# Body Boarding #
Body boards are awesome ! Elevated on a couple of house bricks they make for a great camping table. Especially with that slick bottom. Spilled food wipes straight off !
why would you even bother udo? and why do people care so much? if a person can handle themselves in the water it shouldn't matter... and most guys who are half decent on the lid are also fairly capable on the stick
Bodyboards are great for archery targets as they don't damage the flight feathers when your arrow goes in. I've tried old surfboards but it strips the feathers right off so when one of the lid riders around here creases his board I always hit em up for it.
Bodyboarding has influenced modern surfing by influencing the short slabby waves that are commonly surfed & also the short wider thicker board design . I reckon some surfers wont admit this is true
in 30 yrs of surfing all types of boards in all styles of waves,id have to say ive seen more wave-wasting,whinge-ing kooks on regular surfboards than on eski-lids. just my experience.
caml wrote:Bodyboarding has influenced modern surfing by influencing the short slabby waves that are commonly surfed & also the short wider thicker board design . I reckon some surfers wont admit this is true
Yeah but nah...short, wide, and thick boards have been in fashion before. In the late-60s/early 70s boards got down to 5'8" or so - well before bodyboards were invented - and they got equally short in the early to mid 80s. Surfboard length is like a pendulum swinging back and forth, the current trend of short boards is just another arc on the historical record. Nought to do with BBs.
Never before have standup surfers taken off so late under the lip of slabs & even been interested in slabbing thick waves though stu . Standups actually follow the boogers movements to find theyre new waves etc
Its all very subtle stu .thats my opinion & i knew it was a debatable
Topic . Surfers have never before taken off like jamie o & john john at pipe on 6"0 boards
Yep, to a large extent that's true, lids have found many of the great slab waves and stand-ups travelled in their wake. I'm with you there. But the short, thick, wide designs.....nah, can't abide with that one. Anyway, aren't most of the super short and thick boards ridden in grovel waves?
Stu you disagree as i predicted .its a heavy call wat i said i know . But no short wide boards are learned from boogers and thats what the worlds best standups now use in slab waves
Its my opinion and i expect plenty of disagreement . For me its easily noticed becos i bodyboard the slabs myself and ive seen firsthand how things have evolved .
""Yeah but nah...short, wide, and thick boards have been in fashion before. In the late-60s/early 70s boards got down to 5'8" or so - well before bodyboards were invented""
The first commercial sale of bodyboards from Tom Morey was in 1971, many prototypes were made in the years prior to the first release also
I knew someone would pick that up. Perhaps I should've said 'popularised' cos bodyboards sure weren't popular in Australia in 1971. In fact I doubt anyone would've seen one, so therefore the chances of Tom Morey's invention influencing the super shortboards of the day are slim to zero.
Body boarders are tools and we should drop in on all of them. But surf mat riders, they are really cool and we should respect them.
Am I right?
The skills needed to Bodyboard are defiantly inferior.
But in the right waves like those crazy slabs they have there place and no matter what you ride you need balls to surf those kind of waves.
Personally if i wasn't going to stand up, i think id rather hunt out slabs on a kneeboard than a bodyboard, but in average waves just like bodyboards they look goofy but in hollow waves i think they have real advantages over a standup.
I think its kind of sad, kneeboarding died, but bodyboards got more popular.
I still remember the day that my opinion on lids changed. There had been a legendary lid rider rolling around a place I was staying once, he was pissed as fuck mostly. Then a certain gnarly right turned on and he transformed into the craziest , most talented individual you can imagine. Boosting ridiculous aerial rolls on the close out end section over virtually dry reef.
He ended up becoming quite a good mate and lent a shitload of credibility to his fellow sliders from that day forward in my eyes. Like all surfing, movies and magazines don't do justice to the rippers amongst them .
Elitism........ But hey, we all do it from time to time....... Bottomline, it's MY wave.... fuck off!!!! As I've said here before, us surfers are inherently selfish..... Doesn't matter what u r riding.... Just you, ya' mates, ya' dog, fuck off..... ;)
stunet wrote:
Surf mats? Pffft...they don't even make the scale of hatred." />
That'd be right, the lid's the only one doing the right thing and surfing with a leggie in that picture.
indo-dreaming wrote:
The skills needed to Bodyboard are defiantly inferior.
I can see it now. The average booger, standing on the beach declaring defiantly, My skills are inferior!
Its true though..
For a few years as a grom i lived in an area that had quite a few waves that you could often only surf on a bodyboards, a fickle coast (NW Tassie)that often only got two foot of groundswell hitting dry reefs (or slop), there was hardly any stand up surfers but heaps of lidders, i kept busting out fins (before fin systems), so my parents bought me a Mach 7.7 for my birthday, I wasn't real keen on it, but there was days when it really was the only option.
