longboarding & freeride surfing mag 2 march 2010

JUNE 2010_02longboarding&freerideJames Parry, Cornwall

JUNE 2010_02

HOTDOGGERS

JOIN NORTH

DEVON’S

HOW TO : PICK UP THE DROP KNEE

SAYS CANDICE O’DONNELL

‘TRUTH IS BEAUTY’

JAMES PARRY’SFOOTWORK

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THE SHOT

002 LONGBOARDING MAGAZINE

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LONGBOARDING MAGAZINE 003

Photo: Ben Selway

In the midst of activity there is sometimes a quiet spot, where time and space seem to collapse into a moment’s calm - the eye of the storm and complete stillness amongst extreme motion. For longboarders, second only to tube riding to seek those perfect moments, is noseriding, and the hang ten is the defining dance, the finest statement of balance. James Parry on the cover, and Christian Wach below, hang ten with style in Sennen and Sardinia respectively.

TOES ON THE NOSE

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INTRO

Free Ride was Bill Delaney’s late 1970’s era - and genre - defining masterpiece, described by Surfer magazine as “a finely cut and

polished diamond.” ‘Free Ride’ became a phrase that described the range of alternatives to big business commercial development in surfing and its relative narrowing of focus upon a handful of surfers at a handful of breaks riding a narrow range of specialist surfboards that the rest of the surfing world would then be led to use but without the ability of the specialists. This had hardened into naked exploitation by the 1980’s. Something else was needed in surfing – a return to individual expression, an open-minded way celebrating eclecticism and difference. Talking with Cornishman and former Surfer magazine editor, Paul Holmes, who has been involved in every surfing revolution since the 1960’s, we mulled over alternatives to that awful descriptor ‘retro’. ‘Freeride’ popped up, capturing the spectrum of surfing possibilities outside the narrow commercial limits. Wavelength agreed that it celebrated what we wanted to put at the heart of this supplement – not just embracing ‘a new wave of length’ but surfing beyond the mainstream. ‘Retro’ is ‘retrogressive’ - not what we want surfing to be. The opposite is ‘progressive’. We think ‘freeride’ signifies the eternally progressive.

When Surfer magazine first started there was no polarisation of ‘long’ and ‘short’, just the ‘surfboard’. Then minds expanded and boards contracted. Revolution became evolution as the shortboard went through stages of refinement. By the early 1970’s, almost a

decade before Simon Anderson’s thruster, many thought design had reached its nadir and the ‘search’ switched from boards to defining the essence of wave riding. Soul surfers slipped away to exotic travel and cooled out on country homegrown. In the UK, Paul Holmes was co-editor of the avant-garde and short-lived Surf Insight newspaper with my dad Alan ‘Fuz’ Bleakley and Simonne Renvoize. Offering the first serious surf journalism in Britain, Surf Insight made surfing an intellectual as a well as a physical journey, with well-written articles, politics, art and lucid social commentary. It proved a stepping-stone for Paul to climb to the top of the surf journalism ladder.

Free Ride chronicled Hawaii’s 1975–76 winter when Paul was working in Australia as a contest organiser and editor of Tracks – a Briton at the forefront of an emerging culture in which surfing was reinventing itself. The hippy era had run out of steam and become politicised. Now the best young surfers were eager to professionalise the sport. Free Ride defined the crossroad where two forces met - expressive, no limits surfing and the new breed, ambitious to turn their talents into paycheques through competition. Shaun Tomson, Mark ‘MR’ Richards and Wayne ‘Rabbit’ Bartholomew make their mark controversially in Hawaii’s backyard, controlled at the time by local rules that were brazenly broken by the visitors. These surfers simply set themselves one task: to push the limits of performance. All three went on to win World Titles before the end of that decade.

The paradox that Free Ride captured –

the uneasy alliance between following the spirit and bowing down to Mammon in the development of professional, competitive surfing - was resolved by the neon-lit 1980’s, when surfing reached its apex of commercialism. Soul surfing had sold out (and souled-out, its spirit expired) to market forces. Kids wanted to be like the superstars and the superstars were shaped by commercial interests. Thankfully, through the ‘90s and ‘00s professionalism and graceful style re-aligned, and the surf world is becoming a wise and varied place with a bright horizon.

