| 1. I Am The Sport, Thy Stoke. Thou Shalt Have No Strange Sports Before Me
Which means that all these newly-coined "extreme" sports you hear about are just that: extremely not like surfing. Because surfing isn't just an extreme sport, it's an extreme lifestyle. Think about it: if snowboarding were like surfing no snowboarder would live within 100 miles of the coast; no skater would ever get a driver's license. So occasional trips to the mountains for some snowboarding, or regular afternoon visits (blown-out afternoons) to your local skate park, or, in fact, any occasional participation in other sports is a good thing, surfers shall keep surfing and the entire lifestyle that it represents foremost in their minds, even when they're not actually riding waves. If this means aspiring to play golf like Kelly Slater instead of Tiger Woods, so be it. 2. Thou Shalt Land Thy Aerials Yes, sticking your Lien Air should always be an objective, but this commandment applies to even those surfers whose boards never leave the water with intent. Learning to land your aerials is about finishing the wave; it's about respecting the ride. A surfer who flops off the board into the soup at the end of a ride, tugging on their leash like a bad dog, is just as big a spaz as the one who launches their one-millionth no-hope air, blowing up in the shorebreak like some trampoline stuntman in a John Woo movie. At least try to land those airs; learn how to kick out. Think: Begin the ride. Live the ride. Finish the ride. 3. Thou Shalt Remember The Wave In Thy Hand Is Worth Two Up The Coast If the spirit of God truly moves on the face of the waters, then this means each and every wave is sacred, and should be regarded as such. Shall the cult of surfari continue? Of course--proper interpretation of this commandment doesn't imply that driving all over the county (or flying around the world) looking for better waves isn't a noble pursuit. It is, in both cases. In fact, there's nothing more sacred than that drive up the coast, that glorious ritual of anticipation. But it also stresses the importance of living in the moment, taking advantage of the ephemeral amalgamation of weather and watery conditions coming together to produce any sort of ride-able wave, without the anxiety that someone, somewhere is getting it better than you. Remember: there is no better wave than the one you're on. 4. Thou Shalt Honor Thy Legends Paying sufficient homage to surfers like Nat Young--or Tom Carroll or Tom Curren or Mark Occhilupo, for that matter--is an easy enough concept to grasp. As our very best surfers get older they remind us, with every wave they ride, of our very best intentions: to stay tuned-in, to stay hot. To stay stoked. But the best thing about the surfing life is that you don't have to have won a world title to be a legend. All you have to do is surf long enough with the proper intent and endeavor to share what you've learned along the way. So take another look at that older surfer at your beach--or your dad, or your mom--and realize that while groms may grow older they rarely grow up. That's what really makes a legend. 5. Thou Shalt Cherish Thy Stick Fine, the Old Testament does have a little bit to say about graven images: "Thou shalt make thee no molten gods." Doesn't say anything about foam and fiberglass, though. In fact when it comes to the surfboard, our most potent icon, we say not only is it okay to "bow down to them, to serve them," but it's absolutely imperative. Yes, you don't actually need a surfboard to ride waves, and no, getting too attached to anything made of plastic isn't necessarily emotionally healthy, even if Al Merrick shapes it. But by worshiping the surfboard we celebrate the relationship between man and wave, and the lengths he's gone to pursue it. From those old kukui oil-polished, 16-foot olos to the latest ...lost airship, the surfboard is our only tangible proof of devotion, the definitive third party in what for every surfer should be a glorious love triangle. Put simply: clean your wax, fix your dings and go easy on the Magic Markers. 6. Honor Thy Bro and Sis We're talking figuratively here, because so far as we're concerned, anybody who surfs--regardless of age, race, gender, hair color, length of surf trunk, length of board, north or south, east or west (or Down Under), regular or goofy, knee up or knee down, Bruce or Andy, Surfline or surf check, Mentawai or Costa Rica, Middles or Lowers, The Inlet or Sea Girt, every day or only when necessary--is family in our book. 7. Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Wave Go ahead and covet his ass, but never his wave. When you think about it, the drop-in is just about the most inexplicable act of violation imaginable. Might as well steal a surfer's wallet (or purse) while you're at it. To see a surfer up and riding, engaged, you might say, in his relationship with the wave, living the moment, and then turn around, drop in, and burn him has got to be surfing's Original Sin. And if we were to ever be thrown out of Eden, it will certainly be for this. Why do you think it's called "getting snaked"? 