THE STANDUP EVOLUTION

I CALL STANDUP SURFING
THE ANCIENT SPORT THAT WE’VE NEVER
SEEN BUT THAT WE KNOW EXISTED.
IT’S PRIMITIVE, CLASSIC, AND AT THE SAME
TIME ULTRAMODERN. AND IT’S CHANGED
MY LIFE IN A DOZEN DIFFERENT WAYS.

Standup paddling represents nothing less than a renewal of my excitement for surfing. After 42 years of riding, it’s brought me back to a place where I can be happy on a 1-foot wave. Like yoga or tai chi, standup is one of those pursuits that looks simple—until you try it. Most people can get up and paddle around almost instantly, but once you start refining it, you can keep improving forever. After 7 years of standup, I’m still hungry to get out there because there are so many nuances to learn.

 And then, of course, there’s the fitness element. Standup is such an all-encompassing workout that it represents the best training for big wave riding I’ve ever come across. In a normal surfing situation, if you catch a long ride, that’s 20 seconds. When you’re standup surfing, you’re out there for 2 or 3 hours (or longer), standing, working your legs, core, and foundation the entire time. And that’s before you add the challenge of maneuvering a giant board. Turning a 12-foot standup board takes tremendous foot strength, balance, and coordination, and the paddle work engages your upper body and abs as well.

There’s a real Zen aspect to standup. You start thinking about anything other than balancing on that board, you’ll flip yourself into the water. Also, if you want it to be, this is a very calming sport. Since you can do it in any conditions and on any body of water, standup brings you into a variety of places and situations that you wouldn’t otherwise get to experience. I find myself in all kinds of different parts of the ocean now, and when you spend most of your life out there, it’s encouraging to have a new way to do it.

The position of standing up is a position of confidence. That’s when our species evolved, when we stood up on our hind legs and started to walk and run. To be on the water that way makes you feel superconfident. You feel secure, you’re not in the water, and you’re not worried about what might be lurking around under there.

 Since I started standup paddling, I’ve been able to look into the ocean like I never have before. When you’re standing 6 feet off the surface, your visibility increases dramatically. You see everything—dolphins, fish, stingrays, all the sea creatures. Half of the standup experience is what you see and how that makes you feel. I told somebody recently that if I just paddled out and paddled in—never caught a wave—it would be a great day. And usually in surfing, that wouldn’t be a great day. That would be a pretty discouraging day. Standup makes those dreary days bright.

To my mind, with all of this sport’s dimension, the future of standup surfing is unlimited. I’ve ridden tidal bores in Alaska, paddled down the Colorado through the Grand Canyon, traversed the Hawaiian Island chain, crossed the English Channel, tooled around in the Mentawais; I’ve seen some of the most stunning scenery and visions I’ll never forget while getting in my best shape and riding some of the most exhilarating waves of my life—what more could you ask for?

 

DAVE KALAMA ON STANDUP PADDLING/SURFING One of the most appealing things about standup is how many more dimensions there are to it than to regular shortboarding. First of all, the boards are bigger and don’t fit into a wave’s angles quite as easily. On a shortboard, you can adjust to conditions on the fly—you might need a second or two. On a standup board, you need more like 5 or 6 seconds. So you’ve got to anticipate what the wave’s going to do that much farther down the line. And of course with standup surfing, you’re using a paddle. Essentially, you’ve got another arm, one that’s three times longer than your normal arm. That gives you huge maneuvering ability, but handling the paddle is a skill in its own right. You can use it to catch yourself from falling over; you can use it to recover from an off the lip or a cutback or to get through flat sections. The paddle alone adds so many facets.

You also have to consider the larger planing area on a standup board: How do you get a 4-inch rail down into the water to carve a turn versus a shortboard’s ¾-inch rail? The dynamics are extremely different. All of these things take time and experience to learn, and then you have to combine them all into one sequence, like a dance. It seems like such a simple movement, but the entire body is involved, transferring the energy of the paddle through your palms, your forearms, your shoulders, and your core and into your legs, to transfer that pulling motion into the board so it moves forward. If you don’t orchestrate everything properly, you’ll only get half the energy out of your paddle stroke.

