The history of surfing, Part 1

After asking a few surfers what they know about the history of surfing, I was shocked to find out that most don't know anything about the history of surfing prior to Shaun Tomson, and even their knowledge since then, was fairly limited. This inspired me to research and write something about the history of surfing. This is the first part of a series of posts, and will focus on surfing's origins. The following posts will focus on the development of surfing in the 20th century till the present day.

Surfing has most likely originated in Peru thousands of years ago, using reed rafts to ride waves. Pottery from as early as 1000BC was found depicting a man standing on a reed raft riding a rolling wave. So it is prudent to assume that surfing is at least 3000 years old, with bodysurfing probably dating back even farther back in time.

The Peruvians later went on to colonize the Polynesian Islands, including the most isolated land mass on earth, Hawaii, somewhere between  300-750 AD. They brought the tradition of surfing with them. As the hollow reeds that they used on their earlier boards where not available on these islands, they instead used solid wood boards.

The Ancient Hawaiian people did not consider surfing a mere recreational activity, hobby, extreme sport, or career as it is viewed today. Rather, the Hawaiian people integrated surfing into their culture and made surfing more of an art than anything else. They referred to this art as he’e nalu which translates into English as “wave sliding.” The art began before entering the mysterious ocean as the Hawaiians prayed to the gods for protection and strength to undertake the powerful mystifying ocean. If the ocean was flat, frustrated surfers would call upon the kahuna, who would aid them in a prayer asking the gods to deliver great surf. Prior to entering the ocean, the priest would also aid the surfers in undertaking the spiritual ceremony of constructing a surfboard.
Hawaiians would carefully select one of three types of trees. The trees included the koa,  ‘ulu and wiliwili trees. Once selected, the surfer would dig the tree out and place fish in the hole as an offering to the gods. Selected craftsman of the community were then hired to shape, stain, and prepare the board for the surfer. There were three primary shapes: the ‘olo, kiko’o, and the alaia.

The duke with an Olo

The ‘olo is thick in the middle and gradually gets thinner towards the edges.
They are massive and can get up to 24ft long.

Tom Blake with traditional surfboards

 The kiko’o ranges in length from 12–18 feet (3.7–5.5 m) and requires great skill to maneuver.

The boards to the left of Tom Blake in the picture are Kiko'o, the ones to his right are Olo

Rob Machado trimming on an Alaia

The alaia board is 5 to 9 feet long, and  incredibly thin, and requires great skill to ride and master.













In addition to these stand up surfboards, the hawaiians also used a wooden bodyboard, called a Paipo. They where similar in shape to the alaia, and generally 3-5ft in length. This is also the board children would learn to surf on.

Aside from the preparatory stages prior to entering the water, the most skilled surfers were often of the upper class including chiefs and warriors that surfed amongst the best waves on the island. These upper class Hawaiians gained respect through their enduring ability to master the waves. Some ancient sites still popular today include Kahalu’u Bay and Holualoa Bay.

When western civilization arrived in Hawaii, everything changed. Shortly after the arrival of Captian Cook in 1778, missionaries who followed had outlawed surfing along with all other Hawaiian traditions. This drove surf culture underground, and the ancient art all but died out.

In the early 20^th century however, surfing was reintroduced into the public eye, and the great Duke Kahanamoku brought the art of surfing to California and Australia.

This concludes the origin of surfing. the evolution of surfing in the 20th century will be dealt with in following posts.

So you want to surf bigger waves?

Almost every surfer I know of wants to surf bigger waves. Whether you are only surfing 3ft beachbreaks or charging 15ft-20ft Dungeons, chances are, you want to surf bigger waves, better. But few surfers know what to do to make the waves they surf the next winter much bigger than that which they have surfed the previous. That is why you will find someone who has surfed for 15 years unwilling to paddle into anything over double overhead. They got to a point and didn’t progress further.

I have a few tips that got me into some of the biggest waves of my life this past winter.

Train for it.

Fitness is the most important aspect of handling heavier situations, and surfing alone will not get you near fit enough to get into significantly bigger waves.

You have to train your body to be prepared to handle heavier situations.

The most important aspect is your core strength. You can have shoulders that will out-paddle an Olympian, or have the leg-strength to out-carve Jordy Smith, but without core strength, you will never be able to take a beating. You have to be prepared to go over the falls, get tumbled around, and come up to face five more waves on the head.

Your core strength refers to your abdominal muscles and your back muscles. This is what keeps you stable. These muscles you use when paddling, while doing hard turns, keeping your balance, getting worked, and even holding your breath.

To strengthen your core, most people start doing sit-ups. Don’t.

Sit-ups are virtually useless, as are there counterparts, the crunch.

Rather do planks and bicycle crunches. There are other core strength exercises that work, but these are my personal favorites.