Today the freeride ethos is alive and flourishing in women’s longboarding, where a combination of adventure, imagination, grace and professionalism shape a contemporary art form. We catch up with multiple champion Candice O’Donnell on page six. Keeping style at the core, we note the reinvention of one of the most graceful ways to turn a longboard – the drop knee turn – on page 20. And for champions of smooth glide we check in with Saunton’s The Hotdoggers on page 22 and funky Footwork on page 12.

We hope you enjoy the freeride, whether on a new or old longboard, radical revisions of ‘other decades’ badged with varieties of fins, futuristic designs with no holds barred, or plain and simple, no friction alaias. The bottom line is the bottom shape that translates traction on the wave into style not struggle.

editors letter

WHY FREE RIDE?

Eyes on the ride: Candice O’Donnell Photo: Bastien Bonnarme

&FREERIDE&FREERIDE

Editor in Chief Tim Nunn [email protected]

Freelance Editor Sam BleakleyManaging Editor Greg Martin

[email protected] Advertising Consultant Mel Eden

[email protected] 01872 224030 Mobile: 07779271328

Advertising Barry Davies [email protected] 01872 224030

Mobile: 07540688091 Photo Editor Ben Selway [email protected]

Art Editor/Design James Wilkinson [email protected]

Published by Endless Summer Media Ltd. Suite 3, Kerns House Unit 11, Threemilestone Industrial

Estate, Truro, TR4 9LD Directors Kevin McCormick, Nick Troop

ISSN 2042-0250

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FEATURE

CANDICE O ’ D O N N E L L

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‘TRUTH IS BEAUTY’ SAYS EFFERVESCENT ROXY RIDER, ARTIST AND SURF CHAMPION, CANDICE O’DONNELL. WE CATCH THE INFECTIOUS ENTHUSIASM PROCLAIMING ONE OF EUROPE’S BRIGHTEST LONGBOARD PROSPECTS


W O R D S S A M B L E A K L E Y L I F E S T Y L E P H O T O S G R E G M A R T I N

Photo: Bastien Bonnarme

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FEATURE

“I caught a wave and stood up straight away,” says Candice with a beaming smile, recalling her first ever glide on a longboard. Already a dedicated bodyboarder and surf lifesaver, she was out at Fistral, Newquay when local glasser Matt Beavis loaned her his longboard. He was so impressed, he said, “If you start riding surfboards full-time, I’ll shape you a longboard for free.” Candice agreed and kick-started a love affair with longboarding, first riding a 9’1” single-fin pintail. “It was a seriously bulky board, with a very experimental template, but it trimmed beautifully.” Candice clocked countless hours with Gary Woodwood and Jimbo Bennett, often on the much-neglected high-tide lefts at Crantock, where she still loves to surf with her twin sister. “It’s amazing having a twin. It’s hard to explain why, but it means

you’ve always got a best friend who will be honest with you. My sister, mum, and brother have always stuck by me every second of the way and encouraged me to follow my dreams, to live without judgement and to work hard for what I love. But my surfing hero is my dad, Tony, because of the stoked hoots and hollers when he’s charging down the line on his log!”

In surfing terms, the pivotal point for Candice was at Perranporth, Cornwall, in 2005, when Roxy ran a stop on the Women’s ASP shortboard World Tour. Spotted by Roxy for both her longboard finesse and stunning looks, a sponsorship ensued. The event was marked for its promotion of the Keep A Breast foundation (KAB), which seeks to spread the word about breast cancer prevention,

early detection and the importance of living a healthy, toxin-free lifestyle. Famous surfers donated chest plaster casts to be decorated by international artists, before being sold at auction to raise money for the fight against breast cancer. It was a dark celebration that Candice has never lost sight of and KAB remains a cause to which she is strongly attached.

At the Roxy event Candice also met one of her great heroines, Lisa Andersen, who she has “always admired for her drive, determination and passion for the sport.” Through contests and travel assignments, Candice’s career took off and she was soon mixing with contemporary legends such as Kassia Meador, Jennifer Smith and Lee Ann Curran. “With a crew of great people like that, magic is always happening. Each

and every one of these people has her own creative movement going down, in and out of the water. It’s really inspiring to be among such a genuine crew of people so regularly.” By 2009 Candice had bagged the full brace of English, British and European Longboard titles, competing with an infectious joie de vivre.

