YouAndYourBreedPage2

Eventually I had to hunker down and do some things to make a real life. During that period the time I had to surf on weekdays pretty much vanished. This was also the period when the population of California really exploded. Between the newcomers and the new generations, the surfing world started to get busier. By the time the waves of longboards and Blue Crush girls were established, those poor quality waves I used to escape to were covered by surf school students and recent graduates. The finer waves were choking with hardcore intermediate and expert surfers. Modern telecommunications means that no good wave goes unsurfed for long.

So where do we go from here? I personally feel I have a certain amount of responsibility to the sport in general. For good or ill, surfing has given me the viewfinder I'm taking through life. If you took an objective accounting of how I've spent my years you would probably say "Spicoli lives". The facts speak otherwise. Surfers of a certain temprament can readily adapt to situations, especially fast-moving ones. We also tend to stand our ground and often don't worry about consequences. You would perhaps be amazed how this can work to one's benefit, although certainly many times it goes the other way.

Probably the best thing I could do for surfing is to quit completely, and give my space to newcomers. That doesn't do much for me, however, and if that were to become some kind of general policy then surfing would eventually lose the best knowledge base it has, and be doomed to constantly be reinventing the wheel. Trying to stay in the sport at a certain hardcore level - say at the interest level and participation level of a 20 year old college student - is totally unrealisitic and a little sad. Seasons change and we have to change with them

vagabondsurf.com
It's about life - not "lifestyle"

"YOU AND YOUR BREED..."
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Who are the "masses" these days? Everybody in general, and in particular young men ages 14-24 who ride short potato-chip thrusters. Just think "pro surfers" and add in everybody else who rides similar equipment. A close second would be longboarders of any age and gender. These are the two most dominant groups in terms of numbers currently in surfing. Bodyboarders fall in maybe at a distant third. Look at any "shorty" magazine (as one observer so brilliantly put it) and what you see is the least-varied coverage of surfing one could imagine in both photo and editorial content. The magazines are all excellently produced and the photos are insane; the problem is they all read and look alike, and for the most part they don't translate into the daily lives of surfers anywhere.

The cutting edge of paid performance surfing is just that: a cutting edge, where life and limb are truly risked. For what? Money? Fame?

When you get a little older and see just how fragile all that is, flaunting it doesn't seem so funny.

"Is this really the extreme to which the high life of surfing has finally been reduced?"

No, Cindy, it isn't. The "extreme" to which surfing has been reduced to is far less interesting. It's about everything except having fun, about making correct shopping choices, about grasping for illusionary goals with one eye on the money. What you see on this website isn't where surfing got reduced; it's where it begins to expand again.

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