Ask Carroll

[sandfly]

Nick, that video on Owen was very interesting. I had no idea he was such a monster!!

[daryl]

re build, here's an interesting breakdown of Owen Wright...

http://vimeo.com/63200943

Are his hands as big as yours?

[Nick Carroll]

A bit bigger, I mean Owen is seven inches taller than me, but oddly enough we both share the wider wingspan thing.

I think he'd have been a very good swimmer. I mean he is a very good swimmer but he might have pushed it to national level.

[alakaboo]

It's not that odd, Nick.
Almost all decent swimmers have a bigger wingspan than their height.

Heard of the Ape Index?

[Nick Carroll]

hang on weren't you the bloke who was sporting his cock around in some other forum?

[crabmeat thompson]

I just had to open a window here.

[Beanpole]

well.....i'd like be placed on record as finding both owen and nick as very unattractive men

i'd give slater a re entry he'd never forget thu

Sorry that is a very difficult sentence to get around there fongsey. I mean I like the guys surfing and he's obviously not hit with the ugly stick but.......

Getting back to body shape and surfing rather than which pro surfers you want to backdoor I guess original Nat Young could make a comeback these days if he was as young as the yankee Nat. He was definitely the right build at the right time for the evolution of surfing.

[Davros]

Is there really any disadvantage or advantage really being heavy or light tall or short? The champs have been all shapes and sizes.

[Beanpole]

Sorry fong, still struggling with your previous statement. Of course as a fan fongster I would presume you would want the great one to anoint you rather than visa versa, "Oh Kelly you surfing god, take me".

Just wondering.

[Nick Carroll]

Is there really any disadvantage or advantage really being heavy or light tall or short? The champs have been all shapes and sizes.

As I've tried to elucidate here, it's a matter of trends and timing.

Top level surfing styles and techniques have been evolving ever since the abandonment of longboards in the late 1960s.

As those evolutionary moments have come and gone, they've been suited to different builds. In the early to mid 1980s, a shorter stockier build a la TC, Pottz and Occ was the mot juste.

Right now it seems to me that a basic body shape along the lines of AI or Parko is best suited to the demands of top end pro surfing and high performance. Ie around 6'0", muscular without being heavy, a lot of leverage in the leg and arm length. There's always gonna be a few exceptions to that rule.

bb thinks lower centre of gravity will always win out. I think this shows a dated understanding of the technical skills involved and where the sport is going. Low centres of gravity dominated a surfing world where constant weighting was all there was. This is not the case now, a far broader array of technical skills, weighting, unweighting, pressuring and releasing, is involved. This will continue to evolve and I suspect it will include space for an even more athletic build, ie in the 6'0"-plus area (Jordy Smith is the model for that).

[Beanpole]

I didn't much like Jordies style before but he was looking pretty good at Bells and on a few recent videos. He used to have a kind of ugly gangly way of doing his moves but now he looks really loose and heaps smoother.

[Davros]

Had missed a page were this had been spoken about.No other sport I can think of that can really compare physiques.

[Skipper]

Says the spoke stoker who proudly and admiringly posts pics of cyclists thighs .

[steve shearer]

Is there really any disadvantage or advantage really being heavy or light tall or short? The champs have been all shapes and sizes.

As I've tried to elucidate here, it's a matter of trends and timing.

Top level surfing styles and techniques have been evolving ever since the abandonment of longboards in the late 1960s.

As those evolutionary moments have come and gone, they've been suited to different builds. In the early to mid 1980s, a shorter stockier build a la TC, Pottz and Occ was the mot juste.

You're right but I think you're making the error of introducing causality into what may be merely an association. IE, Pottz, TC, Occy etc etc didn't succeed because they happened to be stocky surfers coming through at the appropriate era of board design, styles and technique etc etc. They succeeded because they were supreme surfing talents. They would have succeeded in any era.
Tom Curren (slight) and MR (lanky) also prospered during that period.
I think that was a cluster associated with a certain period and it's erroneous to attribute causality to it (ie it was caused by or selected by abc).

Thats the error they have made n the Owen Wright piece. Their premise: this guy is an amazing athlete with a unique build, ergo amazing surfer because of it, is just plain wrong and contradicted by the evidence.

First: They exaggerate the difference between him and other top level surfers. Jordy is 6'2". AI, Parko over 6'0". Dane over 6'0". John John is 6'0". Julian is 6'0".
Amongst that company Owen, at 6'3" is at the large end of the scale but by no means abnormally large.

Second: They made a huge deal of the wingspan/handsize and how much of an advantage it was for his paddling. Yet in the events where paddling could be considered a factor- Snapper and Bells- Owen has a poor record. His superior paddling got him two consecutive last place finishes at 3-4ft Snapper and 6-8ft Bells.

He does well at events like Teahupoo, Pipe,(NYC and Brazil). Paddling is not near as much of advantage there. It's way more about positioning, take-off timing and skill and courage.

Third: for anyone who has watched Owen over a period of time, most particularly since his Wildcard blitz in 2009 until now, during which time he put on a couple of those inches, a very obvious conclusion asserts itself: the extra size has been a hindrance for Owen, not an advantage. He's a great surfer in spite of that physique, not because of it.

The real question is can he manage to adjust to his physique and reconfigure his style in terms of modern high performance surfing with it. At the moment, he's looking like a fish out of water with it.

[crabmeat thompson]

I think I agree with Steve. I've often watched Owen surf and thought, if he was parko's or Mick's size he'd be right in there in the world title conversations. His frame, and height and bulk seem to get in the way more than it doesn't. Especially at waves where more than barrel riding and courage are factors.

At 5'9" Kelly has surfed against a few generations of talent, and as the greatest ever, wouldn't that have to be the prototype? A sport reliant on balance and agility will always favour those who have a lower centre of gravity, wouldn't it?

I'd love to see some numbers on every taller than 6'1" pro we've had in the last 4 or so decades, and contrast their average age of retirement/ length of career and injuries, compared to the shorter 5'8" -5'11" bodies.

I'd imagine the shorter guys are surfing for longer and are having less chronic injuries and better rankings results due to the fact they're shorter, less wear and tear on backs, vertebrae, shoulders, knees etc ...

Maybe?

[crabmeat thompson]

Also, the shorter guys can ride much smaller boards, which at the WT level has to be another advantage too, maybe?

Smaller boards fitting into critical parts of a wave where bigger, longer boards can't? That seems to be Kelly's strength he's utilised over the rest of the pack these last 4-5 years.

[Nick Carroll]

You're right but I think you're making the error of introducing causality into what may be merely an association. IE, Pottz, TC, Occy etc etc didn't succeed because they happened to be stocky surfers coming through at the appropriate era of board design, styles and technique etc etc. They succeeded because they were supreme surfing talents. They would have succeeded in any era.

Maybe. I don't think you can divorce people from the times and trends in which they prospered (or didn't). I'm sure TC, Pottz etc would always have been really good surfers, but would they have had the levels of success they did at another time? Really don't know. Too many variables. Hell, they might not ever have surfed.

All you can do really is look at how peoples' surfing develops and how it fits a certain time. They're associated with a time, yet they also make that time happen in a certain way, and are affected by the time themselves. That's their contribution and that's what forms them too. They cause and are caused.

[aaronn]

Outliers: The Story of Success [Hardcover]
Malcolm Gladwell (Author)