The Swell Gods give, and the Swell Gods take. This axiom has been splendidly illustrated over the past five days. For four of them, up to and including my Christmas Day surf, my surfing has been fluid, smooth, effortless and highly skilled. Well, maybe not, but it's been OK. I've had some great waves with the 6"9' shaped for me by Jonty Henshall, and enjoyed a longboard session, too. Then, yesterday, it all went south. I paddled out and had a nightmare. Backache, excessive festive turkey (is there any other kind?), a strong sideshore wind and even stronger rip all combined to make for one of the worst sessions of the year. C'est la vie.
But the Swell Gods also furnished me with some fine presents, not least Tubular Swells, from Harry, and a DVD of QPR's infamous 1967 League Cup win over West Brom, from my sister-in-law. I also found myself in possession of a book, prior to yesterday's disaster surf, that I'd have said I was just about ready to read: Jim Kempton's Surfing: The Manual - Advanced. Now I'm not in the category of surfer who's mystified because he can't quite get his tail slides and fin drifts right (and nor will I ever be), and so illumination on these aspects of surfing is interesting but not exactly tailored to my needs, but I am someone who wants to know why, the other day, when I pulled off three nice, low bottom turns in a row, hitting the top of the wave twice and coming off the top with speed each time, I managed to sink into the lip on the last off-the-top. Yes, I completely stalled the rail and fell off to go ignominiously over the falls, a sad end to what had been a good wave. Kempton's book has plenty of step-by-step stuff on how to avoid bogging rails, as well as descriptions of things that many of us will take for granted - for example, weighting and unweighting the board, looking where you want the board to go and how to get late take offs right - but whose physics and physiology it's nice to see explained.
Many household name surfers do the explaining - the likes of Brad Gerlach, Andy Irons, Kely Slater, Tom Curren and Taj Burrow, to name but a few - and for a great many of the chapters I had that "Oh, I get it now" feeling. That's not to say that today's surf will be any better than yesterday's - as I say, what the Lord of Swell gives, he is just as likely to take - but it is to say that this book is a fine addition to any intermediate surfer's library, one which will inspire you as much as it'll help you. Just one thing, though - there's a chapter on towing in, and I can't help but feel that if anyone contemplating towing in at, say, Aileens, is reading this by way of preparation, he or she shouldn't give up the day job.
I just ordered it this from Amazon. I'm so stoked! ...This Christmas break is driving me crazy!
Posted by: Mike | December 27, 2008 at 07:18 PM
That book sounds awesome, glad it lived up to expectations!
Oh yeah theirs an article in the latest surfers journal, on a surf trip taken to the Faeroe islands. Apparently theirs 1 local their as well whose proper into his whale killing. His explanation of the ethics of cetecean slaughter reminded me of the orkadians philosophy (according to tom anderson in riding the magic carpet) of "its our business to mind are our own business and ignore whats going on in the rest of the world, unless it affects us directly"
Posted by: Mark T | December 29, 2008 at 06:42 AM
Surfing: The Manual can currently be bought direct from wave-finder.com with a 10% discount on the cover price.
Posted by: Jim Michell | December 30, 2008 at 05:51 AM