Podcasts about shortboard

In this milestone 100th episode of the Surf Mastery Podcast, host Michael Frampton welcomes back the stylish surfer Devon Howard. Broadcasting from the Channel Islands office in Santa Barbara, Devon shares his insights on the elusive concept of style in surfing. The episode delves into the historical evolution of style, its significance in competitive surfing, and the subjective nature of defining style.Devon emphasizes the importance of making difficult maneuvers look effortless and how personal demeanor often mirrors one's surfing style. He contrasts the stylistic approaches of surfers like Joel Parkinson and Kelly Slater with the more explosive style of Adriano de Souza. Listeners are encouraged to focus on form over presentation, maintain a relaxed and efficient approach, and view style as a natural extension of personal expression.Episode Highlights:Introduction to Devon Howard: Recap of Devon's previous appearances on episodes 41, 77, and 86.Importance of Style in Surfing: Exploring the subjective nature of style and its impact on surfing performance and aesthetics.Origins of the Word 'Style': Michael provides a brief etymology of the word 'style' and its various meanings throughout history.Cultural Influence on Style: How different surf cultures and eras emphasize or de-emphasize style.Effortless Style: The concept of making difficult maneuvers look easy and the importance of being relaxed and calm.Influence of Personality on Style: How a surfer's personality often reflects in their surfing style.Contrived vs. Natural Style: The difference between genuinely stylish surfing and trying too hard to look stylish.Technical Aspects of Style: Tips for improving style through form, patience, and not rushing maneuvers.Style in Tube Riding: The inherent style in good tube riding and how it relates to other surfing maneuvers.Practical Advice: Devon's practical advice for surfers aiming to improve their style.Key Quotes:Devon Howard: “Style is oftentimes making the difficult look easy.”Michael Frampton: “You can be quick without being rushed.”Devon Howard: “Don't try to contrive it. Don't rush your surfing.”Follow Devon Howard Check out Devon's surfing and updates on his Instagram.Devon_howardLinkedin : https://www.linkedin.com/in/devon-howard-a4b2a613/.Connect with Surf Mastery:Surf Mastery Website: Download the free PDF with the top five tips from the Surf Mastery Podcast at surfmastery.com. Instagram: Surf MasteryFull Show Transcript:Devon Howard: When I. When I often think about style, there's always like there's two camps. There's the people that get it and and style is usually it's like you know it when you see it. I said, how do you know that something's pornographic versus art or beauty? And a lot of times the answer is, well, you know, when you see it, you know, something is gross or smut as opposed to art. Michael Frampton: Welcome back to the Surf Mastery Podcast. I am your host, Michael Frampton, and this is episode 100 of the podcast. A little bit of a milestone. Special guest for this episode. And we've also revamped the website Surf Mastery. Com and on the front page of that website is a free PDF listing the top five tips from the Surf Mastery Podcast. So go to Surf mastery.com and you can download that PDF for free. Today's guest. Well, I was looking back through all the stats on this podcast and the the most downloaded episodes have been from Devon Howard, so it made sense to have him on episode 100. And so you can go back and listen to. He first appeared on the show, uh, episode 41, discussing longboarding and nose riding. Then it was back in, uh, episode 77 zero. Uh, we talked about Mid-lengths in episode 86. It was Twin fins. And today in episode 100, Devin Howard joins us again to discuss style. Style is something that is in it's fundamental. It's paramount for every type of surfing that is done, from traditional longboarding all the way through to high performance, short boarding. All of the greats, all of the most memorable surfers have good style. They are stylish. From Joel Tudor in traditional longboarding through to Joel Parkinson as a high performance, competitive short boarder Tom Curren. Uh, mid lengths and twin fins. You got Torin Martin. Michael Frampton: And of course, Devon Howard himself is a very stylish surfer. He's very smooth, very graceful on a longboard, on a mid length and a twin fin. We've even seen some footage of him riding, uh, three thrusters out there on his Instagram. And his style, his technique, his gracefulness runs throughout his surfing. So a perfect topic for us to discuss in episode 100, so I would love to hear your feedback on the show in general. Last 100 episodes and of course this episode. Go ahead, send us an email Mike at Surf mastery.com. Or you can DM me on Instagram or leave a comment under the, uh, the visual for this episode. And of course, support Devin Howard, give his Instagram a follow. And of course, he's, uh, joining us from the Channel Islands office in Santa Barbara. Uh, Devin is currently working with Channel Islands, are working on some new surfboard models as well as he's you know, some of the most popular boards recently have been he's been a part of. So without further adieu, I shall fade in my conversation with Devon Howard. I actually see a lot of agreement between Brett and Chaz on this subject. Yeah, yeah, because there are there are thing right that you go to a Grateful Dead concert and you experience the show and the vibe, you don't really listen to them on Spotify. Devon Howard: Yeah. It's it's something to be enjoyed live. Michael Frampton: Yeah. There's a certain style and vibe to them I think that come across differently in person than it does. And also the audience they sort of draw in. Yeah. Rather to the music on Spotify right there. Devon Howard: There are two bands that I think are better live as well, which I think Radiohead is better live. I like Radiohead, I think a lot of their albums are great. I've been to a few of their shows that I think, no, this is 10 or 15 years ago. I don't know if that's still the case, but at the time when they were really peaking, they were insane live. And then I also saw James Brown live. Oh, wow. 25 years ago. And that was incredible. Mhm. I mean what a showman. Michael Frampton: Yes. Yeah I can imagine I mean there's the Radiohead live from the basement. Um unbelievable. Like gives you I can't remember what album it's they play in full from their studio basement studio and just makes you appreciate them on a whole nother level. Yeah. Just just by watching that on YouTube, not even being there. Well, yeah. Um, I remember seeing a gentleman called AMP Fiddler, another one of the best live acts I ever saw. Um, gave me a new appreciation of his music. He's sort of new, new age funk slash reggae. Um. Interesting music. Yeah. Catch a fire. Catch a fire. They're doing a tour through California at the moment. There are another unbelievable band live. Their live performance and sound is bigger than their their studio albums. I think they actually New Zealand band. You get a chance to see them. They often play in Santa Barbara. I forget the venue names, like a 500 capacity venue in Santa Barbara. They always play there. Devon Howard: Is that the ball? I'm not sure. Michael Frampton: Can't remember. Devon Howard: Anyway, a lot of venues there, but yeah. Michael Frampton: Style. Let's talk about style. Do you? Yeah. What would what do you know the origin of the word. Devon Howard: Um, I don't, but I'd imagine. Uh. Well, I hope you did some research on it. Is it, um, the Latin word is it is it is it Greek? Is it? Where does it come from? Michael Frampton: Let me sort of summarize from etymology online from the early 14th century started out as a writing instrument, pen or stylus, uh, a piece of a piece of written discourse or narrative, uh, characteristic. Characteristic, uh, rhetorical mode of an author, a manner or mode of expression. Uh, a way of life behavior. Uh, then the word sort of transformed, uh, the evolution of the word uh, from writing tool went into writing into manner of writing, into mode of expression, uh, in writing of a particular writer, writer or author. Um, and then it was in the 1500s. It was paired with the word substance, um, which basically meant back then, divine part of essence, sorry, divine part or essence, uh, and that, sort of, that sort of gave the word, uh, a deeper meaning, including finer parents or dashing character. Um, then it was the word then went into an artist's particular mode or form of skilled presentation that was later extended into athletics. Um, then by the 1800s it was distinctive or characteristic mode of dress. Obviously it was more in regards to fashion. Um, and so there's a, there's a little bit of a history of the word. So I think there's a lot of lot of depth to that. And it's certainly, um, it's very, uh, apt for, for surfing. A lot of those meanings, I think. Yes. Had tell me what you think about style and how important it is. Devon Howard: Well, style is um, from my personal experience growing up, it was a, it was a measure of good surfing and, um, it was a marker of, like, one's own presentation of their expression of surfing. Uh, I don't want to cheapen it by, I guess, using the word brand, like your brand of surfing, but, um, everyone has their own form of expression, and style is. Oftentimes I see style as making the difficult look easy and my own belief in, you know, just absorbing what was around me when I was a kid. You know, we're humans. We we sort of mimic and and imitate what's around us. I haven't innovated anything really at all. I've just looked what's around. And you take bits and pieces of first. You take it from your parents, of course. And then as you get out in the world, it's like what's going on around you. And in San Diego, where I grew up. And I think this was the same in many other served cities in not only the US but the world. Um, in the 80s, the older surfers, 10 to 20 years or year older than you, where style focused as opposed to this idea of, um, ripping or tearing something apart and in doing it with reckless abandon. Um, that was something that started getting more popular as I was a kid. So I was sort of born into this era where one thing was kind of falling out of favor. Um, and this other form of surfing was gaining popularity. And, uh, sorry, that was kind of a muddled answer, but it's it's I think it's one of the most difficult subjects in surfing to discuss or to describe because it's so subjective. Um, and it comes with the word style, comes with a lot of different ideas to people ranging from beauty to something that's very contrived and nonfunctional. Michael Frampton: Yeah. I mean, has the word style itself has, as you sort of addressed, has a lot of meanings, like everyone has their own unique style, you could say, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are stylish. So when we think of when we think of stylish surfers, we do. We think of beauty and grace and flow. Um, so and I think it is related to, to that and it's related to efficiency, right? I mean, Rob Machado comes to mind. I think he's sort of an incredibly stylish surfer, but he's also fits in that modern category. Category of radical. Yeah, he encompasses both. And I mean, world champ Joel Parkinson obviously fit the criteria of of competition surfing but remained incredibly smooth and stylish. Devon Howard: Yeah. Well, um, you know, I think depending who where you grew up and what culture you came from or grew up in, um, style could also just not be that important. You know, if, if surfing to to you or just to any individual is about, um, really pushing as hard as they can with maneuvers and being as radical as they can and, you know, tearing apart a wave of, you know, like you think of the Brazilian storm. Guys there for years have been, you know, they're well deserved. They're incredible athletes. They are highly athletic. And it is explosive maneuvers. And they're acrobats in many ways. Um, for some reason, as that game has gained popularity, some aspects of the presentation and sort of fall into the wayside where, uh, in gymnastics, um, presentation and form is still really part of the whole thing was never really let like if you do a floor routine in gymnastics, um, or let's say dance or anything like that, they're doing really kind of athletic, powerful moves, but they also keep the form and I don't know quite the exact reason, but, uh, that sort of started falling out of favor in surfing, mostly because what drives our conversations oftentimes revolves around competition. Surfing, um, like competition surfing drives a lot of the media narratives, um, let's say, who are like, where do we get our information from? It's driven by the cell to, to whatever extent that is, stab in their audience. Devon Howard: Um, surf line kind of, sort of. But they're more focused on cameras and whatnot. And then the most of the magazines have gone out of business. But only ten years ago, a lot of the stories were driven by the the personalities and the folks that competed. And there was a mixed bag in there of surfers that had great style, like Joel Parkinson. He mentioned, um, I would say Kelly Slater has a good style. It's a different style. It's his own. Um, and then on the opposite end of that would be like an Adriano de Souza or somebody like that, where he's clearly just incredibly talented, but sort of putting his surfing together and like one seamless, fluid motion was not a focus of his. And so, um, it's been interesting to watch and the broader conversations of the mainstream, how that sort of played out, uh, in back to where I grew up. I grew up on the fringe of all that. Anyways, so I was riding longboards in the 80s and 90s that was as fringe as it got. And in that world, all through that time, um, style was still important, even when folks were trying to emulate Shortboard maneuvers on longboards, there was still an emphasis of style. Um, sorry. I'll shut up. I don't know where I'm going with that, but yeah. Michael Frampton: So I'm just wondering when you look at, I mean, I think that you mentioned the Brazilian storm. I think Gabriel Medina is quite stylish. Not all the time, but probably actually more so when you see him. Freeserve he sort of. He just seems to be more relaxed when he's not surfing in a competition. And I think that's maybe what separates the I think that's a big part of being stylish is you're very calm and you're relaxed. That doesn't necessarily mean you're going slower or that you're even putting less effort in. It's just maybe you referenced gymnastics. I think a gymnast could do the same routine. They get the same height, the same amount of power. But if one of their runs, they were purposely trying to keep the presentation of themselves relaxed and calm, it would be more visually appealing. Sort of making it look, look easy. Devon Howard: Yeah. That's the that's the thing. Making it difficult look easy. Mhm. In the 60s or 50s or whatever the boards weren't very maneuverable. So um clearly the market did. Surfing was just people who were stylish and could kind of keep it together. Um, hang on one second. Um, are you hearing a beeping on your end? What? I'm getting messages. Yeah. Michael Frampton: Is that your phone? Devon Howard: Yeah. I don't know how to turn off the iMessage on my, uh. Oh, it's on the computer. I'm trying to see how to undo this. Is this on. Michael Frampton: Your phone, a phone or your laptop or your iPad? Devon Howard: It's on my laptop. Oh, sorry. You're going to have to edit this out. That's all right. I'm just getting, like, every one of them. Don't fuck me up. The client. Claudia, um, do you have any idea how to get rid of iMessage off here? Preferences services? Michael Frampton: That's a good question. I don't I don't have my, um, I don't have my laptop linked to my phone, so. Yeah. Devon Howard: Don't do it. References. Let's say. Michael Frampton: I'd say I'd be under notifications, notifications and focus is like a bell symbol. Devon Howard: On, uh, on the computer itself or on the phone. Michael Frampton: I'm looking on my laptop. Devon Howard: Where did you find the notifications in System Preferences? Michael Frampton: Okay. Devon Howard: System preferences notifications. There they are. Look at that. Michael Frampton: And top top right there's a there's a button. Allow notifications so you can turn that off or on I'd say that's it. Devon Howard: Only five messages? There we go. Okay, I want to turn that off. Okay. Apologies for that. Okay. So, um. All right. Michael Frampton: So where were we? Let me throw out some some adjectives that I wrote down after thinking about style a little bit. Um, efficient. Graceful. Functional. Calm. Focused. Relaxed. Grounded. Present. Fearless. Or maybe, better put, courageous. Is there anything you would add to that or you think shouldn't be there? Devon Howard: Uh, no. I just think it's more about a calm and a gracefulness. It's mostly what it is. And it's just a it's just the form of your personal expression. I think a lot of the style, you'll see style of folks from a distance, and a lot of ways it matches up to their personality. Right? You'll see someone who's quite busy, a lot of a lot of kinetic, sort of frantic, uh, motions and, and not always the case, but sometimes, like, okay, this person's a little overcaffeinated in general, you know, they're really mellow, kind of quiet. People have this very quiet. Always meet a really quiet surfer with their style, and they're really loud and and obnoxious. There's exceptions to the rule, but if you think about it quickly, there's not often the case. And so, um, I think a lot of those adjectives actually work pretty well. Um, I don't what did you say? Courageous. Michael Frampton: Yeah. Devon Howard: I don't really know that that applies to it. Really. I don't think it's really much to do with courage other than. Well, I was. Michael Frampton: Thinking that I was just wondering if that was a better word than fearless. Devon Howard: Mhm. Michael Frampton: Because if you, if you look, if you look scared, that's not very stylish is it. Devon Howard: No, no it's very your tent style. And yeah I've said to people I don't do surf coaching, but if I've ever seen someone in the water and looks like they're struggling, if it's appropriate or sort of convenient, like they're just sort of right there. I'll say, do you do you mind if I offer some advice? It's usually well received. Um, a lot of times I've said, I think you just relax a little bit. Your body's too tense. Looks bad, but it also screws up the your ability to surf because now it's affected the form. Like you're sort of hunched over and bracing for, like, some sort of impact where you need to be more relaxed. The arms need to be relaxed, the shoulders should be relaxed. Surely you should be able to sort of slink back and into your knees and your hips and let those kind of bend and sort of sit into the board nicely. And so I think, um, what I, what I often think about style, there's always like there's two camps as the people that get it and, and style is usually it's like you know it when you see it. I said, how do you know that something's pornographic versus art or beauty? And the a lot of times the answer is, well, you know, when you see it, you know, something is gross or smut as opposed to art. Devon Howard: Like you go into an art gallery and there's naked, you know, images of a naked person. How is that not pornography? And it's like, well, you know, when you see it and it's like, style. You sort of know it when you see it, and then you have, um, the other end of that where people will feel style is just posing and looking cool, like you're putting your hands in the air to, to look like Alex Knost or Mickey Dora or Rob Machado, whoever the insert the surfer, you're trying to mimic their hand placement, and sometimes the hand placement provides no real function or value to the to the ride. Other than it. It might feel good, I guess, but it's not making you surf better. Um, where I like to, I often will. I will argue or believe that yes, there are people that pose and that does exist, I exist, grant you that. But good style also brings about, um, really good form. Or I would look at it a different way. Really good form pulls along the style into it. So if you have good form and whether that's in a barrel or a cutback, if your body is doing sort of the right things to make a beautiful, seamless ride easier. Devon Howard: Um, along with that usually comes a pretty good style if you don't have a good style. A lot of times the form is really working against your surfing. So for example, you got to do a cutback in your arm is up and back, um, front side. And let's say I'm turning this way. Front side cut back. Well, if my back arm is in the air waving behind me, I'm really struggling to get my body around and I'm actually having to work really hard for could potentially even injure yourself. Um, so that really hinders your surfing. But if I brought the arm in and drop it down and then have the arm kind of point toward where I want to go, the rest of my body goes. And it's actually quite easy to do the turn and consequently it looks much better. Doesn't look so awkward. Yeah. And and this could be said of your front arm. I've seen folks do cut backs with. I don't know why this happens, but sometimes their front arm is is sort of flailing and going behind them over here. Or they're extending and reaching too far. Um, so when there's this nice balance of the front and the back hand on the front side, cut back looks cool. Hey, that's great. If someone took a photo. Yeah, you probably put on the wall. Devon Howard: Looks pretty good. Looks like Michael Peterson or somebody or whatever. Joel Parkinson Ethan Ewing would be a really good contemporary example, I guess. And, um, but when it's all sort of like the form is there, it looks good, but now you're surfing better and the turn is faster and more complete. And also when you have nice form, you get the board in trim. What I mean by that is when when the boards in trim, it's sort of if you know anything about sailing, when everything's in alignment with the bow and the sail and the the boat is really hitting its top speed, there's nothing really hindering or dragging or fighting against um, that top trim speed. In surfing, you want to get to the top trim speed, because when you have speed, it's easier to complete maneuvers, it's less work. You go into the maneuvers with speed, you can do a lot better. It's like snowboarding. If anyone snowboarded you know that the first few days you're learning, the instructor will say, you just need to get going faster. You know what? We know that's scary. I don't want to go faster, but. Well, you're going so slow that that's why you're tumbling and you're catching an edge and you're getting stuck on the hill. Go faster. And then you see this light bulb moment with people like, my gosh, well, I should have just been going faster all along. Devon Howard: It's the same with surfing. You'll see people struggling to get trim speed because their form is so terrible. They're not understanding that the board is not even in trend. The board then noses out or they're waving their arms. They're there. They're there shaking their body like this, and they're trying to wiggle and do stuff. And you're watching the board underneath. And the board is just like on a gimbal, just like not getting any trim. It's just stop and go, stop and go. So it's this utter fail where if the person just relaxed a little bit, relax their arms, don't try to flop the body around and just get the idea of even going straight, which is hard to do on a chalkboard. Clearly, if you're a beginner, you probably shouldn't even be on the floor. Um, it's just going to be a struggle. Yet a board that's medium like a mid length or something, or a long board where you can kind of stand there and glide and trim, and then you can kind of get that form where your body is body's relaxed. And um, so a lot of times good style, I believe just comes with the right form, if that makes sense. Michael Frampton: I totally agree. Yeah. And that's what I think. That's what a surf coach, the surf coach's job is. And then it's once, once the person becomes at first the new, the better form will feel strange and maybe even, um, abnormal and uncomfortable. And it's only once that form becomes, uh, ingrained and you become comfortable with it, then it looks stylish. So it's it's maybe it's a precursor to style. Is is good form. Devon Howard: Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Um, another thing that I've thought about a lot in the last several years about style is, um, it, it sort of belies the, the technique or the difficulty of the maneuver. I think if it looks like someone's trying really super hard to do like a, let's say, a crazy air or just like the craziest turn where like, they blow, they like, blow the tail out and spin the board around and like, oh, whoa, that was insane. That was so difficult. But if you see somebody do a top speed cut back and they don't lose or drift the fins and they just go and mock 20 and just bam, come up fluid and seamless. You might say, man, that was really smooth. That was really stylish. But you don't often think that that was also really difficult. It's interesting. And, um, I'm not trying to get people to cheer more for the stylist, I guess, but I think it's worth sort of acknowledging that Mikey February or Torin Martin and some of those things they're doing, um, we're drawn to them because they're beautiful, which is undeniable. Um, but it's also interesting to think that these are the highest level people at the very upper echelon, at the top peak of, uh, you know, ability of sphere fame. And it something to be learned there, like to not just only acknowledge and only see the style which is great. Devon Howard: I love that I'll watch that stuff all day long, but to like hit the rewind button and look at what they're doing and how on rail that board is and how difficult it is to hold the line and not lose it. Because a lot of times, especially in performance, short boarding it, it's incredible what the surfers do. It's like it's a controlled failure of the surfing. So a lot of times when the fins release, it's a and I know this because I put a lot of thought into fins and foils and whatnot. A lot of the best high performance surfing maneuvers are, um, a controlled failure. Mhm. Um, they're pushing the limits of the board, and a lot of times the fins or the equipment can't really handle what these surfers are giving it. It's really interesting. Look at look at someone laying into a turn and their butt is sliding across the wave and the fins and the board and everything's sliding. Um, and then look at, like a mick Fanning or somebody who can hold that or Ethan Ewing and hold it all the way through. That's gnarly. That is just like peak form. But you're like, man, that was so smooth, but you're not ever saying that was so difficult to do. And I don't know what the point is I'm making. Devon Howard: I guess it comes back to, uh, like the kind of surfing I like to do. It's could be easily scoffed at as pretty easy, like, hey, mid-length surfing, you're just going straight. It's not really difficult. Um, but I don't know, man. At the highest levels. Like, I think what Torin Martin does, I think what February does if he's on a mid lake or other, you know, there's other surfers out there doing it and I cut a watch. Wow, look at that. 5/6 of the rail of that board is buried. And that's what I do myself. And that's to me that's the most thrilling thing is to bury that rail. How how far can I push this thing before it fails me? That's just really, really thrilling. You're just on the edge of disaster. You know, when you go on one of those seven foot boards, go to the bottom, slink, you know, and and coil up into the board and push it as hard as you can. Alex Moss does this really good as well. I can go on forever. People do a great job of this and they push all that board through. And then if you don't watch it, you know, if you're not too far forward or too much weight on your front foot, you'll slingshot up the face as this fast, free feeling, like a flying feeling that's highly addictive. Devon Howard: It's something that you just keep my people that are into those types of boards, they just keep chasing it. Um, and then down the line, do the same thing again. Now I'm going to bury a whole lot of rail on the cutback. How hard can I push it? And when I get down to the bottom of the wave, can I just keep going right back to the whitewater? Oh yes, I can. Damn. Just keep going. Sometimes it doesn't work out. Uh, and if you blow that, you're doing the split that's on the board. Now you've got a torn MCL. Um, but you're going full throttle. And that on that type of equipment. Um, the form is important so that you don't botch it because you really could get injured on some of these things. It probably someone who hears has got a laugh and think, this is a joke. Like, you're being really hyperbolic, bro. Come on. It's just a mid length and you're over water. Um, yeah. When you're pushing it really hard, it's it's it's thrilling and it's exciting and it is difficult to do and it's I think it's, um, it's really appealing to a lot of people. Um, and then they, you know, they go and try and do it and say, man, I, I wish I could surf like Rob Machado on this thing. Yeah. Michael Frampton: Well, all the surfers. Devon Howard: Take ten years. Michael Frampton: Yeah, if not longer. I think all the surfers you