This came from somewhere. It came from surf. Photo: Shutterstock
Try typing “longboard” into Google. The results? A laundry list of sites selling planks of wood with four wheels. Surprising? Not really. But what about the surfboards? The one’s that are, you know, long?
Today, many young action sports enthusiasts have never surfed. Weird, considering surfing pioneered the whole sideways-standing culture. As sports like skating started to spread inland, surfing seemed to become compartmentalized. What once used to be the bread and butter of all action sports athletes now rests comfortably inaccessible in the hands of privileged coastal dwellers.
While it may be great that there are more opportunities for those who are landlocked, this poses a problem. For the first time ever, kids are being born and raised in surf culture, but without the surfing. The Generation Zs are running around this world with scissors in hand and cutting ties to the origin of their respective sports.
But how can we blame them? If there’s no local surf shop for miles, the Walmart longboard is your longboard. When life gives you suburban streets and social media, you make the rules. Freedom, yes. But with no respect or regard to surfing. This wades dangerously (but understandably) into “kook” territory. Something I know a thing or two about.
When I was younger, I bought a pair of board shorts from a pick-your-poison online retailer. I was stoked when I got them, but I didn’t understand why there was a weird piece of plastic tied to the inside of the pocket. It looked a bit like a comb, but I had no idea what it was. I remember thinking maybe it was for hair in places I had not grown yet. So obviously I had no use for it.
Thanks to the Internet, I realized that it was a wax comb. I grew up wakeboarding on a river. I had never surfed before. What was I supposed to do with a wax comb?
And if you asked me if I had a longboard, I would point at the oversized skateboard sitting in my driveway. I enjoyed surfing-based sports, like wakeboarding and skating, but I had never surfed a day in my life.
In a recent interview that focused on what snowboarding needs right now, X Games gold medalist Danny Davis had this to say: “We just need to get back to that mentality that it’s about surfing on snow.”
Exactly.
The veterans of action sports culture have a responsibility to preserve the roots of these sports. The livelihood of action sports depends on it. Though snowboarders and skaters may not be surfers, they all started with surfing, and so the heartbeat of surfing beats with them. Too often we forget this concept. The Instagram generation is oblivious to it. So the next time you see a young longboard skater cruising the streets of his gated community, invite him on a road trip and teach him how to surf. Chances are, he’s been drinking out of a faucet his whole life. He’d love a sip of the Kool-aid.
