is always the goal.

After 10 years, mission accomplished!

If only George W. Bush would have been a surfer instead of a preemptive starter of a dubious war, maybe he, too, could unambiguously fly the Mission Accomplished banner high.

Surfing has for the last decade brought me a profound sense of joy, otherwise replacing a life that surely would have been filled with melancholy and countless wasted hours on Facebook, and other “social media” sources that I think drain the life force rather than supplying humanity with it.

I’ve learned that I still have ways to go, not only to improve my surfing, but to also improve as a human. More accurately, I’m trying in this lifetime, and every subsequent one, if in fact I do end up reincarnating, to act, at times, superhuman.

This means smiling in the lineup, even if deep down inside I am so thoroughly disappointed at how crowded my local break has become. It also means learning to accept that all things evolve. As much as I want my mellow beach town to remain a small speck on the map, bypassed by tourists, I’ll have to accept the fact that paradise has in a way been somewhat lost. The secret is out. Surfing has become so mainstream. How many thousands of other surf websites like this are there. Am I just rehashing thousands of other’s surfers sentiments?

If so, so be it.

I count my blessings that I lead the life I do, full of abundance in many things.

Yet, after a decade of surf stoke, there are many days where I forget to focus on the stoke and instead focus on the negative emotions; mostly anger. Fans of the movie, the Big Lebowski will surely recognize a negative energy that all too often plagues surfing and contradicts the Aloha spirit. It’s called “Unchecked Aggression.”

This aggression will not stand, man, to quote “The Dude.”

At least with me, it won’t. I refuse to allow unchecked aggression into my surf soul.

Ten years later, it’s a daily struggle, but I reaffirm my goal of being present every moment, recognizing anger and immediately transferring it into a positive thing.

After all this time in the water, what tools have I learned to use to make each session a more enjoyable one?

Before each session, I pray that I enjoy a fun and safe session. That’s all I ask for. The overwhelming majority of the time, the universe answers my prayer. After 10 years of praying for fun surf, I’ve realized that praying, like surfing, or playing guitar, takes practice.

So does practicing what Duke Kahanamaku, the early 20th century ambassador and emissary of surfing, advocated on a daily basis: realizing that there will be other waves and that we should thoroughly enjoy sharing waves with others we might not even know.

Easier said than done.

I also know that after 10 years of surfing and now being close to age 40, I have to stretch after each session and eat properly if I’m to surf for decades to come.

I’ve learned that in order to be a surfer, it helps to have a job with flexible hours. Thank God I Surf and Thank God I work for myself.

Surfing is an endeavor that can eat up 4 hours, easily. Average sessions last an hour and a half. Add getting ready and walking or biking back and forth from the break, a shower, post-session grub, and if necessary, a power nap.

It’s a miracle I can get any work done being a surfer.

At the end of my life, I’ll remember all the fun I had surfing, not all the awesome times I had in a cubicle.

For those stuck in a cubicle, Monday-Friday, I feel your pain. But I’m also glad you’re not in the water, making the breaks impossibly even more crowded. But I hope one day, you do discover something like surfing that fuels a stoke you’ve never experienced before, as I have for over 10 years….

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Crowded Surf: Am I Turning Into a Jaded, Salty Dog?

February 6th, 2010

This past mid-July (2009) we had a great overhead swell with sets pushing 8-10 feet. Naturally, being summer and a solid swell, it was more crowded than in fall or winter, but seemingly, overnight, my beloved reef break that I’ve been surfing for 10 years, looked like a seal breeding colony.

I counted 85 guys in the water. I never have seen a crowd this large. In the last six months since that July swell, my break has been noticeably more crowded with every decent swell. Overnight is no exaggeration. Eighty-five frickin’ guys in the water. In the past, maybe 30 tops on a great swell.

What’s happened? Has there been a population boom? Is surfing trendier now than it was, say 5 years ago? Can surfing possibly be any trendier? My favorite, yet fickle, right peak I love up until this past summer was nearly devoid of surfers; now, it’s getting too uncomfortably close to resembling the adjacent famous point break, which today resembles more of an Indy 500 racetrack.

Compared to the famous break next door, I still have it relatively good. This isn’t Australia or Brazil, thank God!  (I have, though, seen a few more Brazil Nuts, as they’re affectionately known, in the water lately. So far, they are behaving themselves.)

Yet, I still, at times, feel angry: Aren’t I entitled to enjoying my breaks with a minimal crowd, as I’ve done peacefully for the last 10 years?

