Surf Culture

Once the sport of Polynesian kings, surfing embodies the ultimate encounter between man and nature. Played out on the beaches and breaking waves of the world’s continental fringes, surfing is the epitome of a classic cult of freedom and individual expression- an arena not only for survival but for grace under pressure, style, and artistic invention. Yet surfing is more than just the riding of waves – it’s a lifestyle, a state of mind, a subculture with its own codes and heroes.

The Essence of Surfing

Surfing is the deceptively simple act of riding a breaking ocean wave on a surfboard. In reality, as a fundamental physical feat, surfing on a wave is a phenomenal conjunction of forces; the mathematics of it are profoundly complex. However, as an expression of the essential relationship between man and nature, surfing is unique in its clarity. And as a metaphor for life and just about anything life throws at us, it is unparalleled. Life is a wave. Albert Einstein even said so.

Everything in the material world manifests itself in waves, but while the dynamics of waves modulate all phases of our existence, nowhere is this fact more graphically apparent than when man goes to sea. The most archetypal and symbolic representation of this relationship-between man and the rhythms and power of nature-is expressed in the act of riding a wave. The elemental purity of this encounter goes a long way in explaining surfing’s almost universal appeal.

Surfing as Art

To some, the riding of waves is a religion; to others it’s a sport -good healthy exercise and, they claim, nothing more. Some have said it’s an ephemeral transient art form. If surfing is an art, perhaps it’s a martial art, but in the spirit of aikido, the Art of Peace, using the opponent’s own force to overcome.

This is the action of a man carving a surfboard on a wave: The wave tightens into a fist of power, the surfer moves into the barrel to greet it. The muscle relaxes, the fist opens and pulls back, the surfer slams off the wide-open face of the wave laying the shoreward rail of his board into a clean arc of beatific contempt. Bit much, eh? Well, from the perspective of the artist surfer, it’s just a very beautiful thing.

Written by Drew Kampion, excerpt from “Stoked! – A History of Surf Culture”