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Who was the first surfer? What drove them to stand on a plank hurtling shoreward?
The first woman, or perhaps even a man, bored of the prone belly-boarding frolics on rough-hewn wood or reed craft* decided to say ‘hold my beer’ one day and stand up.
Which leads to the obvious point: at that moment in history they were the only surfer. Can you imagine the reaction?
“What the?”
“Mabel, what the fork are you doing? We’re riding the waves not walking on water! Get down right now! It’s ungainly, and possibly an insult to whichever deity we currently believe controls the sea.”
Change is always regarded with suspicion. Boards getting shorter, fins going from one to three, performance going into the air, surfing becoming mainstream. For a supposed counterculture surfing can be deeply conservative when forced in a new direction.
So the prone to standing paradigm shift must have been a doozy. Campfire gossip about this new fangled way of riding the ocean-going rollers must’ve been heated. Will it catch on? Is it an insult to the proud culture of flopping around on belly boards? What happens next? Is it too damn hard? And how the hell do you decide which foot goes forward?
The forethought and skill to ride a board carved out of a log (or bundled reeds) with stone tools would’ve been immense; especially as it was pure recreation. Our ancestors engaged in finding food, shelter and safety. Leisure time wasn’t a consideration. So surfing was one of the early, selfish for sure, hobbies or pastimes.
“Can’t believe he’s riding the breakers again instead of tending the crops or hunting boars!” Maybe this is why the Easter Island culture failed. Chopped down all the trees to make kick-ass big olos to shred the gnar didn’t they?
We are, of course, far removed from such matters. Change still happens. We can never put the genie back in the lamp. ‘Unspoilt by progress’ is a slogan merely on antique mirrors in old-school pubs. We are the now.