mention and the way you talk about their surfing is they're. Can they stay connected? You know, that as, as they're going through the, through the turns and in between turns, there's no there's no radical gain or loss of speed. Right. So that where they do the cutback isn't just a change of direction. It's in sync with that part of the wave. So they stay connected to the power source. So there's a certain it's a radical maneuver, but the speed doesn't waver too much, whereas some surfers might jump up to the top and bust the fins, and they might slow right down and then fall back down into the wave and go again. And it looks good in photos and maybe gets judged well in a competition. But it's not necessarily they're not as connected to the wave as other surfers. Devon Howard: Yeah. And again, that's debatable. I'm sure there's other people who will feel opposite of that. And that's great. You know, surfing's subjective. Yeah. And you know, in in just to bring it back a little bit to competition if that's okay. I know lots of people don't care about surf competition, but it is where a lot of the best surfing's happening. It's where the like the high bar is a lot of times um, and in the 60s and 70s style was just sort of, um, it wasn't like there was a style box that was ticked. It was it was sort of like this nice little cozy little wrapping around the surfing that was just a given, you know, so it didn't really need to be discussed. And then in the 80s, when in probably really the late 70s when the twin fin was really coming on with Mr. pushing that and Sean Thompson and other people chasing him. Um, they were packing in as many maneuvers as they possibly could into a ride to take away more points. And and this isn't my own thought or original idea. I've read these things elsewhere, and I agree with his take, which is somewhere along the way. The beauty just sort of eroded because the focus is now like we're getting really fixated on number of maneuvers. And this like real technical aspect of the difficulty of the maneuvers. Devon Howard: And surfing is already highly subjective. And you have this even more subjective thing, style. Um, and some of them may be, correct me if I'm wrong, maybe there was a style element at some point. I'm not aware of it, maybe there was. And um, so anyways, the 80s kind of moves on and there were clearly lots of stylish surfers. I mean, I grew up like many people my age, I'm 50, so I worshiped Tom Curren and I loved Tommy Carroll and a bunch of folks. There was lots of style, but there was also some people with some really hideous style, like Gary Elkerton and David and all these people. Nothing against them, man. Like, I think they're all incredible surfers, but there were some hideous styles and they crushed it in contests because they were just animals, like lacerating, tearing it up. And because the broader culture is being driven by whatever media is being consumed. And the media at the time was really sort of swiveling and craning and watching what's going on in competition, because that's like where the money's being plugged in. So those brands like, hey, we validate this thing we're doing, which is competition surfing. Um, and it just boiled down to what do you got to do to win this thing? And if making it look beautiful was not ever important, why would you spend time doing that? Tom Curran couldn't help himself. Devon Howard: He was stylish no matter what. But, um, lots, lots of other surfers weren't, and they did very well. Um, and so as the decade or two ensues, um, just the sort of broad mainstream viewpoint was, that style just wasn't important. However, the people that were in the sort of the underground, your locals, people that sort of stuck to the fringe and even the in people that short boarded as well, obviously still kind of kept style alive and in it. And the reason style always stayed alive is because the idea that human beings are drawn and attracted to beauty is as old as time, I think. I mean, who knows? When that began, I had a really nice chat with David Scales on, um, Surf Splendor, and we spoke about this there. So if you want to hear more about this, go check that out. I think it was a nice conversation, but I'll sort of reiterate some of the points there was. I read an article by Scott Hewlett in The Surfer's Journal, and he wrote quite a bit about style, and he illustrated a point that I'd never considered. And he sort of talking about this Greek artists. It was like 500 BC. I'm like, where is this thing going? Why are we talking about bronze sculptures? Um, but he made a really brilliant point, which is, okay, why does style matter? Why do we keep talking about it? Um, it's because beauty endures. Devon Howard: It is a common theme in human nature. Now, in recent times, I'd say beauty is being abandoned. If you look at modern architecture and just about any town, everything looks like shit. So I don't know what's going on there. We used to make beautiful buildings and now we're stopping doing it. Um, you we can't control that. But in surfing, we keep getting drawn back to this idea of beauty. Despite all those things that happen that we just talked about in the 80s and 90s competition, surfing and getting derailed. The broad culture still is always known instinctively that this is something that should, um, we should never stop cherishing. We should never stop celebrating. Um, and I think it's backed up by if you go to any Torin Martin video, go down to this thing below the screen that says views. A lot of Torin Martin videos have like a million plus views. Um, go over to Gabrielle Medina or anyone, and I'm not picking on these people. Just pick anybody. I'll bet you right now that Torin is is beating a lot of those surfers, 2 or 3 or 4 to 1 in terms of views. Now, you could argue that, well, there's more a lot more Gabriel Medina type surfers and there's not that many tour Martin's, I'll give you that. Devon Howard: But I, I think it's really because we are drawn to beauty. And so back to that Surfers Journal article, which is he he said, imagine taking those Greek statues and putting a surfboard underneath them. And when I was done reading the article, I went and I googled 500 BC Greek statue and I forget the artist's name, its Greek name, and I was instantly like, huh, look at that. You just put a surfboard under these statues. And some of the form and posture was a little bit silly, but a lot of it was pretty spot on. And then you go right over to Jerry Lopez, or you go to Mikey February or somebody else, and you can see that, um, there's a similarity to this idea of beauty. And then you go take it steps further, take it to, uh, any type of traditional dance. Have you ever seen ugly, poor form at any dance scenario where there's, like, serious people, whether it's ballroom or it's swing or it's foxtrot or it's tango or it's salsa, it's just incredibly beautiful. And it's this expression. The music is coming in. You're viewing and watching and feeling the music. There's that input, and the output is what these people are feeling. And so that our output in surfing is, is that form and that expression. Um, bullfighters. Same thing. Michael Frampton: Mhm. Devon Howard: Now the bullfighters have a little more of a pose at the end, the bulls coming in and the bull goes through the cape and they kind of hold it and they sort of like it's almost like a taunting of the bull. Like you didn't kill me. And look how calm I am right here. And a lot of the surfers in the 50s and 60s, they really admired the bullfighters as a great shot of Joey Cobell in Peru in the 60s. Guys never bullfight, but bull fought before, and he's down there and there's pictures of him in the bull ring with a Hawaiian print shirt on and doing the whole full Ole, you know. And so this idea of style really, um, is always going to matter and always be important to us. Um, so long as we don't ever abandon this, um, attraction of ours to beauty, you know, we're attracted to beautiful people. Clearly, that's a given, right? Um, but we're really drawn to beautiful, um, things art, architecture, wonderful garden, uh, an unmolested landscape. And so it I don't think people really care to give too much thought about style. Devon Howard: I think it's just sort of like I said, you know, when you see it, does it really need to be talked about? But I think in the context of a podcast like yours where people are trying to improve their surfing, um, having a real understanding that this isn't just for show style isn't just to look cool. It's not like putting on a cool outfit to look cool. Um, it's a real purpose driven thing. Certain articles of clothing look great, but they also have a purpose. Maybe it has SPF in it, maybe it's, um, built for a particular, um, activity to make it more comfortable. Um, for us, as I was saying in the very beginning, like the form, um, the style sort of follows the form. And if you, if you really think about your form and you're relaxed and you're sort of paying attention to the things that you talk about on your podcast or where people get their information, There's lots of different YouTube things, obviously. Um, you two could have nice style if you so desire. Michael Frampton: Yeah, I 100% agree. Surfing is first and foremost an art form. Mhm. It's only within competition that it becomes a sport. And then yes, sometimes we don't necessarily we sacrifice a bit of style for progression perhaps as well as what's happening in windsurfing is a sport. I still think the best of the best, the best of the best can buy. Like John John, he's number one at the moment for a reason. Not just because he's progressive, but because he he would do a progressive turn with calm style like no one else. Yeah, yeah. So I still have faith. I think there'll be the odd slip up. You know, Toledo's frantic aerial maneuver that goes higher than everyone else. The judges kind of. They can't not score it, you know. So, you know, there'll be blips in the system, glitches in the matrix, per se, until until the judges, you know, really start to consider style and and make that a point which hopefully, maybe one day they will. I think it would make, uh, I would make surfing more watchable. Devon Howard: Well, they have done so in longboard surfing. Yes. Longboard surfing has a much smaller audience, obviously. Um, but as I believe you and I talked about in the past, I think we did. I was at the WSL for a few years, and I worked on the longboard tour and built into the criteria is the word style also two other words flow and grace. Um, Style. Flow. Grace is in the criteria and it's hard, a little difficult to train the judges on it, you know? Um, it's highly subjective. It's something we could we could sit here for an hour, breaking down style, flow, grace. It will still feel like we barely scratched the surface. Um, because it's it is highly subjective. Just like art is just like music is just like food is just like, what kind of waves I like? Ah, it's just like that. It's just, um, really can be difficult to put your finger on it. But the way we did the training to help, um, these judges, if anyone cares to know this stuff is, um, have them really focus on somebody making something really difficult look easy, but also at the same time, dealt with sight of the positioning of the wave or the difficulty of the maneuver, because to the untrained eye, you could you could see someone doing a nose ride and maybe they're doing something really what you may think is beautiful on the nose. Devon Howard: Maybe their arms are held a certain way. It just looks kind of like cool. But if you pay close attention, they're like ten feet in front of the pocket and you're like, that's not that hard to do. Mhm. So the so what helps is in the other part of the criteria is um, the degree of difficulty that is part of it. So you have to, you're looking at the style of flow and grace but you're applying it to are these surfers in the pocket. Is the surfer using their rail or are they lifting the board out of the water? Because to lift the longboard out of the water and turn it as far easier than engaging the rail in the water and pushing it through a turn. That's much more difficult. And so it has been applied in longboard surfing. Let's see if we can. If anyone cares, we could try to do a campaign to get the Shortboard tour to break more. Michael Frampton: I'm with you. I'm with you. Ultimately, I do think it shines through and the cream always rises to the top. But it would be nice if it was literally in the criteria, and it was considered by each surfer to be a worthy consideration. Um, coming back to form, let me I'm going to share my screen with you. Let me. Hopefully this works. Oh, shit. Did that work? Can you see my screen? Devon Howard: I think so. Let me move my notes here a little bit. Oops. Too many things around here. I'm terrible at computer stuff, but second. So where it is now? Okay, I can see it now. Michael Frampton: So there's an example of a, you know, if that was placed on the nose of a longboard, it'd be quite cool. Devon Howard: Yeah, it's pretty close. Michael Frampton: But then also so here's you see on the left there is the way that a baby learns to stand now because the infant is so weak, there's only one way that they can learn to roll over and learn to stand up and hold themselves. Because their muscles are so weak, their bones have to be placed so accurately in order for them to be able to stand and move. And that's how we learn because of our our weakness and our slow progression into strength, we learn the most efficient way possible. Now it's the athletes that maintain that neurological efficiency that end up with the best form naturally, i.e. the way Kelly Slater's standing there in those barrels. Not only is he standing in a very similar way to the infant there, he's also very calm and relaxed in that position. Devon Howard: Yeah, I would definitely not be that calm in that way. Those waves. Michael Frampton: Exactly. So it does come back to to form. And it's also when when an athlete is standing with their joints in DNS, we call it joint centration and that the bones are stacked on top on top of each other in a very efficient way. It just looks right. Not only does it look right the way the forces are spread throughout the body, it doesn't feel hard. Anyone who's ever tried, if anyone, has ever tried to skate a vert ramp, for example, half pipe, it feels like, oh man, my legs aren't strong enough. How do people and then you watch a 12 year old just go up and down. They're not doing it because their legs are stronger than yours. They're not even doing it because they're stronger relative to their body weight. They're doing it because they're stacking themselves. Their bones and their joints are centered properly, and the force is being transferred throughout their entire body through the center of the bone and into the skateboard. Whereas someone who doesn't know what they're doing, they're trying to muscle their way through it. They only does it feel terrible. It looks terrible. Yeah. So I agree with that. Yeah. So it does come back to efficiency. And you said no good style is that you know it when you see it. My question to you is, do you know it when you feel it? Devon Howard: Yes. Um, I believe so. Um, I know, um, I've even had moments where I just didn't feel like I was in the right form. It just didn't the the turn didn't feel good or the particular move movement. Maybe it's a nose ride or something. Didn't feel great. And if you get a chance to be lucky enough to come across a video or a photo of that moment, you're like, mm, yeah, that that is actually backs it up. It looks a bit awkward. It looks a bit off. So and you definitely can feel good style because you like it, like it's all tethered to, to itself. Like it's it feels good. It looks good. Um, and it, it's sort of like carries on the ride. It's it's like when you get off the very beginning of the ride and the first bottom turn is successful and your feet are in the right place. It really sets up the rest of the ride. Um, if you botch that, let's say you screw it up getting to your feet or off the bottom. Then you get you. You screw up the pace of the wave. So, um, yeah, I've had times where my feet were too far forward or back or whatever. Um, or I hit a chop and my arms sort of waved a little bit, and then I got out of that rhythm. Um, and that didn't that definitely didn't feel good. And it certainly didn't, because it looked like I was rolling up the windows as opposed to my arms being sort of down and going the direction that I want to be headed. Devon Howard: A lot of times the front end, the back end oftentimes are going the direction you want to go. I find that to be very helpful, and that feels good to me because I feel really centered. I or you'd say stacked. You know, I never thought of it that way, but, um, so yeah, I would agree. I would say you definitely. You definitely feel it. Um, my own belief is I don't I don't do anything in the style that I feel is what's called contrived, where I'm trying to present before of some kind that it has a certain look. The form I have is, is really based off of function, and that's because I watched the generation two ahead of me at a waves like wind and sea and Cardiff Reef, and I watched the elders and what the I really watched closely what they were doing. How they were sinking down into the board. And I noticed that their hands, their fingers were never apart. Their, um, hand gestures were sort of always in the direction of where their board and body was heading. It was like this stacking or centering. He kind of like hunkered down, but they never looked stiff or scared or afraid of anything or timid. It was very, a very confident, almost like a martial artist, like a kung fu person or something that has confidence in the form of that particular move. Devon Howard: Um, the really good surfers, the real standout surfers. I, I identified that pretty young and I said, I want I need to learn how to do that. Um, so it was never a contrived thing, like, I need to look good and look cool. I just knew that that was good surfing. And as a consequence of learning going through that, it also felt really good. It was like a good golf swing. I don't golf at all, but I have friends who do and I can understand like how much work they put into that golf swing. And when they do that, clearly it looks good from a distance because they hit the ball and it goes right where they want it to go. So that's pretty awesome. But they'll tell you it feels good. It's like uh, or baseball. If you've ever played baseball, you know the feeling of a homerun. There's a sound of the bat and the feel through the bat into your hands, and you feel it. The follow through of the swing. You're like, that ball is out of here. It's pretty cool. Um, Mhm. A reward to not that it's work but there's sort of like this payoff and a reward to the dedication that it took to learn that, that art form. Mhm. Michael Frampton: But it always comes back to the feeling. Yeah. Devon Howard: It really does. Yeah I didn't I haven't put too much thought into the feeling piece of it. But um yeah. You know it's disgusting and really dumb and shallow. But I've, I've had moments where the way where the ride did it feel good, and I didn't even finish the wave. I was so not into the feeling. I just kicked out. I was like, I've botched this thing so bad that someone else just needs to finish it. I'm just. I just kick out and I go back up to the top and kind of regroup and go, what? What just went wrong there? And then, you know, like surfing. Everyone surfs for different reasons too. Like for some people, surfing is a couple times a month. It's an escape for them. They don't care if they surf. Well, that's not what they're there for. Michael Frampton: Like they're probably not listening to this, though. Devon Howard: Probably not. Um, and I like I've had people say, man, you look so serious when you're surfing. I'm like, I'm pretty serious about it. Like it? I'm to me, it's so strange. It's serious fun and and it's as I've gotten older, I haven't lost interest in it. It's like a it's like a hunt to me. It's really weird. No, and I don't I don't know if it's just some human thing of like the game and the chess moves and the everything involved with observing patterns. I've observed patterns for decades, and now I see the patterns, and the benefit for me is I know which wave to pick. I know where to beat. And by knowing that I've set up the ride and therefore I've sort of like predetermined this feeling that I'm after, which is, as I said, it's highly addicting. Surfing like you, you never satiated. Why is that? You always want another one. You always want more. Um. And but all through this process, the hunt, the enjoying, understanding the patterns, the chasing, the moment, the feeling. Um, there's a there's a tremendous sense of there's like a reward when all the elements have come together and you apply everything you've learned. It's a really cool feeling. I think you could say that about a lot of things in life, whatever your or your craft is. Devon Howard: And for me, surfing isn't just like some waste of time thing, like that's part of it. That's a bonus to me. Like, hey, I'm not doing chores or I'm not at work. That's fantastic. I will take that. But it's also like a craft. It's like a, it's a, it's it's a way I express myself. Some people do that through building things out of wood in their garage or a number of other things. Um, so the style piece of it, it's just sort of come along with it. It never was like, I'm going to really think about this super duper hard. Um, and you just, you learn through time that they the style and the and the form, they sort of, like, are tied together, you know, and you kind of look at it this way, and then you go back and look at it the other way, and they really come together nicely. And if you fight them, you're surfing. You're not going to surf as well. If you're not surfing as well, you're not going to feel it as right. You won't feel that thing we just talked about. Um, and then consequently, not that not that that many people care, but you're surfing is going to be kind of ugly. Michael Frampton: Thing is. Michael Frampton: It'll. Michael Frampton: Because when you are, when you're connected and you're efficient, it feels better. Simple as that. It feels better if you if you close your eyes and just imagine, like an image or a video section of someone who epitomizes style, are they? What are they feeling in the moment? Are they worried about what they look like? No, no. Are they are they are they scared? No. Are they putting in a ton of effort? Devon Howard: I would say no. Michael Frampton: It's in the. Devon Howard: Moment. Yeah. There's probably a small number of people who. It's contrived, like you could go to Byron Bay. Sorry. Sorry. Byron Bay. They pick on you right now. You could go to Malibu. Um, pick your spot. Ah, maybe Montego Bay. I don't know, uh, way inside there. There's going to be places where there are folks that, for whatever reason, this. Well, like, who cares? There's no, like, laws or rules. Like, I'm not mad about this. It's just they're just observations. That's it. They're really controlled. It's just so contrived. They're sort of putting the form or I'm sorry, let me back up. They're putting the presentation ahead of the form. You know, they're worried about all the bells and whistles and the dressing, but, like, at the core of all the ingredients going into making this beautiful thing, they've got it all wrong, you know? And so, um, you. Michael Frampton: Can always smell that though, I think. Devon Howard: And it's a missed opportunity for them. Uh, does it change my life or your life or anybody listening? You do. You, man. Like, I'm very libertarian in that way. I don't really care. But, um, we're on a podcast called Surf Mastery, so we're we're we're nerding out. And if you're here to get better, don't get caught up in the presentation. Get caught up in the form. The presentation is going to come along. And yeah, it's just like this beautiful byproduct. You don't have to really. You shouldn't have to try to have good style. You should you should try to be good at surfing. And then once you have that confidence, you know, if you see a photo or catch a surf line, rewind. If you can see that far and you happen to notice that your your hands are bent at the wrist and going in instead of out, or you happen to notice that your fingers are wide apart, you could pull them in and it looks better, but it also centers and stacks you. You start feeling more stacked over your board, and once you start doing that, it starts improving. Your style just starts improving. And, um, it's interesting that tube riding, this is what we talked about with David the other day, I think. Or maybe we didn't, I can't remember, but he someone I was talking to you about. It's interesting that almost all good tube writing has good style. Most of it you You rarely see someone with really hideous style getting as sick barrel. Yeah. Michael Frampton: So yeah, because the, the, the the wave will hit them in the butt with their post dance. They just don't they don't fit in their ugly. Devon Howard: Yeah I think it's true. He's a lesson there that can be applied to other maneuvers like but but it's not always true. That good tube style now equates to this beautiful style of the face. You'll see what doesn't fall apart. Um. Why is that? I don't know exactly. Maybe the. I think one thing that could help with style, um, from a technique standpoint, is, um, don't rush your surfing. I've noticed, like, folks that, remember we were talking earlier about breaking trim, um, and seeing people that are trying to wiggle. They're sort of swaying. A lot of times it's the upper body that's swaying when that's not really helping them in any way. It's not benefiting the the ride. It's causing the board to lift out of the water and side to side motion, typically. And now you're breaking the trip. Now in a short board. A short board needs to be side to side, but it's also got to be pushed so that it's it's building momentum in a forward fashion. The people that are not very good are kind of not going anywhere, because they don't understand that. They're just sort of wiggling their arms and breaking the trim. Devon Howard: Um, and I think if you just. Yeah, just like think about being a little bit more quiet, um, and, and being a little bit more quiet means you're not in a big hurry like you don't if you're not at a level where you need to try to get eight maneuvers in the wave, don't do it. Take take your time and get the two really nice maneuvers and those will feel really good. Be patient off the bottom when you're. Let's start from the beginning. You go and you paddle in. You go to do a bottom turn. Just be there in that moment with that bottom turn. Don't be thinking about the four moves you want to do down the line, because now it becomes this rut here. You're hurrying up the surfing, and now you're kind of like screwing up the pace of the ride. You're screwing up the pace of the wave. And when you do that, now you're out of sync. When you're out of sync, it doesn't feel or look good. So I think the best advice to like, how do I get good stop, start with the foreign and don't rush your surfing. Devon Howard: Don't try to contrive it. Don't try to Like I'm gonna have. Make sure my hands are up here and I'll go like this. And I'm looking backwards and going, okay, that's go. You do you. But you know, that's not helping you surf better. Michael Frampton: Yeah, yeah. You can you can be quick without being rushed. Devon Howard: Exactly. Michael Frampton: Like like a drummer that's drumming at 160 beats per minute. If they're ahead of the beat slightly. It sounds rushed, but if they're on the beat, it's in time. It's rhythm and they're nice and relaxed. They're still fast. They're just not rushed, utterly. And it's interesting you mentioned, like the hands curled and like this. If your hands are curled in like this, you will feel scared. Your physiology affects your emotions. That's a scared posture. That's a protective posture. So if you forcefully open up your hands, like Tony Robbins says, stand up tall and and straight and relaxed, you will feel better. But if you force yourself to smile, you will feel better inside. So I think that, you know, a bit of video analysis and analyzing your own style can actually and changing it can actually make surfing feel better as well. But, um, I love those tips. You just, um, said and it was a good summary and it's a great place to end. Devin, thank you so much. Devon Howard: All right. I hope we, uh, made some sense there. It's fun to talk about it, because I've felt this stuff for a long time, but I don't really ever talk about it. And it's only just in recent times. And, um, I gotta thank Scott Hulett from The Surfer's Journal for getting the gears going in my mind of how to think about this stuff. Um, it's fun to share it, so I hope people get some value out of this conversation. Michael Frampton: Yeah. Oh, definitely. Definitely. I mean, we can if you come up with more thoughts on it, let me know. We get you back on and we'll expand because it's an important topic. Devon Howard: Well, we're, um, we're in the middle of some fin placement on a mid lane, so I got to get back down there. So I also got this, um, dust down here. Michael Frampton: All right. Thanks, Devin. I'll let you write. You get back to it. Devon Howard: All right. Thank you. Michael. See you.Devon Howard On Surf Mastery Podcast Devon Howard On Surf Mastery Podcast

