Zigzag January - February 2020

Fist clenched tight behind your back, the mood is tense, a sudden death dr aw always is. Shoot! You draw scissors, he goes with rock. It’s a costly mistake. R500 to be exact. All because you thought a game of rock, paper, scissors should decide who’s buying the next round. Best of three? But ten thirsty friends remind you that that is not an option. I’ve learnt a lot since my s tudent jolling days. Like, never leave important decisions to a game of chance. There’ s a one in three chance of losing a game of rock, paper, scissors. Surfing is also a game of chance. Decisions you make in the water will significantly impact the rest of your session. Left or right? Around the barrel or straight through it? Close…

RETURN OF THE STOKE I just wanted to say thank you for the opportunity to showcase surf therapy, adaptive surfing and the healing properties of the ocean in the October Zag (Issue 43.7)! I have had a great response from the article with numerous people connecting with me to get into the ocean and do a surf therapy session. Since the write up, I have registered a non-profit called Find Your Stoke. It is a platform to offer free surf therapy sessions to people with physical and mental challenges. Our first official Find Your Stoke surf therapy session will take place at Santos Beach, Mossel Bay in November! I am beyond excited to share the stoke with some rad special needs kids. Looking forward to 2020 and being able to offer…

It’s not often you see Mavericks shot from this angle, then again three times Big Wave World Champion, Grant Baker is used to looking at things a little differently. He’s also good at making snap decisions in critical moments. That happens when you decide to swing and go on the ones no one else is even looking at. Twiggy, between a rock and a hard place at Half Moon Bay. Turn the page for a different perspective. Far from the frigid waters of Northern California, South Africa’s other World Title contender, Jordy Smith assesses his exit strategy in France. Even though the wave height may be an obvious point of difference framed next to Twiggy’s beast, the focus remains the same; make the correct decision to get the job done. With…

Surfers are the bedrock of our culture. We all have varying levels of talent and ability. Some, like Koby Oberholzer, seen here slipping stylishly under the lip behind the rocks on the KZN South Coast, are simply born to it, as if finding his way into these unique spaces of time, weather and geography is the most natural and easy thing, as if it’s simply hardwired into the DNA. The rest of us are caught somewhere in the middle, slowly striving to improve ourselves, hoping to iron out the kinks and wobbles with every wiggle. No matter how you got here, what you’re into or where you’re headed, there can be no denying the influence that individual surfers, the special ones, have had on the direction of this thing called…

“You’re doomed!” That’s what people used to tell us surf mag workers back in 1999, when the Internet was still fresh and the dot-com boom was in full flight. The hype was overwhelming. This was especially true if you were in America, the undisputed centre of all worlds at the time, including the surfing world. “Print is dead!” they said, practically vibrating with glee at the idea, or maybe just at the huge amounts of venture capital suddenly pouring into commercial web media. The revolution was at hand, and magazines would soon be no more. They would be swept away by a tornado of Virtual Reality, digital news bites, and free content cascading down the barrel of your phone line, rendering this archaic 14th-century media form obsolete, the way the thruster…

It’s What You Wear J-Bay, 2018, I’m strolling away from the contest site after another day of mental surf at the Corona Open J-Bay. I bumped into old mate and veteran surf journalist Nick Carroll. We stood around outside the Zigzag house for a while, shooting the breeze and lamenting about the sorry state of the surf industry as we saw it back then. “It’s not like there are any less surfers out there,” exclaimed Nick. “It’s just as crowded in Australia. There are no less people paddling out every day.” “It’s still crowded as fuck.” I agreed. “More crowded, but less people wearing surf threads.” The Surf Industry Circles In Fast forward a year later, and the industry is still undergoing significant changes, and these changes aren’t in an area of growth. Nike has…