Not good enough for you, eh? he niggles as he skips down the Nth Av stairs, board underarm. I’m walking up the stairs buzzing after a 10min body bash. I feel bloody amazing, what’s he on about?
It takes a few seconds to register that because I didn’t surf on a board, he thinks I’ve deemed the conditions subpar. Not good enough for a proper surf.
Well I’ve had a bad hip so I haven’t surfed for a while, I say.
Oh well I won’t rub it in then, he says with a grin and sprints off.
The guy is a school dad. One of the talk it up types; surfing 8 footers, getting barreled and the like. Yet surfs like he’s hanging a bog. Fucken kook. I’m a hack but at least I know it.
I don’t have a bad hip. I’ve actually had a debilitating run of persistent pelvic and bladder pain and haven’t ridden a board or done much apart from walk in the last 6 months. Too many years treating my body like a garbage bin, combined with 3 births in under 4 years and my rig has packed it in. It’s been humbling. And necessary if I’m honest. The pain has been slowly dissipating and I’m back in the water bodysurfing.
It’s intriguing that this man views the experience of bodysurfing as secondary to surfing. It’s a vibe I’ve got quite a bit lately. Like, placing yourself in a vertical position on a wave is somehow superior to being horizontal: bodysurfing, mat riding, knee boarding etc. A literal hierarchy: the higher you are, the better. Actually, nah…foils and SUPs are vilified by the purists.
Despite the myriad of craft (and absence of craft) embraced by many, there are still streams of bigotry in surf culture, even if the messages are subtle. Or not subtle at all. I know a mum whose son was enjoying riding waves prone. She told him to STAND UP! Laying down or kneeling is not surfing! No room for cripples or gut sliders in that camp.
I know a lot of surfers that have learned as adults. I’m one of them. But I find it a curious thing that very few of them bodysurf. I’m not sure why. Perhaps a lack of swimming confidence. I’m biased as I grew up swimming and bodysurfing as a nipper despite living an hour from the beach, but a body bash is to me the most free and unencumbered way of catching waves. Trying to surf without knowing how to bodysurf seems like trying to run without knowing how to walk.
But bodysurfing is not that sellable. Or fashionable. And perhaps that’s the thing — for many there’s a greater investment in the image of being a surfer than there is in the actual experience of riding a wave. Ostensibly, watching someone bodysurf is not as visually pleasing as watching a surfer atop a board. There’s not as much happening above the water. But that immersion is what makes the felt experience of bodysurfing something else entirely.
You are more in the ocean, than on it. Able to see the eddies and foam spirals underneath broken waves as you claw your fingers into the sea floor; the span of your body elongated by the passing swell. Eyes and ears on the surface of the water you can hear the audible Schweppes like fizz of foam. And the occasional ripple of fear that comes with being immersed without a shield.
You’re disguised by the water and take up minimal space in the lineup. So much of surfing is posturing and positioning — taking up space. Making your presence felt. But when swimming, you’re just a bobbing head. Stealthily kicking around a couple of metres from a surfer, you’re a benign presence — not a threat.
There’s no bogged rails or botched take-offs. Getting throttled and rolled is part of the game. Though bodysurfing was my way into the ocean, I had often neglected its simple thrill as an adult in pursuit of getting better at surfing.
Recovering from a state of pain led me back to the ease of bodysurfing. The ugliness of my obsessive and competitive tendencies dissolved when a board was removed from the surfing equation. Navigating lineup dynamics, performance anxiety and harsh self-criticism all but gone.
Heaps of surfers say they always feel better after a surf. I’m not one of them. I’ve had some crackers of course. I love surfing. But not always. I’ve had surfs where I’ve come in wanting to smash something or someone; fuming at myself for blundering a good wave or being out of position, or at some prick that despite bagging a ton, snaked me on the only bloody wave I caught. Greedy cunt.
But bodysurfing…it just always feels so good. And I don’t look like I’m hanging a bog.
(Photo by Dominick Nicholas @dom_captures)