Watch: Unclothed Tubes + How To Avoid ‘Surf Curse’

Two weeks ago, Shane Borland found himself inside a lukewarm barrel somewhere in the Outer Banks with nothing on except a bandana around his neck.

That’s right, Shane was another one of our intrepid competitors in the upcoming Stab Highway East Coast Presented by Monster Energy — a project that is no stranger to varying states of undress.

“I was expecting Highway to be gnarly, but I didn’t think it was going to be so fast-paced and non-stop with no chill time and not a lot of sleep,” Shane told us. “You wouldn’t even think about your outside life or anything. It was cool to have the only thing in your head be getting challenges done for 12 days. I even got a pretty sweet naked barrel [laughs].”

Besides threading cylinders through cylinders for Highway glory, Shane has also been steadily accumulating clips for the six-minute edit you saw at the beginning of this article.

“The project started in Australia where I stayed with Kale [Neville, Kai’s brother] and scored fun waves and filmed skating. Then I headed to Bali and broke my ankle, which meant I couldn’t skate for six months and couldn’t surf for four. So, I really only had half a year to get footage. I was tempted to just sit on all this stuff but I didn’t want to wait another year, so I decided, ‘Nope, I’m just gonna put my best clips out and start fresh. I didn’t want to get stuck.'”

I asked Shane if it’s hard these days to not just post footage up on Instagram for a quick hit, especially with pressure from sponsors. “I’ve always leaned toward saving stuff and putting out one big project instead of sending it straight to Instagram, which is hard to do sometimes,” Shane said. “But I just want these projects to feel more meaningful and not so here-today-gone-tomorrow.”

This edit, “Crossed Roads”, is one of the best examples we’ve seen in some time of concurrently blending proper street skating and excellent surfing. A surfer ridding themselves of the dreaded “surf curse” in their skating (think arms up, squatty, cringe-steeze carves) is difficult, but Shane’s been doing both endeavors his entire life and has found a way to prevent the two from cross-contaminating.

“My sponsorship deals have always been equal parts surfing and skating,” Shane explained. “Luckily RVCA and other sponsors have always been relaxed about how much I’m doing of each. I just try to spend equal time with either, depending on the waves, projects, and trip.”

I had to ask Shane — before bidding adieu — what activity scared him more: surfing a wave at the top of his comfort zone or hitting a skate feature at the top of his comfort zone.

“I’d say it’s pretty equal. The scariest thing for me in skating is jumping on a big rail, and that fear feels the same as paddling over a ledge on a big wave,” Shane said. “The fear is at similar levels but is about different things. With skating I’m worried about smacking my head on the ground and with surfing I’m worried about big waves in deep water, getting held down, and drowning.”

As Shane said before, he’s “started over” and has a new project in store for next year.

“I really just want to make a full skate part and a full surf part and put them together,” Shane said. “This video I was just working with what I had, but now that I’m healthy, I want to begin making a proper, full part. That’s my real goal right now. And just have fun doing it, of course.”

We’ll see more (all) of Shane in a few months’ time for Stab Highway East Coast. Stay tuned.