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[TED: ideas worth spreading.]
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Riding a wave is like suddenly gaining speed and gliding at the same time.
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Like walking on water, like flying.
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I think it's really about being one with a natural phenomenon.
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[Small thing, big idea.]
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[Made possible with the support of FutureLight and The North Face.]
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The surfboard requires a lot of ergonomic thinking.
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How do I stand on it?
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How do I not slip off?
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But at the same time, it really has to work in that fluid environment.
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It's really considered for the rider in some areas and for water and physics in others.
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A surfboard is made out of a core element which tends to be foam, which makes the board float, and the skin of the board is some kind of resin, epoxy, sometimes fiberglass.
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There often is also a stringer, a wood piece down the middle, which makes it stronger.
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The rocker is the curvature of the board in the front.
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That is important because that determines what kind of wave you will be able to take, how steep the wave is.
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The tail affects performance.
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Different tails will make the board react differently, so it's a lot about personal preference.
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Our understanding of surfing comes from when the Tahitians in 1200 AD brought it to Hawaii.
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So when James Cook arrived around 1780, he was mesmerized by hundreds of people in the water, children, women, men, surfing naked.
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Calvinist missionaries arrive and they're scandalized by it.
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It becomes an illegal activity.
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It becomes counterculture.
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The father of modern surfing is a Hawaiian named Duke Kahanamoku.
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He is an extraordinary swimmer, wins gold at the Olympics in 1912.
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Goes around the world to show his swimming but brings surfboards and demonstrates surfing.
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Imagine, people had never seen surfing before.
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Suddenly, some person from a faraway place is standing on water, riding on water.
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He comes back to Hawaii, and they start to make more boards.
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Pre-Second World War, you're still looking at big, heavy wood boards.
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Post-Second World War, new materials and new technologies become available, and those make the board lighter, more accessible, cheaper, but it continues to be a custom object, something that is made specifically for a person or for a certain spot.
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It's a very symbiotic relationship between surfer and shaper.
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There's so many different criteria that affect the physics of how that surfboard is moving in water.
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A longboard is typically used on smaller waves.
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The riding has a lot of style.
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You can walk the board, put your toes over it, do a hang ten.
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A shortboard will be faster.
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They're harder to ride, they sink under the body.
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Board design comes at the intersection between those physical factors, and really, how I want to put myself in the water.
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It's an expression as much as it is a physical activity.
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The draw may be because water is so elusive.
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You can't fight it, you can't change it.
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The best I can do is recognize what it does.
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The surf may be big and getting bigger and surging while you're in the water.
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The elements are changing.
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The wind is coming up.
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You have to be in symbiosis with the environment.
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You need to look and feel for everything that's happening around you.
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And yet, it's so short.
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5, 8, 15 seconds.
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It's fleeting, but you have to go back to it.