Can A CT Veteran Fix My Dogshit Roundhouse?
Why adult surf improvement is embarrassing, slow, humbling, and probably worth it.
At some point it dawns on you.
“You’re probs not going to be a pro surfer.”
For me, mercifully, it happened pretty early. A stack of last place finishes in the U/16 Wahu Surfer Groms Comps eventually created enough downward pressure to slice through any illusions of a trajectory to the big leagues.
Ethan Ewing, my exact age and someone I regularly stalked on Facebook, also had a deceptively unremarkable junior career. There was, to be clear, no equivalency. As Bede Durbidge remarked, “he’d figured out the practical side of surfing already. He just needed the theory.”
Soon enough he’d be waxing World Champs and qualifying for the world tour. Meanwhile, I’d just landed a job at Bondi Surf Co, hanging up piss-soaked tourist wetties for $8.50/hour.
In any event, it’s been a minute since I last caught the train from Bondi Junction to Cronulla to do surf coaching with Matt Griggs, one-time coach of Mick Fanning and Taylor Knox, to service an underwhelming grom career.
Fast-forward about 15 years and I find myself in Byron Bay, getting kneebarred by a handsome, sandy-blonde brown belt. It was a no-gi class, and he’d waltzed in wearing a WSL rashie and Ugg boots.
“Cute rashie,” I remarked, thinking he must’ve been a kooky WSL merch purchaser. “Where’d you get it?”
Awkwardly, he muttered, “Ah, it’s mine. I used to be on tour actually…”
The embarrassment likely landed on both ends. Me, working at Stab, and not knowing that Luke is one of Sam Mc’s closest friends, of former Top 5 CT glory. And on his side, having to explain to a surf writer that he was once a tour surfer, and that he would never willingly fork out cash to buy a WSL rashguard.
A few fistbumps, ooses, and triangles later, Luke and I were strangle friends. And when he finished building out his Blackball Surf Coaching Program and wanted some love on Stabmag.com, we decided I should guinea pig it, and editorialize my firsthand experience.
The first part of the process was simple: set a goal. My north star? A Taylor Knox/Caity Simmers-style roundhouse cutback. A classic, long drawn out cutback to rebound. Still timeless, when executed correctly.
If I were to describe my surfing style, it would be: flicky, rushed, and front-footed. Part of my desire to do a roundhouse was to deprogram my tendency to cut turns short, jam in as many as possible, and actually set and hold a rail.
In short: slow the fuck down and create space.
So off Luke and I went to Broken Head to do our first sesh together. The waves: about 3 feet, clean and peaky. My weapon of choice? A 5’9″ Sharp Eye Synergy pin tail, 26L, with the most hideous flouro/texter spray you’ve ever seen.
For context: I’d almost exclusively been riding weird boards for several months prior. A Luke Daniels asym, a Simon Jones Remote location, and a trusty beak-nosed CI Black Beauty. I mention the alt quiver not to sound au courant, merely to reinforce the very real fear of judgment that creeps up on you when a CT veteran is filming you and you haven’t ridden a high-performance shortboard in months.
I’ll spare you the details. I did some turns, got a baseline and received some handy tips. Namely: don’t bottom turn so hard into a roundhouse, head much further out to the shoulder before beginning roundhouse, keep my right arm closer to the rail, and finish the turn high on the rebound with my left arm elevated to open up my torso.
Humbling was the gist of my tape analysis. They say the camera adds 10 pounds. But with surf footage, it tends to subtract about 10 points of your heat total.
That’s not such a bad thing, I decided, after an underwhelming first performance. This is the BEFORE. The AFTER will have the feel-good energy of watching an obese person shed 100 kegs.
Next up was a crash course in surf-specific movements via the Blackball training app. UE? Wonderful. Plus, all the movements map on to very particular kinds of turns you’re likely to try.
I pride myself on my double-jointed elasticity, one particular hip mobility exercise however, revealed it had been at the expense of my hip flexors, which had all the horsepower of a Fiat 500.
For two weeks I rose each morning in the dark, grunting through my limb bends, trying not to wake my sleeping partner. I was steadfast in preparing for my climax. A few rounds of hip thrusts will do that to you.
Sadly, about two days prior to my roundhouse 2.0 follow-up session, a purple belt sprawled on me, my heel twisted up in his rashguard, ripping a Grade I tear in my Achilles tendon. My hyper-mobile ankle joints were crushed and soon swollen and purple.
Making matters worse, I was about to head to Virginia Beach for Stab High, followed by a week in NYC.
‘Fuck it, I’ll just run it’, I declared, nursing a tender hoof the weekend of my departure. Coming into ‘magic’ May is a tough time to be sidelined on the East Coast of Oz, and a fresh pulse of swell had the bay’s froth-levels at high tide.
This time I hobbled down brandishing a 6’4” flax Ian Byrne twin fin with a channel bottom and swallow tail, which I may or may not have stolen from Dave Rasta’s EAST project.
My board selection thinking was twofold: my ankle’s fucked, so I didn’t want to hop on a refined, zippy shortboard. The other part was: if I can’t lay a rail, maybe I can blame the board?
I’ll be blunt: it wasn’t a home run. I was able to do one turn I didn’t absolutely hate though. Having said that, I also wouldn’t quite call it a roundhouse.
“A lot of people expect massive gains in coaching. But the reality of surfing is, marginal improvements are meaningful,” explained Luke diplomatically, detecting the disappointment in my voice. “Surfing is hard. We’re a low rent sport compared to most. You just have to focus on improving 1% every day.”
So, what does this all mean, dear Stab reader?
Well, if I may offer up my two cents, I’d say periodically getting feedback on your surfing is incredibly useful and motivating. The small stuff sticks with you. Consistently showing up and actively trying to improve might not make surfing more fun in the frictionless, childlike sense. But it does make it richer. You start seeing the wave differently. You start noticing the small failures before they become baked-in.
As for Luke’s Blackball product and teaching style, it feels like the rare surf-coaching apparatus not built around guru fog. It’s clear, specific, generous, and refreshingly light on “feel the ocean’s energy” bullshit. He tells you what you’re doing, what it’s costing you, and what to try next.
It won’t make you 17 again and it won’t make you Ethan Ewing. But it might stop you from surfing every wave like you’re late for a Jetstar flight.
Get Blackball training for 50% off here.
