“Less is more” is either the most vague, or the most profound, advice we’re ever told to apply to our surfing. It’s vague when you’re stuck in the mindset of racing through every motion, approaching each section with some extra oomph, and quite often, flailing your way through it all. It’s not pretty.
But to the contrary, there’s certainly something eye-catching about the moments on a wave spent in stillness, and those moments are most often on display in trim. And then all of a sudden it feels profound.
“Trim is really about engaging with that speed of the wave and not doing anything,” says Kassia Meador. “Making it look effortless and really, action without any action.”
For Meador, there’s a method to the madness — tried and true mechanics that can be applied to finding that sweet spot on a wave (and on your board) where your speed is maintained without actually doing…anything. No pumping, no flailing, and being comfortable with settling into stillness. It’s an obvious, unmistakable part of the craft she’s mastered, which she digs into in Kassia Meador’s Definitive Guide to Longboarding. There are some tricks and some cheats to it all that she explains but, style points aside, Meador has a way of explaining what looks like doing nothing as a functional part of making sections you’d otherwise miss without trimming.
“Trim is really about engaging with that speed of the wave and not doing anything. Making it look effortless and really, action without any action.” Kassia Meador in her fave parallel stance while trimming.
“It’s really when, on a shortboard, a lot of people pump to get speed,” she says. “But really trimming is taking one or two steps up to the middle of the board and just kinda standing there because, with a longboard, the inertia of the wave is what’s gonna push you. And if you’re in the middle of the board, that’s when you’re engaging with the inertia in the best possible capacity.”
Access Kassia Meador’s Definitive Guide To Longboarding now.
