Another top post from the Forums…

Had to share this post with a wider audience… Hatchman is one of the RealSurf Forums’ more frequent contributors and I reckon this is gold…
Re: Bombora – History of Australian Surfing

Post by Hatchman » Mon Apr 06, 2009 11:51 am

steve shearer wrote:Mostly surfers get to a certain age and quit, move inland, get fat or accept surfing as a part-time recreational activity to be done on the weekend, usually in crowds of other competitive individuals.
Hardly a spiritual pursuit

By that logic you’d say that unless you were going to church more than once a week you would hardly call it a spiritual pursuit?

No offence Steve but your “holier surfer than thou” rants are starting to get a bit tiresome. Like many I would love to be able to surf 4 or more times a week, live in a coastal shack looking over a barrelling point break and be able to take regular trips to Indo. Back in the real world (where most of us live) where we’ve got kids, mortgages and bills to pay 5 days (and sometimes more) a week (not to mention all the stuff for family and friends we need to do on the weekend i.e. we’ve got a lot of responsibilities) that 2 hour slot I and many other weekend warriors squeeze in at the sparrows fart on a Saturday or Sunday morning while most of the world is asleep is a damn fine spiritual experience and hardly one we consider a “recreational pursuit”.

Sitting in the lineup on a fine Victorian Sunday winter morning braving the wind chill as it howls in my ears turning the sea into a boiling choppy beast while rubbing my calf muscles to keep them from cramping into golf balls as the water temps drop into single digits does require a spiritual dedication bordering on fundamentalism I can assure you. Because no ‘normal’ person would do it after a week spent in a cube farm – coiled up in a ball on the couch with a coffee and a gut full of fried eggs and bacon watching the footy does sound like a lot more like it.

However rather strangely, like many of my fellow Vicco bretheren, I actually love it with a fervour bordering on fanaticism because I cherish every moment in the surf as a way of connecting, in spirit, back to the ocean as it is the place I love to be. I find it both deeply beautiful and profound sitting out at sea in a Victorian winter, coated head to toe in rubber, staring at the sky turning into various shades of darker grey watching the storm fronts roll in off Bass Strait as the rain pelts my face all the while saying gday to the occasional seal or dolphin that swims by before turning and taking the drop down a nice big fat wall.

Don’t tell me it is a recreational pursuit mate, I need my surfing to live and I’ll love it no matter how often I do it and in what ever conditions mother earth will grant to me. Because when you love it that much it goes much deeper into the core of your being and it becomes an essential part of you that can never be changed.

Absence or fasting makes the heart grow fonder and the devotion run deeper – maybe you need to consider this to understand the depth of spiritual feeling it can generate in people like me as well.

On our forums: Why we surf

I reckon Zingomar’s post is a good ‘un. -Don

Why we surf – an attempt to articulate it in depth

Post by zingomar » Thu Apr 02, 2009 11:21 pm
After watching Bombora (which I enjoyed) I was left feeling that no-one really pinned down the many dimensions of why we love to surf. So here goes my try in no special order:

1. The primitive thrill of the hunt:

i.e. the search – going out hunting for surf, scoring a session or wave for personal satisfaction and to show off and to bring back to tell and impress the tribe.

2. The primitive desire to explore and wander

We evolved to wander the globe and find new areas and places. We still love this – new spots, new countries with surf as a meaningful and exciting goal – what is over the hill or around the bend may be genuinely exciting. Most tourists wander from destination to destination with a sesne of going through the motions and are thinking about what is for lunch. Surfers travel with excitement

3. The desire to show off in a dramatic way

Waves provide a stage that is missing for most of us in day to day lives. Being on a wave you stand out and are watched by paddlers and those on the beach. We may pretend we don’t care to be seen but we do. Getting tubed or pulling off a big move gives a little moment of being centre stage. How often do you get a hoot in life outside surfing??

4. The visual beauty – waves can create some amazingly appealing visuals that few other sports can begin to come near (skiing, diving, rock climbing come a bit close)

One reason the surf industry can be so successful is that the visuals of waves and surfers are so strong and “cool”. Streetwear, skate fashion imagery etc just can’t compete with the appeal sun surf and beach.

5. The ability to wrap oneself in the beauty of nature – see, feel, hear and taste it

Most visual beauty is something you see rather than experience. In surfing you can wrap yourself in it, touch, feel ride and get thrashed about by it. Sex is one of the few other things where you can get so involved in beauty (if you are lucky)

6. The sensation of weighting and unweighting and subtle direction changes at speed

Roller coaster designers have long known these thrills but recently discovered that subtle weighting and unweighting while in motion give humans a lot of pleasure – more so that radical direction changes. Surfing is full of this as you weave up and down a wave

7. The ability to taste and overcome real fear without life and death being at stake and with a soft landing

Surfing can confront you with all sorts of fear situations in heavy waves and big waves with just a short paddle from the beach. Our ancestors would have hunted or escaped from wild animals both hating and loving the fear sensation then and later around the camp fire as stories are told. Surfing can do the same at a host of levels.

8. Scarcity of the peak experience

For most of us the peak experiences of pefect waves are rare and it is hard to totally get your fill. So often you want more or had a fleeting taste of a new level of speed or a deeper tube and want it again. Wanting draws you back. The average surf is not magical but the peak moments definitely are.

9. Waves are ephemeral – they disappear

Familiarity breeds contempt, so the fact that you can’t sit a wave in your living room for years so that it gathers dust and becomes just another object perpetuates their appeal.

10. Hanging out with mates with a purpose and something in common that gives you stories to tell and adventures to share

11. The sense of achievement from learning new skills and pulling off good moves

Surfing wraps all of the above together to make it unique and hard to be matched in any other human activity.

zingomar
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