Surfing is about change. Which in turn might help us deal with the shifting winds of our own lives. Photo: Reed Naliboff
According to a friend of mine in Colorado, the famous ski and snowboard filmmaker (and surfer) Warren Miller told him, during a chance encounter on a chairlift, that skiing is “all about freedom.” So, what’s surfing all about?
The other morning as I walked down the beach, I was once again blown away by the ocean’s typical overnight reversal: from raging waters to earnestly calm. In that moment, it hit me that surfing encapsulates the idea of “change” like no other.
Tides swing like a tetherball chained to the steel pulse of the moon and sun, while winds shift on a whim, changing conditions at our local breaks by the hour. As we’re paddling for a wave in the lineup, we stay attuned to the slightest variation, the closeout or drop-in, the quickening or slowing of the force behind us. Beneath us, fish dart, clams burrow, kelp and jellyfish swirl in unison and eggs hatch. Waves, defined as a “disturbances in the surface of the ocean,” also represent transformation. Swells are brought to life by the wind hundreds of miles away before they run towards shore, cresting and curling and ultimately splitting apart, never to be seen again. Each wave is uniquely different, and for surfers, whether we wipe out and learn something new or take the fleeting memory of a mind-blowing ride to the grave, each wave changes us in a different way.
There are plenty of reasons why waves break the way they do: sandbars, reefs, deepwater channels — but as surfers know, predicting the nature of the swell can present a challenge. Even when surfers analyze tides, swell periods, winds, and weather, to pinpoint the optimal strike mission, they can still struggle to stay on top of the ensuing changes.
Plus, when we’re riding this “disturbance,” the water flows in unexpected ways. The ripple slows down too much, the slab yanks us down like a kite dragged by the wind. We pump the board to gloss over the flats or as the section ramps up, try to harness our speed and launch into the air. Surfing, like our lives, is anything but routine and predictable, and that’s one of the reasons we keep doing it: for the fleeting chance to try to paint a shifting, 3-D canvas with our feet.
Our conception of the art of surfing also swings like a pendulum, based on surfers who we watch and admire, stories we read, photos and reels and most importantly, the visceral experience of watching a random surfer ply their trade on a lonely beach. Wow, we think, that’s a different idea — and just like that, our grasp of what’s possible on a surfboard shifts.
When I was younger, I wanted to surf in a more aggressive way based on the surfers I watched and the boards I rode — or tried to ride. Now my approach is completely different and fueled not only by watching different surfers ply their trades, but the boards and fins I ride, what feels right on a wave, the breaks I surf, and even how my body is feeling on a given day.
To ride waves with ease, we not only have to expect a wave’s sudden changes; we also have to learn how to embrace them and to play off of them. Good surfing occurs when the rider doesn’t just effortlessly deal with the wave’s adversity, but harnesses the changing face, as if predicting what the wave will do next. Wave riding that instantaneously wows us from the beach occurs when the surfer actually uses the changes coming on the fly to create something new. If surfing is about anything — and perhaps it is not — it is about know-it-when-you-see-it style, the more inventive and offbeat the better.
In the big picture, riding waves is a microcosm of the push and pull of our lives, and how the motion of change is the one constant in them. We might try, but we can’t halt the passing of time. Yet when surfers tap into the energy of the wave, they’re magically able to forget about all the modulations, the stress and problems and disturbances for a while.
Similarly, when our lives switch suddenly – a relationship implodes, a job is lost, someone close to us dies unexpectedly — there is often no real explanation. We try to explain away inexplicable changes with fortitude or theories, religion or logic or fate, but we often fall short. The forecast was epic, and then overnight, the wind shifted, as if out of nowhere. What can we do? I wonder: do surfers deal with adversity and change more effectively in their lives than others because we are so used to sudden and dramatic vacillation?
Surfing is rife with change; but surfing changes us, too. Our board-oriented pursuits permanently alter how we view the environment and the world. Even though I don’t skate as much anymore, when I stare out the window of a moving car or train, I can’t help but automatically see the ledges and grinds and benches and boardslides of a passing street. I envision someone who looks a lot like me soaring by, leaping from obstacle to obstacle like the city is their personal video game. I don’t expect that unique perspective, fueled by years spent rolling sideways, to ever change.
As surfers, our transformation begins the moment we pick up a board. We cannot look at a beach, even a lake, pond or puddle without searching out the glimmer of a wave. White-hot shots of dopamine and serotonin served ocean-side, fry our brains to a crisp and our values reshuffle as we prioritize riding waves over all else. The entire world, 71 percent ocean, beckons to us, offering far-off breaks and new people and cultures. And as I hinted at earlier, I believe surfing changes us in positive ways as we face the world – allowing us to adhere to the ever shifting aspects of our lives with less stress, less trepidation, because change is in us, from the moment we paddle out, to the moment we go to work, we’re prepared for things to shift.
And so, there is less to fret over as long as have the next session to look forward to. We day dream of the barrel that got away. We focus our vision on the next morning, the next wave, the next chance to be transformed by the transient nature of the ocean.
