Want To Get Barreled? Try Superstition

There’s an entire taxonomy of superstition: touching wood, saluting magpies, holding your breath past graveyards, crossing fingers.

Essentially, a series of nano-religions based on the hope that one can steer clear of harm’s way, unjinxed. And, as far as surf travel is concerned, unskunked.

Fingers Crossed, Tosh Tudor’s new edit on his Foamballed broadcasting network, alludes precisely to that. The title nods to managing expectations, because nothing jinxes a session faster than mistimed optimism.

It’s said that early Christians crossed their fingers to recognise one another under the threat of Romans, their lions, and dinner parties with awkward endings.

Here, you get the sense that Tosh and Koldo Illumbe — two light, loose-limbed goofyfoots with impeccable taste in round waves — could reinvent the gesture not just as a makeshift amulet but as a kind of secret handshake, earned only after logging double-digit minutes inside those very waves.

Tosh, son of Joel, keeps adding to his PhD in tube ergonomics, and his half-Basque, half-Indonesian travelling companion Koldo, with privileged access to the world’s best cold and warm-water lefts, doesn’t lag far behind.

Tosh’s unorthodox approach to tube-riding looks less functional than he proves it to be, making this and other recent edits essential educational viewing.

Trigger warning: the unexpected ear canal absorption of “Pendulum” by Sports Coach might momentarily trick you into thinking you’re rewatching Zipper with Chippa, Eithan, and Taro. You’re not.

But feel free to do so here.