Legendary Malibu Queen Kassia Meador has been a major face in the Roxy brand for over a decade and is undoubtedly the leading force behind women’s longboarding - embodying grace, balance, style and elegance. Candice has become a close friend and greatly admires the American for “continuing to keep the sport alive and drive women’s longboarding forwards by representing it in a positive way.” But Candice, better placed than anyone to

DRAwING fLuID LINes Is the BOttOm LINe. suRfING ReALLy

Candice in mid flow, walking to the tip at Towan Photo: Ben Selway

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make the judgement, explains that, “no one is really making any money from pro women’s longboarding. But it’s such a creative, cool and fun scene, continually reflected back into art and fashion. And funnily enough, the fact that the surfers have to work harder around the sport to make a living is really important for its health and radiance.”

Professional surfing is a marriage between form and function, where the combined craft of the shaper and glasser precedes the expert rider who turns craft into art. Candice’s great ally has been Mark Neville at Seabase/Quiver. “We’ve worked really closely for over three years, experimenting with shapes and fine tuning designs. Single fins with a good template and a magic rocker have always been my favourites. My latest 9’1” squaretail with

low rocker, full rails and plenty of glide is amazing. I love going on single fin missions with traditional log riders like Nina Blake from Jersey. But single fins don’t always work best at home in our quick-breaking beaches. I ride them if I have a chance, but most of the time I use a 2 plus 1.”

“Kassia’s feelings about boards and longboarding style have evolved in a unique way. She absolutely loves her Donald Takayama (DT) single fins, but started using 2 plus 1 thrusters for competition. At heart she has always been more of a free surfer than a competitive surfer. Yet she has always had the ability to win a World Title. She went through a phase where she stopped enjoying longboarding because she felt like she was surfing for other people riding

the 2 plus 1’s and not for herself. Now she has gone back to riding single fins full-time and is enjoying surfing more than ever. When she is on a 9’1” DT squaretail, her speed, glide and finesse come together to make her surfing a pleasure to watch – a performance as good as any dance. On a recent trip we did to Australia she only bought single fins and an alaia. They worked perfectly at Noosa.”

“You can learn a lot from that – it’s important to remember what you are really surfing for – which at the end of the day has to be fun. The best tip to wannabe professional longboarders is to do it because you love it.” In a world where grunt and huff often displace beauty in surfing, indeed where trying too hard can look downright ugly, Candice has learned that drawing fluid lines is the

bottom line. Surfing really should look effortless.

“Roxy and Vans have been a great influence in my life, providing me with a platform from which I can express my love for travel and surf and meet the most amazing combination of artists, photographers, events, books, films, musicians, places and colourful characters along the way. These opportunities make me happy because I feel I am living life to the fullest. The best experiences are the ones you never expect to have, meeting new and inspiring people, in and out of the water, learning a new trick unexpectedly and discovering new and exciting locations. But you have to keep pushing yourself – to learn new moves and gain confidence in all of surfing’s domains. Coming home

shOuLD LOOk effORtLess

Knee paddling in Noosa Photo: Bastien Bonnarme

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FEATURE

The whOLe ART mOvemeNT hAs BeeN ReALLy RecOGNIseD AND emBRAceD IN wOmeN’s LONGBOARDING AND The Roxy TeAm mANAGeRs ARe pushING ThIs

after travelling, the British longboard scene still feels so young and fresh. It has a great future ahead of it.”

Recently Candice’s passion has become her artwork. “Art for me is more experimental than a career direction. I’m really into working with my photography and paints, resins and varnish. It’s a sort of mixed media style of art. I like to get creative with an array of cameras, including Polaroid’s and Holgas, usually from black and white 35mm film. I have a workshop now. I like to blow up photographs, often lifestyle and portrait, or urban compositions, paint on them, write on them, mount them on wood frames and then poor resin on them and let them set – basically anything that inspires me. I take ideas from a lot of different things. It’s going great, although I have found it can become quite expensive at times, especially when ideas start running away with you. But it’s really interesting because it’s a constant learning process. I do it for the love of it and just having the freedom to express and experiment.”