So first surf, first wave or two i slid out as I wasn't use to not having fins and grabbing a rail, but i figured that out on my third wave and within a few surfs i could honestly surf as good as my lidder mates who had been lidding for years, bar one or two who were better than the rest and charged. (down the west coast)
Funny thing is out of about those twenty lidder friends from twenty years ago none of them now ride lids, all either don't surf anymore or converted to stand up, including a mate who was an absolute charger and was one of the best in the state, who i never thought would convert.
To be honest though, id love to give one a go again and surf some ledgy lefts in Indo that i have trouble surfing on my backhand.
You will see in the next few years a new breed of big wave rider . Hybrids grown in australia down under . Young lads who standup huge slabs on small boards , waves the current group of big wave paddlers cannot surf . Just like boogers they will take off under the lip and jump to their feet fast already in the tube . They will take over big wave surfing as we know it . Spawned from competing with lidders in aussie slabs
Speaking of body boarding https://riptidemag.com.au/news/2493-bodyboarding-banned-at-new-york-beac…
indo-dreaming wrote:
Its true though..
For a few years as a grom i lived in an area that had quite a few waves that you could often only surf on a bodyboards, a fickle coast (NW Tassie)that often only got two foot of groundswell hitting dry reefs (or slop), there was hardly any stand up surfers but heaps of lidders, i kept busting out fins (before fin systems), so my parents bought me a Mach 7.7 for my birthday, I wasn't real keen on it, but there was days when it really was the only option.
So first surf, first wave or two i slid out as I wasn't use to not having fins and grabbing a rail, but i figured that out on my third wave and within a few surfs i could honestly surf as good as my lidder mates who had been lidding for years, bar one or two who were better than the rest and charged. (down the west coast)
Funny thing is out of about those twenty lidder friends from twenty years ago none of them now ride lids, all either don't surf anymore or converted to stand up, including a mate who was an absolute charger and was one of the best in the state, who i never thought would convert.
To be honest though, id love to give one a go again and surf some ledgy lefts in Indo that i have trouble surfing on my backhand.
The NE tassie crew sounds like the Sunny coast crew.
Even the airs? Getting good style on carves takes a bit of time too, but generally its pretty influenced by standups.
Barrels on a lid are mainly wave selection and balls. You need a reasonably strong core for big scoops too.
I BB cause I like to get shacked every day with minimal effort.
ha ha..yeah im clamming airs, but maybe i was like the guys that kind of throws there board out in front of them in the lip :P
Also back then the general standard was lower even at top state level, plus i think it was really easy to get good quick as i surfed with decent bodyboarders all the time not only on the NW coast but the West coast (swell magnet city) so was seeing what they did and how, and had to put up with the talk, and watch bodyboard videos, plus as a stand up already had the wave knowledge.
Learning to ride a lid in just a few sessions is a lie , everyone that surfs then tries a lid realises it is much more difficult to hold a line in a tube . Its actually a fine art
Sorry indo dreamer maybe you are a freak and did it but no one else did
Indodreamer, clicked on your link then videos on that site and first up is lid riders at Skeleton bay going hard.
caml wrote:
Sorry indo dreamer maybe you are a freak and did it but no one else did
ha ha maybe i should have stuck with it, to be honest our barrels were just quick in out type waves anyway slab by peaks of big rocks kind of thing.
I actually had the same thing learning to stand up, came from a skateboard background and could pretty much stand up and trim from almost the get go (before i could even duck dive) and didn't take long to be able to do half decent turns, but sadly i have to admit my improvement plateaued after those first few years..damn
I think as a grommet though particularly through that 13-16 stage its easier to learn and improve, plus you just froth on it 24-7
Depends on the waves you surf but the local booger down here had his old man move down and picked up bodyboarding real quickly.
That was at our local slabby reef that only pretty good standup's have the ability to ride. Both him and his son were accepted as locals and were cool but it did shit a few of us how a 60 year old man could go wave for wave with us after only a year or so.
But maybe he was some kind of a freak too?
Indo dreaming just to confirm your talking about waves like say
?
The wave caps over 4-5'. There is probably a dozen of these on the SC.
Even on that wave the difference between good riders the swell is a touch small for it but on a good day you'll see the better lids take off behind that rock or catch one from the next break up... More ARSs / Backflips / big inverts too.
Looks like fun , but I think I'll just stick to my wave ski thanks.
The fact that boogers have cleverly changed the term from boogie boarding to body boarding in some desperate attempt to gain legitimacy shows they have an inferiority complex at least, an inferiority complex is usually spawned from some form of inferiority.
This clever little PR campaign is like Bush and co's changing global warming to climate change to try to sway public opinion. Don't fall for it, it started as boogie boarding and should remain boogie boarding because that name better reflects the patheticness and due ( or undue) respect of it all.
The fact a 60 year old man can pick it up in one year shows the average booger:is a joke and should remain at the end of any pecking order, local or npt.
