Judge Mental
I’ve had my eyes on surf competition disruption for a long time. Probably dating back to the first day I put on a jersey. Paddling out full of excitement for the first heat of my life, perfect wax job dialed in the night before, airbrush and sponsor stickers arranged, wettie clean and dry, ready to showcase to the world (or anyone walking near the southside of the HB pier at 7am) what I thought to be pretty incredible surfing for a 12 year old. When the horn blew my legs instantly turned to jelly for the entire 15 minute heat. I completely crumbled, cartwheels down the face on all three attempts — which would all be scored thanks to the early days NSSA criteria. Best 3 waves. 15 minutes. 6 frothing groms. Get it! (For the record, that’s a fun format that should be revisited. Less sitting, more getting after it). I got 5th (someone must not have shown up).
Times have obviously changed though and the presentation of surfing has drastically evolved. I mean today was pretty psycho, eh? We went from being stoked to read about the results in mags four months after they happened to feeling like we’d found the future with dial up modems and glitchy streams that allowed us to watch fragments of a heat at Snapper to the showe saw today. We’ve improved competitive surfing at nearly every level, but there are still a few updates needed.The first is our relationship with the judges. The second is scores.
Now before I go into my spiel: I know there are career judges who are more than capable of doing a fantastic job in an anonymous and thankless role (and dangerous if it’s the ‘80s and Liam Macnamara or Sunny are in a heat). But the way it’s done today is just not… us. We kind of need you to talk to us. No credentials and total anonymity isn’t gonna work any more. As Thomas Pynchon says in Inherent Vice: We’re all members of G.N.A.S.H.: the Global Network of Anecdotal Surfer Horseshit. Don’t hide, tell us the deal!
Enter Natural Selection and their take on judging: three highly qualified judges (Brad Gerlach, Pam Burridge and Ian Crane), mic’d up and forced to be totally transparent about their entire process (or lack there of). That’s a lifelong style master as Head Judge, a former World Champion and a current professional surfer who could just as easily be competing, analyzing which surfer’s performance over a given period of time was best. No over scoring or underscoring. In fact: no scoring at all: Just tell us who won. That' s right, no numbers are used in Natural Selection Surf. And it worked. Not perfect yet (and probably never will be), but it’s absolutely the way it should be for surfing. Perfection is something we love to chase, not something we ever expect to ever find.
Judging is not about arbitrary numbers, it’s about knowing which surfer owned the session.
“As surfers, you always know who won the session, says peer judge Ian Crane. “There should be a peer judge in every surf event. Who the fuck matters besides the surfers?”
And this only works when the surfers respect the judges, which is what happens when they bring the credentials these judges have.
As many of you know, I was there for the event. I witnessed the judging in person. It’s raw. It’s new. It’s authentic. It puts the entire session on display and under the microscope. Nothing is discarded. Nothing goes to waste. Give us a show and you’ll move on. If it’s close, let’s talk. Hot or not. Period. Save the decimal point, I just wanna hear from Pam, Gerr and Crane. I wonder how they woulda felt about my back to back to back cartwheels. Doubt it would have changed the situation.—Travis Ferré
[Watch Natural Selection Surf “as live” February 18 & 20 at noon on YouTube and Red Bull TV]
[Above Photo: Ryan Miller]