Candice is exhibiting two of her artworks at the Roxy Jam in Biarritz this summer. “I really enjoy France and it will be nice to be there and not competing. The anti-competitive side is really strong now and it seems the riders would rather surf and make art than surf and compete. The whole art movement has been really recognised and embraced in women’s longboarding and the Roxy team managers are pushing this. Our recent trip to Australia was more of an artistic trip – basically us getting creative. Kassia and Biarritz local and Roxy team rider, Pandora Decoster, will have their artwork on show at the Roxy Jam. Pandora’s grandfather, Gérard Decoster, is a famous surf-loving artist and collector and has just released a really interesting illustrated book called Surf Collection, chronicling his craze for anything and everything surf, from Hawaiian dolls to old faded photo’s.”

Surf art of course has a rich and varied history and rejects easy categorisation, from the iconic photography of Jeff Divine to recent films of Thomas Campbell and paintings by John Severson. A particular thread stems from the comic creations of Rick Griffin, a good surfer himself, with Surfer magazine’s blonde-mopped Murphy tucked so far back in the barrel that the tube monster comes out of his

lair to tap him on the shoulder, looking like a scary Japanese water spirit. Griffin’s work turned psychedelic in the late 1960’s when he designed famous album covers for the Grateful Dead and the iconic header for Rolling Stone magazine. Griffin set the standard for both black and white graphics and coloured airbrush work. By the 1980’s, the leading surf artist was Rick Rietveld who followed Griffin’s lead. His adventurous, lush airbrushes for the brand Maui and Sons instantly became collectors’ items. In my callow youth, I blagged a remarkable Reitveld t-shirt from my dad with an image showing Einstein as a Hawaiian elder with a floral shirt and slack key guitar with his infamous words written underneath: “Imagination is more important than knowledge”. Graphic designer David Carson advanced the genre by light years, tearing up the predictability of design with his radical

re-vamp of Surfer magazine in the 1990s. The beauty of surf art is that it directly captures surfing itself as an expressive art.

Getting back to the art of women’s longboarding, I asked Candice who are the most creative longboarders to look out for in the future. “It depends how you define ‘creative’. I believe ‘creative’ is the surfer having the most fun. There are so many great female longboarders each with her own magic style. Leah Dawson from Hawaii is a real standout. She’s 23 and a complete free spirit. She is from Florida originally but has been studying in Hawaii, living with Rochelle Ballard and getting totally into charging big waves. There is also so much talent coming out of the Reunion Islands at the moment. A 17-year-old called Justine Mauvin is

amazing. She is really modest because she doesn’t recognise her own talent yet. That’s the best way to be – then people grow into themselves gracefully and elegantly.”

At only 26 herself Candice has grown into her own radiant character both gracefully and elegantly. Ever the social butterfly she slips easily from the company of stars to by-passer on the beach with a modesty and charm that beguiles her years. Everyone is a ‘star’ in Candice’s eyes. Her attitude is hinged on a continual pursuit to live, learn, love, inspire, create and ride waves, or, ride waves with finesse. Above all it is Candice’s honesty that shines through. “Truth is beauty” she says with Zen directness and the assured graphic line of a Rick Griffin and an elegant hang five in the pocket suspending time.

Feline finesse, Australia photo: Bastien Bonnarme

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FEATURE

FOOTWORK, FLOW & THE BEAUTIFUL GAME

JAMES PARRY AND BEN SKINNER REVEL IN THE NEW JUDGING CRITERIA, QUALIFYING IN SPAIN FOR THE 2010 WORLD LONGBOARD TOUR FINALS BY FUSING FOOTWORK AND FLOW TO GIVE NEW MEANING TO ‘THE BEAUTIFUL GAME’W O R D S S A M B L E A K L E Y P H O T O S G R E G M A R T I N / B E N S E L W A Y U N L E S S O T H E R W I S E S T A T E D

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FEATURE

As competitive longboarding reaches a new level of finesse, so the ASP has revised its judging criteria: competitors can only get a maximum of 7.5 out of 10 for surfing that represents either the progressive (radical turns) or traditional (footwork and noserides) approaches. An additional 2.5 out of 10 can be added when the two aspects are combined. This means that if you hang on the tip from take-off to shore-break, even if controlled beautifully, you can only get a maximum 7.5; or extreme hack and whack turns from get-go to kick-out can again only get a maximum 7.5. To get from 7.5 to a full 10 the surfer must ride the tail and the nose, linking manoeuvres with commitment, speed, power and style. What I like about this is the emphasis on movement up and down the board – quality footwork.

