Who should determine when enough is enough in the realm of celebration? Hell, why even draw a line in the sand (or on the goal line) and say “Stop having fun at this point” anyway? In surfing it’s an inconsequential display of joy during a free surf or a tactical and contrived move during competition. There’s no regulation for celebrating with a hoot or a fist pump beyond eliciting grumbles from the salties who think one should act like they’ve been there before. But what if there was a codified system with clearly defined margins of what’s allowed and what’s not allowed? The NFL has such a system, and in the above context it’s frickin’ hilarious.
Here we have a man in a funny outfit holding a whistle and a yellow flag. Two hip thrusts are appropriate for celebrating a big moment, but anything over that is going to cost you and your team 15-yards. Roast that football up like a pig at a cookout, but don’t you dare cross the line and take a bite out of that juicy football. Hell, rock a HAZMAT suit over your uniform but you’ve gone too far once you freeze that ball in liquid nitrogen. Whether the threshold for appropriate levels of celebration are clear or not, isn’t it odd to have one man determining when one should or shouldn’t stop celebrating? And to top it off he’s given the power to hand out a punishment for it. The NFL has this in real life and multiple other organized sports have varied levels of policing celebration. The idea is usually a combination of keeping up the pace of the game and not being disrespectful to your opponent.
Surfing doesn’t have this “problem” though. For a community that touts the nobility of loving an individualistic activity we don’t do the greatest job of actually being individuals. If you want to dispute that point just count how many people in the lineup are wearing solid black wetsuits while riding solid white boards during your next session. I promise they outnumber those wearing and riding whatever the heck they feel like. The message is simple: Don’t stand out. Ever.
We also pay for this sad reality by forfeiting our freedom to celebrate. I’ll even go so far as to say we let it influence how we ride a wave. In competition, the claim has been turned into a contrived display used to squeeze a few fractions of a point from the judges. And the absence of real joy in those moments makes us even the tiniest bit skeptical of the truly spontaneous outbursts. Somehow the only thing that justifies a solid pump of the fist, letting out a whoop for your buddy, or flat out dropping your jaw with both arms raised triumphantly as you fly onto the shoulder is to have shot from something that deserves an XXL Ride of the Year entry. That’s how uptight we are about our claims…we don’t even need somebody patrolling the lineups in a zebra wetsuit waiting to blow that whistle.
But think about how mind blowing the entire act of riding a wave is to begin with. Should we really require a barrel you could fit your Prius into to warrant a yelp? Your body was made to function on land with no gils or webbed feet and somehow you’ve figured out a way to stand on top of a moving fragment of energy transferred through water. That’s a holy sh*t moment So maybe the only appropriate punctuation to a well ridden wave should be a moment of celebration…or two hip thrusts.
Make fun if you want. But he’s doing it right. Photo: Jared Aufrichtig