Now I know how the longtime surfers, those bitter salty dogs feel, when newcomers like myself invaded the lineup a decade ago. The changing of the guard has occurred and now it is me who feels like the bitter salty dog.

What can I do besides bitch about it? There are two alternatives: One is to form a lineup posse and regulate the newbies and aggressive surfers who have  invaded this serene surf dream of mine. I know at least a few long-time surfers that I share these breaks with who would love to have a waterproof Howitzer and mow down the kooks. Actually, one beloved, yet perhaps unemotionally-stable local pretends he’s firing a machine gun at the various surfers who are making him feel claustrophobic. He has a frenetic energy and can shred on an expert level, so when he’s mocking mowing the crowd down, surfers usually paddle away from him.

The second option, the antithesis of being a negative, angry surfer, is to take it all in stride, smile at people in the lineup, or at least have a neutral facial expression. I realize sometimes, that I look more like a prize fighter just before a MMA cage match.

I often have to remind myself to smile. “Smiling is godly,” I tell myself. Godly meaning rising above animalistic tendencies and raising the consciousness to a higher plane.

I’ll just have to face the facts that I’m not going to catch as many waves as I have per session when it’s a great swell. I’ll have to surf more during non-prime time conditions. I’ll have to paddle over to my own peak. Maybe it won’t be as consistent, but I’ll continue to have peaceful, spiritually-purifying sessions.

In the past, I’ve decided not to go on surf trips that I’ve been invited to go on, because if I did go, I feared, I would either get skunked with no good waves, or I’d end up at some primo surf destination with 100 people in the lineup. Not my idea of fun.

Is there a silver lining to more crowded surf for myself? Maybe tiring of jockeying for position at my local break will propel me to tap into my more adventurous side and seek out uncrowded surf locales.

Until then, I declare that from now on, before every session, as I warm up on shore, I will do some spiritual energy work, placing a vortex, or bubble as it were, around me, thereby using quantum physics to attract into my life, only courteous and positive people in the lineup near me.

And hopefully that energy work will keep the crowds down.

I still live in paradise. I get to surf everyday. Yes, it’s gotten more crowded, but that’s a reality I’m just going to have to deal with the best I can.  I don’t want to be a bitter salty dog.

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What Makes a Surfer?

December 17th, 2009

Do you remember how many members in the House of Representatives there are? How many voting districs does your state or county have? Who is your local representative in Congress? What is the age minimum to be a U.S. Senator? How many amendments to the constitution are there? What are the first 10 amendments called?

If you don’t know the answers, you’re in the majority. Maybe somebody would consider you un-American for not knowing. Does it really matter if someone living in the U.S. knows who the main authors of the Constitution were?

If you don’t know, are you a real American?

If you’re a surfer but don’t know your surfing history, does that make you, really, not a true surfer?

There’s probably several surfers who don’t know that polyurethane foam, fiberglass and resin are the three main components in a modern surf board.

Should every wave rider be forced to learn who the Duke was just as every high school graduate, at least where I came from, had to pass a Citizenship class in high school as a requisite? Should everyone who calls themselves a true surfer be forced to take a surf history and surfboard shaping theory aptitude test and present it to their local lifeguard to be admitted in the water?

Are you a true surfer if you don’t know that the surfboard revolution has evolved from redwood to balsa to foam; are you a true surfer if you don’t know who Bob Simmons, Mickey Dora, Buzzy Trent, Mike Hynson, Simon Anderson, et al. were?

Well, I’m not entirely sure what makes a true surfer. I suppose practicing proper surf etiquette, being stoked, having fun and surfing on a regular basis constitutes a true surfer. But I think everyone who really thinks of themselves as a true surfer should have down basic surf history, surfboard material knowledge.

But after 10 years of surfing, I realize I can be more of a complete surfer. I really would like to be more knowledgeable in shaping theory, let alone the art of shaping itself.

Am I a true surfer if I’ve never shaped my own board? I bet some surfers wouldn’t think I’m a true surfer because I have yet to shape my own, and probably never will, as I can barely replace a lightbulb.

Downrail, bevelled edges, concave, rocker, water displacement theory, twin fin, twinzer, quad fin, five fin, bonzer, fish, thruster … will I ever be dialed in to notice the subtleties in different board designs, not to mention fins? I hope to be more so, so that I may be more of a true surfer.

I feel like I need more that a “Dummies” series book on board design theory. I need a Dummies for Dummies book on the subject to understand things better left studied by MIT students.