Welcome to Quivercast, where we ride the waves of diverse surf experiences! In today's episode, we're joined by the remarkable Geoff Moysa @gmoysa—ISA Junior Longboard gold medalist and former pro longboard & shortboard surfer. Geoff, a staple of South Orange County, shares tales from the iconic T Street when the waves were pumping and the laid-back shores of San Onofre when the vibe was mellower.Explore the twists and turns of Geoff's surfing journey, from competing in shortboard heats to an unexpected shift toward longboard triumphs. Hear the story of how his dad's suggestion led him to clinch victory in longboard competitions, eventually earning him a spot on the USA surf team and a gold medal.Geoff's journey continues as he delves into the world of pro surfing, navigating the QS as a shortboarder and making a mark on the longboard tour. Between Stewart and Becker boards, he had a quiver of pro surfboard models that carried him through his impressive career.As Geoff reflects on the past, he also shares his thoughts on the current state of the WSL, offering valuable insights into the evolution of professional surfing. Join us for a Quivercast filled with stories, triumphs, and a surfer's perspective on the ever-changing surf scene.  Support the showBUY THE ENDLESS SUMMER BOX SET HERE!If you like the QuiverCast here are some ways to help us keep going! I always like Coffee! Buy me a Coffee! Become a Patreon for as little as a Buck a Month! Patreon Find Us: Website: thequivercast.com Instagram: @quiver_cast Facebook: The QuiverCast Twitter: @The_QuiverCast Sound Editing by: The Steele Collective