Footwork has always been a defining feature in longboarding, turning sport into art and performance. It goes back to the 1940’s and finless Hot Curl boards ridden at Waikiki. Hot Curls offered a huge step forward from the heavier, slower planks from previous decades, opening a door to riding more demanding waves and tighter in the pocket. Crucially, they allowed improvisation, as surfers could play with weight distribution. In a search for speed,

innovative riders like Rabbit Kekai moved to the front of the board, producing downward force to trim faster. At Queens Beach Rabbit would fade right, stall, swing left, move up to the nose and shoot the curl on a high line in a soul arch, making the board sing.

As skegs took over in the 1950’s, Malibu regulars Tom Zahn, Joe Quigg and Matt Kivlin figured that graceful and fluid movement up and down the board was essential to slow down, speed up, or change direction, fusing form and function. When fibreglass revolutionised board weight, Miki Dora, Phil Edwards, Lance Carson and David Nuuhiwa perfected cross-stepping as the ultimate way to navigate the deck, allowing smooth weight transitions along the stringer. A shuffle to the front is a clumsy way to transfer weight and will likely result in a nosedive. Worse, it looks bad. Cross-stepping is graceful and functional, all about timing, coordination and weight transition - reading the wave, staying in the curl, anticipating and responding. And cross-stepping back elegantly is as important as getting to the nose.

While most longboarders grapple with variations of footwork from within surfing itself, usually from watching and imitating

experts, some surfers adapt timing and style from other sports. Sennen surfer James Parry plays the beautiful game - football - and translates footwork on-the-football to footwork on-the-board.

To parallel longboarding with the beautiful game might sound far-fetched, especially when the top link on a ‘surfing and football’ Google entry brings up a Facebook campaign entitled “I Bet I Can Find 1,000,000 People Who Prefer Surfing To Football” currently with over 56,000 members. And for the millions more fans of football, how can what Pele devoted his autobiography to - Joga Bonito – Play Beautifully – be comparable to the humble art of longboarding?

Good footwork looks good in any context, whether dance, football or walking hot coals barefoot. Gul, Howies, Vans and Skindog Surfboards team rider James Parry is a footwork genius, both on turf and in surf. Born and raised in Nottingham, James started coming to the coast for summer holidays, riding bodyboards and hiring out swell boards. The whole family, all from a sporting background, took readily to surfing. James was an exceptionally talented midfielder and long distance runner. His brother, Andrew, was a sponsored

Resting the legs

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Sennen slash-back - James Parry

JAmes ROcketeD up the LOcAL suRfING RANks

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FEATURE

James playing the game beautifully with a five second hang five

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skateboarder. James’ dad, Nigel, had been a professional footballer for Mansfield Town and had trials for Nottingham Forest in the Brian Clough era. When the folks finally found a catering niche to work in West Cornwall running restaurants (and now a coffee and tea shop in Penzance called Dishotay) James rocketed up the local surfing ranks.

“At first I was just into shortboarding,” says James. “I’d say that John Buchorski was the person who really influenced me when I was starting out at Sennen. He’s just got such natural ability, with an amazing cutback, and he’s always finding the pocket and is really modest about his ability. Then I started longboarding in 2005 thanks to Rich Emerson. He had just returned from a year in Australia, hanging out lots at Noosa with Tom Wegener. Although I was a full shortboarder, I just seemed to pick up cross-stepping straight away. It just felt like the thing you should do on a longboard.” Footwork developed in controlling the football certainly must have helped.

Rich Emerson introduced James to John Isaacs (now the head of Gul) and James got his first longboard from the Revolver shop in Newquay. It was a burnt orange 9’ 1” Joel Tudor ‘Desert Model’ shaped by Donald Takayama - a replica of the design on which Tudor won the 1998 World Champs at El Hierro in Fuerteventura. No other longboarder has won a World Title with such an obviously masterful and beautiful show – other than when Tudor repeated the act in 2004 at Biarritz. Both performances were impeccable. Tudor worked the angles to perfection: clean lines, hang tens, tuberides and a telepathic wave sense. His style emerged as an original aesthetic in which the complete ride forms an elegant whole weaved together through functional footwork, not a clunky set of disconnected, isolated moves.

Tudor had just retired from competition when James started longboarding, but the enigmatic Californian had inspired a new generation of footwork and noseriding connoisseurs. James took off on five consecutive trips to Noosa to get first hand insight from the experts: “Americans Alex Knost, CJ Nelson and Dane Peterson are just so good at noseriding. I suppose because I really started longboarding full-time watching these guys in Noosa, which is a really perfect set of right points, that place influenced me the most with my style and approach.”