To do a plank, simply get into a push-up position, but instead of holding yourself up with your hands, support yourself with your elbows and forearms. Hold this position without moving for as long as you can. 

 

To do a bicycle crunch, lie on your back with your legs in the air and your hand touching the sides of your head. Bring your right leg towards your face while simultaneously extending your left elbow towards your left leg. (It should resemble the motion of biking/running.) Next, switch sides. Bring your left leg towards your face while extending your right elbow towards your right leg. Do as many as you can.

A good way to truly work your core to it’s max, is to fist do a plank for as long as you can, and follow with as many bicycle crunches as you can. Rest for a minute, and repeat. Do this till you cannot hold a plank in good form for more than 30 seconds, or complete a good form bicycle crunch.

Your core is the part of your body that is the hardest to exercise, but the rewards are the highest.

The next important thing is strong arms and shoulders. These are the easiest to train.
Now, don’t go to your nearest gym and start doing a ton of weights. For surfing, the best exercises come from body weight training. The good old pushup is the best exercise for strong shoulders, whilst pull-ups give the greatest rewards for your efforts. To do a proper pushup, be sure to keep your back perfectly straight, and do the pushup slowly. With pull-ups, be sure to use to mix up your grips to train as wide a variety of muscles as possible. A good idea is to do as many pull-ups of as many grips as you can, and follow immediately with as many good form pushups as you can. This way you train the widest variety of muscles at the same time, and you speed up results in a big way.

 
Your legs are also very important. To do big carves, pump for massive speed, make sections, and in general rip a wave apart, you need strong legs. To build strong legs my two favorite exercises are the squat and the lunge. These two simple exercises can greatly increase your leg strength.  Just remember that when you do lunges you must keep your back straight at all times.

Another important aspect of surfing is cardiovascular endurance. You have to be able to endure a prolonged exertion, not just a quick burst of strength. To build your cardiovascular endurance, you can simply go cycling, running, swimming or jump rope.

Personally I like triathletic training, and a combination of cycling, running, and swimming in a single workout feels like a really good way to train. An ideal cardio workout would be to cycle to the beach, swim in the ocean, run on the beach, and cycle back. Adding variety to a workout is a good way to combat boredom, and work the entire body.

Get the right board.

I’ve seen far to many people surf the same board in 2ft slop, and 8ft tubing waves. One of the biggest reasons a lot of people struggle to surf waves in the double overhead range and up, is that they are on the wrong boards. You just can’t surf massive waves on a 6’2” shred stick. Just because Kelly Slater could surf a 6'2" at 20ft cloudbreak doesn't mean it's a good idea. If you want to get into bigger waves, you’re going to need a bigger board. Now, an extra two inches definitely won’t cut it. Put at least an extra foot on what you would ride in waves inside your comfort zone. Now, most young guys think a 6’10” rounded pintail is a semi-gun, most people are wrong. Unless you weigh under 70kg, semi-guns don’t start until over 7’2” in length, and if you are over 80kg, you should really be getting yourself something in the 8ft range. It is better to be overgunned and catching waves while everyone else is struggling, than undergunned and fluttering around on your microchip praying to God that the thing will have enough buoyancy to float you back up after duckdiving a 12ft freak set. Often times, on the double overhead days, there are freak sets every half an hour or so that are triple overhead or even more. It is better to be prepared than sorry. If you want to surf triple overhead, you must be prepared for quadruple overhead, if you want to surf quadruple overhead, you must be prepared for anything. Speak to a shaper that surfs big waves himself, and ask him to rather make the board to big than to small. If you think you are going to surf 8ft waves this winter, plan for 12ft. You might become so comfortable in the 8ft stuff because of some extra chunk in your board that you will end up surfing waves far bigger than you expected you’ll surf. I know that this winter I was just hoping to get comfortable in 6ft waves, and I ended up surfing 8-9ft waves with confidence. I was doing all this on the wrong sized board too. I could only imagine what I would have been able to do with one of these:

You will get tubed off your head with one of these...

Get acquainted with different spots.

Certain spots can only handle up to a certain size, or doesn’t get big to often.

My biggest limiter last winter was that I wasn’t acquainted with any spots that have 8ft waves and over on a regular basis. Outerpool generally is limited to waves up to 6ft, and starts breaking very wide at 8ft. Per occasion the swell direction is just right and it will handle 8ft waves, but it is rare. Mystery reef can handle huge waves, but because it is on the other side of the harbor, it doesn’t get that big all more than a few times a year. If you really want to get into bigger waves, you have to surf spots that can handle big waves often. You can’t just rock up at a spot you’ve never been to, on a massive day, and expect to ride the biggest waves of your life without knowing the place at all. Get a few sessions in on some smaller days, and then start riding it bigger and bigger, to see how it reacts to bigger waves. Keep in mind, that at certain spots, the place only starts to work properly when it gets big. So be sure that you have experience with big waves, have the right equipment, and are fit enough to swim in if your leash snaps, before you go surf at those spots.

