All Things Bodysurfing
Bodysurfing is an ancient, global pastime that predates both board surfing and written history. Many Indigenous peoples developed and practiced recreational bodysurfing independently of each other for millennia. But it was in Polynesia that the sport evolved into what it is today. Sadly, no historian has written a comprehensive history of bodysurfing. But several old books, newspaper and magazine articles,…
It’s difficult to put into words how good bodysurfing feels. However, some bodysurfers have been successful in describing the experience, and their writing is featured in this post—An Anthology of Bodysurf Writing. Humans have been bodysurfing for thousands of years, but have only written about the experience for several hundred. One of the earliest descriptions of bodysurfing (see below) was…
Bodysurfing is an ancient, global pastime that predates written history. Many indigenous coastal communities throughout the world developed and practiced bodysurfing. Unfortunately, historians have largely overlooked bodysurfing history. As far as I know, no comprehensive global history of bodysurfing currently exists. Thus, I have decided to take a crack at it. I use the word “unofficial” in the title of…
In the early 1960s, Candy Calhoun became the first woman to bodysurf both the Newport Wedge and the Banzai Pipeline. Note: Hawaiian women likely bodysurfed Pipeline long before Calhoun, but there is no record of it. Former world champion surfer Mike Doyle once said of Calhoun, “Candy was like a seal. She liked being in the water more than on…
Richard Buffalo Keaulana easily makes my list of the top five bodysurfers of all time. But he is so much more than just a bodysurfer. Buffalo was practically homeless for much of his childhood and spent most of his time at Makaha Beach on Oahu where he would spearfish daily for food. In fact, Keaulana spent so much time in…
George Freeth was a Hawaiian waterman who introduced a number of different water sports to California in the early 1900s. Those sports included surfing, bodysurfing, swimming, diving, and water polo. Freeth moved to Los Angeles from Waikiki in 1907. Shortly after his arrival, Freeth established himself as California’s best “surf-board rider” and instructor. Freeth was not the first Hawaiian to surf…