I went from body surfing (8-13 years old) to lidding (13-28) and then to stand up and found stand up surfing pretty easy to pick up at that stage. I think it's just how much difference wave knowledge makes.
Lidding is much more difficult than most surfers think. Definitely not incredibly difficult but harder than people reckon. I'm sure anyone can trim on a booger pretty quickly, that's easy, but anyone who can skate can trim on a stand up too. As Caml said, holding a line in a barrel, particularly a more wally barrell can be much harder without a fin.
One thing's for sure, I still find it much more intimidating to drop into a big wave on a lid than on a stand up. When you're on your guts looking up, even a head high wave looks solid compared to when your standing up staring at the lip. Add a few more feet to that and a 6 foot wave starts to look bloody massive!
yorkessurfer wrote:
Depends on the waves you surf but the local booger down here had his old man move down and picked up bodyboarding real quickly.
That was at our local slabby reef that only pretty good standup's have the ability to ride. Both him and his son were accepted as locals and were cool but it did shit a few of us how a 60 year old man could go wave for wave with us after only a year or so.
But maybe he was some kind of a freak too?
The bloke at Chi's?
@stray-gator- yeah that's him. He's not busting airs but can catch plenty of waves and had never rode a lid till he moved down. Good on him he's a good bloke but it all came pretty easy compared to the floggings you get trying master the takeoff bowl on a standup.
Back in the 80's one of the longtime locals broke his leg twice trying to dial in the takeoff in his first year of surfing there. And just last year another local grommet busted both his legs attempting a late takeoff.
The way it bowls it tends to lift you up and a freefall takeoff is the only option, but that challenge is what makes it so satisfying when you pull it off. Much easier on a booger obviously.
blow-in-9999 wrote:
Indo dreaming just to confirm your talking about waves like say
?
The wave caps over 4-5'. There is probably a dozen of these on the SC.
Even on that wave the difference between good riders the swell is a touch small for it but on a good day you'll see the better lids take off behind that rock or catch one from the next break up... More ARSs / Backflips / big inverts too.
Nah..I know that spot, i never surfed it but I use to surf the more mellow option standup further in most of the waves we use to surf were reef but heaps of weed/kelp your surfing over dry reef and you can still knock out fins on a stand up and ding your board, but on a lid not so bad as your in a full wetsuit, got fins and soft board, its shallow but really its pretty safe reef, if you got dry docked you would just kind of flip and flop or roll or slide into deeper water, from memory that place in the vid has gnarly reef and rocks all over the place, not soft hey, the waves we surfed were more like the reef at Caloundra outer reefs, real hollow but not long, only difference they often had dry reef in front of them or almost on the base of the wave.
BTW. i never really surfed solid waves on a lid, it was rare for us to get them, and if we did or if we went down the west coast id go straight to my stand up, I only lidded because i could get surfs on a lid when i otherwise couldn't really surf standup or get much out of the session, on a lid you could still get barrelled and the waves seemed bigger but on a standup you would have to really pick your waves the more mellow ones and it would be a lot harder to get barrelled, not really the kind of waves you can do to much on a standup other than get a bit of rush from a gnarly take off and surfing over dry reef.
Bodyboarding banned at Rockaway Beach.
https://rockawaytimes.com/2014/08/14/tubular-views-parks-puts-stop-boogie-boards/
caml wrote:
Stu you disagree as i predicted .its a heavy call wat i said i know . But no short wide boards are learned from boogers and thats what the worlds best standups now use in slab waves
What is the theory behind a short-wide board in a slabby wave? I agree to some extent but not with adding the extra width (unless its to get maximum floatation = earlier entry)
Short burst of paddle speed to get in under the lip and less nose to fit the tight radius of the wave.
stunet wrote:
Bodyboarding banned at Rockaway Beach.
https://rockawaytimes.com/2014/08/14/tubular-views-parks-puts-stop-boogie-boards/
Boogie boarding banned because it's unsafe.
Land of the free. Home of the brave. Obviously.
Brett Hardy wrote on FB:
Guns don't kill people,
bodyboards kill people
10,000+ gun deaths a year. Two bodyboard deaths. Ban the lid.
I ride both. It's horses for courses. The one thing that has to be acknowledged about the humble lid, is that it opens up different planes of riding on a wave. Not even the best stand up riders can utalize the bowl of a wave to do rolls or flips, nor can they perform moves within the barrel such as a 360
I'm amazed that surfboard design hasn't tapped into the variable flex and stored kinetic energy that happens when a bodyboard is flexed into and out of a turn.
And Derek hynd is some kind of genius because of the finless thing? Watch hawaiin cavin yap from 20yrs ago on 43 inch piece of foam on YouTube.20
Morey boogie was tom moreys company name, the act itself is called bodyboarding.
Are body boarders inferior ?