Kai is always pushing the envelope, whether on the wave’s face, or in the air. Photo: Tom Servais
A few days ago, I found myself watching the latest video drop from Kai Lenny, the all-around best, most imaginative surfer in the world today. In this particular clip, Lenny was depicted being ferried out to the top of a vast, tropical reef complex, where, dropped into a long, section-y, otherwise un-surfable right wall on his foil board, he is shown negotiating what has to be one of the most remarkable sessions ever witnessed.
Taking full advantage of the foil’s inherent velocity, Lenny carves, swoops and banks around section after crumbling section for what looks like a mile, his takeoff zone disappearing as if beyond the curvature of the earth. It’s not a sublime performance — how can it be when quadriceps are fully engaged at all times? Yet with its combination of dynamism and fluidity, it’s an amazing display of an entirely new form of surfing, one in which the surfer (in this case Lenny) has been gifted by the foil the ability to do what he wants, when he wants, wherever he wants on the wave. That’s the upside to this paradigm-shifting innovation.
The downside? With this ability to completely dominate the wave, there’s not much at stake — the wave doesn’t stand a chance. Which might explain why, after 1,760 yards of proving he was the wave’s absolute master, Lenny felt compelled to raise the stakes a bit, not by continuing a seemingly endless succession of speedy bottom-turns and 75-yard long roundhouses, but by risking it all with a fancy trick.
It’s been widely reported how that turned out for him. The title of the video clip says it all: “The Foil Session That Nearly Ended Me.” The debate of which is more traumatic — falling on the knife-blade of a foil and nearly opening your chest like a can of sardines, or cracking your helmet, and almost your skull, on the reef at Pipeline, or endless hold-downs in the Nazaré death zone — can continue, but what I find most fascinating about this latest episode is how, despite the intensity of so many of the ocean sports Kai applies himself to, there is still the almost overpowering urge to pull off a silly trick.
Or maybe “fascinating” isn’t the right word. In fact, there’s nothing new about surfers pulling off tricks — they’ve been doing it for well over 100 years. Early 20th century newsreel footage shot at Waikiki feature plenty of hijinks, with many a Hawaiian local spicing up their graceful slide toward shore with slapstick spinners and head-stands, riding with grinning poi-dogs on board and laughing tourist wahines atop their bronzed shoulders. Then look at the early-to-mid 1960s, for example, when spinners, coffin rides, hanging heels and fin-first takeoffs livened up the trim-and-turn template; even during the patently self-conscious early 1970s, the frivolous 360 still made the rounds. Then in the 1980s came the aerial, the literal high point of trick surfing.
Again, in every case, from spinner to slob air, not responding to the wave or its flow line, but exerting one’s will upon it, the wobbliest headstand or low altitude air reverse smacking of arrogance in a manner no actual maneuver does. Even the top turn, in all its variations and levels of amplitude, fins free or not, is essentially a stalling maneuver, keeping the surfer from running out of the curl and onto the open face of the wave. It’s functional performance. The trick, however, is superfluous, not signaling a demonstration of skill, but rather simply just showing off.
And is there anything wrong with that? Of course not. Well, except maybe in the aerial’s case — who knows how many world titles John John would have on his resume if not for an unfortunate series of awkward landings? But what the trick does inject into surfing’s too often serious tone is that urge to not simply just ride the wave, but to show off in front of our friends. Maybe that’s what has kept us at it all this time, with our spinners and 360s and aerials; with the awareness that we’re all just frolicking on a watery playground, balancing on the monkey-bars, calling out to our buddies, “Hey, look at me!”
Maybe that’s it. And maybe despite its near-calamitous ending, Kai’s incredible ride should stand as testament to the fact that when it comes to surfing, tricks really are for kids. Kids of all ages.
Let’s hope that never changes.
