Soul surfer

A term coined in 1970's and used to describe a talented surfer who surfs for the sheer pleasure of surfing (although they may still enter in competitions, winning may not be the main motive) - since they scorn the commercialization of surfing. The term denotes a spirituality of surfing over the materiality of the surf competition.

History

Before the colonisation and westernisation of the Hawaiian islands the Hawaiians viewed surfing as a spiritual pursuit, they prayed over the trees from which they carved their boards, erected surfing temples, chanted for surf and appear to have viewed surfing as a religious practice. IN 1969 theologian Tom Blake, penned an article entitled Voice of the Wave, which examined the religious elements of surfing, by the early-‘70s, curious surfers began to experiment with various Eastern philosophies, such as yoga and meditation. Soul surfing has been described as “the highest level, the pinnacle of surfing spirituality equivalent to Nirvana, Satori, Total Enlightenment, etc. and is rarely attained. The Soul Surfer expresses himself through his unity with the breaking wave. He borrows the wave's spirit for a short while and uses his body and equipment to translate the essence of the wave's spirit into Art”.The concept of the soul surfer was the main focus for the 1987 film North Shore (1987) where the lead character fails to win a major surf competition because someone has cheated and yet unphased shrugs his shoulders and remarks that “it doesn’t matter to a soul surfer”. This was also a concept expounded in the The Endless Summer 2 (1994) which sees two talented surfers go round the world to emulate the original film Bruce Brown's The Endless Summer. More recently seen in a book called “Soul Surfer” about a young girl called Bethany Hamilton who had her arm bitten off by a 14 foot tiger shark, and which is to be made in a feature film continues the juxtaposition of faith and surfing.