On Saturday May 16th I had a personal breakthrough in my surfing. I had not surfed for 12 days. I spent those days writing, doing yoga, administering virtual consults over Zoom, brainstorming, walking my dog, and cooking. In preparation for our May 14 Zoom lesson, I had assigned my student, young Max, to watch Loaded by Dane Reynolds (2014) on YouTube. We spent most of the meeting on board design and did not get to really dig into the video together, but I had the link saved in a tab for watching down the road. I accidentally scrolled over that tab when doing something else and it cut to the video, which somehow had been playing for a few minutes. I paused it in the middle of precise Taylor Knox cutback, did a double take, and decided that I ought to watch the whole thing.
First, however, I re-read my blog post about the pumping surf on May 2 and paid special attention to the sequence Guy Barash shot of me dropping into that gorgeous wave. In the first slide my hands are up in the air. Then I connect with my board, lean on the rail, and sneak into and out of the tube. I was looking at my arms, and asking myself, “Is it normal for a good surfer to do that from time to time? Why are my arms up there and does it have to be that way?” I also ruminated on what my anxiety state is as I enter into waves like that or as I enter into tubing surf. I still get scared. I have that upper stomach fear tickle, which is obviously related to a deep seated fear of death, failure, and injury/suffering. I’m still going to override it, but it’s there causing me to hesitate in tiny ways. The slightest hesitation — can I really stand up under the lip? what if I pearl and ruin the whole wave? — may cause me to get ever so slightly hung up, thus making me air drop down the wave rather than simply tucking up under the hood from the get go. I am aware of this tickle in my upper stomach and the feeling of mixed excitation and dread as a heaving tube beast is headed my way. The anxiety is also a result social and cultural positioning: I want to be a stylish surfer who goes fast with little extra movement. I don’t want to look like one of those people who are riding a board that is too small for them, making jerky motions and bogging rail because they are not distributing speed properly. With this kind of surfing as a negative example, I can err on the too conservative side and not throw caution to the wind. My next move was to watch Loaded with an eye to these thoughts.
Loaded is loaded with great surfing by Dane Reynolds, Nat Young, Noa Deane, Taylor Knox, Andrew Doheny, and Craig Anderson (I could be missing one or two others, but this is the main cast). It is filmed in CA, Indonesia, Japan, and Mexico (and again maybe some other places, but they’re not exactly listed). It is a highly consumable length: 20 min. The music and visuals are pleasing. There is not much gender or race equity in terms of the talent presented, but at least Dane omits the formulaic and passe “woman as object” shots that unfortunately are still common in surf content. His touristic shots are also tasteful. One does not get the dirty, exploitative, colonialist feeling that many surf travel films evoke (Taylor Steele’s are particularly bad for this).
My goal in watching Loaded was to study the drops, paying particular attention to the hands, and to take other notes from the surfing to apply to my own surfing. Here are my takeaways:
Their arms very infrequently come up above their heads when they drop into waves of any size. Regardless of whether they’re dropping in early or late they keep the hands down at their sides — just lower generally with variations on position — through the drop. This helps cement their feet on their boards and places weight on the rail and fins immediately to lock the board into the face of the wave, allowing them control of what they decide to do vis a vis what the wave is telling them is possible. It is especially helpful for tucking into tubes off the drop frontside. Backside this is less of a problem because one is normally taking off with some kind of rail grab in mind if it’s a tubing wave. But still, one can apply this idea to backside drops as well.
I was reminded that it is important to pull into closeout tubes. Yes, it’s great to make tubes, but it’s spectacular and fun to watch someone pull into a closeout. You get a really nice view, the wipeout isn’t so bad because you just get ejected out the back of the wave, and it’s entertaining for the whole lineup.
Craig Anderson drops in to a good size wave with hands in lower position.
This allows him to stay compressed to the board and set his rail sooner.
I noticed that arms go up in the air on their big air maneuvers. Or any time there is air under the board and it’s threatening to drop out from under you, the arms of a human go up, as the feet reach to grab onto the board for control. As gravity brings you down, you settle in and connect back with the board, absorbing the impact with knees and ankles, then doing whatever comes next whether it’s a bottom turn into the next maneuver or just stalling to kickout.
Noa Deane hands up for the air!
The Taylor Knox footage of technical surfing in sizeable Lowers is awesome. His rail surfing is so precise. Riding a thruster allows one to push hard through a long bottom turn with no risk of sliding at the bottom. Most all of them are riding thrusters or three fin set ups.
There are two minutes they show Taylor Knox trying airs. He can get up there but can’t land. It’s humbling especially for me who also suffers from something similar. And to be honest my attempts are not even as good as Knox’s. It makes sense to try this stuff out and figure out the techniques and limits. Some of us are not innately air surfers, but we may pull the off one over time. It takes a lot of willingness to wipe out to get it right.
Taylor Knox precision and aggression on the rail riding a thruster at Lower Trestles.
I enjoyed watching how aggressive Dane, Taylor, Craig, et. al. are with their turns. I made a vow to be more aggressive in mine. I had also studied an instagram post by Ace Buchan of a roundhouse cutback with a vertical backside hit. I have always struggled to get the board up to the lip vertically on the rebound. My right (front) shoulder is really tight so it’s hard for me to open up sometimes. It was a goal for me in addition to being more aggressive to get that nose up there. I also wanted to focus on not focusing on not falling. Go hard and fall if that’s what happens.
