Essay on History of Surfing

Imagine you are at the beach. You are laying down a towel and setting up an umbrella when something catches your eye. Out in the ocean you see a surfer catching some waves, and it looks so fun and exciting that you almost grab a board and join in. However you don’t know how to surf and would rather not embarrass yourself in front of all these beach goers. Surfing, however, isn’t complicated at all and can be accomplished in these simple steps.

One way is called a beach start and the first thing a person should do to perform this type of start would be to strap themselves to the board. The boat drives away from the beach you hold onto the rope you’re your knee boarding. The second way is the most used and I call it a deep water start. The deep water start begins with me laying on the kneeboard with the strap to my side and holding the rope out at the edge of the board. As the boat starts to pick up speed the kneeboard begins to lift up higher out the water. This happens because the tilt of the board pushes on the water causing the water to push back which gives the board its lift. While the boat is still speeding up I begin my move up the board by pulling my knees up toward my chest. As I am pulling up my knees, I slowly start to lean back on the board. This is to keep the right amount of lift while I am still getting up to speed. Now that I have my knees in the knee slots I grab the strap and secure myself to the board so I don’t fall off. Once I am settled in on the board and have the boat running about 25 mph the kneeboard and I have no problem with balance. Because of my new speed I can knee on the board and not worry about fall over. The reason behind this is simple, speed, without moving across the water kneeing down on the board was nearly impossible. Now that I am traveling across the water I have the lift from the water and a small amount of drag. In

Originating in California as a way surfers could be able to surf when the waves were flat. The original creator isn’t known as it seems that everybody seemingly came together with the idea at approximately the same time. The first manufactured skateboards were ordered in a Los Angeles surf shop in California. The shop owner Bill Richard organized with Chicago Roller Skate Company to produce skate wheels to be used with the boards. Towards the later 60’s, there was a trend of shops dedicated to skateboarding or “Street surfing” referred to at the time. The evolution of the board went from a rectangle piece of wood to resembling a surf board. As skateboarding continued to become more popular, the first skateboarding magazine, “The

When you are first learning how to surf, the weather conditions play a large part in determining your success. The ideal day for beginners includes a blue sky, a high temperature, and, most importantly, tame tides. When my cousin Lauren and I step onto the increasingly deserted beach at 5:00 pm, it quickly becomes apparent that the weather is not on our side. The sun barely peaks through the mass of gray clouds covering the sky. A breeze comes in, dropping the temperature to less-than-favorable conditions. Lauren and I look out at the ocean and can immediately tell that these waves are much bigger and much rougher than usual for this beach. Learning to surf is going to be a much bigger challenge than either of us anticipated.

Some would say it's like snowboarding, whereas others would say it's like skateboarding. I, on the other hand, believe surfing is unlike any other sport. Besides it being loads of fun and freeing your mind, it is also a great workout. Problem is, though, many people wonder how to get started and learn what to do. That's where I come in.

Being a native to Hawaii was a helpful push towards legendary status for Eddie Aikau. The act of riding waves with a wooden type board originated in Western Polynesia over three thousand years ago (The Origins of Surfing). The first Polynesian settlers to land in Hawaii were said to be skilled in simple surfing, and after a few hundred years of riding waves in Hawaii, the well-known Hawaiian form of the sport emerged (The Origins of Surfing). Eddie Aikau propelled in surfing because of his love for the ocean, his job as a lifeguard, and his first surfing competitions.

As with understanding any culture, true understanding comes from sensitivity, awareness, and lack of superficiality. To mainstream American culture in the 1960s and today, surfer dudes look lazy. They look like they do not have careers or ambitions outside of surfing the perfect wave. To conservative outsiders, surfer dudes can look like they continually evade normative responsibilities in pursuit of great waves around the world. They may even seem reckless because surfing, while exhilarating, is a very dangerous sport. Surfer dudes, particularly big wave surfer dudes put their lives at risk each time they go out for a surf. It may look like they are needlessly putting themselves in harm's way for the sake of a fleeting thrill. These are some facts about surfer dude culture, but these facts do not provide a substantial context within which to fully perceive and understand

Surfing: Cardio, conditioning. Surfing requires constant core balance and upper body strengthening by paddling. It's similar to an interval-type workout because you are paddling for waves, popping up on your feet, and maintaining full body motion with balance. This activity strengthens and requires various muscle groups.

Skateboarding was probably born sometime in the late 1940s or early 1950s when surfers in California wanted something to surf when the waves were flat. These first skateboarders started with wooden boxes or boards with roller skate wheels attached to the bottom. The boxes turned into planks,

It isn’t clear how the Polynesians actually discovered surfing, but we can all conjecture. Assuming that these ancient people were familiar with paddling in the ocean, they surely understood that while paddling with a swell, one could feel the next wave building behind them. As the wave begins to peak, it pulls you down, and then draws you up, then allowing one to fall along the face of the wave, skipping forward across the surface. It seems to be the best guess that surfing started much like that, a fisherman catches a lift to shore

Oddly, one of the newest of professional sports, bowling is one of the most ancient. In one form or another bowling has been around for more than 7,000 and years. First traces of the sport were discovered in Egyptian tombs, but historians feel that cavemen may well have had been the originator. Having the first form of

I grew up loving everything about the ocean because I spent so much time playing and swimming in the sea and during all that time, I have never come across waves of this size with this amount of wild seahorses. The first time I surfed, I couldn’t even position myself to catch the wave, let alone stand on the board without falling back into the ocean. It looked so easy but was much harder to control the surfboard than what I expected. I was, however, determined to surf properly and after trying many times, I eventually succeeded and I loved it so much that I could not stop.

Boaters and beachgoers surely have noticed that paddleboarding, standing on a board, similar to a surfboard, and propelling oneself using a long paddle, has become extremely popular. In fact, paddleboarding is currently the fastest growing watersport in the world. Even so, there is little information available on the subject of paddleboard safety.

“In surfing, water streams past the hand and can cause what’s called lift force. Lift force can only be created when I my hand is a curved surfaces designed, which gives the best ratio of lift to drag. When the water passes over the hand onto a longer surface area, the water is forced or propelled at a greater speed than it would when travelling under the hand, similar to my wider paddling technique. The lift force is in the opposite direction of the force, this gives a surfer greater traction against the water, to catch a wave (Amezdroz, et al,. 2010).”

that the surfer use. A longer board allows a to paddle fast enough to catch the wave and is more stable. But it also limits maneuverability and surfing speed.