I found the Warshaw article particularly interesting this
week, having watched the movie Kon Tiki in
theatres a lot of the ideas were fresh in mind. The nature of the origins of
surfing act a very nice paring with the story of Thor Heyerdahl and his
amazing, dangerous adventure. Another link I find quite interesting is that the
final leg of their journey as they are entering a Polynesian island, requires
them to ride a wave over the jagged rocks that would no doubt destroy their
ship and kill them. Much like surfing they have to time the right wave that
they want to use in order to achieve the feat.
It also seems the dissention that Pomar’s article caused is
a common reaction to changing the lore and past of any practice or sport, but it
is actually quite surprising when looking at the kind of ethos and mentality
that surfing generally promotes. The care free spiritual side of surfing would
appear to connect rather well to the original practice, being that of a
survival instinct or trade. It could be that because fishermen once relied on their
board for mobility to catch fish, a designation could then be bought to the act
of modern surfing as being an elitist activity. Turning a survival skill into a
hobby would suggest that the originators of what we call modern surfing where
of a class where money or even craft and skill were not inherent to one’s
survival. This was I’m guessing when surfing was trying to create its own
modern idol’s rather than hailing ancient civilizations. It’s often hard for
people to realize that people were able to think of an idea before they had the
novel thought, it would seem that for this case the absurd idea to try and
stand on a floating piece of wood was a mammoth feat of modern ingenuity.
Being quite a newcomer to the surfing culture it does strike
me how little of the now proven history in Polynesian roots is used in the
marketing and imagery promoted by successful surf companies. The deep lineage
of the sport seems to be fixated on promoting the idea of a person wrapped up
in a wave of majesty. I do wonder what the image of a peasant desperately hunting
for his dinner would do to the sport.
I'm looking forward to start exploring the music and films next week.
Zach -
ReplyDeleteThese are some compelling comments. I like the notion of modern surfing being viewed as elitist because it is no longer 'inherent to one's survival'; however, surfing itself in Hawaii was not a means of survival (beyond the social self) as was the case in Peru with the use of caballitos to catch waves back to shore after fishing. The Hawaiians would have used their outrigger canoes for fishing - not their surfboards. Still, your thoughts are poignant, and in a sense, despite the inexact fit of your original analogy as to why surfing is an elitist pursuit, the label is fitting because the mastery of surfing takes an inordinate amount of leisure time - which not only means having a lifestyle that enables such free time, but often the ability to travel internationally, buy new equipment, etc. Surfing likes to envision itself as a past time that is literally 'free' for the taking (like skateboarding, all you need is a board) as opposed to something like snowboarding where you have to buy a lift ticket, etc. I'm particularly interested as to how the new trend of artificial wave parks will change this conception of being 'free' in the future...