The art of dodging, from surfing to martial arts
Once again, I’d like to draw a parallel between surfing and martial arts such as aikido or tai chi chuan. We find the same approach to objectives, which is not frontal but takes circuitous routes, what could be defined as an art of dodging.
Dodging is not a movement of flight. Rather, it’s an intelligent maneuver to achieve an objective– defensive in the martial arts, offensive in surfing, since it’s all about passing the bar.
Where the spontaneous surfer will head straight for the spot, the more experienced surfer will take a circuitous route to reach the same point, but more quickly if not with much less effort, minimizing the risk of impact with other users of the surf spot.
Getting to the line-up
The line-up is where surfers sit on their boards behind the waves. Once they’ve identified a surf spot from the shore, an area where good waves form, 90% of surfers, some of them experienced, enter the water facing the peak.
This has a number of consequences, especially in the Landes region where the topography of the coastline creates a dominant north-south current: within thirty seconds, they’ve drifted south of the peak and have to come up against the waves, but also against the current. As a result, they find themselves right in the path of surfers on the peak, who are then forced to avoid them, which bothers them and multiplies the risk of collisions.
Bypassing the surf zone via the baïne on the right allows you to dodge waves and surfers and let yourself be carried to the peak effortlessly, pushed by the current. This is not the way to “go inside” and steal priority from surfers already waiting at the line-up.
The advantage of this strategy is that the surfer dodges all obstacles and gets to the open sea extremely easily, without getting in the way of his mates.
It’s astonishing to observe that some surf instructors, to get into the water, make their student surfers pass in the middle of other surfers, whether they’re in lessons or free practice. With eight students in front of you, it’s difficult to catch a wave without risking an accident. It’ s a funny way of teaching the rules and customs of surfing.
The temptation of a straight line
Once the wave has passed the shore, most surfers paddle directly towards the peak, crosswise, as short as possible, instead of continuing straight out to sea and then allowing themselves to be swept towards the peak. However, if the current is strong, it pushes them into the waves before they can get around them, and they are pushed back towards the beach.
From square to circle
While it’s advisable to step sideways while moving forward, whether towards your martial opponent or towards the peak, surfing the wave while maintaining a straight trajectory also has its limits.
However, being able to modify your trajectory, to avoid obstacles but also to adapt to variations in the wave in order to ride it to the edge, requires a certain amount of technical know-how, as well as the ability to see the entire panorama beyond the nose of your board.
To make use of the speed generated by gravity, the surfer adopts a sinusoidal trajectory to climb to the top of the wave and accelerate on the way down, alternating up and down until he reaches the edge. He also draws figure eights on the wave, in order to come back and draw from the trough of the wave when he has lost the wave with a too rectilinear trajectory.
Moral: in surfing, the straight line is rarely the shortest path, and even less so the path of light. Unfortunately, this principle is often negated by the Labrador complex, which we discussed in a previous article: as soon as the retina catches a wave, the surfer abandons all forms of judgment and runs towards his goal like a torpedo.
But I think it’s satisfying, in life as in surfing, not to follow the herd, but to recognize the side roads. All it takes is one small step sideways.
