The Lowdown on Longboarding in Cooler magazine
By Sam Bleakley
Piano rolling, sax, bass and drums in synch, the trumpet sets loose on a snaking improvisation. The timing is perfect, syncopated, just behind the beat: invention, not imitation. If the pulse of jazz is the ocean swell, then the trumpeter is the longboard surfer improvising against that backdrop, not by stating the obvious, but by creating space through style. Good longboard surfing on 9 feet boards is a mirror of good jazz – the pauses, the tones, the beats, the walk. Most importantly, don’t get fussy – understatement with precise timing always beats flashy overstatement. Smooth flowing longboarders like Californians Joel Tudor and Kassia Meador do not just play the tune straight, but hint at it with sideways glances, subtle intonations, moves away from the beat, long arcing silences punctuated by perfectly timed clusters of blue notes, or just a single shimmering note suspended in space, like hanging ten.
Nose riding is what sets longboarding apart from other forms of surfing. It involves walking up the board in crossed steps to hang five, or role all five toes over the front of the board. The ‘hang ten’ is the defining dance, the finest statement of balance. Similar to riding the tube, time on the nose seems to expand and happen in slow motion. “Noseriding gives you a perfect sensation of weightlessness,” says Australian pro Belinda ‘Bindy’ Baggs. “It reminds me of how a bird rides the back draft of the wind, gliding.”…
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About Sam Bleakley
I am a freelance writer and professional surfer from Sennen, West Cornwall, in the UK. I specialise in surf exploration projects with renowned photographer John Callahan, and have undertaken groundbreaking trips to the likes of Algeria, Liberia, Kenya, Oman, South Korea, Hainan, Palawan and the Maluku Islands. Surf writing has led me to visit close to fifty countries in a decade. My roots, however, remain in Penwith, where I live with my family above Gwenver beach, close to Land's End, the westernmost tip of Britain - next stop Novia Scotia.
I have an MA in Geography from Pembroke College, the University of Cambridge. I have been a multiple European and British Longboard surfing Champion, and a regular competitor on the Oxbow World Longboard Tour. I am widely published and featured in international magazines and newspapers ranging from Resurgence to Action Asia to The Cornishman, and a regular contributor to The Surfer's Path. I have studied and taught travel writing courses and guest lecture on aspects of surfing, travel, writing and geogrphy in further and higher education. I edited The Surfing Tribe: a history of surfing in Britain, and I currently edit Longboarding & Freeride - a new supplement to Wavelength magazine.
My first book, Surfing Brilliant Corners, details a decade of extreme global surf travel, illustrated by John Callahan. Surfing, jazz, geography, ecology and cultural studies mix as I journey to Mauritania, locked in political strife, where landmines litter access to some of the best waves on the planet; and Haiti, which captures my heart and makes it race as if falling in love.