Ca y est ! Après quelques années d'apprentissage du surf, je suis passé sur un shortboard ! Alors... facile ou hyper compliqué ? Je te dis tout dans cet épisode.N'oublie pas de t'abonner, tu trouveras aussi des articles complets sur le site https://apprentisurfeur.com et notamment le guide gratuit pour apprendre et améliorer ton take off https://apprentisurfeur.com/guide.Si tu souhaites échanger avec d'autres apprenti surfeurs, rejoins le groupe Facebook https://apprentisurfeur.com/groupe.Tu peux également me suivre sur Instagram @apprenti_surfeur

Am besten reist es sich mit leichtem Gepäck, das steht außer Frage. Aber wohin mit dem Surfboard? Die wenigsten Mitteleuropäer:innen erreichen in ihrer Surf-Vita das Skilllevel, um ein Shortboard angemessen zu beherrschen. Entsprechend groß und schwer wird schnell die Boardbag. In den meisten Surfdestinationen kann man sicherlich ein Brett im lokalen Surfshop leihen, aber das eigene Board ist für viele nicht nur eine emotionale Angelegenheit, sondern auch ein wichtiger Bestandteil ihrer Surfidentität. Außerdem surft man sich natürlich auf sein eigenes Brett ein.Die Lösung? Ein aufblasbares Surfbrett?! Der erste Reflex der Surfszene ist oft: ...Du möchtest deinen Podcast auch kostenlos hosten und damit Geld verdienen? Dann schaue auf www.kostenlos-hosten.de und informiere dich. Dort erhältst du alle Informationen zu unseren kostenlosen Podcast-Hosting-Angeboten. kostenlos-hosten.de ist ein Produkt der Podcastbude.Gern unterstützen wir dich bei deiner Podcast-Produktion.+++Werbung+++ Jetzt im neuen Jahr besser füttern mit biologisch artgerechtem Rohfutter von BARFER'S. Für Deinen Hund oder Deine Katze mit 10 % Rabatt mit dem Gutscheincode „PODCAST10“. https://www.barfers-wellfood.de/

