Heath Joske getting spontaneous – and dare we say soulful at J-Bay. Photo: Lachlan McKinnon
Progress is a wonderful thing in a sport. It pushes new physical and mental boundaries. It is intrinsic in and crucial to the development of technology and equipment, and most importantly, it keeps things fresh, which in turn keeps the spectators enthralled. As we know, it is the spectators that keep any sport alive –they are the most important stakeholders in any professional sports arena, aren’t they? When the spectators lose interest in a sport it’s history… Which brings us to professional surfing.
In surfing we have jumped in leaps and bounds, in flips and shuvits and rodeos, to a weird and awe-inspiring place where we find ourselves today. Professional surfing has arrived in a place that is more skateboarding tricks than soul arches, more snowboarding 720 spins than Morning Of The Earth, more skinny jeans and wank hipster pretentiousness than The Man Who Lives Inside A Flower. And what has it got us?
At the recent Billabong Pro J-Bay the most talked about heat, the most discussed move and the most popular surfer in the eyes of the public was all done by or involving none other than Aussie battler Heath Joske. While he might be a magnificently bearded chap, he made himself popular for another reason altogether – a heroic ride at Supertubes in the height of competition. In mid-stride he calmly threw his arms in the air for the best soul arch of the contest, the most soulful ride of the tournament, and one of the most interesting rides of the year.
South African surfing public watching live cheered this strange, never-seen-before move from this strange bearded chap, as did all the pros that were assembled in the competitors’ area. Social media surrounding the event produced a solid spike for the man in the white vest, and the feeling around his spontaneous and unusual move was one of warm positivity. It was a great ride, and in his post-heat interview, Heath quietly mumbled under his beard about it being “a spontaneous thing.” To be fair, his surfing is far from flawless, and his move didn’t affect the judges or his score for the ride, but it did evoke a groundswell of support, of high-fiving. Way more than say, Adriano.
Check it out here. The soul-ride, as well as a few other rides, by the massively bearded fellow.
Right now we’ve just witnessed the US Open Of Surfing, and it all went down at the most glorious of surfing venues, good ole Huntington Beach in Cali. It’s a prime event and the surfing was radical. Dynamic. It was totes amazeballs. It was holy shitballs! It was like orsum, bru. It was all happening in the shorebreak with the world’s best surfers, world champions, ex-world champions potential world champions and the most radical freesurfers in the world all ditching fins, dropping wallets and punting all sorts of wild and spinny shit for the assembled chicks to wow at and for those five overweight guys in the tower to judge out of ten. Here’s a quick highlight of day three.
This clip is where professional surfing is right now. That’s the road our sport has turned down. This clip comprises what surfers need to do to win heats and to make a success of themselves on the professional tour at places like Huntington, which, uncannily, resembles much of the ASP Star event contest venues and wave shapes. That’s what we have as an example to showcase our sport, to be proud of, and to train our young surfers towards.
The whole point behind these few words is for you to compare the two surfing forms. Maybe one of them is cool, while maybe one of them sucks, but which the fuck is which?
Feel free to comment.
