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BODY ART
Mass recreation? Ancient skill of Polynesia? Elite pursuit of Water-Hellmen? Whichever it may be, bodysurfing is bigger than you think.(Part one in a series on oppressed minorities) |
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June 15, 2001 Here's a scene setter for ya:
We're at the winner's press conference at the Rip Curl Pro, Bells Beach, Australia, Easter 2001. Up on the podium, seated comfortably behind their trophies, are Mick Fanning and Danny Wills, fresh from collecting a combined $50,000 from Bells's chilly waters, the rewards of the first in a string of ASP WCT pro surfing events for the year, events worth a total of over $2 million in straight-up prizemoney and a hell of a lot more than that in accrued bonuses, contract payments, incentives, and plain gleaming fricken wave riding Glory.
So in the middle of all these puffball questions -- "Danny, how do you feel?" -- pouring forth from the surf and daily local press, one gentleman waits his turn, and eventually is offered a chance at these young wave-riding demigods. And he pipes up with this:
"When you are training for the world professional circuit, does bodysurfing play any part in your preparation?"
There is a silence for a beat or two (what the F--K??) while Mick and Danny kinda ... look at each other ... and a few people in the audience glance around to check out this character who's dropped such a, err, wack question into the mix ... and eventually Mick, who after all is the winner of the god damn contest, sucks in a breath and takes responsibility for it, and says in a puzzled yet quite clear voice,
"What's bodysurfing??"
Exactly! What is bodysurfing? Simply put, it may be the least-known, yet most practised form of waveriding on the planet.
"When people swim at a beach and wash in with the waves, they're bodysurfing," explains Michael Zerman, the Australian bodysurf fanatic who asked that slightly embarrassing question at Bells. "It's just that they don't know they're bodysurfing. Or rather, they don't think of themselves as bodysurfers."
Zerman is an owlish, energetic man who acts via his e-mail posting list as one of several information sources for the hardcore bodysurfing underground worldwide -- an exclusive, almost invisible crew whose numbers are difficult to estimate but are unlikely to run beyond a couple thousand.
Bodysurfers have their keynote events, like the Pipeline Championships held each January, and the World Bodysurfing Championships, due to run at Oceanside, CA, from August 17-19. Last year's Worlds drew around 260 competitors and was taken by Ojai's Dave Ford, who joins an elite few with multiple titles under their Speedos. But as with all waveriding sports, it's the bodysurfers themselves, and the places they've chosen to make sacred, that make this minority truly interesting.
The range of humans involved in the body art is fascinating. Melinda Morey, for instance: Melinda, whose famous father Tom invented the bodyboard, grew up on Kauai and describes herself as a "committed" bodysurfer. "Everyone either bodysurfed or rode a board," she told Swell. "There really weren't young girls riding boards back then, so I was kind of intimidated, and went bodysurfing instead. My Dad and Mom surfed so we'd be at the beach all the time. It was back in the days when if you had one fin you were stoked!"
Like many bodysurfers, Melinda describes her experiences simply, yet with a distinctly poetic edge. "It's such a different feeling. You're immersed in the water instead of being on top of it. And it's completely supporting you.... The ocean for me is a metaphor for everything in life. I see people as waves -- some are really spectacular and go a long way, others are a bit smaller or foamy and never quite get their right shape." She also rides a longboard, but much prefers to swim.
Of bodysurfing's sacred sites, two are pre-eminent. First there's Pipe, which often fits its regular conqueror Mike Stewart's definition of the ideal body surf: "Generally, powerful, peaky waves that are basically too slow for other surfing disciplines." Stewart, who's on pretty much every bodysurfer's list of legends, says he personally he enjoys most "those big days at Pipe that have an occasional really good wave, but the rest of the time there are just sets washing through that would pick you off if you were on any kind of board.... Just to be able to be out in the water on those days is epic."
Stewart shares legend status at Pipe with the likes of Mark Cunningham, the longtime Ehukai surfer/lifeguard who defined Pipeline bodyriding, and Barry Holt, to whom he pays perhaps the ultimate compliment: "He consistently rides waves better than anyone I have witnessed in any discipline."
The other sacred site, of course, is the Wedge -- that crazy Californian south-swell freak of nature, or more accurately of the Army Corps of Engineers, who erected the jetty at Newport Beach's southern end, thus creating a bodysurfing dream.