STANDUP PADDLING

 I think of traditional surfing and standup surfing as akin to skiing and snowboarding. They’re two different disciplines, and you don’t need to know one in order to appreciate or learn the other. Knowing how to surf is certainly not a prerequisite for standup paddling.

 The beauty of standup is that it can be learned in a controlled situation. That’s why it’s so appropriate for any ability level, any age—anyone who wants to get out on the water and do something on his own terms in a very safe way. You can go down to the back bay where the water’s like a mirror and enjoy it just as much as someone who’s in the surf. Everyone finds their own level, but their sense of enjoyment is the same. And it’s the single best exercise that I’ve ever done. The balance involves your entire body as well as your subconscious mind.

 Starting out, I always recommend you use the absolute biggest foam surfboard you can find. That’ll make it easier to learn the balance dynamics. The introduction usually takes people a few moments because they’re not used to standing on something so tippy. But when you get used to it and your body reacts more quickly, all of a sudden it begins to feel stable or relatively stable. So start out with something big; somewhere around 29 to 34 inches wide and 12 to 13 feet long. The larger and heavier you are, the wider and longer you want the board to be. Once you get going, you can reevaluate your board size and shape. If paddling around is all that you’re looking for, there’s no need to change to a skinnier or smaller board. If your goal is to get into the surf, then you’ll want to graduate down to boards that are smaller so you can maneuver better. If your goal is to paddle from one island to the next, you’ll want to work your way into the longer boards, say, 14- to 18-foot lengths. They’re much sleeker through the water. So you can see that there are many different options. And they’re all a blast.

DROPPING IN

DAVE KALAMA

Many surfers feel that how they ride a wave is how everyone should ride a wave. But there are so many different ways to surf, and they’re all fun: bodysurfing, windsurfing, canoe surfing, foilboarding, standup surfing, tow surfing, kite surfing. If you keep an open mind, you end up spending so much more time in the water. And what’s really great is that trying something one way can teach you how to make all the other ways better—and then you can even start inventing your own techniques, adapting your equipment. A true waterman is always learning, always changing, always experimenting.

Stand with your feet parallel to each other and shoulder-width apart. You want your big toes to land right at the center of the board. Measure either from the tip or the tail, and then make a little mark as a reference point. Put your big toes at that line. When you get more experienced, you might move a few inches forward or back, depending on where the flotation sits in the board, but as a rule of thumb, that’s a real safe place to start.

The standup paddle stroke is similar to a canoe paddle stroke. Reach out as far in front of you as you can, dig the paddle down into the water—submerge the blade completely—and pull back. There’s no need to stroke farther than your feet because once the angle of the paddle goes past vertical, you’re actually slowing yourself down. At your feet, slide the paddle out to the side in a smooth recovery. It doesn’t need to come out high; it just needs to barely stay above the surface of the water.

When you’re paddling downwind and you’re actually riding little swells, then you’ll want to move back on the board a few inches. When it’s planing, you need to keep the nose up so you don’t pearl. And if you catch a wave, you’ll definitely want to scoot back quite a bit.

Because you’re standing upright as you paddle out, you have a much better view of what’s coming in from the ocean. You can see the waves long before the guys who are sitting down on their boards can see them. And the paddle, once you learn how to use it, gives you far more thrust to catch the wave. But having both of those things to your advantage can also work against you if you catch too many waves in a popular surf spot. In other words, be respectful of the surfers who are out there with you. Standup boards are bigger, they’re harder to control, and they’re much heavier, so they’re dangerous to people around you (and yourself). I generally tell people to stay away from popular surfing spots on a standup board. Go out where there’s nobody else around. You can fall and you’re not going to endanger anybody.