Riding giant skateboards
Excellent telly for the last two nights, Monday saw the screening of ‘Riding Giants’, a documentary about the history of Big Wave surfing. There were floral print shirts, ear-rings and lots and lots of men saying ‘dude’ a lot. Then last night ‘Dogtown and the Z boys’ was on, documenting the rise of a certain school of skateboarding in 1970s California.
This was fantastic stuff and a true document of the counterculture (as opposed to our over-the-counter culture, where the most athletic thing people do is order extra fries with their burger). These were men who surfed/skated alone and shared something, I think, with mountain climbers and others who put themselves in danger in order to get some sense of achievement. Competing against others is easy, you win, you’re great, you lose, you try and do better. Competing with yourself is hard, you do well, you feel you could do better, you screw up and, well, you drown apparently. These chaps were competing against themselves and against nature, or working with it, depending on your opinion.
Underneath all the bleach blond hair and looking past the tan, muscle and use of the word ‘gnarly’ with a straight face by adults, what struck me was their inability to articulate what it was they loved about surfing. The thing is, this was no great issue. These guys spend their days sitting on a board in the ocean waiting for a wave, not staring at a PC wondering how to describe what they are feeling - they’re surfers, not girls.
Ever tried to give complicated directions and simply given up and said ‘fuck it, I’ll draw you a map’. That was what these guys were like, you could see them thinking ‘want to know what’s great about surfing - come with me and I’ll show you’. Luckily, the film did just that, you’d see some guy talking about trying to catch a wave and the next thing you see is the same guy, now a dot on a board riding some monster made of water and surf and fury and the whole lot collapses in on itself and then explodes…and out of it comes the guy, still whole and still smiling. Now that’s surfing.
Naturally I watched both docs about extreme activities performed by natural athletes while stretched on the sofa drinking beer - something I could talk about at length without having to draw a picture.
This was fantastic stuff and a true document of the counterculture (as opposed to our over-the-counter culture, where the most athletic thing people do is order extra fries with their burger). These were men who surfed/skated alone and shared something, I think, with mountain climbers and others who put themselves in danger in order to get some sense of achievement. Competing against others is easy, you win, you’re great, you lose, you try and do better. Competing with yourself is hard, you do well, you feel you could do better, you screw up and, well, you drown apparently. These chaps were competing against themselves and against nature, or working with it, depending on your opinion.
Underneath all the bleach blond hair and looking past the tan, muscle and use of the word ‘gnarly’ with a straight face by adults, what struck me was their inability to articulate what it was they loved about surfing. The thing is, this was no great issue. These guys spend their days sitting on a board in the ocean waiting for a wave, not staring at a PC wondering how to describe what they are feeling - they’re surfers, not girls.
Ever tried to give complicated directions and simply given up and said ‘fuck it, I’ll draw you a map’. That was what these guys were like, you could see them thinking ‘want to know what’s great about surfing - come with me and I’ll show you’. Luckily, the film did just that, you’d see some guy talking about trying to catch a wave and the next thing you see is the same guy, now a dot on a board riding some monster made of water and surf and fury and the whole lot collapses in on itself and then explodes…and out of it comes the guy, still whole and still smiling. Now that’s surfing.
Naturally I watched both docs about extreme activities performed by natural athletes while stretched on the sofa drinking beer - something I could talk about at length without having to draw a picture.
3 Comments:
DARN IT!! I just wrote this long comment about surfing...here are the highlights:
I absolutely love surfing although I suck at it. I still have an awesome custom-made surfboard that my mom suggests would be more useful as a coffee table. Usually I've always just floated around on a bodyboard and gotten in the way. Growing up on the beach and then being a lifeguard on the beach, I have spent a lot of time around guys (and a couple of girls) that surf. My first "real" boyfriend (the one who passed away last year) was an excellent surfer. We always had so much fun playing on the beach and in the water--sailing, surfing/bodyboarding, kayaking, etc. I was so care-free and laid back...now I have bills and reality although I often daydream of having a surfer boyfriend on the Pro Tour and I just travel around from beach to beach with him. Then I am jerked back to reality.
I think they definitely hit the nail on the head---- I don't think there are any words appropriate in describing the feeling you get from surfing and being out there in the waves (no, my experience is not with BIG waves like you probably saw on TV).
However, if there were words that described it, I'm sure that most surfers wouldn't be able to pronounce them.
Go Ecuador. Just kidding.
Gone. No kidding.
BeckHAM BeckHAM!
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