Surfing and golf share lifelong appeal, specialized equipment, obsessive dedication, and highly revered fundamentals when executed at elite levels. Golf allows repetitive practice in controlled, replicable conditions, enabling endless swing rehearsal away from real play. Surfing lacks replicable conditions; waves are elusive, finite, and change constantly, which makes practice time rare and unpredictable. In a typical hour-long surf session, riders spend roughly 50 seconds actively riding, about 1.39% of the session. Surfing relies on precise transfers of weight and energy throughout the muscular chain, and most skilled surfers achieve technique through relentless in-water repetition rather than coaching or off-water training.
But you can hit a million shots on the driving range or in front of a mirror. It's possible to replicate conditions and practice your swing over and over and over again. To a certain degree, you can practice golf in a vacuum. In surfing, you cannot. There is a magical, confounding component so elusive and finite that it adds to the sport's seduction.
In an average hour-long surf session, let's say you catch 10 waves. (That's generous.) These waves last maybe three to five seconds, quality aside. Each wave may call for different maneuvers - one for down-the-line surfing, another for vertical turns and another for patient, wrapping carves. Given these variables, you'll spend 50 seconds, at most, riding waves - for a whopping 1.39% of the total session.
The sport's foundational movements require transfers of weight and energy throughout the entire muscular chain at precisely the right moment. But in a sport with so little guaranteed action, the only way to appreciate this truth is through repetition. Most surfers of quality only stumble upon proper technique through dogged dedication. Very rarely is there any coaching involved or training outside of the water, unless you're surfing competitively. A large majority of surfers have likely only ever seen footage of themselves a handful of times.
Collection
[
|
...
]