Back home between winter trips James was playing Sunday League football and fusing urban influences in music and clothing from his brother who lived in Birmingham and London. James adopted a resurgent fashion, getting a new pair of jeans, turning them inside-out and sewing up the seams, before surf punks claimed this late ’70s style. With an identifiable

look and a love of logs, James looked to Ben Skinner and Harley Ingleby for guidance for a more progressive longboard style. “I started to work really hard on my surfing, mixing the hard work ethic I admire in my parents, with riding as many different styles of boards as possible. I haven’t focused on just one type of surfing. I really think it’s important to mix styles and approaches. So I ride everything from alaias to thrusters to single fins.”

While finishing his carpentry apprenticeship James spent this winter at home, continuing to play competitive football, scoring hattricks and switching boards and styles with the kind of ease I’ve seen only in Beau Young and Joel Tudor. James’s idiosyncratic training technique totally paid off at the first event of the European Longboard season. The Goanna Pro in Tapia, Asturias, this April, was the only way Europeans could qualify for the 2010 World Longboard Tour (WLT), now confirmed for Makaha, Hawaii in November. Ben Skinner and Frenchmen Antoine Delpero and Remi Arauzo had already qualified, after finishing inside the top ten on last year’s WLT. And Elliot Dudley, Joe Davies, Adam Griffiths and James were looking to join them.On a stormy weekend an impromptu game of football with the local Spaniards brought together an identifiable group of surfers – ‘team UK’. The game was so intense that it left most of us with legs like

“I ReALLy thINk It’s ImpORtANt tO mIx styLes AND AppROAches. sO I RIDe eveRythING fROm alaias tO thRusteRs tO sINGLe fINs.”

Ben Skinner scoring in Tapia photo: Aspworldtour.com

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FEATURE

cement for the remainder of the contest, while football-fit James was in his element. Despite some excellent surfing, Elliot and Joe Davies were out of contention by day two, leaving Adam Griffiths and James Parry man-on-man in the quarterfinals. The winner would make it to Hawaii. Adam looked unstoppable with quick and critical roundhouses and snappy re-entries. Then James settled ten toes on the nose on a right, bolt upright, arms by his side, in total harmony, footwork brought to fruition. He stayed and stayed, ran back and carved several turns before hitting the sand, mirroring his

agility on the football pitch the night before. A 7 put James in the driving seat as his continuing smooth footwork and balanced noserides matched the new judging criteria perfectly.

As rain and hail battered the keen spectators and organisers, the shortboard expression session got underway in festive style. James and Ben, riding a 5’

10” Skindog Squaretail and a 6’ 6” Skindog Transformer respectively, eclipsed the local Spanish talent. The duo raised loud hoots from the audience, culminating in Ben’s huge flaming front-side aerial and the expression session trophy.

A wild and whipped 8-10 feet swell greeted Antoine Delpero and Ben for the first semi-final on the last day. Ledging lefts thundered down the headland, while a raging rip caused mayhem with the take-off spot. Ben got off to a sensational start, linking together piercing turns on a

milky coloured overhead wall, posting a sweet 7.17. Midway through the heat Antoine answered back, finding a face that sucked clean and green over the sand bank. It allowed a long tight and stylish hang five, followed by a crisp and radical floater, gaining 8.00. Ben was left needing a 6.61 and in the dying seconds paddled into an open-faced left, catapulted to the nose, ran back, turned,

walked up for another hang five, carved right, arced low, bottom-turned and smashed a huge re-entry. He rode the wave to its upmost with total commitment and was rewarded a disappointing 6.60, tying a total score of 13.77 with Antoine. On the count-back Antoine advanced by a whisker with one stronger wave. It was another nail-biter between two of the most talented and flamboyant longboarders in the world today.