I realize that just because I have read numerous surf publications, watched DVDs, and most importantly, have surfed almost every day for the last 10 years, I have yet to become the complete true surfer I want to be.

Off to the book store I go to try and find one of those Dummies books….

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Was I Predestined to Surf?

December 15th, 2009

A girl from England recently contacted me. She’s studying Outdoor Education and is working on a dissertation on surfing as a form of therapy. She asked me a few questions and I responded off the cuff. It was fun to revisit the events which led me to be a dedicated surfer.

Can you tell me about your journey as to how you became involved in surfing.

This may sound corny, but I do believe that I was destined to surf. Not a professional or expert surfer by any stretch of the imagination; rather, I was meant to be an average surfer with a love for soul-carving, feeding off the spiritual rejuvenation that this sport and lifestyle graces with me just about every day, even on the flat ones.

But it took me until almost age 30 to figure this out. I was born with an aquatic prediliction, learning how to swim well by age 5 and spending every summer of my life until age 17 swimming, bodysurfing and bodyboarding in the Mediterranean. My mother, who comes from Israel, nicknamed me “Juke,” which in Hebrew means “Cockaroach”. I took it as a compliment, as my mother was actually calling me a “water bug” and not a roach.

Over the next decade, I lost my connection to the ocean. Age 16 was the last time I summered in Israel. For the next 10 years, I lived my life like a land-locked fool. First came the provincial university where I went to, close to Washington, D.C., which is about 2-3 hours from the Atlantic Ocean. I became a neanderthal-like party God, drinking copious amounts of beer. My greatest concern now is chasing waves. Back then, during my unenlightened period, my main motivation: chasing babes. Chasing babes to chasing waves…this has been my spiritual evolution.

Instead of going back to Israel during the summers, like I now wish I had, I stayed near home and university, partying with my mates and not having any other ambition.

I moved to San Diego, California at age 26 (I’m now 36). Intuition led me to San Diego. Not for a job, that’s for sure. I didn’t really know anything about the city and its environs, nonetheless, I figured, “How bad could San Diego be?”

I didn’t start surfing right away, nor did I have any expectations to. I was living about 20 minutes inland and while that may not be that far to the coast for some, it didn’t matter: surfing was not on my radar.

About six months after I first arrived in San Diego, a co-worker took me surfing for the first time. My very first session, a trio of dolphins surfed a wave within about 50 meters from where I was sitting on the inside. I didn’t catch any waves that first day, but what a rush to see those dolphins, aerodynamically perfect in the clear crest of the wave, speeding down the line. It was a left that I’ll never forget. Those dolphins looked like submarines, they were so huge!

Do you feel that taking up surfing was a turning point in your life ?… how

Absolutely has surfing been a major factor in my life. In fact, after the first few times I surfed, I didn’t take it up regularly. That wouldn’t come for another six months. I went through a major depression after breaking up with the girl who moved to San Diego with me in April, 1999.

I’m glad I went through that hellacious period of a few months because it’s the perfect example of: what doesn’t kill you making you stronger. Not only that, but had I not went through that experience, perhaps I never would have gotten into surfing. Because, after I eventually got my mental mojo back, I’ve pretty much been surfing almost every day and feel spiritually cleansed from its effects.

I had an amazing dream one night that gave me the motivation to get back into surfing post depression. I was still hurting from the breakup but was at least functioning. One day during that time, I took a short rode trip and walked along the pier and slumped my forearms on the wood railing next to some fisherman and watched the surfers.

I do remember thinking how awesome the feeling of surfing a wave must be, but I still wasn’t determined or aware that I’d eventually be surfing on an almost daily basis and feeling perpetually stoked. But that night, I dreamt that I was carving a wave, it was a perfect turquoise head-high right. The feeling of cutting back and doing turns felt so real. Considering I couldn’t even skateboard at that time, this was an amazing alternate reality, albeit a fleeting one.

That next day, I scheduled a surf lesson and haven’t looked back since.

How is surfing part of your life now?

My occupation is a wellness coach. I do pain releif therapy, nutrition coaching and exercise. As successful as I may sound, I have limited my income potential because of surf. I always book clients around less than ideal tides. I refuse to take on jobs that require me to be at a certain time and place on a daily basis. I like to freelance and work for myself so I can always surf.

If partying and wooing the fairer sex was my raison d’etre in college and the few years after, before I moved to San Diego, now, my main reason for being is surfing. I can’t ever see giving it up.

