alakaboo wrote:Nick when do you think you surfed your best?
Both in and out of competition.
Ummm fcuk that's a bit tricky, like many surfers I have had different peaks and troughs.
I went up and down with competition, to me that's partly mental state (did I give a fcuk) and partly heat practice (you get way better if you surf concentrated bursts of heats)
I felt like in the first half of 1980 I was on a performance high and surfing pretty much as good as anyone in the world. In Hawaii in 1985 and 1986 I was really at a peak, like a first peak in those conditions, and was right there with anyone - felt like I was willing to take big risks in gnarly waves and pull 'em off, good boards, very confident
Had another quite long peak starting in 1994, mainly because of good boards (the first wave of skinny super concave boards had passed and boards had shrunk a bit and gone wider comparatively), I really connected with that partly thanks to Kelly who lent me his old frog vs stork board, it was magic and kicked me off. Then leaving the US and coming home in 97 and surfing two weeks of perfect GLand and two weeks in the Mentawais back to back was a sort of culmination of that peak.
Went up and down from then for a little while but I did find that around 2002-3 that surfing almost quite suddenly became easier, I had improved some things in my technique and maybe was stimulated by Parko/Fanning/AI. I dunno, I felt less resistance in myself too in some ways, I think its very easy to get in your own way with surfing and that just kinda stopped happening.
I feel now that I am a bit beyond peaks and troughs. I know how to surf myself back up to my best level but I don't feel I have to be at that level all the time. Physical and mental fitness is the key at my age and I guess I am preparing myself now for the next 20 years. I have a picture of myself surfing at 75 and what that will be like, but I've gotta make sure I don't get badly hurt, because a bad bone fracture or spinal damage might wreck that time for me.
One thng that's helping me and others of my generation is the steady improvement in equipment, that's kind of a given, boards will keep getting better for as long as I'm alive I think, which is pretty huge.