The consumate competitor. Photo: ASP/ Kirstin Scholtz
With the circus that is the Hurley Pro at Lowers coming to San Clemente, an experience I had in the line-up a few weeks ago is on my mind. During a session at home in mediocre conditions, I was asked one of those questions surfers are asked all too often.
“Would you be a competition or free surfer?” We’ve all asked it. Admit it.
The question was asked by one of the few familiar faces in the water early one gray morning. I was stumped, which was surprising, as I have unnecessarily discussed it a thousand times. I found it hard at the time to find cons to being a competitive surfer. It’s difficult to poke a hole in getting paid to surf great waves in uncrowded line-ups around the world. At the time, it presented only positives.
“Although free-surfing seems to be the dream, the beauty of man-on-man competition cannot be forgotten,” I remember saying. “Seeing two humans exert expert skill in prime conditions, on a perfect canvas is something to behold. Seeing what a person is made of; truly matching one’s best against another’s is a beautiful dance.” I started feeling that I was getting a bit abstract and stopped there.
For the rest of that session, I couldn’t come up with a better, more opinionated answer. After one quick messy double-up head dip that allowed for a short summer barrel view, I bade my surf companion farewell and quit while I was ahead.
But I still I couldn’t help but spin circles around his question. If I had a choice to surf competitively in some of the best waves in the world and get paid handsomely to do it, would I be able to say no? Or if I had the skill, would I prefer to simply run around the globe chasing photos and video parts, earning my keep as I went? There is still an equal (or perhaps an increased) amount of responsibility to keep pumping out fresh material as a free surfer, after all.
After that session, I was driving to the surf shop where I work. I had the Billabong Pro Tahiti contest streaming on my phone. It was, as Teahupoo can be, perfect. Six to eight feet. Not a drop out of place, low tide and barreling off its face without the wildness of day one nor the warping epic perfection of the final day. Matt Wilkinson was in a heat against Adam Melling.
A set reared up and Wilkinson, with priority, stroked into a beauty. A medium-sized wave (if six feet at Teahupoo can be called “medium”), he backdoored the peak a bit, stalled, stood tall behind the aqua curtain and smoothly exited to the shoulder without hesitation or doubt.
“Smart heat here, just gaining some momentum and making Melling beat him. Really making him dig out of his grave,” said Martin Potter.
The judges gave him a 2.67. A quick clarification: it’s not the judges’ fault. They are asked to rank the best of the best – and to do so, they need to have some kind of scale. They were judging on what was simply par or even slightly below for what was available that day. Still, though, standing tall and stylishly riding a surfboard through a truck-sized tunnel of water over razor sharp coral was considered only two tenths of perfection. I had my answer right then and there.
The quick tunnel vision from that messy, sloppy, undoubtedly poorly styled cover-up that morning had prepared me for anything that day could have presented. It’s the feelings that cannot be judged. The sensation of “time slowing down in the tube,” as Shawn Tomson once said. The reality revealed itself to me. Whether one second or 30, two-foot or ten, the vision from inside a moving wall of energy is perfect.
In that moment, I drew a personal conclusion. Competition surfing, although respectable, is not what I’m interested in. Surfing was born from pure recreation. No credentials no scale, no criteria. If it was perfect to you, then it was perfect. I don’t ever need a judge to give me a two for my ten, because it’s my ten.
