
This is a fascinating interview with Matt Warshaw on quitting surfing.
It prompted a lot of thoughts, not least 'At last! Someone else! Someone who understands!'
I haven't quit surfing. Of course I haven't. It's just that, er, I don't really surf anymore. There are various reasons:
- I lost my confidence after neck surgery 10 years ago;
- Even when I battled to get it back, other injuries came along. I broke two ribs surfing about seven years ago, and I now have a shoulder that's so wrecked (from skate-related dislocations in my youth) that I'm expecting total shoulder replacement surgery;
- Four or five years ago I went through a mid-life upheaval which left me (a) broke and (b) with a gorgeous daughter.
These things conspire to make the choice between earning money and being with my daughter, against going for a confidence-bereft surf which will literally result in physical pain, no contest.
But as Matt put it a couple of weeks back in his very readable EoS blog, if you step away from surfing, people will say you were never a real surfer. Your heart wasn't ever in it. You weren't the real deal. You were a pretender.
Imagine saying this of a footballer. Just an amateur one, not a pro:
"I hear that Alex Wade isn't turning out for the Dynamo Choughs anymore. Or even playing five-a-side. Not in Cornwall or in London. Nowhere. He is simply not on any pitch."
"Really? Well, it doesn't surprise me. I don't think he ever really was a footballer."
"I agree. Granted, he played the game since he was 11, for his schools, university and local sides wherever he lived, but he wasn't really playing football."
"Exactly. He was pretending."
"Just like that bloke - what's his name?"
"David Beckham?"
"Yes, that's him. Played all those games for England, and then stopped. Just stopped playing!"
"And therefore forfeited any right to be described as a footballer."
"And revealed that, all along, he was pretending."
But I haven't quit surfing. I'm still a surfer. It's just that I don't get in much. If at all.
And you know what? Not surfing is OK.
Pictured courtesy of Mike Newman: someone pretending to have been boxing training. Who never really boxed.