The
FutureSurfing
Time To Embrace Our History
By
of
S
Robert ‘Nat’ Young
1966 World Champion
urfing is not like other sports, our background is totally different, much more colourful; we should be proud of that uniqueness and not try to paint it as something it is not. At our birth in Hawaii we rode waves for fun; we got together for Surf Meets. These gatherings bought different families from all over Hawaii to share food, music, and waves. History tells us it was not uncommon to have three generations surfing together; in Australia we are just reaching that level. From the turn of the century, through the wars, up through the 60s we were the misfits, the beatniks, the pacifists, and the radicals who did not want to learn sports bound by rules, surfing was freedom, surfers fled the surf clubs en masse in the 60s. So no matter how hard organisations and sponsors try to stuff surfing in a box to make us palatable to the masses something will always be hanging out. Surfing in Australia should own up to our history, embracing the qualities and intrinsic values that got us to where we are today. There should be no whitewashing of how we got here. I believe that someone starting out should really understand
what they are getting themselves into when they first paddle out! As soon as the kid pushes his skateboard into a ramp they are riding the energy we know as surfing and will probably be hooked for the rest of their lives. Unfortunately I did not get to know Duke Kahanamoku. He was too old by the time I met him and conditions were not right to ask him any relevant questions about the essence of surfing. He was either presenting me with a new Chevy for the ’66 World Title or, a few years earlier, first prize for the ’63 Australian championships at Bondi. I did however meet a contemporary of Duke’s, Tom Blake, one of our founding fathers. Tom Blake died in 1994 aged 93. Luckily for me we got to hang out together at San Onofre for two days just a few months before he died. The words of wisdom he shared on the beach in California convinced me that my path was right. I dedicated my History of Surfing book to him. Nature = God was the subtitle for his Voice of the Atom manuscript that he presented to me on our parting. Who is Tom Blake you ask, what was his significance to surfing? Well he is the man credited with being the first person to put a fin on a surfboard, he told me he based that understanding on what he learnt from sailplanes, watching birds and nature. The same way George Greenough later discovered the elements of what made a fin work, by feeling the foils on tuna fish. The Voice of the Atom concludes that, Nature = God and God is Nature. Therefore surfing is a spiritual activity. This was what Tom Blake taught me. If you follow the surfing life, it will become your religion, you will try to do it as much as possible; immersing yourself in water will help solve all your worldly problems. If you continue down this rabbit hole eventually you will find that surfing will lead you to question the values that society has ingrained upon you; you will be
Pioneers – Simon Anderson, MP’s mum Joan Peterson and Nat Young at