Surf Contest[sic] Are Stupid

The Cardiff statue bombed in part because it was seen as an attempt to celebrate surfing. That almost ensured that anything slightly awkward would be DOA. Cardiff surfers did not want to be celebrated.

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The surf community, nor the wider community, have not been pining for more contests in Encinitas. Surfers have a history of aversion to organized competition, especially if there is a sense that outsiders are trying to capitalize or someone is selling out (I do recognize that it is changing.)

Surfing remains a sport where most participants never enter a contest or get scored. Contests are an artificial construct that is totally unnecessary to achieve the rewards of the sport. Many professional surfers have robust careers without competing at all. This might be a surprise to some readers of this blog, but some pros drive their careers through movie and photo shoots.

For many pro surfers, the contests are a means, not an ends. Doing well in contests mean you get paid to go surf on a daily basis. They don't surf/practice everyday so they can win contests. THIS IS TOTALLY BACKWARD FROM MOST SPORTS.

Even before there were many ways to make a serious career out of surfing, there were mainstream movies like Big Wednesday, which tried to capture the surf subculture. The movie is accepted because it tried to capture the surfing ethos. The main characters' challenge is not to triumph in some contest. The main characters negotiate with responsibilities associated with growing up. They also develop camaraderie common among surfers and in the end they jointly triumph in their challenge to successfully push their own personal limits.
My generation's mainstream surf movie was North Shore. Basically, the the theme of the movie is contests are stupid and unnecessary for someone to enjoy the sport. The old wise character in the story boycotts contests and the mean pro surfer character demonstrates how contests can feed attitudes that are counter to the surf ethos.

To some extent, contests are a construct of the surf media-industrial complex, not a necessary aspect of the sport of surfing.

Surf's Up was the latest Hollywood surf movie. The whole storyline pivots around a contest, but again we see the filmmakers tying in the well worn message that surfing should not be about contests. When free surfing with his friends, the old wise surfer says, “This is what its all about”.

It is hard to communicate the nuance and sensibilities around the issue of commercialized contests to those who didn't grow up surfing.
In some ways its like rock music, where some musicians sell out to the corporate media giants. Some people see the city council as getting ready to sell out and/or being clueless to the fact that Encinitas had been recognized as a genuine surf town in soul and action.

Yes, contests are part of contemporary surfing, and they help some surfers make money, but they are not necessary to enjoy surfing. Yes, a suspicion of the motives behind most commercial contests still exists.

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JP has taken a strong stance on the issue of contests at Swamis and some people tried to instigate a personal backlash against him. JP wrote what many people were thinking and it was not personal. The response was personal.

We have three major reef breaks in Encinitas and Swamis is the last to be free of contests. If Cardiff was the last to hold out instead of Swamis, I know JP would have taken the same stand. Crap, JP hardly surfs Swamis and when he does he gets snaked more than anyone I can think of.

Screenshot from Teardevils (Surf Movie). JP being stuffed by Seth Elmer at Swamis.

JP has a deep surf ethos. What makes him increasingly unusual is that he stands squarely behind it. His history shows that he even puts his personal gain second to what he thinks is right.

One example was when he started his industry blog for Surfing Magazine. A couple posts into what was suppose to be a long-term paid gig, he posted a commentary on a speech that Quiksilver CEO (Quicksilver owns Roxy) gave about companies like Abercrombie "attempting to gravy train the surf industry".

JP called out Quiksilver for their history of selling out surfing to the point where much of the surf industry no longer cared if they had surfers as customers. The line between Hollister and Quiksilver was becoming arbitrary and JP said so. A lot of people were thinking the same thing but few would dare to write it, because the surf media-industrial complex lives by something other than the surf ethos you use to find in the water.

The Quiksilver CEO talked about protecting the core mom and pop surf shops. JP made a strong case that actual surf companies were at risk because some of the corporate surf giants twere on their way to selling out the surfer labor-commercial infrastructure (this would be really bad for people who really surf). A lot of people were thinking the same thing as JP but no one dared write it. That blog post made DOH waves in the surf industry.

Quiksilver runs a lot of ads in Surfing Magazine.

JP did exactly what he was hired to do, except he wrote about a major corporation. JP's blogging for Surfing Mag ended soon after the post. JP still hasn't told me if he ever got paid, but I'm sure that when he hit the publish button on that post he knew he might not.

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JP thinks public beaches should be open to the public. It should be no surprise that many surfers are going to oppose the closure of any surf spot so that a commercial contest could be held at the sell out price of $300/day. No surprise that JP would write about it.