Aloha friends,  it's Robert Stehlik. Welcome to another episode of the Blue Planet Show. Today's interview is with none other than Jimmy Lewis, who is a legendary shaper. He got started at a young age shaping surfboards and then moved to Maui where he got into making windsurf boards. And at one point he was making windsurf speed needles for some of the fastest world record breaking sailors in the world at speed sailing events. And then he got into kite surfing and kite boards, and then standup paddle boards, and now foil boards. So he's a very versatile shaper. Some great stories to tell, and really interesting interview and entertaining as well. So you'll learn more about his design philosophy, board construction, and lots of good stories. So it's a longer interview, so take your time, re kick back and relax. Watch it here on YouTube with some visuals, or you can also listen to it as a podcast on your favorite podcast app. So without it further ado, here is Jimmy.  Okay, Jimmy Lewis, it's a real honor to have you on the show. Thanks so much for making the time to talk to me and the guests. So I'm just stoked to be able to talk to you for extended period of time and ask you all the questions I have. And so yeah, thank you for coming to the show. Oh, I'm happy to be here finally. I've seen the other ones. I go, why doesn't he call me? I appreciate that. Thanks. So yeah, so we'll get into all this stuff that's currently going on, at eventually I want to talk about your board shapes and your foil boards and equipment and all that kind of stuff. But I, first of all, I wanna start with just going into some background, I know you have a long history in the sports of water sports Tell us a little bit about, start at the very beginning, like how you grew up, where, where were you born, how did you grow up and how did you get into water sports and how did you start shaping boards and all that stuff. Yeah. My dad was in the Air Force, so I was born in Canada, I think after World War ii. My mom and my dad moved around a lot. My dad met my mom after World War ii. My mom's brother was a Air Force buddy of his, and they he brought my dad over to their house after the war. And then he met my mom, and I guess we moved around. They moved around quite a few years. Eventually we moved to Redlands, California. I believe it was in 1956. So I was I was born in 51, so that would make me five years old. And went into kindergarten there, went to grade school and stuff. And then in I don't know if you're old enough to remember the sixties, but that's when the surfing craze really was going crazy in the early sixties and we lived inland. But my older brother, I have two older brothers, two years apart. So my older brother I think was, if I was like 11 or 12, he was 15 or 16. And he he had a transistor radio that my dad had brought back from Germany. And I remember listening to all the rock music and the surf music on the radio coming outta his room. And he started getting interested in surfing and so he bought a surfboard. And so naturally me and my other brother wanted to do what he did. So we all started surfing and I think I bought my first surfboard. It was a pop out vessy and it was like a pig board, that vessie pig shape. And started surfing, I think. In the summer of my sixth grade, and I remember my mom took us down, took me and a friend of mine, just us two, down to Cardiff, which was quite a ways from, we, like Newport Beach was 60 miles in away. Redlands was like 60 miles directly inland from Newport. And anyway, when we really started getting into surfing a lot, we would drive down to Cardiff, but I don't know why my mom brought us down to Cardiff that day. Me and a friend of mine, Hanson Surfboards, was across the street, not directly from Carter Reef, but just a little south of that. There was a restaurant on the beach there called Sea Barn. It was like a little old diner of those sixties type diners Okay. Where all the surfers would go in there and eat sometimes. And there was a, they called that beach break right across, right out from sea Barn, right across the street from there was Hanon Surfboards the shop. And me and my friend went and snooping around behind there. And there was this sha, this little shack, I think it was just a single standing shape room. But we went in there and this guy, John Price was in there. He was later on to own Surfboards Hawaii. He bought the franchise from Dick Brewer on in the Man On in California. But he was in there shaping. And I had forgotten. But this friend of mine from Redlands, who was at the beach with me that day, reminded me about a year or two ago that I had gotten a couple pieces of the rail cutoffs. And that's, I took 'em home and made two little surfboards. I think they were about a foot long. I shaped some longboards, glassed 'em, I can't remember where I even got the glass and resin, but I shaped them, glassed them, got some logos out of the magazine. I remember one was at Jacobs and one was at Dewey Weber. And I glassed them for boards. And I remember bringing 'em to school and showing people. And then this other friend of mine was so impressed. So just like small model shapes, model pieces threw away from, okay. Yeah. I remember this friend of mine was so impressed with one of 'em. I just gave it to 'em. I don't know why I did that. I wish I still had one of those, or both of 'em. But I think that's been a thing all my life. I like to give stuff away to people that like it, especially something I've made. Anyway, that's how I started surfing. And then we would, I remember my mom used to give us 50 cents a day for lunch to buy the lunch at school. And the guys that went surfing who had cars, I was still like 13, 14, and 15 years old in those junior high and high school years. Fortunately I was for some reason, guys that are 16 and 17 don't want to hang around with 13 and 14 year old kids, and but I was able to go with those guys surfing and we had to pay gas money to get down to the beach with these guys that had cars. So I'd save my 50 cents all week long to have $2 and 50 cents for the weekend to go surfing. And I'd starve at school for all week long, not having lunch. And then would go to the beach, pay a dollar 50 for gas, and then I'd have another dollar or a dollar 50 depending on who charged what for a bag of Dale Donuts from Speedy Mart, which was like a precursor to seven-eleven. Down in Cardiff and then whatever else food we'd get and would just, all I cared about was surfing. I didn't do very well in school. I didn't fail, but I got like seas, but I was naturally good at math, algebra, and geometry, so I didn't, that was, I hated reading. I hated reading history. I hated reading any of that stuff. Just couldn't concentrate. I'd read it, I'd re, when I'd be doing my homework, I'd be reading a paragraph over and over again thinking about surfing or something. And finally I just put the book away how I even passed. I can't, I don't remember how I could do that because I didn't really study. And like I said, na, the math stuff was semi-natural, so I got pretty good grades in algebra, geometry, math, stuff like that. And then my mom moved to Berkeley in 67. She wanted, she was working at the library in Redlands and then she wanted to become a librarian, so she needed to go to the university, moved up to Berkeley. And I remember my older brother was already in college and my other brother just graduated in 67, so it was just me and my mom and my sister. And I was thinking, shoot up in San Francisco area, there's icebergs in the water up there. I just had this impression. It's it's so cold. What a pi. I just hated moving up there because that was the end of my surfing career, and then once I got up there, after a little while, I think my oldest brother came and visited and we decided to drive down to Santa Cruz and Reali and found that it wasn't as cold as we thought and it was doable. And then I made a couple surfers there and we started going over to Belinas, which is north of the Golden Gate Bridge. And surfing over there. And then one day, it was probably in the late, it was like late 68 maybe. And we went to Belinas and I saw this homemade surfboard. And this is the time when short boards first started being made. And there were, there weren't, it wasn't longboard surfing anymore. Nat Young and Dick Brewer were making short boards, the first short boards in the late sixties there. And I saw this homemade surfboard there that this guy made on the beach. And I go, shoot, I could do that. And so I drove down to Santa Cruz to the O'Neill shop. They used to make surfboards, they, they had a surfboard brand as well as their wetsuit thing. And I bought a blank, a gallon of residence, some glass, and came back and turned one of the rooms in our apartment into the shaping room and shaped that board. And then out on the out on the, what do you call it? The roof of the house. I started glassing boards up there, and that's how I started making boards. And then we chopped down all our old classic long, long boards, stripped them, and I reshaped those and then started making boards. Okay. So that was like late sixties or early 1968 was the first full size board I made. Okay. I actually forgot to mention that when I got into seventh grade, I wanted to make a belly board, which is like a boogie board, but we used to call them belly boards and it was shaped like a surfboard, uhhuh, and a longboard. And so when I got into seventh grade wood shop, I told the teacher I wanted to, you could make, they give you assignments of what you have to make to teach you how to work with wood. But I had I wanted to make this belly board. It was four feet long, glued up, shaped with rocker and stuff, and. He said that's way too big of a project for a seventh grader. So for the, I had to wait till ninth grade. So the next two years, all I thought about was making that belly board. So when I got into ninth grade wood shop, I did it. I bought some balsa wood from the hot, we called 'em hobby shops back then with model airplanes and stuff. But they had these pieces of balsa wood that were three feet long. And I think I bought two of em and then glued on cuz they weren't long enough. I wanted it to be four feet long. So they were, I remember having to, to but 'em end on end to make it long enough. And I couldn't afford to buy all four pieces to make it wide enough. So the rails were solid pine. So the thing weighed a lot. But the, I remember the two pieces of wood that I bought were eight bucks, which was a fortune back then for me. And so that's why I couldn't make the whole thing balsa. And I shaped it and my plan was to take, and back then it was like we'd have wood shop Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and the next week it was Tuesday and Wednesday. And so I made the board and I got it done shaped just before Christmas vacation. Back then we had two weeks off for Christmas vacation. My plan was to take it home, last it, and take it to the beach to ride over Christmas vacation. And the shop teacher said, oh, I want you to glass it. I want you to do it here and show the kids how you do that. And I go, this ain't a glass shop, it's a wood shop. And if I do it, if I had to wait till after Christmas, it would take two months to do it Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and then Tuesday and Thursday. And it's I was so pissed, and so what I did on the very last day before the Christmas vacation on Friday, I stuck it behind the shop door, leaning up behind the shop door. And then as I got outta school, I just went and grabbed it and took it home. The lead teacher was pissed. He failed me for that quarter. So I had an for the first quarter f for the next quarter. So my the semester grade was a c the average. And he was pissed, but that's what I did. So anyway, I glassed that and then it wasn't until I saw that board in Bess that I wanted to make real surfboards. Okay. And then other than your shop teacher which shop teacher, did you have any, anybody like showing you, like mentoring you or did you talk to any other shapers or watch anybody else? I didn't know what a shaper was. Yeah. Except that first experience when I was in summer of sixth grade looking at John Price and that shaping room. And then you just shaped it with like a surf form rasp or did you have a power cleaner or the blank? The first surfboard I made. Yeah. Yeah. It was they got, the surf forms are the 10 inch surf forms. Yeah. I don't know if they have a seven inch one, a small one, or six or seven inch one. Shaped the first 17 boards with that small surf form. Oh, wow. Big one existed. And I certainly didn't know what a planer was, I don't think, or had access to one. And have you ever tried to skin a blank with a Sure. Formm, the crust on the blank? I, yeah. I actually, the first board I shaped was the same way. I didn't have a planer or anything. I had to do it all by hand. But yeah it's very hard to get that the skin off right now. Yeah, it was, that was a nightmare. But for some reason though, I remember the boards. I've got one of my old board. One of the first surfboards I made down in my shop, this friend of mine from Berkeley Yeah. Told me he had it several years ago. And so I said send it to me and I'll send your son a new surfboard that I shaped him. But yeah, they're pretty clean, nice. Yeah. So that's how I started. I wasn't a very good Glasser until I saw somebody do it or shaping. I came to Hawaii in 69 right after high school. This friend, my brother had already moved to Maui in 68, I believe. So at, I graduated in 69 and a friend of mine got a job painting a friend of his family's house over the summer. So me and him painted that house to earn money to come to Hawaii. So we came to Maui in, in the fall of 69. And there was this sh guy that had a little shape and room in PA down here. And I was gonna shape a board and so he had a planer. And so I got the blank and I had no idea how to do, to walk around the board shaping it like you're mowing a lawn, right? I was making crazy s cuts down the middle of the blank and I did a few cuts and then I go, Jesus Christ, this is terrible. And then I asked him, Hey, can you come and show me how to, how you hold the plane or, so he did a few passes and I didn't really get it. And after I, I mean it used to take me like the 17 boards I had done with the Sure Form, it would take me a week to shape those cuz I would do a little bit every day after school or something. And you've shaped a board with the Sure. Form yourself so you know how long it takes. And doing it with this planner, I was done in a couple hours and I just felt. I'm never gonna learn this. This is terrible. I just was depressed and, what's it called? Dis disen, non en disenchanted, but what's the word? Yeah, discouraged. I just felt discouraged of ever learning to shape. But then I got a planner anyway I only stayed in Santa Cruz, sorry, Maui for three months cuz it was the first time I was away from home and it wasn't as easy living in Hawaii as I thought. I just imagine. Yeah, I'd find a house, a really cool house right near the beach or something for $50 a month and it wasn't like that, and so anyway, I moved back to Berkeley, stayed at my mom's house for a couple months, I think I shaped a surfboard there and then moved to Santa Cruz and I lived in Santa Cruz for a year. And in the house we lived in, there was this guy that had this back bedroom when he moved out, I turned that bedroom into a sh a shaping room, and then I was glassing up on the front porch. And I O'Neill, like I said, they had a shop where they made boards too, and they also had a showroom there. And so they had, they were gonna stop their making surfboards. They were gonna close down their shop. So I went over there and Mike O'Neill, who's Pat's brother, had this box with a planter in a bunch of pieces and he sold it to me for 10 bucks. So I hitchhiked up to San Francisco to the Skill factory and gave it to him and told 'em, put it together and fix it. So for 75 bucks, they put it all together and made it almost like brand new. And so now I had a planner for 85 bucks basically. And then I started shaping and learning how to use it, but my glassing wasn't very good. Every, the thing is I've gotten good at glassing because every board I shaped, I glance. So I'm just as good at glassing as I am at shaping still to this day. You glassed all the boards yourself? There's been long periods where I didn't glass 'em all right. But now I do everything. I glass 'em, sand 'em, everything. But yeah, so I wasn't a very good Glasser. I didn't know, I was okay. The finished product was okay sometimes, but sometimes the resident would go off on me because I didn't have a technique. And anyway, I went up to, to house surfboards and there was this guy Bob Kates, I think is his name. He was a super good Glasser, and I saw him, how he would squeegee nose detail. I was going middle out from the stringer out, and that just takes so much time. And I just saw how he did it. I go, man, that's so much different. And that's as soon as I just saw his technique, I could glass, I started glassing a lot better. And then but nobody ever sat with me and taught me anything. But I could definitely say watching Bob Kate's glass aboard was how I learned how to really, squeegee in the right directions and stuff. And then after it was just, sorry. Oh, I just wanted to ask you about using a, the planer cuz I mean I found that, yeah, going from the little hand tool to the planer, it's like easy to take off too much material and make, keeping it even and you can't hold it. You don't wanna hold it exactly square. You'll wanna hold it slightly diagonally. Can you give us, just give some pointers on like how, what your technique is with the planer when you're shaping? That's exactly, over the period of time you just, sometimes over the years I've showed people how to shape, a lot of people and when they get the planer, I mean it's I don't know how much shaping you've done, but to me it's just so natural. I can be walking down the board with the planter and I can trip, but it doesn't, the trip of my feet and the the movement of my body doesn't change my hands. I can trip almost fall down, but it doesn't my hands are still even, yeah, it's just something you get. It's like unbelievable surfers who never fall off. Whereas I'd fall off on a certain little soup hitting me or something, or kiting, windsurfing, whatever. It's just something from after shaping hundreds and hundreds of boards. But yeah, at first it wasn't easy, but watching people do it. And then a few people over my, mainly I would think Steve Licey showed me a couple things and I'm watching him in the early seventies when he came to Maui. Do you know who he ever heard of? Steve Scheyer? No, I don't think so. He was a super good surfer. He was, I think he rode for Bing back in the, in longboard days. And then he was still I think When short boards came out. He was a super good surfer, super good shaper, but he was always really open with me about techniques on shaping and stuff. He showed me some things to modify the front of my, where the depth adjuster is? He's got that slot. Do you have a scale? I don't have a anymore, but I used a planter before. Yeah. But anyway, the skill 100 planter is the best planter there is. It's got a depth adjuster in the front with a little lever that goes back and forth in this slot. When you're shaping boards, foam gets stuffed up into that shoe part. And then at the either end, the depth adjuster has a range of motion where it's a zero cut and it goes up to an eighth inch cut. Steve taught me to drill a big hole on the either end of that little slot so foam doesn't get packed in there. Cuz over the while, while you're shaping a board foam will get packed into either end and it won't allow the depth adjuster to come to zero. And it also doesn't allow it to get to an eighth inch because it's getting stuffed up. So he taught me, like on the open end where you wanna make it deeper, I drill a really big hole. So you can actually make the planer cut even deeper than a eighth inch, which was good. And then you put a cut, drill a hole in the other end so the foam doesn't get built up there, so you can actually close it onto a zero cut. And he also taught me one thing I don't know what the dynamics of this is. When you use, when you skin a blank, usually you skin it with a full cut on both sides. You go down one side. Working over to the stringer and then you plane the stringer down in a real clean cut and then you go to the other side with the exact same depth cut and work your way to the center again. And don't ask me why the cuts don't come out perfectly level. They're like this when you finally reach the center. And I used to always, and then I asked Steve, why is it like that? And he goes, I don't know, but all you do is back the planer off on your final cut instead of doing the full cut on the other side. And so ever since I learned that from Steve, the blank comes out perfectly flat after I've skinned it. Interesting. It's just little things like that Steve Licey showed me when I was, and I remember, you know how to, you, you change the depth of the cut as you're walking because like in the tail, when you're doing, when you're beveling your first cut on the rail, for example, you started a zero cut and then you increase the cut in the middle cuz the blank is usually thin in the tail, thicker in the middle and thinner in the nose. So you need to take more foam outta the middle. So you adjust the cut as you're walking. And so Steve, I saw how well he did that and I just copied it and then like shaping the v you