Pro surfers get burned by oblivious kooks too. Me, I would not think twice about going on a wave Dane Reynolds or Taylor Knox are already up and riding, but then I know to look back to the peak before taking off. If someone is coming down the line, and even more so if that someone is a super fast, precise, and exciting surfer to watch, then I’m backing out immediately. While it is always frustrating to be burned, it’s great to see that we all go through it, and I love that Dane keeps it in the vids.
Dane Reynolds getting burned by an oblivious surfer. Dane’s body language says everything here.
With all of these things in mind, but especially with the notion to keep my hands down when dropping in on tubing ones, I went surfing. The waves were quite good. I paddled out at 630a. I decided on the jetty where the waves looked more vertical, which was less crowded, and there were a variety of take off points should crowds descend. Slow paddle out. I did not bring the Go Pro for my first session. I wasn’t wearing gloves — it was fine! I wore the hooded Isurus 3mm suit with 7mm Xcel boots, and was riding the 5’4” Lost RNF I just picked up from ding repair. I chose to ride it with twin keels rather than a quad. I want to say that it was as soon as my first wave I put my intention into action: under the lip, go full confidence, keep hands down. Tube. Then tube. Then tube. I was taking off deeper than I normally do and had a lot higher make ratio than normal. Granted, these waves were only head high, and I’ll have to try this strategy out when I’m a little more scared. But still, there were some that I would have gotten hung up on before that I was making just fine. My mind was a little blown.
I was turning more aggressively. I fell back on some fin wafts on the end section, but I did my damnedest to push hard. I was still suffering from some residual stiffness in my right hip (yoga is helping), so I had to take back some parts of my aggressivity vow on certain turns. Also I realized that the twin fin was not going to allow quite the same torque as a standard thruster would. I found myself desiring a “normal” shortboard with three fins for the hold and pivot that back fin provides, and actually texted Charles Mencel after my first session and got him to start shaping me one.
I went in from my first session at 8:05a after about I don’t know 10-20 tubes, and no hands up in the air take offs. I ate two pieces of apple cake and finished my coffee. I also drank water and took two Advil for my hip. I geared up the Go Pro in preparation for my next session coaching Zac. I was satisfied by my first surf so I vowed to be mostly focused on Zac and just go for sets that came right to me. It just so happened that I got into a rhythm. Zac had a great surf for not having surfed since December. He’s a trooper. We kept fighting the rip as it took people down the beach and this kept carving out a place in the lineup we could sit alone. He had more patience than he normally does, but was noticeably getting winded from his dormant surfing muscles being newly activated. I got at least 5 or 6 more tubes and did some turns that felt fantastic, hooking one cutback rebound wonderfully with nose up at the white water. I also pulled into a closeout tube intentionally. Feels great to nail more than one goal in a session!
Zac and I surfed until about 10:40a. Then I came in, changed, and sat in my van eating a tuna fish sandwich and drinking water. An old man walked past me — my van door was open — towards the beach and then he quickly went back the other way. Then he comes back again, this time wearing a blue surgical mask. He sees me and says, “I forgot my mask. You have to wear a mask. You can’t forget it. My doctor didn’t wear his mask and now he’s dead.” This is truly surfing in Corona times. I felt self conscious that I wasn’t wearing mine, so just after he walked off I shut my van door and continued to eat my sandwich. A large man wearing his mask around his neck, i.e., not really wearing his mask, passed by my window and coughed. I had shut the door just in time.
Liz showed up at 10:45. I spent some time on the beach with my mask, sun hat, and camera and talked to Liz about the lineup. Zac paddled back out and I got a little bit of video and some stills. Time to head back out. I was done ripping shredding, so I brought my 6’7” Kidman. The waves were petering out for it to be fun for me, but still too big for it to be manageable for Liz. She managed one at the end of her session, and we made the call to just keep getting her the water to get her paddling muscles back in gear.
Masked at the beach in NY.
This experience shows me in my own surfing is that most of the great achievements accomplished in the water were prepared for on land. There is seriously no amount of visualization and learning on land that can possibly be enough. Part of everyone’s froth to get in the water as the sole place to figure it out is slightly misguided. It is an incomplete notion of what surfing is and what constitutes learning to surf and becoming a proficient surfer. This is why I’m trying to push all of my clients and future-clients, and urging you dear reader, to carve out some time to study surfing when they are not surfing. Improving your land game is an essential part of improving your water game. There is no way around it. 2-4 hours in the water per week ain’t gonna cut it. If you add 2-4 hours of studying surfing at home to the 2-4 that you spend in the water, you will see results. Double the hours for both and you’ll get even more bang for your buck. Simply put, in order to become masterful at surfing you have to study surfing. There are infinity ways I can vary my experience and tweaks I can make to improve, whether its in equipment, technique, or attitude. Surfing is like a calculus that involves all multiple variables in a variety of dimensions. It’s a quantum calculus.
In closing I want to draw your attention to the Vimeo I made linked above to announce that I have figured out how to do voiceovers! This is another huge breakthrough that should help everyone who follows me and works with me personally. Expect voiceovers on most videos that I drop in the future.