Because no one rides longboards like this man. Photo: Birdwell
A lot of people know Joel Tudor for his world championship-level surfing. He’s a pelican on a longboard — graceful, dynamic, and peculiar. But there’s a lot more to Joel than meets the eye. Years of wisdom, endless journeys, and a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt belie an alternative narrative of a “controversial” public image. Joel is a legend of the sport, a father, and a well-respected surfer. Just not the kind to take any shit if it’s given to him. So let’s, then, take a more measured approach at re-examining Joel’s surfing life.
“I’m a lucky dude, doggie,” Tudor tells me, in a relaxed yet seasoned tone. “My grandpa was a gunnery sergeant on Camp Pendleton. He ran the mess hall. And my dad grew up in Carlsbad and surfed Cardiff.” Which is where Joel learned to surf too. You go where your dad goes.
Tudor grew up on a shortboard in the Tom Curran era. That all changed when his uncle Tony threw him on a longboard. “He shaped and glassed all his own shit since the ’60s. I went on a trip with my dad to Mexico, Puerto Vallarta, and borrowed Uncle Tony’s longboard. The difference is, you have this this forward area where you can trim, and you don’t have to pump to generate speed. On a small board, you’re not afforded that unless you’re riding a fish or an egg, right? If you’re riding state-of-the-art boards, you have to constantly move to generate projection. So obviously more area, less effort.” For Tudor, foam was more than a friend. “The bigger boards are also challenging. Bigger boards help you have better style. The big stuff teaches you to slow down, find the in-between areas. And yeah, I caught the bug. I remember nose riding and being like, ‘Wow, this is crazy.’” For Tudor, the bug was more than a hobby, he carved out his own career niche in the sport.
“No one had ever made money off of longboarding before,” says Tudor. “Nobody. Nat Young was making money, but he was a big-time fashion model; was on the cover of Vogue.” Tudor didn’t conform to the era, instead he looked to the past to dig up a forgotten one. “I gravitated towards the longboard community; I had access to all these things that just weren’t available to other people. I had access to old surf movies that nobody had. I had access to all the legends because I picked up a dance that was outdated and made itcool again. I won the admiration of my peers, and they shared with me. Imagine being the only guy in the tribe that wants to play the old music.” Old music indeed. If shortboarding was the thrashy rock and roll of the time, Tudor was the tenor of sweet Jazz.
He counts among his influences some of the greats: Phil Edwards, Nat Young, Mickey Dora, Donald Takayama. The latter would become a major influence on Tudor and his career. “I started to go to events that Donald was at and try and surf off to the side and get his attention.” Next thing he knew, Takayama was making boards for him. Old school. No agent calling. “I went out and proved to them that I could do it, you know? It’s just the way I am. I had to work my ass off to get this shit. Imagine creating your own space in an industry that basically told you what you’re doing was uncool.”
The oldest world champ ever? Yep! Photo: WSL
Being a professional athlete as a teen, in the era before mass information, had no cut-and-dry blueprint. Tudor had the chance to win a world title at 15. “I would have been the youngest male world champion in history. My mom made me come home from the French leg (of the tour) because back then, you went on a trip, there was no way to call your mom. No cell phones. I’d been in France for 10 days and, and I won the first stop. I got third in Oceanside. And then I won the Biarritz one. And then I skipped Hossegor, came home and then got third in Brazil that October. And Al Hunt, when I got third, he said, ‘Joel, we’d be crowning you a world champ right now, if you had just surfed one heat at Hossegor. One heat, dude, you didn’t even have to win. You just needed the points for one round.’ I was so young, and my parents weren’t familiar with pro surfing or how the points worked, and I went home, and it cost me the world title.”
Tudor cracked the code at 22 when he won his first longboarding title in the Canary Islands. And the accolades poured in. Another world title in 2004, and a record eight wins at the U.S. Open of Longboarding. It seemed like enough. Tudor stepped away to pursue other ventures. He put on his own longboarding tour, the notorious Duct Tape Invitational, sponsored by Vans. “Longboarding went away basically in 1967. It disappeared. But the talent where it was at that time and that level was incredible. Then I had a chance to see the longboard resurgence of the early ’80s. The boards they were riding were a real nod to the past, but with a touch of modern times. They didn’t lose that core value, a traditional nod to the past.”
Tudor tried to capture his own aesthetic with the Duct Tapes, allowing legends and up and comers to display their own flavors of surfing. “If you ever watch the Duct Tape that was held in Santa Cruz at Steamer Lane,” says Tudor, “The waves were fucking insane. Alex Knost won it. The surfing that went on, the boards that people were riding… Birch was on this crazy asymmetric single fin, longboard. He was on the first batch of surfboards he had ever shaped. And it kind of spawns this whole movement of like the longboard crew shaping, like the Tyler Warrens and all these people started shaping afterwards, because Knost won on his own hand-shaped.”
Tudor’s tour went all over the world, everywhere from Malibu to China. “What a party, dude,” says Tudor. “It’s kind of a blur to me. Now that it’s over, I look back and I’m like, I can’t believe we pulled all those off. But in the end, you’re playing the same song over and over again. You’re playing the same music tour; no concert tour lasts forever.”
While The Duct Tapes reached an end, Tudor found a swan song in the professional world of longboarding, when he became the oldest person to win a world title at the age of 45. If it doesn’t sound like Tudor has had a busy enough life, he’s also, famously, a black belt in BJJ. “I’m from Rodrigo Medeiros, which is Carlson Gracie, which is wild because we’re the craziest motherfuckers in the entire jujitsu world,” says Tudor, who has fought a who’s who in world of grappling. “First tournament ever I fought Cubs Swanson in the final. And 20 years later I get a message from Cub. He sends me this picture of he and I standing on the podium, and he goes, ‘Joel, is this you?’ One day his mom dug out a photo and he realized, holy shit, I fought you. I forgot.”
Tudor went on a competitive rampage from there. “I won the Pan Ams. I submitted everybody, which is rare.” His accomplishments in the world of grappling are beyond notable. As a black belt, Tudor has submitted legends like Rani Yahyah and Megaton Diaz. He even heard his named called by legendary UFC announcer Bruce Buffer when he competed in a grappling event in Abu Dhabi. A friend of mine, a black belt who used to roll with Tudor, described him as such: “Joel Tudor is sneaky. You think he’s just a surfer dude, but he is strong as a 600-pound gorilla. A combination of skill and tenacity. He humbled me.”
Tudor doesn’t have much left to prove. So, what’s next? He’s happy to watch his kids repeat the cycle in Tudor style.“I could call it quits tomorrow. My kids are so gnarly. Tosh is so gnarly that I’m just like happy sitting back and watching him make his own path, you know? Because he’s basically doing the same thing I did with longboarding, but he’s doing it with tube riding. It’s a wild thing to watch. When he was younger, I told him that he could be like every other kid doing the same air rotation. An unromantic carbon copy spit out of an assembly line. Or he could take the Gerry Lopez route.” Well, we’ve seen where that’s taken Tosh Tudor. “And now his younger brother Judah is coming up following his footsteps, which is so cool. I’m not a super parent. I don’t stand over them. I’m not your agent. I’m not gonna call your sponsors for you, you know? Judah’s a little different because he’s skating. I really hope he gets into shaping.”
Yes, Mr. Tudor has certainly been there. And back again. It’s been a fun ride to watch.