In the second semi final, Bretagne Alexis Deniel revelled in the challenging conditions, beating James. Quick-turning Alexis, always a big threat in powerful surf, was charged up for the final, but failed to find the best peelers. Antoine paddled way out-back and straight into a bombshell: the left wedged on take off and Antoine planted a beautiful noseride with poise and control, before generating insane speed through four radical turns. 8.83 offered the highest score of the event. It set the precedent for the rest of the final, which Antoine won in killer form, leading to his first ASP European title. For James, it was a long overdue qualification for the World Longboard Tour. Hours of devotion to the beautiful game paid off with the cleanest of footwork. For surf travel to Europe check brittany-ferries.co.uk/surf

FOR JAmes, It wAs A LONG OveRDue quALIFIcAtION FOR the wORLD LONGBOARD tOuR

Tapia finalists - James, Ben, Antoine and Alexis Photo: Aspworldtour.com

Parry at home, hitting it over the bar

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TIP TIME

PICK UP THE DROP KNEE

One dropped knee and you’re styling. Two dropped knees and you’re praying. The drop knee cutback is all about creating speed out of the turn. It was fine tuned in the 1950’s and 60’s particularly by Dewey Weber, Phil Edwards, Robert August and Midget Farrelly. The sheer weight of flat rockered boards, with deep single fins glassed at the tail, meant it was often essential to drop the back knee to help pivot the board around. But even on lightweight equipment this manoeuvre can still be functional because you do not need much speed to do one, making it a prime and poised way to change direction quickly. Drop knees were remastered in the longboard renaissance by Nat Young and later famously adopted by Robert ‘Wingnut’ Weaver. Here in the UK we have our own specialists, including Pete Symms, Ashley Braunton, Rob Beiling, Juliet Marlow, Adam Griffiths and Ben Skinner.

STEP 1: THE SETUP• When you are on the shoulder and running out of speed, to avoid out- running the wave, prepare to cutback into the pocket to regain speed. • With a classic forehand drop knee in mind, widen your stance further than normal. This helps you balance and allows your back foot to be positioned over your trailing centre fin. • Begin to slowly rotate your hips and feet in an anti-clockwise direction, shifting your weight onto your heels.

STEP 2: THE DROP KNEE• Smoothly shift your weight onto your front leg, allowing your back leg to rotate 90 degrees onto your toes. • The toe is placed over the stringer, or the heel side of the centre if you plan a more critical turn. • Lower your back leg towards the deck of the board, without touching it (that would be an ugly move) and shift

your weight back onto this leg. • The increasing pressure over the fin will help to pivot the board around.

STEP 3: THE TURN• Rotate your upper body by looking over your left shoulder, either with your arms extended for balance, and your leading arm pointing in the direction in which you are travelling, or your arms low to your sides for a more casual look. You can also raise your arms for a more expressive look. • Once the rail is engaged in the wave face, it makes a turning surface, helping you to guide the board around. • Leaning into a turn is intuitive but too much lean is inefficient. • Imagine the body swinging over the board like a pendulum from lean to lean - not much carving power can be generated and the chance of losing your balance is very high. • Try to keep things smooth by continuing to rotate your upper body and arms,

bringing the board around by looking and aiming for ‘the point-of-impact’ with the white water.

STEP 4: THE RECOVERY• As the white water approaches, extend your back leg and keep your weight on the tail. • As you hit the white water, swiftly rotate your upper body and arms in a clockwise direction, lifting your head to bring the nose of the board up. • Now return you back foot to a flat position and shift your weight onto your toe edge, bringing your board around so the inside rail is locked in the wave face. • The wave should have re-formed in front of you, and you can continue down the line.

For more info and tips check out Lee Ryan’s shortcuttolongboarding.com

INVENTED BY CALIFORNIAN GERD CHAPIN IN THE 1930’S AND ’40’S AS A WAY TO LEVER A HEAVY WOODEN BOARD, THE DROP KNEE REMAINS A CLASSIC TURN IN THE LONGBOARDING REPORTOIRE, BOTH FUNCTIONAL AND STYLISHW O R D S L E E R Y A N / S A M B L E A K L E Y P H O T O S G R E G M A R T I N

