Does it make sense to see surfing as something transcendental?

It also offered those who ventured a wide range of challenges that ranged from surfing a solitary wave, traveling to a remote place in the hope of discovering a spot, trying to get an almost impossible team or even giving up social standards to be simply on the beach with friends.

However, like all sports, surfing has evolved to reach unprecedented levels of popularity that have catapulted its attractions to an increasingly massive and heterogeneous audience.

When something presumably ‘underground’, that is, belonging to a very defined minority, ends up conquering a large majority, it has no other option but to give ground to that ‘popular psyche’ which, paradoxically, is decisive when it comes to swell its relevance in this flourishing environment.

Basically, this would be the summary of the process in which something becomes ‘mainstream’, a phenomenon that brings with it greater industry, greater capital and greater infrastructure so that everything continues to be ‘greater’, but which ends up sweeping away the vestiges of that primary essence that made that something (in this case surfing) remain anchored to a perfectly defined minority and cease to be interesting once the path of the majority has been chosen.

And so an entire sport ends up being transformed, from its philosophy to the physical aspect of its activity, the lifestyle and even the original aesthetics.

Taking for granted that this progressive change has been stripping that original essence petal by petal (as has happened in other sports, we are aware that surfing is not the only victim), today we ask ourselves, does it make sense to continue attributing to surfing a certain dose of that spirituality – mysticism – past transcendence?

And it is that in a world where many pros, supposedly the pinnacle of our sport and examples to be followed by most, accumulate sponsors of all kinds of drinks, telephony, car brands, beauty items… Making tables resemble the motorcycle GP . At a time when modernization entails an increasing unification of styles, the result of identical competitive standards that end up leaving certain original touches or more alternative visions obsolete. In a global scenario where pools of redeeming X waves per minute begin to proliferate, ticket in hand, as in the fish market. Before a congregation whose deity incites to show achievements at all times and, if possible, break records. In a society that seems to discriminate between introversion and intimacy in favor of the most visible showcase of the lives of each one of us… As we said, in the midst of this context, and despite the fact that many romantics are annoyed, isn’t it time to stop seeing the surf under that veil of a unique and untamed creature? Is it perhaps time to recognize that we have become one more?

Many friends around us are stubborn in continuing to see surfing under that prism. What’s more, we ourselves like to do it by admiring people who strive to do different things or stand out from the majority and live our sport in a pure way. But, even so, even the most ‘authentic’ surfers (don’t worry, we’ve already put it in quotes ;)) can no longer leave everything to live in front of a wave that has captivated them, nor can they build a cabin with four sticks to foot of the beach to live with what is fair. Moreover, they even have a hard time going to the beach in search of disconnection and inner peace. Therefore, whether we like it or not, surfing has not only become the perfect hook for advertising claims and tourist winks, but has ended up falling prey to the same society that has made it great (in the eyes of the majority) at the expense of to dwarf it (in the eyes of a few).