don't start with an eighth inch cut and just start whacking away. You want a tapered cut. So you start with zero and then increase the cut as you go toward the tail that makes the V bottom cause you want more V in the back. Just little things like that. And then over and over you the shape it more and more. But anyway, like I, I was saying when I was showing other people, it's so natural for me to, and then also on the. You have the planter like this and the blades are right here. So you get a feel about where those blades are. So where you're gonna cut, it's not right in the middle, it's not in the front where it's like on a sure form you can go like that and shape what the front, the blades are here you have to learn where that cutting part is cuz you can't see it, it's underneath. And I would teach people how to shape and they would just like butcher the blank and I would get so frustrated thinking they should be able to do what I'm doing. But then I realized that it ain't easy to be able to learn that you gotta shape, you gotta take a long time to get the feel of the plant or where it cuts for sure. And yeah, I've just learned that from experience. It's nothing special about my skill. I think every shaper that's shaped a lot of boards. Matt Keena, he's a shaper here on Maui who does ka I've seen a lot of his videos on YouTube. He is unbelievable with his planer. Just really neat to watch him, his videos. And I've heard Timmy Patterson is good too. Unbelievable. With the planer. Yeah. That's so cool. All right you, so then you shaped your first surfboards and then what happened? People would see I was making surfboards, like for example, in Berkeley when I was making my first surfboards. And a couple of guys would get blanks and bring 'em over and I'd make their boards. And that was like in the late sixties when the backyard underground type shapers were coming into being and all the major manufacturers being Dewey Weber, Jacobs. Who else? Hansen. And back then, most of the boards used in the sixties were like kind of pop outs or whatever. Mo no, not pop outs, no vey. I was, the vey was the only one that I remember having a pop out board. Okay. It was a good board. It was just not cool to have a pop out. But I didn't know at the time and I didn't care, but all the other manufacturers were all custom handmade boards. Okay. And but anyway, in the sixties, I think it was partly the culture thing of, everybody was smoking pot every, and the music, the Stones, the Beatles and all that stuff. It was cool to be an underground shaper. And a lot of the bigger manufacturers I don't know if they struggled, but it wasn't quite the same as it was in the sixties, where in the mid sixties, during the golden era of surfboard making and long boarding where over the winter some of these manufacturers would produce 10, 10,000 boards, 5,000 boards for the summer rush to get ahead of it. They'd sell 'em all in the summertime. And in the sixties, I remember Dewey Weber had Nat Young on their team rider thing, and Nat was shaping a board. They called the ski and it had belly in the b in the nose, but with a down rail on the back like we do today. But nowadays the rails are down all the way front to back anyway, after a short period of time. Cuz things were evolving so quickly in the Shortboard era in the late sixties Dewey Weber produced a ton of those. Bei ski boards. And then a few months later, Nat realized that down rails were better. I think Mike Henson was the first guy to do a down rail board nose detail. And then Nat Young realized that was the best thing for its shaping. It was evolving. Dewey Weber wouldn't change cuz they already made a ton of them, it was economics. So by down, down rails, you mean the tucked under little edge, like below the, yeah. This is the shape of a longboard rail. Just rounded. Yeah. Yeah. Like they call it 50 50. So then when short boards came along, they tan, they turned like this shaping down and had more of a edge down here. I can't remember the they, it wasn't a total edge, but it was just down that's the expression we use by Unreal. Yeah. Down rail. Okay. And so what happened was, like in the rails, like even that board I got in my shop that I said I made a friend of mine in Berkeley that's in my shop, it's got a belly in the nose. And so we used to call it a high to low rail line low in the back. And then it got high in the front cuz of the belly in the nose. Then it got flatter and flatter in the back into a v in the ba in the back. And so then they changed to have the down rail all the way around. Mike Hanson was the first guy to do that. Okay. So when people saw that, how much better that was flat bottom nose with a down rail. Nat Young told Dewey, whoever, we gotta change 'em. And he goes, we can, we've already made thousands of these other ones and so he wasn't about to lose all that money, but that's just a little thing, yeah. That's here nor there as far as I'm concerned. Okay, so then people started asking you to make boards for them. You made underground boards for your friends or like how did you start? Yeah, just people that knew I made boards. It wasn't a lot. It was like three or four or five or six, I don't know, maybe it might have been 10 in Berkeley. And then and then Santa Cruz too when I moved to there. Anyway, I moved back to Maui in 71. I only lived in Santa Cruz for a year. And like I, I learned a lot in Santa Cruz cuz I'd go up to the house shop, watch guys use their planter, and and I'd learned that how to squeegee the glass and resin from Bob Kates watching him glass. And I also, there was a guy who did the gloss coats, I think, and mainly the pin lines at the out shop. I don't know, I, I can't remember his last name or even if I ever knew it, but his nickname was Nuclear Norman because his pin lines were so psychedelic. And that was right at that, it was in 1970 where, acid rock and all that stuff. He did the coolest pen lines I've ever seen and I've always tried to copy his style. Mainly it was how he tapered them. Everybody does a tapered pen line in the ends, but how he floated, he didn't do a narrow pin line and then a real quick taper at the very front. They were tapered really a long taper and do, he did all these little tape offs that were just so impressive. And I've always copied his style even to this day, pretty much Brian, I remember what the look of his pen lining was. And anyway, when I moved to, to back to Maui, 1971, I think it was early 71, I moved to Laina. And in the can Laina Cannery, there was a bunch of surf shops in there. There was a Maui Surfboards, which is where Les Pots shaped, and this guy Mike Carlson and Terry McCabe, I think they owned the shop. They were the Glasser. And then next door there was Jamie McLaughlin and Wally Bashard and Neil Norris had outer Island. I don't know if you remember the shop called Inner Island on Oahu. Anyway, that was just a take off of their name. Outer Island, right? So anyway, I went over to the Maui Surfboards shop where Les Work was shaping, and Mike Carlson and Terry McCabe had it, told them I could make boards and could I have a job. And so they hired me to sand cuz I could sand, I could do every step equally as well, cuz I did 'em all, every board I made up to that time, I did everything on it, shaped it, glassed it, I coated it, put the fin on, sanded it, glossed it. Never polished back then though. So anyway, I remember sanding a few boards, not very many, and then they just told me that they needed to work themselves and they couldn't have afford to pay me anymore. And it was something like five bucks a board back then, for sanding. Yeah. Anyway, so I just walked next door to Jamie's shop and told him yeah, I, they fired me or laid me off so I can make boards if you need anybody. And he goes, all right, we'll hire you to polish. Anyway, I never polished a board. I didn't know it at the time, but Jamie was doing a lot of coat and so I was in there one day and he was sitting there trying to do pen lines on a board. And I just loved hanging around surf shops, whether I was working or not. I loved the smell of resin and. He was jacked out of his brain. I had no idea what was happening, and what was, and he goes, Hey, can you do pin lines? And I go, yeah. He goes Here, he hands me the roll of tape. He goes, I gotta split anyway, he leaves and I do all the pin lines on a couple boards. And as I, like I said, I could do 'em really good. Even at that stage of my early career. And I, and obviously, copying Nuclear Norman's style, Jamie came back the next day and goes, Jesus Christ, these are unreal. You're hired. So now I was the pen liner at that shop. A couple days later he was jacked out of his mind again, trying to tape off a lamination to glass aboard. And he says hey, can you glass? I go, yeah, I can glass. He goes, here, do these boards. I gotta split. And I didn't know what, what was going on. All I know is shoot, I'm a glass. And so I glass those boards. He saw that I was a super good Glasser and now I was the Glasser there, the Glasser and the pin line. So back in the early seventies, I got known more as a Glasser because I was glasson not only those boards, but there was another shaper, Carl Hoke in LA more toward La Haina town who was making boards. But I was a better Glasser than most people. So I got to glass a lot of the boards around, and then even when Les Pots started shaping him in a different place, they'd send their glass jobs to me cuz I was a real good Glasser. I think Li Les gave me a nickname, Luigi Squeegee. And then some guys would call me Pin Line Louie. And I remember those two nicknames back in the seventies. Anyway there was a, we lived in this Filipino camp, which is just north of the cannery. There was four. Houses, there were U-shaped buildings with just seven rooms in each one. There was four of 'em down the street in the back. There was two kitchens and two showers and bathrooms out in the back, like old cane style houses, right? And in the back where I had her, I was renting a room in one of those places. I wanted to build a shaping room back there. So I did. And us howley guys, we were moving into those, that Filipino camp all, there was a lot of Filipino guys living there, older guys working in the, either the pineapple fields or the can fields. And they didn't like us cuz we were disrespectful, especially this one guy. And me and a couple of the guys. We weren't bad, but this one guy was a real dick to those guys and they hated us being there. They're, they work, they get up super early in the morning, they work all day and then they come home early. They want to sleep and work partying and stuff. And it was, thinking back on it, we were just those poor guys. But anyway, they were friends with this building inspector, some of those guys. So I built this shaping room and it was almost done. And so the building inspector come and told me, oh, you gotta have a permit for that. And so I applied for the permit, gave him $4 if I remember what it was. Super cheap, gave him the $4. And then he gave me the permit, but he said I had to cha fix the roof cuz it wasn't built sturdy enough. So I fixed that and then he came back again another week later, said I had to fix this. I fixed something else. And finally I told him, just tell me everything I need to fix one time. And and I'll. And then he came back a couple weeks later and said, Nope, you have to tear it down. You're too close to the property line and too close to the building, which I'm sure was true. But back then, nothing mattered. There was really no codes that anybody really needed to follow. And I just knew that some of the guys in the neighborhood told him to not to let me do that because that was just gonna be even more upsetting to their life. Their what was left of their peace and tranquility in their own house. So I had to take the thing down and I told gimme the goddamn $4 back. And he goes, Nope, you don't get your money back cuz you have to get a permit to tear it down too. And that cost $4. But anyway, that, but I still glass. I had a glassing rack I think up on the front porch or something, and a pin line room in the storage room. But I still did. Anyway, over in the cannery, I remember there was this the caretaker of the cannery was this old Hawaiian guy, and I think he was the father of the landlord of our house, and he was the caretaker of the cannery. And there was this single corrugated 10 building over there on the side over there. And I asked him, I was looking at it one day, I go, Hey, what is this? And he goes, just a room. I go, Hey, can I rent it? And he goes yeah. I go, how much? He goes, I'll tell you what, every once in a while, just gimme a case of beer. I goes, so I cleaned the place up and made a bitch and shaping room in there. And that was my shaping room for a long time. And then behind this building right next to mine, it was just a single building by itself. By itself, away from the main cannery part. Was this guy that we painted, I painted houses with this guy who owned, who had that workshop. He let me build a little lean to in the back of his shop that was next to my shaping room, the glass boards. I had a lock on the shaping room, but I remember the glass room was always open. Anybody could go back there and I would shape the boards and then leave 'em on the racks glass 'em, and never had any problems with theft or nothing. So anyway, yeah, I was, and then I started, I then I'd been making boards. I was getting pretty good at shaping and then really good at glassing. Cause I was glassing a lot more boards than I was shaping. And so I was, like I said, I was mainly more known as a Glasser. And so you basically went into business for yourself. You were basically just had your own glassing business. Other people would shape the blanks and give 'em to you and you would glass them, or you were also building. Yeah. Yeah. But also the thing is I'd also worked in hotels too. I was a busboy for a while and a waiter, and I also painted houses with this guy. That was my main thing, really. Painting houses and condos and working in the hotels. Surfboards were always, at least back then, a side thing. I never really thought of it as a main income, and partly was just because the irresponsibility, my, my life was so irresponsible back then it was all just surfing. And I tend to maybe put all surfers in that category, but I guess it's not necessarily true. But generally surfers aren't very reliable people and punctual, especially surfboard makers, surf good. You don't go to work. Yeah. Yeah. And our whole thing revolved around surfing. I remember one, me and this friend of mine, I was a little more what do you call it, responsible than him, but we were both bus boys up at the Royal Ohio. And there had been like a drought of surf in Laina that summer, like maybe a month or a month and a half with not even a ripple. And then one day it got two feet waist high or something like that at Laa Harbor. It was so small. Mala wasn't breaking or the, I don't need anything. The break wall was breaking. It was so small. And we go out and we have to be at thr at work at three o'clock to set up the restaurant cuz we're bus boys, right? And so we're out there surfing and then we go, okay, we better go in pretty soon to get to work at three. And they go, ah, let's get one more wave. And we kept doing it. He goes let's just go to work late. And so we'll get a couple more waves. And then finally we just said let's just not go today. Fuck it. Let's just quit. So we just stayed in the water till evening and quit and then a couple days later went and picked up our paychecks. That's how irresponsible I was. And my friend too. But that's, I never took surfboard making seriously as a job until windsurfing came along. Okay. So then, yeah. So what happened when windsurfing came along? It was like in the, actually in 1977, I think I moved to the mainland. I moved to Hermosa Beach and for a year, and Steve Licey was living back on the mainland at this time. And he was shaping in this one shaping room across the street from this glass shop called South Shore, I think. And this guy, Wayne Miata, was the Gloucester pin liner. And Mike, this guy, Mike Collins, owned the shop, I think. And I told, I asked Steve to introduce me to somebody so I can get a job in a glass shop or something, and he always was real hesitant about doing it and Steve was taking a lot of drugs back then, and he had a real bad reputation of, so he had told me later that was the reason he didn't want to introduce me to these guys because it would've looked bad for me if he walked, if I walked in with Steve. That's what a nice guy Steve was, even in his heavy drug use. He was considerate of what would happen with me. Finally, I bugged him enough that he finally went to that shop and, Hey Mike, you know this guy, he is a really good Glasser from Hawaii and he is a really good Glasser, the best. And then he walked out and then, so I don't know what that did, but I started going to that shop every day and just hanging around. And then finally one day I also was going to Santa Monica City College. I don't know why I was going there and I took weightlifting and I took PE or something, just, I dunno what I, why I even did that. But there was this guy in the weightlifting class, the teacher, in fact, I'm still in contact with that guy a little bit every few years when he comes to Maui, he emails me, but he wanted me to make, I told him I was a board maker and he, I had, he had me make him, I think a seven foot or a seven, six. Er, pintail, surfboard. So I, I got a blank shaped it for him. The place where Steve Licey was shaping, he introduced me to the guy and the guy was so nice to let me shape there too. So I shaped the board and then I told the guy in the glass shop, I got a board to glass. I can buy the materials from you. Let me glass it here and you can see what I do. And so I took that board in the sh in the glassing room. He let me do it really unbelievable now that I think about it for them to let me do that, and their shop where they're running a business. And so anyway, I pulled the, I taped the board off, pulled the glass out, and he sat there and he goes, okay, I'm gonna make you feel real nervous now, watching right over your shoulder. I didn't feel nervous cuz I was good, so I glassed the board. Perfect. He was stoked. I got hired the next day. Nice. So I was doing six boards a day. That no, maybe it was, yeah, only six, six or eight boards a day. They had five ranks. So they wanted you to They wanted me to do well, I was in the wintertime, I think so I think I was doing how many boards? Was it six or eight boards a day? I'd line up three or four, pull the glass out, laminate each one by the time they were done. And then we'd have lunch and then it was time to flip 'em over and do the decks. And I had to have 'em done for the evening for the guy to come and hot coat and put the fin boxes in. So I got so good at glassing, and doing all of those boards day after day where I'd mix up the. Right when I was finished glassing, and I don't know if you've ever seen anybody glass, you drip a drop a resin over the nose and tail to fill up the air holes. I had it down so well that right when I was finished glassing and dropping that drip a resin onto the nose, it was gelling every time I had it down, perfect. And to give you an example of how some people, how when I get, for example, how my, I feel like it's so natural and I, if I teach somebody, they should be able to do this too. This kid wanted to learn how to glass aboard. So I brought him in and like I said, there's five boards in a row, five boards on the rack. I'm masking taped off each one in a row. And I told him the exact same thing over and over again four times. So he'd get it in his head how to do it, and then I pulled out the fiberglass on all four boards, cut 'em, told him what I did four times in a row, and then I laminated all these boards four or five in a row with the resin. And then I said, okay, now you do your board. And he did it, set it up, took a while to set it up, and then when he mixed up the resin, he just froze. He didn't know what to do. And I just freaked. I go, sh the board, the resins gonna go off on him. If he doesn't move, I go move squeegee the resin. And he just started kinda doing it a little bit, but not much. And anyway, I just grabbed the squeegee out of his hand and finished it for him because he, his board would've been ruined. But Yeah. Yeah. The, it's so time sensitive, especially with the polyester rein. You only had so many minutes to get it done. So you had to have Exactly the timing down, yeah. Yeah. But I got real, real good at glassing. In those days, were you using respirators and all that kind of safety equipment? Yeah. Yeah. But not religiously, and yeah, I think I had a mask. My another thing I gotta mention about what Steve Slick Ameer taught me too, I used to wear my mask when I was planning. And when you plane the drum I have on my planter now is an abrasive drum. So it makes real fine dust. It doesn't make fits like so when you're planning with a regular blade, with a regular blades on your planter, it, it shoots off big chunks. Bigger chunks, right? And then when you're fine shaping with sandpaper, it makes real fine dust. I used to shape with my mask on with the planter, and after I was done with the planter, I'd take my mask off and shape with the sandpaper. And Steve said, Jesus, Jimmy, if you're gonna take your mask off at some stage, do it when you're abusing the planter. Those are big chunks. It's not gonna go on your nose and your lungs as easy as that fine shaping. So I've learned