Given to Fly.


For many years mainstream surfing has become focussed with what goes on above the lip, rather than on the wave itself.  Whether looking through a magazine, or surfing locally, the surfing, or should I say the younger surfing crowd have gone crazy for the aerial, or air as it is now better known as.

Now, let me first say that I am not against aerials, not at all, in fact in the late 80’s, during the Wave Warriors era when Matt Archbald and Christian Fletcher were pioneering them, I genuinely thrilled by the new school surfing that they represented.  Things went a little quite on this front after the initial flurry of interest, partly because in a competitive sense they were still frowned upon and scored accordingly, and in the local context, it was that they were just so darned hard to do!


Rusty surfboards did a movie called 'Just Surfing', which I saw when it came out in '91.  This featured a free surfing section with a blistering sound track provided by the Smashing Pumpkins and some amazing aerial antics to boot.  These were not the blast offs as perfected by Christian Fletcher and Archy, but more technical, flicky moves that were more a kin to skating, or even snowboarding of the time.  I think it was Shane Williams, but I might be wrong and a quick Google yielded no results, but anyway, I was so inspired by what I saw.  The airs were done in small shore break waves, where the guy was propelling forward of the lip, rather than above it, and managing to turn over 180 degrees before landing in the flats. Cool stuff.

Fast forward a few years to the mid-nineties, and they remerged in a big way.  For by now people were doing them right in front of me, or over me as was often the case.  I recall surfing at Rest Bay, Porthcawl in the autumn of 96, the waves were good and the local rippers were out in force.  They were good, really good, and to this day I remember one of the guys launching to a ridiculous height as I was paddling out, I looked back to see him land it too, solidly and sure footed.  I can’t remember the name of the guy, but I was impressed.  In fact I was so stoked that I think the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

But then it all went a bit silly after that, the magazines were full of seemingly massive airs, but the illusion was sullied when it became apparent that many of the featured moves were being made possible by jet ski tow ins in to relatively small waves.  Worse than that was what was happening at a local level, here guys were making the air their one and only move.  For me there are few things worse, in surfing, than see someone miss so much potential for moves on a perfect wave, tick taking along it before attempting something that would be construed as an air.  Had they actually left the wave, while still being attached to their board with at least one foot, it might be described as an air, but since invariably neither of these factors were apparent, I would say not.  Back when I was a grom these were called flying kick outs, yet they were now being called ‘airs’.  Hmmn, I'm not so sure.

Anyway, these days there are many people who have got good at them, and while I still find it a little grating when guys make it their only focus, I cannot help but be stoked to see a good one, when pulled off with style and technical merit.  That said, they still look pretty lame when seen static in photos, for without seeing the entire wave, or at least the full sequence of the air in question, there is no way of telling whether it was landed, and more often than not, they translate as being a bit clumsy.  And above all else, they have to be done well and executed with not only style, but with conviction for them to work for me.


Mind you, I still can’t do them and have long since given up trying, so who am I to judge!

 

 



Photo: Larry Flame
 
 
 

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