8. Thou Shalt Not Bear False Claims This is a tough one, but if you're truly interested in moving toward surf godliness, an absolute essential. Doesn't help that the title of one of our Sacred Scrolls, You Should Have Been Here An Hour Ago by Phil Edwards (1966), glorified the false, misleading claim: "I used to ride junk waves all day long, training for the good moments," Edwards wrote. "You do this, and one day you are sitting out there all alone, waiting for a set, and someone will paddle up and ask how the surf is. 'Man,' you tell them, 'you should have been here an hour ago.'" But when you think about it, the false claim is really an act of conceit: what you're claiming is that the act is somehow more meaningful to you. This ethic eventually morphed into an even more demonstrative show of conceit: the needless exit claim. Both are silly and fall into the category of "Thou shalt not..." 9. Pump A Longboard, Go To Hell Which means, of course, that style does count. And not just on a longboard. Granted, simply making the decision to ride a longboard implies the appreciation of a certain aesthetic: grace, power, flow and the occasional insouciant thrust of the hip, arch of the back and cock of the head essential to the rebel's stance. The subtle thumbing of one's nose, as it were, at the straights on the beach. But this isn't to imply one can't turn powerfully and radically on a nine-footer--you can and should, but without the hopping, flapping and nose-waggling associated with bad shortboarding. Which is also the point. Proper longboarding is the same as proper shortboarding: power, flow and grace. If you don't get this then...hell, just bend at the knees, not at the waist. 10. Thou Shalt Give A Wave To Get A Wave Or two. Or even three. In the long run, that is. Sharing the waves with other surfers should be surfing's Number One Commandment. It's just not as fun as some of the others...at first. But if you can compel yourself to try it some day--during your next session, perhaps--you just might be surprised at how good it can feel. Giving up a wave. Hooting another surfer into a good one of his own. Giving less-experienced surfers a chance. Fostering the same behavior in them. Because if there is one basic truth in surfing's faith, it's that Them are You; that we're all in this together, and sometimes, seemingly, all at once. Get used to it. Better yet, enjoy the communion. |
| SURFING'S 10 COMMANDMENTS |
| As written and published by SURFERMAG.COM CURRENT ISSUE VOL. 44 #9 |
| "In the beginning God created heaven and earth.
And the earth was without form, and void, and Darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." So read the first few lines of Genesis I, from the Old Testament as interpreted by the King James Bible, history's first written description of surfing. Small wonder it's always been about faith with us. Because what is surfing if not a faith? So far as belief systems go, it's got it all. We have our Genesis: "I could not help concluding that this man felt the most supreme pleasure while he was driven on so fast and so smoothly by the sea..." from Volume 11, Chapter IX of Cook's Voyages by Captain James Cook, 1777. We have our Exodus: "Acquaintances in the States have asked me why I bury myself in the Hawaiian Islands. The reason is because I like it...the coco palms waving in the clean trade winds, the colors of the water on the coral reef greet my eyes each day as I near the beach, and when the giant waves of Kalahuewehe surf are breaking white, far from shore, it means royal sport is waiting..." from Hawaiian Surfriders 1935 by Tom Blake We even have our Proverbs: "Remember, there are two schools of thought. In the first the wave is an incidental means of expressing one's ability to others. In the second...a wave is simply a beautiful expression of nature and respected as reason enough to participate." from What is Good? by Phil Edwards, SURFER, Volume five, Number one, 1965 With its spiritual essence focusing on devotion, sacrifice and reaffirmation, coupled with the essential element of humbling oneself before a higher power, surfing as a faith makes a lot of sense. What's surprising is that more people don't seriously regard it as such. And yet there is an obvious reason for this. Compared to almost every other major global faith, surfing lacks one key spiritual component: a list of commandments. The very basic dos and don'ts that, within each particular faith, constitute right living, right thinking, right devotion. Granted, when it comes to the Big 10, each faith system has its own particular quirks. In the old Hebrew version, for example, number 10, dealing with the coveting of thy neighbor's manservant, ox or ass, may have been a bit more applicable in the year 1670 BC than it is today (except maybe in certain regions of Arkansas, Alabama and Mississippi). Even the tone has changed considerably. The contemporary Catholic rendition of Number Three simply states, "Remember thou to keep the Sabbath Day," whereas the Bible's original translation from Exodus, 21:15 warns, "Whosoever doeth any work in the Sabbath Day, he shall surely be put to death." Ouch. Well, at least nobody ever said anything about surfing on Sunday. But that's just the point. Surfing has never had its own set of 10 Commandments. Until now. |
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