Riding Sliding Ass

Smiles and Wiggles Everyone (sliding wiggles from my longboard, at any rate),

So, sometimes, a girl just has to make do. And, from that, it's kind of neat, some truly beautiful things can happen. Magical things. Things that make a girl go, woo hoo!!!

I happen to be sitting here waiting for a new fin to arrive for my beautiful Wingnut longboard. In the meantime, the only option I have, just also happens to be about one of the best ways there is to really get a feel to your surfing. Riding finless. Or, as it was known back in the day, Riding Sliding Ass.

Few, I'd imagine, have tried it, at least in today's world, and of those who have, fewer still have really worked it, I'd imagine.

Now then, such an idea really isn't my fault, it was born out of necessity in my case, I need a fin. Now. Today. But, just as with yesteryear, the story was the same to a certain degree, only that back then, fins hadn't yet been developed. According to a truly incredible book and one of my favorites, The Encyclopedia of Surfing by Matt Warshaw (every surfer so totally needs a copy, by the way),  fins were developed about 1935 but didn't really get popular until the mid-1940's.

So, my experiments in my finless days I'm going through are taking me back to round about WWII. Wow, I could just imagine myself back then, out at Waikiki or someplace beautiful like that, probably as a nurse in the army or some such thing, I'd imagine. And, a girl who rode the waves. Sure, there probably weren't many, but I'd love to think I'd have been one of them.

Which brings me to my surfing fantasy. A lone girl at some military base somewhere, pre-Pearl Harbor - thus, happier more care-free times, and me, after hours, out with my longboard, without a fin or a skeg, as I understand they would in a few years come to be known.

Riding Slide Ass. I love the sound of that. More so, I love the art that comes from it. For who of us today really try to ride this way. On purpose!!! Sure, there's that totally awesome scene in the super surf movie North Shore where the main character learns to ride a skegless wooden board (oh how I love that movie- I so need a surfing mentor like he had, wow, well, a girl can at least dream I guess). - Sigh -   I digress. Sorry about that. Back on topic, even though, I hadn't really slide that far off. :)  - on an aside, I'll watch North Shore tonight again. Sort of a moral imperative, I think.

Okay, back to Riding Slide Ass. What can it teach? And how? And why? And what can it bring to a girl's surfing? Goodness, what fun questions.

The main thing one learns is about feel. True feel. Really sensing the board. It's a way to pay attention deeply to the rails, to learning to use them ever so subtly.  And, it's about weighting the board. Both for and aft. Finding that perfect release spot. Working in millimeters in fractions of seconds. It's all about feel.

Without a skeg or latter, a fin, or now, lots of fins like some boards  have, the rear end tends to, slide ass. It's actually a pretty groovy feeling. Sure, you can't turn like you're used to, but that doesn't mean you can't put in the hours to see just what you can learn to do. And that's where the art comes in. That's where the challenge lies.

Sure, I could have stayed home today watching the mail, hoping and praying for a fin. But, what fun that? More stoke comes from learning and riding and simply being out there with the waves.

I think for a lot of us, we've gotten away from straight in riding like they used to do in those long gone WWII days. But what joys back then in that type of surfing. Okay, sure, I'm a romantic, I admit it. But in that, I find creativity and a love of simple things. Like my current finless longboard.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley