The mind’s eye doesn’t see poor balance, a rigid stance, or flailing arms. The mind’s eye sees carves so smooth and powerful John John should be taking notes. The mind’s eye would help rationalize a move to legally adopt Speed-Power-Flow as a last name cause, yeah “I was ripping so hard!” (If you’re into the whole hyphenated surname thing.)
The mind’s eye is a tricky bastard.
It sees every one of our waves as a mirror image of the clips we digest daily on social media. The out-of-body moments spent watching ourselves surf play out like a session at Pipe – only the waves are steeper, faster, and way more critical. The barrels are always bigger — or at least that’s how they exist — in the mind’s eye.
Logically, we all judge “good surfing,” or really all surfing, by what professionals put on display. It’s what we see the most, therefore it’s the status quo. That’s a dangerous bar for the laymen. It’s how surfing should look, we figure, so it’s how we imagine it all looks. But it’s unrealistic. The best most of us can hope for is enough balance and coordination to fake it through an opportune section or two, at least looking like we mean to do the things we watch others do.
But on occasion, we see our own surfing from the eyes of the real world. And I don’t care how good you actually are at surfing, there’s been at least one time you saw an image or video of yourself you absolutely hated. The mind’s eye fooled you into thinking you had a Craig Anderson thing going with that knock-knee’d stance. You didn’t. It was more like a scarecrow thing, and it was painful to look at.
Watching oneself surf can easily take the wind out of some deep, deep sails. The act is joyous and carefree in the moment and that’s a beautiful thing. But now that videographers litter every beach and 24-hour cameras are pointed at any notable break you can think of and can replay every single wave ridden, surfing doesn’t get to live exclusively in the mind’s eye for Average Joe. The temptation to sneak a peak on cam rewind is far too much when you know you nabbed a good one and can’t stop thinking about it.
“It definitely felt way better than it looked…”
Amen.
Watch more Raglan Surf Report on YouTube.