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What’s Up with SUP (Stand Up Paddlers)?

December 5th, 2009

Over the last couple of years, the “sweepers” have multiplied like a virus. Even with a depressed economy pinching people’s non-essential spending, it seems there are plenty of financially well-offs willing to plunk down nearly two thousand dollars to buy a 10 or 11-foot SUP (Stand Up Paddle) board and oar.

In a way, there’s something aesthetically alluring seeing someone standing on a board with their paddle and cruising from break to break, like the watermen of long ago. The SUP craze, though, doesn’t quite equate to a Hawaiian beach-boy renaissance; lots of prone paddlers loathe “SUPers” because the SUPers have an enormous advantage with their eagle-eye view, long, heavy board and paddle, making catching waves nearly effortless.

Personally, I have no problem with SUPers, as long as they don’t snake any waves and dominate a line up. Ideally, a SUPer will find his own break, leaving the prone paddler alone.

One time, I was sitting alone about 50 yards north of the main popular point break. There were chest high waves but coming in very inconsistently. After what seemed like a 10-minute lull, I saw a wave forming and started paddling to the peak. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a SUPer sweeping his “broom”, racing for “my wave.”

I was planning on going left, but the SUPer caught the wave on the shoulder and I thought he was going left so I backed off. Halfway down the line, he cut back and ended up going right. How was I supposed to know he was going right? He should have shouted for me to go for it at the very least.

I read an angry-toned letter to the editor in a popular surfing magazine recently saying that if someone is using an oar or paddle to get into a wave, then they are classified essentially as a boat, and therefore, by law, have to give right away to a prone surfer.

I don’t want to be an angry person. But I felt anger when the SUPer invaded my solitude and ruined what might have been the best wave of my session. Perhaps this episode was a test.

I could have just let the situation go and laughed it off, but that experience left me with a bad association with SUPers. But there are plenty of SUPers who catch waves with good etiquette. Just like it’s unwise to judge a whole race of people based on one person’s actions, I should judge all SUPers based on one bad experience.

Still, I can’t help but laugh when I see an obvious beginner SUPer try to paddle into an ankle slapper and wiping out. “Serves that yuppie right,” my judgmental mind chatters.

I’m sure the experience standing on a board and paddling effortlessly on glassy water is a sublime experience and a good workout, but I love the feeling of being prone, paddling into a wave and popping up to my feet and letting my feet, hips, arms and board—not a paddle—serve as the catalyst for speed down the line.

I don’t plan on SUPing anytime time soon. But if I am confronted with a SUPer snaking a wave again in the future, I will try to be calm in voicing my displeasure.

“Hey man, that looks like a lot of fun, but I’ve been sitting in this spot for a long time waiting for a wave. I don’t want to be angry but that’s how I’m feeling right now. In the future, please don’t paddle into a wave that I’ve been waiting for.”

I would try using an intro like that, though, admittedly, I would need to polish it up and make it shorter and more to the point.

As a human that hasn’t yet mastered peaceful thinking, I imagine a SUPer snaking one of my waves and as revenge, I paddle right up to him going down the line and tripping him or grabbing the oar out of his hand. Other prone surfers no doubt would take that violent imagination a step further by picturing bashing the SUPer over the head.

But if I keep imagining that scene, I will attract that into my life and I don’t want that; I want to be at my own peak with maybe a friend or two and left in peace.

Ultimately, SUPers who snake waves are no different than prone surfers snaking waves. I think it’s important for all prone surfers not to judge SUPers for being financially well-off wave hogs.

The same magazine I alluded to earlier had an editorial in which the editor recommended that every surfer try SUP because it makes every small day look like Rincon firing at its finest, or something to that effect. The editor also said that because many of today’s top pros are trying it, that we surf peons should take it up also.

Personally, I think the editor should be tarred and feathered for advocating that. Can you imagine your favorite break with 50-100 SUPers? I can picture it now. SUPers who accuse each other of snaking a wave would settle their differences in a fencing duel with their oars; or perhaps they would try to bash each other’s skulls.

Despite that, on a flat day, seeing a SUPer cruising for hundreds of yards makes me feel at once copasetic with the scenery and envious because it looks like fun.

But when the surf is up, there is something still unsettling about the site of a SUPer battling for waves with “normal” surfers.

It’s crucial, though, that we all get along. How are we going to become a peaceful world, how are we going to have understanding with our global enemies if shortboarders can’t stand longboarders and prone surfers want to snipe SUPers?

Can’t we all just get along?

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