LEANING INTO A TURN IS INTUITIVE BUT TOO MUCH LEAN IS INEFFICIENT

TIP TIME

Adam Griffiths on-the-move

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PEOPLE

THE HOTDOGGERS

Hotdoggin’ is a style of surfing popularised in California by Dewey Weber and Phil Edwards in the mid 1950s and

developed into performance art by Malibu bad boys Miki Dora and Johnny Fain, whose ‘shoot-out’ hotdog duels became infamous in the early 1960s. Hotdoggin’ went to silly extremes, inventing completely unfunctional manoeuvres such as Mickey Munoz’s ‘Quasimodo’ (a tongue-in-cheek, hunched-ugly stance) and the ‘Coffin’ (lying on the board with crossed arms). Early ’60’s shorter pig-shaped boards allowed a tight turning circle and gave birth to other animated gestures like head dips, spinners, fin first take-offs and kick-outs. Importantly, extreme hotdoggin’ was about individualism and expression and even the minimalist master Gerry Lopez (whose Lightning Bolt famously eclipsed the dated hotdoggin’ of Matt Johnson in Big Wednesday) had the side-slip – which was a hotdoggin’ move – at the heart of his revolutionary tuberiding armoury.

Saunton Sands in North Devon has become the UK beachbreak home for

the expressive style of Malibu hotdoggin’, where white-hot locals such as Juliet Marlow fine-tune their wonderful footwork and timing. The long, tapered rights offer a smooth canvas for expression and have spawned a host of outstanding hotdoggers, such as powerful Xcel and Surftech rider Ashley Braunton and polished Gul rider Ben Haworth. Saunton was an early hub of the longboard resurgence in the UK, with the Chapter Hotdoggers (formerly the Redwood Club) formed in 1984 and later hosting the ever-popular Chapter Longboard Classic. In 1997 the club became The Hotdoggers under the leadership of Norman Wright, a top-class judge, stylish surfer and tireless organiser. It was the first modern longboard surf club in the country and membership spiralled. Today, it offers a nexus for national longboarding through monthly gatherings, barbeques and steamy music nights. It is also a crucial platform for a talented pool of junior surfers such as Alex Maddocks, Zak Lawton, Liam Meneer, Lewis Stritch and Angus Murray to gather confidence for the international leagues, maintaining a vital cultural art form.

The brilliantly run contests cater for all abilities, with ‘Underdog’ events for non-sponsored riders. The welcoming approach has given The Hotdoggers major kudos in national longboarding for pro’s, old timers, families and first-timers. Head judge is South Devon’s Bob Freshwater, the only Briton behind the glass-panel on the European Tour of Longboarding and therefore tuned in to the latest developments in the sport. Accompanied by Norman Wright and Greg Robinson, the judging calibre is exceptional. In the first event of the season, the hotly contested open division was won by Ashley Braunton, then Ben Haworth, fresh back from winter training in Bali and Australia, won the second event.

“There were some great performances in all divisions at both events,” said Ashley. “In the masters Paul Keenan stole the show, then Steve Carter took a win. In the junior division Zak Lawton showed his true potential with tight turns and smooth noserides in both events. In the women’s division, reigning champion Hazel Aylett won the opener, and Karma Worthington

the second event. There is fantastic camaraderie between the surfers from all over the country. The standard gets higher each year and we get really good support from the sponsors Errant Surf Travel, Second Skin and Dudley’s.” Recently, Ben’s father Andy Haworth has produced and edited a superb new longboard flick called Devon Lanes and Longboards, with original music by Chris Warner. It has just premiered at the Bristol Surf Show and features most of the UK’s top longboarders. “It’s a film born out of a love of surfing and an appreciation of North Devon, its waves, its people and its places,” says Andy. “The motivation was stimulated by the awful news last year that my sister was diagnosed with secondary cancer. I wanted to show her my love and support. So I made and dedicated this film to her fight against cancer and to donate all the profits from the sales to a charity of her choosing.“

Check out hotdoggers.co.uk and born2surf.info

THE SAUNTON BASED HOTDOGGERS ARE THE REIGNING INTER CLUB CHAMPIONS AND THE BIGGEST LONGBOARD CLUB IN THE UK

THE LONG, TAPERED RIGHTS OffER A SMOOTH CANvAS fOR ExPRESSION

W O R D S S A M B L E A K L E Y / A S H E L Y B R A U N T O N / A N D Y H A W O R T H P H O T O S C H R I S B R U N T

Left to right: Hotdoggers President Norman Wright; Saunton stylemasters at a Hotdoggers club event

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J O I N T H E R I D E

THE NEW BI MONTHLY LONGBOARDMAGAZINE....

ISSUE THREE OUT JULY 23RD

feedback to [email protected]

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longboarding & freeride surfing mag 2 march 2010

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Transcript of longboarding & freeride surfing mag 2 march 2010