This Is Why You Still Surf When It’s One Foot And Onshore

According to psychologists, the best way to trick someone into continuing a behavior is an unpredictable reward system. 

Intermittent compensation for certain behaviors has been shown to make those behaviors “hard to extinguish” — meaning that they persist over time, even when rewards aren’t being given anymore.

Casinos have figured that out.

Mother nature has too. 

Quite a good explanation, actually, for why I keep rocking up at the beach with a stinky wetsuit, even when it’s one-foot and onshore.

Also a good explanation for why Enzo Cavallini and Simon Levalois-Bazer named their new clip ‘Slot Machine.’

“We got skunked a few times, and we scored a few times too during the project,” filmmaker Simon says. “We figured making a surf video is kinda like putting a coin in a slot machine — sometimes you win big, sometimes you lose. At the end of the day you end up broke, like Enzo after the trip,” he laughs.

Despite having a name that sounds like an Italian Bond villian, Enzo is from Guadeloupe — an island in the French Caribbean known better for its rum than its waves. Though, the isle does have particularly consistent air wind into it’s lefts, which would explain Enzo’s backside aerial aptitude.

“I didn’t really know he could do big airs going right, because it’s all lefts in Guadeloupe,” Simon laughs. “The first session at Yoyo’s he was pretty much learning how to do frontside airs, and in the end he ended up doing some sick ones.”

The clip is filmed through Hossegor, Portugal, and Indonesia — and features a switch tube (7:31) that would make even Kauli Vaast blush.