Surfing about Music. Timothy J. Cooley
origin myths, family ties, and even a sense of spiritual connection that approaches religion. Third, since participation is driven by desire, it is also voluntary and often temporary, as already noted: members may leave the group at some stage, or move in and out of the group. One can imagine cases where desire leads to voluntary participation that then becomes involuntary through the compulsion of addiction or even economic necessity. Thus even affinity must be seen as a sliding, fluid notion, perhaps a point on a continuum somewhere between attraction and obligation or addiction.
THE FEELING OF SURFING: ONLY A SURFER KNOWS
It is an article of faith among many surfers that only a surfer knows the feeling of, well, surfing. The phrase “only a surfer knows the feeling” has been used as a successful advertisement slogan by the Billabong surfwear company, and is uttered by surfers regularly (much to the delight of Billabong; see fig. 1).17 Both my conversations with surfers and items written by surfers reveal that the meaning of the phrase goes beyond the tautology that only surfers know what it feels like to surf. Surfers describe feelings of euphoria from surfing, and this feeling is often spoken of in mystical terms: they speak of its healing power, and some find surfing spiritually redemptive. Steven Kotler takes a long look at the feelings of euphoria and spiritual awareness that surfing generates in his book West of Jesus: Surfing, Science and the Origin of Belief.18 He discovered that similar feelings of euphoria and spiritual awareness were generated by a range of extreme experiences, not just by surfing, but he starts and ends with surfing, as I do here.
The feeling of surfing is summarized by some surfers with two related but distinct terms: stoke and flow. According to Matt Warshaw’s Encyclopedia of Surfing, the term stoke comes to English from the seventeenth-century Dutch word stok, meaning to rearrange logs on a fire or add fuel to increase the heat. Surfers adopted the term in California in the 1950s. As its derivation suggests, it means to be fired up, excited, happy, full of passion. As a description of emotional experience, stoke is complemented by another term, flow, suggesting an obvious kinesthetic play of moving bodies—the movement of water and the movement of the surfer through or over water. But flow goes beyond the obvious and into the realm of optimal experience, as theorized by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in his book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.19 As Csikszentmihalyi explains, the mental state of flow is achieved through intense focus and concentration so that distractions disappear and one feels in harmony with one’s surroundings and oneself. One can experience flow when doing any number of things (including the antithesis of surfing for most surfers: working). However, I suggest that three definitive qualities of surfing create flow, and the interrelated feelings of stoke. These qualities help explain why so many surfers try to express or even replicate that surfing feeling (emotional and embodied) with music. These qualities are risk-taking, waiting, and submission.
The first definitive quality of surfing is risk-taking. The cultural act of surfing takes place in the highly volatile liminal zone between open ocean and dry land (see fig. 2). One rides a wave along a thin line of transition between a harmless swell and the dangerous impact zone of a crashing wave; the zone of bliss is balanced between safety and despair. In that zone, one generally does not make music; even conversation is minimal. Instead, it is a place of waiting and watching for the choice swell that will become the crashing wave of a surfer’s desire. Once a surfer has caught the wave and is up and riding it, she or he often compounds the risks. Experience-enhancing maneuvers, such as seeking speed in the steepest sections of a breaking wave, or even stalling to place oneself in the volatile barrel of a wave that pitches its breaking lip out over the surfer, puts the surfer at risk of a violent wipeout. It is much safer, if less exhilarating, to ride well ahead of the breaking whitewater, and to kick-out (exit) the wave early. And many surfers seek ever-larger waves that occasionally prove deadly for even the most experienced.
FIGURE 2. The liminal zone of surfing. Photograph by Chris Burkard (burkardphoto.com).
Waiting is a second quality that defines surfing, and perhaps surfers. Surfers must wait for swells, preferably generated several thousands of miles away so that the strong winds that created them are not present when the waves reach the surfers’ beach. No beach offers waves on demand. In his book Dancing the Wave, Jean-Étienne Poirier wrote that “[t]he sea has no schedule; it must be taken when it offers itself. It has its moods, and it is the surfer who must yield and accommodate them.”20 Thus, like a coy lover, the sea plays with its surfer courtiers, withholding favors or offering them at awkward times that demand sacrifice. No wonder some surfers will cancel appointments, miss work, and skip classes when the waves are good—a tendency celebrated in Holland-based surfing brand Protest’s “Drop-It-All” ad campaign (fig. 3). In my own experience, surfers struggle to balance school, jobs, relationships, families, and domestic duties with their love for the fickle ocean. Still, there is some truth in the stereotypes of surfers who are unreliable when the waves are good. The unpredictability of surfable waves does distinguish surfing from many other sports where one might schedule an outing unless the unpredictable happens (we will ride bikes Friday afternoon, unless it rains . . . ). Instead, the surfer waits for the unpredictable, the unusual—for most places—weather conditions that produce good waves.21 The surfer waits.
When the waves are good, the surfer waits again. Only the inexperienced surfer rushes into the ocean upon arrival. The seasoned surfer knows to wait—wait and watch. Read the pattern of waves and wait for the optimal time to enter the water and to paddle out through the dangerous impact zone to the spot where you anticipate catching a wave. Once outside, wait for a good set (a group of waves; ocean swells usually arrive in sets of three to five waves). Rarely is the first wave of a set the best. Less experienced surfers will scramble for the first wave, clearing the lineup (a group of surfers in position to catch a wave) for those who wait. When other surfers are out, one might need to wait one’s turn in the complexly negotiated lineup. If you don’t find your place in this set of waves, wait for the next. There’s always another wave for those who wait (fig. 4).
FIGURE 3. “Drop-It-All Sessions” ad campaign by surfing brand Protest that appeared in Huck 3, no. 15 (2009).
FIGURE 4. Surfers in Lake Superior waiting for the right wave. Photograph by Shawn Malone (LakeSuperiorPhoto.com).
A third quality in surfing is submission. The ocean is the surfer’s mistress/master and teacher. The wise surfer asks for permission to surf and never makes demands. Legendary Hawaiian surfer Paul Strauch says that he always pauses by the ocean before entering the water as he seeks permission to surf. Even when the waves are very good, if he does not sense that permission is granted, he turns around and leaves.22 Generally, however, when the waves are good, the surfer submits to the call of the ocean and, once in the water, submits again to its unbounded power. As mentioned above, a surfer must put himself or herself in harm’s way in order to catch and ride the wave. One must submit to the wave’s power, then work with—play with—that power to achieve the optimal ride or flow. The same is true when one falls while surfing—when one wipes out—especially in large waves that can twist and turn a surfer, holding her or him down for long periods. Every experienced surfer knows that there is no sense in fighting the ocean. When it is ready, the ocean will release you, and you will float or swim to the surface for air. The best survival technique is to relax, wait, and submit.
Perhaps for these reasons, surfing leads some to become contemplative—waiting for signs, listening to nature, thinking about and submitting to mysterious forces. In return, many surfers seem to find healing and even redemptive qualities in surfing, both physical and psychological. This is a common (though hardly universal) theme in surfing literature.23 The contemplative quality of surfing also leads many to talk about surfing in spiritual terms. The first decade of the twenty-first century saw an impressive output of books on surfing and spirituality.24 Comments and even feature articles