RealSurf Surfers' Forum

I'm lucky enough to live in surf comp central, current location of the two week "Australian surf festival". At the mo we're hosting the Mals. There was a bit of discussion a while back on this, but I got to tyell you guys the day of the drop knee turn and the 50m nose ride are loooong gorn. Mal riders are top to bottoming everything like a bunch of rabid short board wannabees. Sure there is the odd 'cheater five' but forget the old school noseride and smooth style of the past and welcome the short longboarder to the fold.

I'll be singing David Bowie now, long into the night.

Sorry

dont apologise, old school Bowie is good.... I know what ya mean bout longboarding but I make hi-perf longboards, even made one for Mitch who came 4th in the opens, he is a good surfer and very progressive for a mal rider, but also rips on shorter craft , but kinda cant blame the surfers coz they wanna do well and gets scores...still looks nice to see someone nose ride and just surf a mal with style and flow.....but I guess thats comps in general, if ya gunna compete, style and traditional type surfing goes out the window, its all about points....if ya not chasing points, why compete I guess... its the choice of the surfer, if you want to ride a wave in a way thats not gunna get judged with good scores, why bother, wheres the freedom of creativity when you have to conform to their judging criteria.... some just wanna enjoy surfing however they choose, comps are such a contradiction for what surfing is all about sometimes...I go in a few comps and often ask myself why
do I bother but then sometimes you get those comps where you score good waves and enjoy the competitive situation....but when ya sit there in a final in 5-6ft total close-outs and get 1 wave and get beaten by knobs, then ya really wonder WTF ya doin.....rambled on a bit...now take it away David...chhh chhh chhh......

Chillin wrote:I'm lucky enough to live in surf comp central, current location of the two week "Australian surf festival". At the mo we're hosting the Mals. There was a bit of discussion a while back on this, but I got to tyell you guys the day of the drop knee turn and the 50m nose ride are loooong gorn. Mal riders are top to bottoming everything like a bunch of rabid short board wannabees. Sure there is the odd 'cheater five' but forget the old school noseride and smooth style of the past and welcome the short longboarder to the fold.

The only way to ride one

unless you are trying to impress judges and do well in a competition....

pridmore wrote:unless you are trying to impress judges and do well in a competition....

Ha yeah true - i'll quote some of your post in response to that

comps are such a contradiction for what surfing is all about sometimes

And in longboarding i would replace sometimes with all the time!

guess that why they have divisions specifically catering for nose riding, plus there's old mal comps..
like in shortboard comps, you see the retro events and even a few other 'novelty or craft specific, or even manouvre specific events' nowadays, go in the ones ya want , if ya want to I guess.....
I guess I am saying I guess too much....

Remember one of the rare mal comps I participated in quite a few years ago now. The winner ended up being a shortboarder who borrowed someones McTavish and surfed it like a short board from the tail. Nothing radical just a fairly smooth style. Didn't even go near the nose and I doubt he could have pulled off a nose ride if he wanted to. Didn't effect my usual miserable contest performance but kind of cheapened the event I thought.

I wonder if we can get someone to fill us in on the current judging criteria?

From a 38 y/o perspertive. You are missing the point of comps, it's all about the friendships and a damm good excuse to drink beer from 9 in the morning!!

Its the aussie titles mate, most of em are pretty serious. 9 am? you're a late starter, the old mal boys are into it when they are setting up the barbie at 7am. I'd rather go surfing myself.