What is the most progressive mat surfing film?
the best i’v seen is GGreenough in Crystal Voyager.
Greg Huglin’s Fantasea is the best I’ve seen so far. Crystal voyager is next. Don’t even bother with State of S pretty worthless on the matting front.
LOL- what’s “progressive” about the mat surfing sequences in Crystal Voyager and Fantasea? State of S is supposedly the most recent.
State of S have very little mat footage on really small waves, pretty amazing that GG can get going so fast in the conditions. Dale has told me there was some problems getting releases for a lot of footage from GG.
Fantasea even though they are on older canvas mats really shows you whats possible. Paul gross in perfect trim is worth the price of the DVD.
So I guess your right there is no “progressive” footage, but it is the best footage I’ve seen and I keep looking.
True, that little out take of matting on State of S ain’t much but it is pretty amazing. And, watching it about 10 times in super slow motion on my computer gave a huge bump up the learning curve. I am definitely in line if anyone ever puts out some good modern footage!
Somebody should take the best mat surfing sequences from every film, old to new. Then put them on a DVD! Strictly for sharing, no money involved. Would that be illegal?
" Somebody should take the best mat surfing sequences from every film, old to new. Then put them on a DVD! "
here’s a thought …
…that ‘somebody’ could be …YOU !!
OR ,
better still , [no copyright issues , then !] you could make a good mat surfing video / dvd of your own …
you have Dale and a few other mat riders here …
So …
how about it ?
cheers
ben
PG had{ still has?) a movie called rubber duckie- a mat surfing film.now, if that could be put on dvd…
get the finest mat surfing footage ever!
lean back
close eyes
and reepplay last go out.
one wave will play over and over without having to
use the remote.
this footage don hole a candle ta da nex go
shu nev enough…
…ambrose…
bes fun on the wors days
Ambrose, definitely best footage on back of lids screen; full sense o’ round–smell the salty air, feel the cool wet, taste the urk glurk sinus wash of a wipeout. “Hmmm, lets see that again in slow motion, Bob” and maybe correct the buckling mat wipeout so I make the wave with a burst of speed.
That said though, boyoboy did I learn some stuff from those few moments of GG in the State of S out takes. Proly saved my a month of trial and error to get to current ability level, maybe even longer. Total fun either way, fast or slow learning, but I like being able to do more and travel farther (or is that further?). If someone who knows him could induce PG to put VHS to DVD I’d buy that alphabet soup of RDR.
Please list all the films that have mat surfing?
Thanks
LOL- what’s “progressive” about the mat surfing sequences in Crystal Voyager and Fantasea?
yep , those are old films , as is 'children of the sun"[1965-1967]
George’s in the tube photography from ‘crystal voyager’ , and “children of the sun” still looks “progressive” today , though …considering “children” is now a 40 year old movie , George was what ? 22 years old or something when he shot that ??
There was a guy here who was intending to make a movie about mats and kneeboards …I wonder where HE is at the moment …
cheers
ben
What exactly is surfmat performance? What is it compared to surfboard, kneeboard, bodyboard, paipo, etc performance? Performance as accepted by mainstream surfing? Or defined from within the context of mat surfing? Interesting subject!
State of S - made me order a mat from Dale.
The way he can “catch” the energy before the wave has broken.
The manipulation of the shape of the mat by Greenough plus the mat’s
natural conforming to the water surface(when properly underinflated).
The older(Crystal Voyager, etc) footage is totally different. Planing and
bouncing along the surface with little of the subtle and not so subtle
shape-shifting of the newer generation of mats. Fun yet worlds apart.
Can somebody explain again how you paddle out thru already broken waves?
Just thinking about dealing with all that buoyancy has my mind boggled.
I watch George riding a mat on my TV… then i visit Dale’s site, so then i revisit the older surmat’s theards on this forum…
and then i laugh hard when i think about what people call “alternative designs”…
I’m anxious to ride a surfmat, while i wait, i try to bodysurf the most i can to be prepared.
How many surfmats shapers/designers are in the world? How many high performance surfmats are sold each year?
How much open minded are we?
Last sunday i bodysurfed 6’ faces… and i learned again how much i have to learn from the ocean.
Good night Swaylocks.
Coque.
two that i kinow of: dale, who builds mats and paul gross who builds boards, mats and spoons.( of course george could do those and windsurfers and boats, but seems to have focused just on the later two in his “retirement”)
Here’s my 2 cents:
mat performance: NOT like mainstream/contest high-pro (updownupdownupdownflapflapflap) Much closer to hull glide speed and carve, blending and flowing.
flexspoon–paddling out is pretty easy. 2 options. At normal inflating which is only 50-75% if smallish oncoming you just sort of slightly lift front and keep kicking and pop over easy pleasy. If bigger breaking wave or soup, you are holding front corners so you just shove fists under (pulling mat behind) and sort of scissor forearms together forcing air towards back. You can get fairly deep and pot out the back. If surf is bigger still, let out air and swim under water like a body surfer (or a spoon rider). Once outside, only a few puffs of air thru the easy open/close valve gets you to riding inflation. Definitely not slower getting out than a spoon and maybe even faster as you have a fair bit of planning when kicking even at low inflation levels.
Worse comes to worst you wrap arms and legs around the mat in “Russian bear hug” and just take your lumps like anyone caught inside
So far, in my learning curve, the hardest thing has been to find speed/hold an edge when things get critical. Learning how to dolphin kick/walrus hump into riding postion while dropping in has given me a lot more time to figure it out on any given wave. Paddling out has been pretty easy.
Mat, is PG building mats? I was under the impression from the SJ article couple years ago that he had long ago shelved the whole deal.
not at this time.he still rides them though(4th gear flyers he made) who knows, he may be secretly still making them for himself…