Why kneeboards? Ha! May as well ask why walk or breathe: it’s just what we do! It’s not a question to agonize over in the night. One thing’s for sure: we don’t do it to look like anyone on a billboard. Around here, kneeboard history goes back fifty years or more, and it’s nice to feel connected to that, but what really keeps us doing it is the buzz.
If you’re doing it right, kneeboarding keeps you so intimately involved with every wave you ride. You’re at speed right at water level, using your whole body, pushing the limits of what you and your board are capable of. You get to see and feel each wave from really close up, and that’s just such a cool way to surf. Some people get it, some don’t. That’s all there is to it.
Kneelos are just surfers who choose to ride a different way. Saying that you have to stand up to be a great surfer is like saying you have to play electric guitar to be a great musician: it’s just not true. There are different kinds of guitar – nylon stringed, steel stringed, 12 stringed, pedal steel, etc – and all of them are different. None are better or worse. Everyone knows you need different instruments to make up a band, and so the piano gets just as much recognition as the guitar, the sax, the bass or the singer. Why should surfing be any different?
We laugh when we hear that kneeboarding’s dead or stagnant because it’s very much alive and kicking. The performance parameters are shifting all the time. The very best in the world have always been busy redefining what’s achievable. From Novakov and his barrel rolls to Farrer’s powerful fluency on the face to Chayno’s artistry above the lip, all of it has been and is exciting and progressive, and that’s without mentioning the unsung crew who just do what they love – as always – far from any attention from the surfing press. Think the Big Rock boys busting el rollos back in the seventies, the Holzman brothers charging Hawaiian juice, Gigs getting kegged like crazy in South Africa and now a whole new contingent coming through from South America. If that isn’t the very heart and soul of surfing, I don’t know what is.
Here in Oz, we’ve always had a strong grass-roots competitive base that’s brought people together on a regular basis. We’re blessed to have very strong friendships based in our love of what we do and those friendships are renewed every time we get together for a competition. That buzz is spreading worldwide now via the internet, so really I think there’s never been a more exciting time to be a kneeboarder. OK, it’s not for everyone. It’s different, but we like being different. If we cared about what others think we probably wouldn’t be kneeboarders. Just about anywhere there’s surf, sooner or later there’ll be someone riding kukuli, and the probability of it being sooner increases with the quality of the waves. Ask any kneelo why and you’ll always get the same answer: I just like how it feels.
