Here’s an essay from preeminent surf historian Drew Kampion. Drew will be a regular contributor to this section of The Browser -- a coup, if I do say so…

Tom Stone at Pipeline, 1970. Photo contributed by Drew Kampion

DREAMING IN WAVES

Back in the early 1980s, I made a weekly commute across the Dumbarton Bridge near the southern end of the San Francisco Bay. In fact, most of the bridge is not a bridge at all — it’s a low, straight road running through open water and tidelands. And in the tidelands, there are all these little sand points, and the wind is steady, kicking up small but perfect little waves that zipper along these miniature points — perfect tubing barrels, one right after the other. I have to admit, I became very aroused.

In my country, the word "aroused" can have a somewhat sexual meaning, and surfers *are* very passionate about their waves, aren’t they? I mean, dropping in on someone’s wave is a lot like cutting in on the dance floor. It’s hard to explain, but we all understand — being involved with a wave is a personal thing, and that’s one important aspect of surfing.

Surfing is a very territorial activity because it takes place in the wild, where man is organized by nature, rather than the other way around. In other words, surfing is the opposite of working in the city. Surfing is tribal. Of course, if the mind of the city is brought to the beach, then surfing becomes something else again.

I think the most important thing that older surfers can and do bring into all the line-ups of the world is a proper relationship to things, which is a combination of respect for nature and respect for those around us. Hopefully this translates into helping everybody have a good time.

On the other hand, I’ve heard about this surfer in Oregon. He teaches in a high school (what I don’t know), and he surfs the local secret spot, which is situated directly below a scenic pull-off on the highway. When this guy spots a visitor snagging waves, he gets belligerent. He threatens and yells. He is an educated man sitting on top of the food chain acting like he’s working in the city. He’s a fool.

On the other hand, the fool drives others away from his presence, thus achieving his goal -- exclusive relationships with waves. But is he having any fun? What is the nature of his satisfaction? I really wonder.

One of the things I enjoyed most about being the editor at Surfer magazine was meeting the world’s best surfers and sometimes surfing with them. I appreciate being in the water with really good surfers, but surfing with really good surfers who are stoked and happy is the best — no ka oi!

Everything is waves. That’s the lesson and truth of the Surfing Paradigm. A wave is a metaphor, is it not? It is both a thing and a symbol. Life itself is a thing and a metaphor. Surfing is a metaphor for life — all the great surfers know it and every other surfer too. You learn it through the rhythm and cycle of waves.

Listen to the way longtime surfers talk about surfing:

"Surfing brings a certain consciousness," Bill Hamilton (50) told me last summer. "Even more so now, even more complete because I have almost 40 years of surfing under my belt." A surfboard shaper since the mid-’60s and the father of two of the first tow-in surfers (Laird and Lyon), Hamilton’s life still centers on surfing, but the relationship has evolved. "Depending upon the wave, if there’s nobody there to intrude upon them," he said, "if there’s not too much clutter and I have a good surfboard that I trust and rely on — then it’s cerebral."

Lifetime surfer and artist Steve Valiere (47) takes it another step. "For me, to go surfing is really to find my center," he told me last year. "It’s a meditation, it’s a yoga, it’s a grounding. ... And then there’s the essential purity of it — stripping down and going into the ocean. And once you take off, that’s it — you and the wave — like the tip of the source, the outreach from the source, and that feels good, yeah? Because everyone wants to be part of the source."

One of surfing’s great elder statesmen takes it yet another step. Australian Nat Young has applied his surfing experience to issues of social responsibility: "Longboarders, shortboarders — all of these people that add up to being members of this big tribe called surfing, we’re all saying [to governments] that your number-one priority should be the environment! I don’t give a fuck that it’s not viable financially! We don’t care! That’s not a justification for it [pollution, etc.]. If someone says to me, ‘I’m sorry, it won’t work financially,’ I go, ‘Well, who gives a fuck?’ Y’know? We’re not trying to make it work financially because our values are based on something different than that."

Nat further believes that older surfers have a responsibility to teach younger surfers about the meaning of the surfing experience. "I think it’s good to be as honest as you can," he told me in 1996 (he was 48), "and that’s what I’m trying to do. If the public is to receive any benefit from the things I’ve learned from being Nat Young the surfer, it’s that I should be able to pass on exactly what I feel is correct, and that I should be able to be honest about the ways that I’ve gotten there."

One of the great surfboard shapers and cultural icons of all time, Dick Brewer (66), explained to me how his understanding of surfing has evolved over the years. "What has really opened up [to me] is that surfing finally accepts *everything* -- that there’s no right and wrong in surfing -- that people surf the way they are." He said that surfing is a form of Zen. "What’s important about this sport is that we’re standing erect and tall and using our balance, which is a real key of life. The key of surfing is the degree of balance that is achieved."

Many surfers who have been around a long time speak like this because they have come to understand that the essential patterns of surfing -- the ever-repeating cosmic echoes that come to us in the form of breaking waves -- are a metaphor, symbols of the way everything in life happens.

Life is a wave and your attitude is your surfboard. The longer you surf, the more you know it’s true.

© Drew Kampion, 2002. Please visit Drew's website at www.drewkampion.com

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