Deep, dark, foreboding, and perfect

A bit about the crazy bodyboarders

We in Mossel Bay have a group of insane bodyboarders. They surf spots that are more navigational hazards than surf spots, and they are often the only ones out when Outerpool starts showing it's dark side.
But what truly makes them insane is their love affair with the hand full of reefs on the other side of the point. There are 3 spots that you will basically only find bodyboarders attempt. The most famous of the three is SCS, SCS stands for Seriously Considering Suicide. Just getting in the water at this spot takes a certain amount of insanity, needing to cross several massive sharp rock formations.

Now, once you get there, it looks something like this:

The surfers have good reason to not want anything to do with this wave. Once in a while they will trick a guy into trying it out, but return customers are quite rare. To the left of SCS you will find a spot called Mushrooms, that is a shallow board breaking unforgivable slab.


The other spot, Graveyards, is situated to the left of SCS and Mushrooms, in a setting that is so sharky it scares away the sharks. It is a wave that is a bit more suitable for surfers, as it doesn't warp into such strange shapes as SCS does, making the drop a bit more possible. I have always wanted to go surf Graveyards, but I have never had the courage nor skill to venture into it's dark foreboding depths. That is, until a week ago. A few days after the epic Outerpool sessions, two of the bodyboarders, Lee and Christian, decided to paddle out there on a small day. I decided I'm coming with them. Two other bodyboarders joined them, and they first went to SCS. I wasn't up for destroying my board, so I sat that one out. When they paddled to Graveyards, I joined them. When I got there I was greeted with the shiftiest, sharkiest, and most unpredictable line up I've ever been at. At first I was just trying to figure the place out, but before I could catch a decent wave, someone spotted a shark. The session was abruptly ended, and we jetted out of the water. I vowed I will be back some day, hopefully with better luck.

The deep, dark, foreboding depth of Graveyards

Outerpool did a Sunset Hawaii impression today

As a culmination of the cooking waves we have had the past few days, The Point decided to give us a bit of a show. Innerpool was completely maxed out, breaking so wide that you have to paddle in the channel between Innerpool and Outerpool to avoid the sets. Outerpool was doing it's best Sunset beach impression, with huge waves breaking in deep. I hit Innerpool with my friend, till he and one other guy decided to go to Outerpool. I wasn't up for suicide however, and paddled out. Just as I got out of the water and turned around, I suddenly became very glad that I wasn't stupid enough to paddle over. A MASSIVE set approached, and this 7-8 meter high mass of water came crashing onto them. Lucky for them it was the only wave like it, as I have never seen anything like it in Mossel Bay. They made it out safely, and my friend and I went to surf Innerpool for another while. Funny enough though, just on the other side of the harbor, Ding Dangs and Mystery reef was as flat as a board.

Mossel Bay blessed on the New Year

We have had some epic waves for the new year, with yesterday being some of the best waves I've surfed since September 2011. I got to The Point at 6 o'clock in the morning and was greeted with powerful 4-6ft waves at Outerpool and fun 3-4ft waves at Innerpool. I went to Outerpool first, till the tide got to high and Innerpool became the better option. Later on when the tide dropped and the swell started to get bigger, Outerpool became a cranking, peeling, overhead freight train, with occasional double overhead waves keeping everyone on their guard, and giving some incredible tubes. The swell eased up later in the afternoon, with a light southerly wind giving the 4-5ft at Outerpool a playful quality, and making some fun sections at Innerpool. By 6 o'clock I have been in the water for a total of 11 hours. There is more waves today, and more for tomorrow and for Thursday, but I am totally broken, tired, and stoked, so I am not surfing today, but I'll probably be back in the water tomorrow, if my neck heals fast enough from a massive clobbering by a lip that broke on my head.

Mossel Bay playground

2011 in retrospect

For South Africans 2011 was both a very, very hectic year, and a very very good year.
Politically we have went through a roller-coaster, culminating in the loss of our freedom of speech.
But if you could shut out the politics, forget about your dwindling bank balance, and just go surf, it could just have been the best year of your life!

We had a winter of some of the best swell in memory, and I myself have surfed a spot that hasn't worked in 20 years. Supertubes was living up to it's name, and Namibia gave many goofy-footers wet dreams. Ballito gave Backdoor a run for it's money, and South Cape secrets fired outside the public eye. All in all, it was firing, and many life changing moments where had, many boards and egos broken, and many tubes ridden. All in all, it was a good year to be a South African surfer.

Backdoor Ballito, photo shot by Jeremiah

Happy New Year!

Happy new years! Let the new years have even better waves than 2011!