I thought everyone might enjoy this essay by Chris Harazda, A friend and highly respected surfer here in Florida. Chris recently passed away but his words still inspire.
The Alternative Mindset
by Chris Harazda
You know, I lived in a Tibetan monastery for a number of years, and one of the more memorable things I remember my teacher saying was, “The easiest thing in the world to change is the mind.”
Although this is indeed profoundly true, there are nevertheless millions of people around the world who remain steadfast in their rock-solid opinions regarding all manner of issues… social, political, religious… you name it. STUBBORN is a word that aptly applies to countless people!
Down from the mountain now, I immerse myself again in the world of surfing.
Since 1965, I’ve joined the legions of jazzed wave riders seeking the beauty and thrill of surfing. During those first two years, surfing was universally performed on boards that were usually around 9’6" long, sometimes a little shorter, sometimes a foot or more longer!
But then, IT HAPPENED.
Australian Bob McTavish met up with George Greenough, the young man from the Santa Barabara area who’d gotten downright fed up with the surfing scene back around 1959 or so, and who’d developed the first reduced medium boards for kneeriding. McTavish started to use this reduced medium foundation for the development of smaller boards for stand-up surfing… and the result was the famous “shortboard revolution.” I was around for this change, and to everyone it felt REALLY GOOD. It was such an exciting time to be a surfer.
Some years earlier, Phil Edwards, then widely considered the best surfer in the world, at least by non-Hawaiians, had articulated a perhaps not-so-subtle distinction underlying the surfing experience. Edwards said that there were two ways to approach surfing… one was that of using the wave to establish and further one’s own ego… and the other: to seek to merge and flow with the wave in order to experience the sheer beauty of being in nature.
In the context of 21st century “alternative” surfing, which is often tagged “retro” by those who must always tag people and things, it has come to me that the majority of vocal surfers use the wave for ego building.
This can be true of “alternative” surfers who are going “alternative” for the entirely wrong reasons… but, generally speaking, I think that most surfers who are open to exploring previous designs from other eras - like, say, the FISH - are honestly just disgruntled about the status quo equipment… which seems highly appropriate to me, as such equipment is overspecialized and oversold to the masses of hungry young cattle, who lack the experience to move beyond into more interesting equipment that opens the mind to more flowfully-refined and hallowed surfing experiences that just plain make more sense.
But - really - my usage of the old Edwards comparative statement is most accurately applied to the BODYBOARDER, whose rides almost NEVER look interesting or at all glamorous. For the bodyboarder, the FEELING is the thing… not the glamor of looking stylish. Dang!.. you can’t look good on one o’ these! So, what good can it possibly be?
Well… it can be REALLY GOOD if you can come down off your high horse and experience the wave itself for all of its own virtues… for its own sake, and not so much for one’s own.
There is a power track on every wave; can you find it without effort?
Can you ride without being in your own way?