A HISTORY OF SURFING

Surfing’s relatively speculative history began thousands of years ago in Polynesia, after settlers moved up and out of Southeast Asia, eventually making it to Hawaii around 300 A.D. With each expansion, the Polynesians brought surfing along with them.

Out of all the islands, Hawaii and Tahiti were the only places where people were using longboards and standing up while riding. Around 1200 A.D., Hawaii was the first place to really transform the sport into a popular cultural phenomenon.

Hawaiians used three main types of surfboards – the paipo, the olo and the alaia. The paipo was the smallest of the three and mainly used by kids. At 20 feet, the olo was much longer and was used by the ali’i, or the ruling class. And finally, the alaia was the most similar to what is used now; it was a smaller board – around 6 or 7 feet – but much heavier than a modern board at 45 pounds. With less weight than the olo, the alaia could be used to paddle out much easier through the oncoming, crashing waves.

Historians credit William Anderson, a surgeon on Captain James Cook’s Resolution ship, as being one of the first to document wave riding in the exploration of Polynesia in the late 1770s. While stationed in Tahiti’s Matavai Bay, Anderson observed a lone native out on a canoe and wrote:

"He went out from the shore till he was near the place where the swell begins to take its rise; and, watching its first motion very attentively, paddled before it with great quickness, till he found that it overlooked him, and had acquired sufficient force to carry his canoe before it without passing underneath. He then sat motionless, and was carried along at the same swift rate as the wave, till it landed him upon the beach. Then he started out, emptied his canoe, and went in search of another swell."

Hawaiians termed the sport “papa h’e nalu,” meaning “board for wave-sliding.” Before “surfboard,” different names in English were tried out, like “floatboard” or “bathing-board.”

In the nineteenth century, disease, political turmoil and death created a serious decline in surfing in Hawaii.

20TH CENTURY SURFING

Surfing began to flourish again during the 1900s, in large part thanks to Duke Kahanamoku, who is considered to be the “father of modern surfing.”

The foreign invasion of Hawaii had caused surfing to become almost extinct. Kahanamoku changed this. Born in Honolulu in 1890 to native Hawaiians with royal ancestry, he grew up in Waikiki with eight siblings and was constantly in and out of the water, swimming, surfing, and diving.

He was a gifted athlete, winning his first Olympic gold and silver medals for swimming at only 21 years old in Stockholm. He went on to win four more medals in future games.

After his Olympic success, Kahanamoku went on tour internationally for swimming demonstrations and fundraising efforts. In all these different places he brought surfing with him, teaching others and helping popularize the sport worldwide. These surfing exhibitions had a particularly strong effect down in Australia, in California and on America’s East Coast.

After Kahanamoku’s influence, the 60s is really when the sport came to life, and surf culture began to grow globally. This was particularly enhanced by a stream of popular surf movies released in the late 50s and early 60s, two of the most popular being Gidget and The Endless Summer.

Gidget is a fictitious, feel-good film about a Malibu teenage girl in the late 50s just beginning to take a serious interest in boys. When she meets surfer Moondoggie, she becomes interested first in him and then also in the sport, joining the local surf gang. The movie was a success and many films followed, like “Gidget Goes Hawaiian,” and a TV series that starred Sally Field. The original film helped popularize the California surfing lifestyle.

The Endless Summer – a classic, even for those not familiar with surfing – was a casual documentary film, where director Bruce Brown followed two surfers around the world in search of perfect waves. It did extremely well in the box office, creating a “cultural revolution” and inspiring so many to travel to surf. It is still regarded as one of surfing’s best movies.

Sixties surfing was a quick prelude to the 70s and 80s grunge culture that followed – like the surf/skate culture that originated in “Dogtown,” a nickname for a section of Venice in the 70s where both surfing and skateboarding became more mainstream. In the 80s surfers were characterized like Sean Penn’s classic Spicoli character in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” who says, “Surfing’s not a sport, it’s a way of life…It’s a way of looking at that wave and saying, ‘Hey bud, let’s party!’”

These years unfortunately had surfers stereotyped as being dumb, heavily interested in drugs (weed) and partying, and only caring about surfing. While the latter might be true sometimes, surfing’s debut in the Tokyo Olympics is finally a chance for many to learn about the discipline, technique, passion, endurance and talent it takes to be a truly great surfer.

SURFING NOW

Now a worldwide sport, surfing is set to debut in the Tokyo Olympics in summer of 2021, due to COVID-19 delays. The World Surf League (WSL), along with the International Surfing Association, is the primary organization that handles everything to do with surfing. WSL covers rankings, the Championship Tour, its own media coverage and other competitions. ISA deals with Olympics, anti-doping regulations, Olympic qualifying conditions, development programs and its own competitions.

The WSL grew out of the International Professional Surfers, an organization founded in Hawaii in 1976 by Randy Rarick and Fred Hemmings, who wanted to combine all the worldwide professional surfing competitions into one. In 1983 it became the Association of Surfing Professionals. And in 2015 the WSL took over the helm of global surfing, and it’s been that way ever since, headquartered in Santa Monica.

Modern boards have definitely evolved from the paipo, olo, and alaia. They can range from about five to ten feet long, with all different types of width, thickness, curve, cutouts, and more to improve whatever aspect a surfer is looking for: more speed, stability, buoyancy, responsiveness, etc.

In competitive surfing, athletes use thinner, shorter boards (around five and a half feet long) to increase maneuverability, since the athletes are judged on their ability to turn efficiently and do as many tricks as possible.

Olympic surfing will be held at Tsurigasaki Surfing Beach in Japan, an hour and a half’s drive from Tokyo.