to, I'd learned to not take my mask off when I find shape, but still, it wasn't until like at least 20 or 25 years ago, but I started really paying attention to always wear my paper mask. And I always wear the ma respirator anytime I mix up any kind of resin. Mainly when I open up the acetone. Acetone is worse, I think, than resin on your nervous system than resin fumes. But I always am real, real vigilant about it now. Good. And I have been for years and years, specifically with the paper, You can't see it in the glassing room, but there's all these little diamond, you ever seen a reflection, sun reflection coming through a window and dust in the air. Glassing room. It's little sh shiny things. That's all the fiberglass dust in the glassing room that you don't see unless the a sun beam is coming through the window. So that's why I know I need to wear that paper mask every time I'm in that shop, in my shop. Okay. So you're in still 1977 Hermosa Beach. Like what made you go back to Maui in the first place, and then what made you go back to California? Like what motivated you to move back and forth? The first time I came to Maui was the first time I was away from home. Went back to, it was like right after high school. And then I moved back to Santa Cruz by the ti a year later. I was a year older, a year of living on my own already again in Santa Cruz, away from my mom's house. And then I wanted to be in Hawaii again. The same reason I wanted to be for the first time for surfing and for surfing. And my brother, he was the influence on that cuz he moved there first for surfing. Okay. So I moved back for surfing. I can't remember why I moved back to the mainland for a year, but did that. And then after a year I wanted to go back to Hawaii, but I think bef I was maybe in Hermosa for six months, then I moved back to Berkeley at my mom's house. And then I got a job this friend of my sisters was working with this rich guy, remodeling this big building. And so I got a job working there, construction, saved up a bunch of money, and then moved back to Maui. And where did I live? I think I moved to this side, the north side here, and got a job painting houses with a friend of mine. And then I was also shaping surfboards for this shop called Monte Surfboards. And I think it was in 1978 that Mike Walsh and this guy named Mark Robinson, who was a well known Florida windsurfer back when, windsurfer brand that was 12 foot plastic boards. That's, that was what the windsurfing sport was all about. Those boards. But Mike and a few other guys were starting to make shorter custom boards. And so when he came to Maui, Mike came by this shop cuz it was a surf shop. And where else would you go to get a custom board made? So I don't know why the owner of the shop, John Su let me shape the board cuz he was the owner and he was a shaper also. But somehow I, I shaped Mike's board and I think I had some pictures of that somewhere. But it was like a 12 foot race board. And then I made him maybe a nine foot, what they called a jump board back then, cuz they weren't really surfing on waves. They were going out and jumping over waves and then riding them straight off. They were, cause a lot of the boards back then, before they started making surfboard shape wind surfers were like boats or more like a boat than a surfboard. So I made those a couple boards there. And then at the house in KeHE, I that I lived at I thought windsurfing is gonna maybe be a big thing and maybe I can actually make a living making windsurfer. Shaping, right? So I was starting to build a a shaping room in the garage at my house, and the guy that was managing that house for a rental for us, told me, the landlord told me to take that down. I couldn't build a shaping room in the garage. So I had all this lumber. And then right at that time, Fred Haywood, Mike Walson, bill King started, had, were starting sail boards, Maui, I think in 1980. Fred had his old family house in Kalu there that they converted into a showroom. And there was an old garage in the back, a separate building. And Fred told me, why don't you bring all your lumber over here and build the shape and room in this garage here? So I did. And then right then was when the Windsurfer company, oil Schweitzer they wanted to make some short boards. And they made what the board, they called the Rocket 99, which was kinda like a pig shape, like the Vessy pig shape board, a narrower nose, a wide round, not round squi. It was a little squash tail with a real hippie back. And then another one, a nine one, and what was that called? The rocket? A Rocket 88. And I think it was a nine foot surfboard shape, round pin. Ainger Pintail, sorry, a Ainger Pintail. So the guy, this guy in California had the templates for those two boards. And so I, they had me shape them the plugs that Hoyle Schweitzer was gonna make the molds off of. And right at that time, there was this big windsurfing race on Oahu called the PanAm Cup. There was a big triangle race. I don't know if you know what the triangle race format is, where they have a buoy, straight up wind. So it's a lot of tacking to get up to that buoy. And then there's a broad reach and then a downwind leg. So it's a triangle course where all these guys on race boards, race around it. There was no wave surfing at that time, really Not much. And so Robbie Nash was pretty much starting to be the king at that time of racing. And so when the PanAm Cup was there one year, I think it was the same year we started making those two plugs at sail boards, Maui. And so people were coming to Maui because they were realizing that Maui was a much, much better spot for windsurfing than Oahu. Yeah, I guess at the time, like Diamond and Kailua were the epicenter of windsurfing in Hawaii, right? Bef Kailua was, I don't know so much about Diamond Head maybe, I can't remember cause I wasn't really even windsurfing. I was windsurf boards for a little bit before I even started windsurfing. But yeah, we made those boards and then I never stopped working. People would come and start ordering custom boards, so we made the glassing room and the shaping room was already there cuz I made the shaping room to, to shape those two boards for windsurfer surfer. And then we just started making boards and those were the, some of the first sinkers. And I think at that same time, Mike Walz had Jerry Lopez shape him a little, I think it was an eight foot board or something like that, 20 inches wide. Thin, thin for a windsurfer, but had three stringers in it. Jerry shaped it and then they brought it down and I glassed it. And that was one of the very first shortboard boards that they had to water start. And they were just learning to water start at that time. And then it just exploded for Maui because Maui was such a good spot. Sail boards, Maui was getting all the attention that it deserved, and we were in the epicenter of windsurfing in the world. And fortunately for me, I was there with Mike Wal and Fred Haywood, couple of the biggest stars in windsurfing at the time, and that was, that's the first time I ever made a living shaping, and I never did anything else. Actually, let's see. Yeah, I never did anything else after that. Shaped and glass boards and yeah, we made boards for three or two or three years before I went off on my own. All right. Yeah. So I remember those days when I was just trying to find some pictures here. I'm gonna screen share this real quick. Back then the the boards were like, yeah, he, you went to really small boards and then like the booms were longer than the board sometimes and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, there's that picture. See that picture on the right? Yeah. Top that's that first wind surfer I made for Mike Walz. Oh, okay. I guess it's not 12 feet. Maybe it was 10 feet. Because somebody, I posted that picture one time in that, on that Facebook page, I think it's old School Winds, surfers, it's called or something. Oh, windsurfing Hall of Fame is what I'm looking at here. Yeah. But I think there's a Facebook page called Old School Winds. Surfers. Okay. And I put that picture of that that one, that race board I made Mike. Yeah. Okay, cool. Some of these pictures are modern, more modern, you can see they got r a f sales, but there was one. See that one right where your mouse is right now? Yeah, that's, I know. Windsurfer logo. See how far the mass step is up there and stuff. Yeah. Really f close to the nose and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So when, so sail boards, Maori became a well-known brand and people were ordering custom boards. I got known around the world because of windsurfing and anyway, how I got into speed was I was shaping this one wave board. It was an eight six, I don't know how wide they were back then. It was a three stringer board, and I was taking the stringer down with my block plane in the middle. And back at that time, and maybe a couple years before, Dick Brewer was making this little concave right under the wide point and the rocker part of the board of his surfboards. It was like a concave, I think it was about like five or four or five, six inches wide. And just a couple feet long, just a tear drop. And it was maybe a gimmick or whatever. I don't know what it really did. I don't know if I ever made him on a surfboard, but I gouged the foam when I was shaping this, taking the stringer down on this eight, six round pen board I was making. And so I go shoot, it had this big gouge in the foam and I go, oh, I'm just gonna do one of those little concaves, like Brewer did. So I taped it off and shaped a concave into it. That board was sitting on the shaper room I'm in, in the showroom floor. Pascal Market came and bought it off the showroom floor. And at the time, the only, there was, I think only two speed events in the world at the time. One in Weymouth and one in this town called Breast. In France. And so Pascal took that board to Weymouth and Wind Surfers were going to Weymouth and Breast for a few years already, and they were going like 22, 23 knots at the best. And at the time there was a boat called Crossbo, which was a big catamaran that these English guys made that had what we call the absolute world speed sailing record. That means the fastest sailing craft powered by a sale. Obviously powered by a sale regardless of sale size, board, boat size, anything. Whoever can sail the fastest has the world record. Now in these events, they had different classes of sale size, like they had a 10 square meter and then a, I don't know, on and up, depending on what size sale you had. But you could still have the absolute world speed sailing record regardless of what class you were in. It's whoever went the fastest. But then there were speed records for each class too. So anyway, Pascal took this board that had that little concave in it over to Weymouth, and I think in 1982, and he broke the windsurfing speed record. It wasn't a world record, it was like 27 point, I think eight two knots, and it was huge news. Yeah, I think that picture right there, Ellie Z, that might have been Weymouth. I don't know. Yeah, it says 1982, so it's probably, yeah, that was, that looks like Weymouth to me, but yeah. Interesting. Okay. But anyway, so Pascal made that record and so it was big news and I remember it was done on a Neil Pride. Maui sales. Barry Spanier and Jeff born were making Maui sales at the time. And it was just on a stock Neil Pride, Maui sales sale too. And so it was huge news in the windsurfing world and in the Windsurfing magazine, big articles on it. And so that put the focus on speed on my boards and on Neil Pride Sales, Maui sales specifically. And the next year Fred wanted to go to Weymouth and see about doing a speed trial seeing about going for the world record or whatever, or a speed record. Yeah. There's a picture of Fred on the board I made with a wing mask. That was 83. So I shaped Fred two boards. One was a nine footer, I think it could have been I don't know, 2021 inches wide. And then also that one that's in that picture you're showing, that was eight nine, I believe. And maybe it was 18 and a half or 18 inches wide. And I did that concave on the bottom, going into a double concave on the, on, in the back. But the concave was a lot wider. I think it was almost rail to rail and a lot more flowing all the way through the bottom of the board. Fred did 30 point something knots, which was even bigger news than what Pascal did cuz Fred broke the 30 knot barrier. And that was a front page picture of Windsurf Magazine. Yeah. See Fred Haywood Bus 30 knot. But that nine foot board, this is this is one of my claims to fame and claims. The geometry of my boards, Barry Span, span, you called it the imperceptible geometry of the shapes I was doing Fred had a nine foot board that he sold the nine I made him the eight, nine, and the nine footer. He wasn't going to use the nine footer cuz that eight nine was so good and it was smaller. So he sold the nine footer to Robert Terra to how I know you know who he was. Robert's a good surfer and he, back then, shoot, I think he was my 15 or 16 years old back at that Weymouth event. So on that world record, not the world record day, but that day Fred did 30 knots. Robert went from, I don't know what place he was in, but second place in the entire event when Fred sold him, my board, the board I shaped. So it was, it's pretty objective. It's pretty easily to say objectively that board helped Robert get that speed. Not his sale, nothing else because when he got that board I made, he went up to second place on it. But anyway, that really catapulted sail board's, Maui Neil Pride, Maui sales, and me into the big spotlight of windsurfing surfing. For the next several years, all I cared really, I was making wave boards too and but speed boards was our main thing. So the next year, 1984, I started traveling. I think that picture you showed of me holding that red board, might have been 84, maybe 85. But I started going to speed trials too, and I was okay, but I wasn. There was 60 people at each speed sailing event. They only allowed 60 people to enter. And I was always in all the events around 30, at the end of the event, I was right in the middle of the pack. I wasn't anything exceptional, but I had potential. But the the speed trials, the top people were only separated by tenths of a knot. Like 38.2 or 38.1, real minuscule amounts of speed. Would determine who was first, second, and third and fourth. So I was always in the middle of the pack. I wasn't like 10 knots slower than the first place people, but but anyway, each event I would go to mainly it was just Weymouth in France in those first few years. And I go to, people would order speed boards from me, from all over the world. And then the next event I would come, I'd bring four or five or six boards to people. Yeah. And then and then one year, this guy Julian Kendall had he had gone to the Canary Islands a lot and he said there was this one spot down there in Ford of Ventura that the average wind speed was like 25 or 30 knots a day during the summertime. And it was a killer place to have a speed trial. Like for speed sailing, you want offshore wind so you can sail right next to the beach and have it real smooth, cuz the farther out you get the choppier it gets. So ideally you want butter, smooth water. With a lot of wind. And this place in the Canaries, he said was just epic. So a lot of us went that in that June of 1986. And I remember Joey Cabbel was getting interested in speed sailing and unfortunately he did not go to that event. That was at the same time there was gonna have a slalom event in Hood River Gorge. And I remember talking to Joey and he goes, yeah, I'm not sure where I want to go, whether I want to go to the Gorge event or this Canary Islands event. And unfortunately for him, he didn't go, cuz I know he would've been good, at speed. And so anyway, we all went over there and then the, there was a week long the, at the time actually at one of the previous France speed events. Fred didn't want to go to that event for some reason. And this German guy named Michael Puer broke Fred's 30 knot record. He didn't break the world record, but he did 32 something. 32 knots. And so now there was a rivalry between Fred and this guy. Like they wanna, it was just for publicity, and they took some pictures of Fred and him looking at they wanted a fight, although they were friends, it was just a kind of a, what do you call, a publicity thing, right? And so anyway, we all go to the Canaries and the first week there was a trial period, there was a two week long event, a main event was a week long. And the first week was a trial event. So we were all there for the trial event. We could sail in the trial event. The trial event was to get other people qualified to be in the main event. And I think, I don't know how many people were already qualified. Me and most of the people that were on the speed circuit got seated. And then I don't know how many people there were gonna take from the qualifying rounds. New people that are on the speed sailing. So whoever got into that event that qualifying round and did a certain amount, the top, how many got to go in the man event? So during that first event the trial part, Reinhard Ishka, this friend of ours here on Maui, he was really a young guy too from Austria, who's been on the speed. He broke Michael's record. Meanwhile, Michael's on the north side of word of Venturas riding waves. He was seated in the main event. So now his record is broken by Reinhardt already, even though it's just the trial event. Anyway, the main event starts and we're all sailing and I'm as usual in the middle of the pack, like number 30 or 28 or 32, okay. Never up near the top. But all the top guys are writing your boards basically, right? A lot of people were. Yeah. There was a lot of people were. Yeah. Yeah. And I had a 13 inch wide board. In fact, it was interesting, Eric Beal is the first guy who started making narrow boards. I remember at one of those French events, he had me make him a 16 inch wide board, and we thought he was nuts. 16 inches wide, how are you gonna ride it? And Eric, I think won the event on that board. And anyway, when it came time to come to futa, we were all making, Eric was making 13, 12 inch wide boards. Eric was narrower than anybody all the time. Eric wasn't as, he was a little lighter than me, taller than me, but his technique. And was just incredible. And back then it was like, if you're not big, you're not gonna go fast. And Eric wasn't big. He was taller than me, but not thick and heavy. But it was just his technique. But, so anyway, when Pascal, at the last minute, he was riding other people's boards up until far of Ventura and not doing anything exceptional, and then he asked me, he says, okay, make me a board. And I said, okay, let's make it thir 13 and a half. I talked him into making it narrow and he didn't wanna make it narrow at the time, but anyway, I made him a 13 and a half inch wide. Eight, six. My board was an 8, 1 13. I forgot what Eric's were, but Fred was tired of carrying so much equipment with him to all these events. So he only brought one board, which was a nine foot, I believe, 19 inches wide board that I made him. And he only brought a Neil Pride, r a f sale. And we all had Canberra induced sales, right? And so one time on Maui before this event, Eric was riding asy sails and as he made this killer Canberra induced sail. And so I tried it one day down at the beach at SP freckles. And I couldn't believe the acceleration with that Canberra induced sale, right? And it was much better than the Neil Pride, r a f sales. And so I asked Barry if they were gonna make some Canberra induced sales, and Neil Pride didn't want to make 'em at that time because of the financial thing. They had already invested in the R a F. And I go, shoot, I wanna ride Canberra and do sales, So I contacted Jeff Magna from Gastra, who was Pascal. They were sponsoring Pascal and asked him if I could be get some sales. And they were stoked, even though they didn't, even though I wasn't one of the top riders, I just had the reputation of the board maker and they thought it'd be good if they gave me some sales. So they sent me a bunch of Canberra induced sales, and I was riding the five meter a lot on Maui. Then the day before the, we left on the plane to go to the Canaries. It was super windy and I had my 13 inch wide board down there and I rigged up the 4.3 gas sale for the first time. And I took off the beach and it's choppy there, but still you can feel your equipment. And I just was, couldn't believe the acceleration and the speed I was getting. And I came in and I go, Jesus Christ, if we have wind, I might have a chance. This is just night and day feeling that I've ever had of the acceleration of this sale. So anyway, we go to the Canaries and the whole event, everybody's sailing and doing what, and like I said, people are doing this and that. The record was already broken up to about 35 knots, I think already, but we hadn't broken cross ball's record of 36 knots. Not us, but anybody. But I think Reinhart and Pascal had already done 35 knots up till the second to the last day of the event. Anyway, the second to the last day of the event was ridiculously windy. Something like 40, 45 knots, just perfect direction. Butter smooth, not a ripple near the beach. And then it got super windy out, choppy outside, but it was just dead flat water, no surf, nothing. It was like those pictures you were just showing. But radical wind. And so we all knew something was gonna happen that day. So they also made a, they have a rescue boat. But anyway if you've ever b

