Surfing
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WHAT IS SURFING: Surfing is a water sport in which athletes ride breaking waves into shore on a piece of specialized equipment called a surfboard. The sport has spawned a number of offshoots, including wake boarding, skim boarding, skateboarding, and windsurfing[->0], among others. In addition to being a dynamic sport which can be practiced by people at all levels of ability, surfing is also associated with a specific surfing subculture which some people aim to emulate.
On the surface, surfing is no different from any other sport. It’s a competitive, athletic activity that takes practice and physical conditioning to achieve success. Like other sports, surfing has a list of rules, a playing field, worldwide organizations dedicated to staging contests for all levels and ages, and a computation system that makes it possible to quantify how “good” one rider is in comparison to another. However, that is only one layer of the complex nature of surfing.
Surfing is also an art. The metaphor goes like this: the board is the brush, the wave is the canvas, and surfer is, of course, the painter. Like in art, each artist is unique. Each stroke of the brush is an expression of an individual style, mood, and life experience. And most artists argue that true art can not be judged, can not be calculated, and can not be categorized.
But to muddle the definition further, surfing is a lifestyle that carries with it a style of dress, a regional and global dialect, and even an encompassing approach to life’s realities. While the stereotypical image of the “surfer dude” no longer holds water, folks who have made the move from recreational rider to a life-long waterman (or woman) have a tendency to put the pursuit of good waves above most all else, making their intense dedication seem almost religious.
Okay…To try and summarize what it is to be a surfer, we need to take into consideration that a surfer might be competitive or artistic or might even live and breathe the
WHAT IS SURFING: Surfing is a water sport in which athletes ride breaking waves into shore on a piece of specialized equipment called a surfboard. The sport has spawned a number of offshoots, including wake boarding, skim boarding, skateboarding, and windsurfing[->0], among others. In addition to being a dynamic sport which can be practiced by people at all levels of ability, surfing is also associated with a specific surfing subculture which some people aim to emulate.
On the surface, surfing is no different from any other sport. It’s a competitive, athletic activity that takes practice and physical conditioning to achieve success. Like other sports, surfing has a list of rules, a playing field, worldwide organizations dedicated to staging contests for all levels and ages, and a computation system that makes it possible to quantify how “good” one rider is in comparison to another. However, that is only one layer of the complex nature of surfing.
Surfing is also an art. The metaphor goes like this: the board is the brush, the wave is the canvas, and surfer is, of course, the painter. Like in art, each artist is unique. Each stroke of the brush is an expression of an individual style, mood, and life experience. And most artists argue that true art can not be judged, can not be calculated, and can not be categorized.
But to muddle the definition further, surfing is a lifestyle that carries with it a style of dress, a regional and global dialect, and even an encompassing approach to life’s realities. While the stereotypical image of the “surfer dude” no longer holds water, folks who have made the move from recreational rider to a life-long waterman (or woman) have a tendency to put the pursuit of good waves above most all else, making their intense dedication seem almost religious.
Okay…To try and summarize what it is to be a surfer, we need to take into consideration that a surfer might be competitive or artistic or might even live and breathe the