Two of the world’s most stylish surfers, doing what they do best. Photos: YouTube//Screenshot
There are many different types of surfers. There’s the surfer who watches the WSL religiously, rides the latest thing, films every session, and tracks them all with a watch. There’s the surfer who pays no attention to anything surf-related except the act of surfing. There’s the pro surfer and the freesurfer, and in between all those surfers, there are different versions of each. It’s hard to be a surfer with your own style — imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, after all — but Mikey February and Al Knost are truly their own kinds of surfers.
Both surf how they see fit. They aren’t aggressive surfers. They don’t hack their way to the beach. Instead, both have the capability to surf with the wave instead of against it. They’re not winning a contest against a person or the wave. They’re simply taking what the wave offers and adding their own brushstrokes to it. It’s a wonderful thing to watch, both for older generations and newer ones. Surfing has a through-line that anyone can appreciate. It’s hard to describe with any real accuracy, but when you see good surfing, you know it. And in Mikey February and Al Knost on Earth, what you see is good surfing.