Without doubt the Wedge's greatest rider has been Fred Simpson, founder of the Viper fin company and co-author of the early-1970s volume "The Art Of Bodysurfing". Simpson began riding the Wedge in 1958 when it was named The Hook, says fellow Wedger Rick Ciaccio. "There was a solid crew at the Wedge through the '60s. In talking with Fred and others, bodysurfing then was pretty basic -- kind of a big slide down the face with arms at the side, with an occasional balls-out iron cross into a big clambake. Later on, guys like Jim Scanlon, Don Reddington (who later partnered with Fred to create the Viper Fins), Ed Stewart, the Fitzwalter brothers and Kevin Eagan started showing some real talent at Wedge. These guys were laying out and riding the peak all the way across to Cylinders, which at that time was called Brutals."
Other great Wedge riders include Terry Wade, Tom Kennedy, and the kneeboarding photographer Ron Romanosky. Kennedy, a big man at 6'5'' and 250 pounds, has been known to pull 180 degree spins out of the lip on 15-foot waves.
Rick himself once rode a stand-up board, but says: "I pretty much gave up board surfing for bodysurfing from about 1980 on." His first go-out at the Wedge occurred in 1969, when he and his brother bought a pair of Duck-Feet fins and a Paipo board each from the Newport Surf Shop. That afternoon they went out and found themselves scrambling over 20-foot peaks, totally out of their depths. "The raw terror of that Wedge experience affected me in a way that has stuck with me all my life. I think it has a lot to do with the passion I have for the place.... Having bodysurfed some heavy spots, not much comes close to the rush when you clear the lip at the top of a big, hollow Wedge peak."
Interestingly, he's into another classic minority form, kneeriding. "Ron Romanosky talked me into buying one of his kneeboards a few years back, so I've ridden places like Blacks and Salt Creek on that. I enjoy being the odd man out really."
Cripes! Semi-closed-out Pipe? Twenty-foot-faced Wedge? It's all a heck of a long way from the casual swimmer in a Huntington shoredump.
Across the Pacific in Australia, bodysurfing's historic vein runs very deep. In the late 19th century a South Sea islander, Tommy Tanna, taught some Sydneysiders how to catch and ride waves with the body. The result was a bodysurfing boom which pre-dated the renowned arrival of Duke Kahanamoku and his surfboard lessons in 1914. Bodysurfers spawned the volunteer surf lifesaving clubs which now dot every urban and many rural beaches around Australia; at the time the clubs started, around 1910, they were basically an excuse for keen bodyriders to hang out near the surf as much as possible.
Today, Michael Zerman thinks there may be as many as four million "accidental" bodysurfers among the vast numbers of beachgoing Aussies. But while several hundred use bodysurfing as part of professional surf-club-based ocean swim races, very few seem to make the step into competitive bodyriding.
Over time, the sport has taken on some weird shapes in out-of-the-way places. Witness the madness of the Welsh Ogmore Slip Surfers -- a pack of freaks who appear to bodysurf directly into concrete slipways at their local harbor. A recent post to discussion site Bodysurf.net details this bloodcurdling pursuit:
Recipe
1) Team of Ogmore slip surfers
2) A concrete slip way running into the water which is used to launch rescue boats
3) 3 to 4 foot dumping swell
Method
1) Be tough enough to get out off the slip.
2) Swim a couple of yards off shore just beyond the break.
3) Wait for the gnarliest dumping wave to start sucking dry.
4) Take off immediately heading for the concrete.
5) A wonder of nature now occurs...instead of severe neck and back injuries you get squirted up the slip way on a cushion of water around 3" - 4" deep for around 10 to 15'.
6) Stand up and take the applause of the bystanders
7) Then warn them not to do it...
The missive is signed, "The Big Fella".
While bodysurfers seem highly stoked with their lot in the surfing life, there are occasional streaks of resentment toward boardriders. After all, if it's not the Wedge, they're way down the pecking order.
"That's part of why I like longboarding, 'cause you're at the other end of the food chain for a change," admits Melinda Morey. "The flipside of it is that because you're such a minority, there'll usually be only one or two of you out at a spot at any time. So people will make room -- you're not a challenge." Kids, she says, are "ruthless, they want every wave...if it's an older crew, they can let me go on a few." -- Nick Carroll
(For more stuff on bodysurfing, go to these sites:)
www.worldbodysurfing.com
http://zerman.net
http://www.bodysurf.org
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