Diese Woche sprechen Max und Paul über Pauls neues Sharpeye #77 Shortboard und darüber, ob das beste Surfboard auch den besten Surfer macht. Außerdem war Paul auf einem Surftrip in Spanien & Frankreich unterwegs, wo er dem Swell hinterher gereist ist und mitunter mit die größten Wellen gesurft ist. Black Friday Deals bei Deeply: http://eu.deeply.com/discount/SURFTALKBF20 Surf Mobility Kurs von Surfcompanions: https://surfcompanions.com/?ref=S4UYHSas mit dem Code: 10surftalk

Diese Woche sprechen Max und Paul über Pauls neues Sharpeye #77 Shortboard und darüber, ob das beste Surfboard auch den besten Surfer macht. Außerdem war Paul auf einem Surftrip in Spanien & Frankreich unterwegs, wo er dem Swell hinterher gereist ist und mitunter mit die größten Wellen gesurft ist. Black Friday Deals bei Deeply: http://eu.deeply.com/discount/SURFTALKBF20 […] --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/surftalkpodcast/message

Diese Woche sprechen Paul und Max über das perfekte Board für deinen Sommer-Surf-Trip. Während das klassische Shortboard im Sommer oft nicht gut zu surfen ist und das Longboard vielleicht doch etwas zu groß und unhandlich ist bleibt eigentlich nur eine Lösung für ausreichend Spaß bei kleinen Wellen. Der Midlength Hype lebt immer weiter auf – […] --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/surftalkpodcast/message

Diese Woche sprechen Paul und Max über das perfekte Board für deinen Sommer-Surf-Trip. Während das klassische Shortboard im Sommer oft nicht gut zu surfen ist und das Longboard vielleicht doch etwas zu groß und unhandlich ist bleibt eigentlich nur eine Lösung für ausreichend Spaß bei kleinen Wellen. Der Midlength Hype lebt immer weiter auf – Und warum auch Du ein Midlength in deinen Quiver aufnehmen solltest – darüber sprechen wir in dieser Folge.Yeeew

Today we sit with Roger Jeffrey @rjefferysurf at his home in Carlsbad.  Roger is a former pro who competed in the air shows in the 90s and early 2000s.  Roger started surfing in New Jersey and made his way to the west coast.   He explains his mindset regarding surfing now and how he and his son  Trevor enjoy surfing together.  Roger tells us about living with MS and that it didn't change him.  While flying thru Mex, did the plane's window really blow out mid-air??  Check out this episode to find out!!Buy me a Coffee!Patreonhttps://quiverbuilder.com/thequivercast/If you like the QuiverCast here are some ways to help us keep going!I always like Coffee!Buy me a Coffee!Become a Patreon for as little as a Buck a Month!PatreonFind Us:Website: https://quiverbuilder.com/thequivercast/Instagram: @quiver_castFacebook: The QuiverCastTwitter: @The_QuiverCastSound Editing by: The Steele CollectiveSupport the show

黛西來南加州打疫苗啦！這次美國疫苗之旅遊，Daisy 帶大家一起解鎖南加州橙縣浪點！ Daisy is surfing Southern California on her vaccine trip to the US. In this episode, she shares her first three surf trip in San Clemente, Orange Country

Heute dreht sich alles um das Thema Wellenreiten. Jannik erklärt uns nicht nur den Unterschied zwischen Longboard und Shortboard sondern nimmt uns auch mit in die geschichtliche Entwicklung, das Mindest und die Kultur von Surfern. Folgend sprechen wir über die Anforderungen eines Surfers auf der physischen sowie psychischen Ebene, das Training an Land und natürlich auch über eingesetzte SportTechnologien. Wenn du wissen möchtest, warum ein Surfer meistens auch ein Hobbymeteorologe ist, dann schalte ein. Hier findest du weitere Infos zum Deutschen Wellenreitverband: https://wellenreitverband.de/ Die Literatur, von der Jannik im Interview spricht - welche einen sehr guten Überblick gibt, wie sich das Surfen als Sportart im Laufe des 20. Jahrhunderts verbreitet und entwickelt hat - heißt wie folgt: "Laderman, S. (2014). Empire in waves: A political history of surfing (Vol. 1). Univ of California Press." Für all diejenigen die noch mehr über die "Geburtsstunde des modernen Shortboard-Wettkampfs" erfahren möchten, empfiehlt Jannik diesen Film: "Bustin' down the door". Wenn dir diese Folge gefallen hat, freuen wir uns sehr, wenn du uns eine Bewertung in Form eines Kommentares bei ApplePodcast hinterlassen magst.

Co-owner of Masa Tequeria y Cantina, Colin sits down with Jillian and Jesse for another brunch conversation. Colin was nice enough to share the concept for the idea of MASA and their intention to bring a fun taco and tequila bar to the Space Coast of Florida. Jillian and Jesse recently had lunch on MASA and we wanted to share our experience and also learn form one of the owners. We shared a flight of margarita, a "surfboard of tacos" and a Shortboard of a Salsa Sampler. Service and food were great and ambiance was cozy and rustic.Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/Podcast321)

Style-Master Keahi de Aboitiz talks foiling and flow. Keahi is a World Champ Kite Surfer, a World Tour SUP Surfer, Wave of the Winter Nominee on Shortboard and now he's leading the charge and showing us what's possible on foil. I learned a ton talking to Keahi and you will too...

Neste episódio do Surf de Mesa, recebemos o longboarder Jaime Viudes.O retorno do longboard na década de 90, a eterna rivalidade do log x progressivo, as influências da competição no longboard brasileiro, as tentativas da WSL de voltar os critérios de julgamento para o clássico e as dificuldades técnicas do surf tradicional.Dá o play aí e vem compartilhar o lineup com a gente!

In this episode we hang out with veteran surf instructor Paco Vega and discuss how to transition from riding a longboard to riding a shortboard. It’s a great show, check it out! For more info, check out the Witch’s Rock Surf Camp blog: How To Transition From A Longboard To A Shortboard Email questions or comments to getoutandsurfCR@gmail.com Follow us on Instagram.com/getoutandsurf Subscribe to the podcast and receive a new episode of Get Out and SURF every Friday. Pura vida and thanks for listening, Joe Walsh Music Artist: Empire Of The Sun Song: Walking On A Dream

On a beautiful day in April, Matthew Bryce went out to surf by himself off a remote beach in Scotland.  Usually he goes out for 3 or 4 hours, and then goes about his life. This time was different.

On a beautiful day in April, Matthew Bryce went out to surf by himself off a remote beach in Scotland.  Usually he goes out for 3 or 4 hours, and then goes about his life. This time was different.

On a beautiful day in April, Matthew Bryce went out to surf by himself off a remote beach in Scotland.  Usually he goes out for 3 or 4 hours, and then goes about his life. This time was different. Read more → The post Shortboard appeared first on Nocturne.

Fisher Grant just placed 1st, 2nd and 5th in SUP, Longboard and Shortboard at the USA Surfing Championships.  He joins the paddlewoo podcast to discuss how he sees surfing.  Listen and learn from his unique perspective.

Our week begins with the release of Ableton Live 8, and the realization that we all need some Live in our lives, then it's on to an excellent video interive with NIN 's Trent Reznor, who really does appear to be a very switched on guy, after oggling all his analog gear, we turn our attention to the ridiculous prices that certain synths are getting on eBay and elsewhere, theres an opportunity to play our new Howard Scarr composed Tumbleweed moment as we fail to uncover anything about the new EMU Longboard and Shortboard new synths, we raise a glass to Charlie Steinberg who just got a MIPA Lifetime Achievement Award, then the inevitable inclusion of another iPhone music app - the iSyn from AudioMIDI.com and Virsyn - we also ponder the enormous market for software now that the Apple App store approaches the 1 Billion downloads to getting on for 30 million devices. Finally we offer suggestions on how to tackle the situation when you are asked "what do you think of my music/gig?".

Our week begins with the release of Ableton Live 8, and the realization that we all need some Live in our lives, then it's on to an excellent video interive with NIN 's Trent Reznor, who really does appear to be a very switched on guy, after oggling all his analog gear, we turn our attention to the ridiculous prices that certain synths are getting on eBay and elsewhere, theres an opportunity to play our new Howard Scarr composed Tumbleweed moment as we fail to uncover anything about the new EMU Longboard and Shortboard new synths, we raise a glass to Charlie Steinberg who just got a MIPA Lifetime Achievement Award, then the inevitable inclusion of another iPhone music app - the iSyn from AudioMIDI.com and Virsyn - we also ponder the enormous market for software now that the Apple App store approaches the 1 Billion downloads to getting on for 30 million devices. Finally we offer suggestions on how to tackle the situation when you are asked "what do you think of my music/gig?".