Curren, Slater, and Florence each played pivotal roles in the evolution of our sport.
It was the mid-1980s. Being a surf-stoked-daydreaming-grom, I expressed my artistic virtuosity by vandalizing school desks with imaginary surfers launching 10-foot airs, or a flea-sized speck at the bottom of a 100-foot wall of water. Little did I know that my drawings were surfing’s equivalent of a Nostradamus prophecy. My cartoon surfers came to life years later with names like John John Florence and Laird Hamilton when they pushed the limits of what was previously thought to be humanly possible. But before Laird and JJF, every kid was trying to emulate Tom Curren’s silky smooth snaps, Gary “Kong” Elkerton’s apeshit power hacks, or Martin Potter’s finely finessed floaters to clear impossibly long 20-foot sections. That was the height of surfing.
Iconic Tom Curren wrap. Photo: Tom Servais
Surfing’s Alien Arrival
Just when we began to think surfing reached its pinnacle of performance, a kid from the wind slop state of Florida named Kelly Slater started popping up in every surfing magazine. Everyone was raving about how good this kid was. And I thought to myself, “Well, I’m sure he’s good, but how good could he be? He can’t be better than Curren. No one is better than Curren.”
In September of 1987, I was paddling back out after a wave at Frisco Pier, North Carolina when I witnessed the 15-year-old future king of surfing drop in on a left and proceed to dismantle the wave unlike anything I’d ever seen. Multiple functioning backside airs combined with mature, gouging hacks on a single wave far exceeded his young age. Even by today’s standards, Kelly was surfing radical. It is no surprise that Slater went on to claim the East Coast Championships in the Boy’s Division that year. At this point, I was beginning to think that he was either an alien life form or he had sold his soul to the devil.
Surfing’s New School Surf Porn
The late 80s and early 90s saw the collective arrival of what was branded as the “new school” generation. With the help of film maker Taylor Steele, Slater, Machado, Knox, Robb, Williams, and Dorian, among others, rode the burgeoning “surf porn” video wave that would accelerate the progression of surfing in ways never before seen.
One of Taylor Steele’s earliest masterpieces: Hit and Run (2001).
They said, “F*ck the storyline. Let’s just give the raw, hardcore, barely-edited footage of guys tearing every wave to bits.” If you were around in those days, then you can remember hitting the rewind button over and over just so you could slow down and deconstruct the grinding carve to functional tail slide. And the next session you always paddled out with a raging surf boner looking to blow tail on every wave, often with far less success than the pros.
The Internet and Surfing Performance
On August 17th, 2000, Laird Hamilton let go of the rope on a Tahitian monster of such unimaginable proportions that, virtually overnight, it changed the collective psyche on what was considered rideable. On a single wave – on his backhand no less – Laird single-handedly erased the phrase “unridden realm” from the surfing lexicon. As equally astonishing as his ride was how fast the video traveled around the global surf community – given that this was before broadband or wireless smart phones with YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and those handy share buttons. Not even a shitty dial-up connection could keep surfers from waiting an hour to watch the wave. It was just too freakish and too unreal – like it had been fabricated up in a Hollywood special effects green room. The lip was much thicker than his 6’3″ frame. Laird didn’t just break the paradigm of the unridden realm, he broke surfing’s internet hymen – all in the span of a 20-second ride.
Laird Hamilton redefining what was humanly possible. Photo: Tim McKenna
With the Internet moving into womanhood, it eliminated the need to wait around for Team Taylor’s next great surf porn video. With the advent of YouTube and other content sharing platforms, the surf spank bank material became available at our fingertips 24/7. Not only were the world’s best surfers increasingly raising the bar of performance, but also it was more easily accessible in less time.What’s impressive is not that surfers are able to pull off these previously unimaginable maneuvers as part of their bog standard repertoires, but how SO MANY guys can learn them in such a short time.
Hard Core Surf Porn in Real Time
Then surf porn got even more hardcore. Enter the live feed. The World Qualifying Series and Championship Tour are now available to stream in real time. Every stratospheric-no-grab-helicopter-aerial-reverse by JJF is there LIVE. Tube rides so f*cking long that you can walk away, order a beer, take a piss, and come back just in time to see Parko shooting out of the barrel. Skateboard-inspired moves like the pop shove-it or kick flip. Nothing goes undocumented and unreported. Every time Slater farts on a wave, it’s made its way around the world five times and is being emulated by groms everywhere before the smell has even dissipated.
Leveling the Playing Field
Think back 20 years ago. The majority of surfers on the World Tour were from Australia, the United States, South Africa, and a few guys from Brazil. But with the fast flow of information and the widespread availability of the Internet, we’re witnessing an exponentially expanding pool of talent. Thanks to the Internet, immensely gifted surfers are popping up on the QS from such far-flung locales as Guadeloupe, the Canary Islands, Costa Rica, and even Uruguay. Brazilians are now well represented at both QS and CT events and, if Gabriel Medina’s World Title is anything to go by, they are clearly a force to be reckoned with.
The killer mix of hunger and talent that earned him a World Title. Photo: ASP
Surfing Performance 2015 and Beyond
With instant and somewhat equal access to information and cheap airline tickets to surf camps, where does surfing performance go from here? Will John John start strapping rockets onto his ass so he can do 50 foot airs? Will Parko start doing steroids and lifting weights to build massive oak tree thighs so with every gouge he can vaporize waves to thin air? Will Slater develop new Dr. Spock mind tricks to mentally crush guys before the heat has even started?
John John widening eyes and dropping jaws. Photo: Hurley
All the guys at the top of the pro surfing food chain rip, and the margin between them is a hairline. But what will separate the winners from the losers from here on out? I believe that the change in surfing performance will be comparatively small (mainly due to the Internet) compared to the quantum leap we experienced in the 90s. Innovations will inevitably continue but they will be more subtle and hinged not only upon surfers’ physical and technical skill improvements, but technological advances in equipment as well.
Head game. When it comes to winning and losing, sometimes the only difference is mindset. Watch any top ten CT guys in a combo-ed, no-hope situation. They never roll over and play dead. They fight to the bitter end and, as 2013 world champ Mick Fanning proved in his Pipe performance. It ain’t over till the fat lady sings, as they say. Pro surfers are no longer guys with regular jobs that flick off around the world to grovel in shit surf for a few thousand bucks prize money. They’re high-level performance, thoroughbred racehorses with massive sponsorship contracts, coaches, agents, handlers, trainers, psychologists, and nutritionists. Provided a pro’s life and career infrastructure is solidly established, then the ONLY care in the world is going out, riding a wave, and figuring out how to push the sport’s limits without folding an ankle or knee.
What do you think? What factors will most influence surfing performance in the next 5, 10, or 20 years?
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