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EDITOR'S LETTER By Cash Lambert Just because the Triple Crown season is over doesn’t mean that Hawaii’s winter season and all that comes with it - big names and even bigger waves concludes as well. By the New Year, winter season still has a handful of contests remaining, along with the opportunity for unprecedented swell. For example, in early January, the Da Hui Backdoor Shootout ran in “the best conditions the contest has ever seen,” creating an arena of glory and nearly tragic gore, an event recapped on page 20. The Volcom Pipe Pro in early February didn’t disappoint either. These storylines and epic runs of swell had everyone clamoring about the things
to come in 2017, relegating the headlines of 2016 to a dwindling sight in the rearview mirror. In short, this issue is all about just that: looking forward. On page 38, we celebrate the forward thinkers, the innovators, the avant-gardes and the progressives of our sport in a feature dubbed Generation Next, where we sit down and rattle off questions with 5 surfers who are on the forefront of the progressive surfing movement: John John Florence, Conner Coffin, Filipe Toledo, Leonardo Fioravanti and Kanoa Igarashi. What will the future of progressive surfing look like, according to John John? “Doing extra spins like Albee Layer and maybe, I
don’t know, a backflip followed by 2 snaps and then a full rotation air or something like that,” he says in the feature. “That’s what I think is going to be the future of surfing: combinations.”
an answer. “It’s definitely going to be going forward... When you see 12-year-old kids doing full rotations and alley oops….when they’re as old as John John, who knows what will happen.”
“A lot of people would say progression is in the air, and I feel that it is,” points out Conner. “Progression, to me, is also about going down the face of a wave, with steeper drops, bigger drops. The way surfboards have changed let’s you get into different parts on the wave, and progressive surfing also means turning harder and faster.”
In the spirit of moving forward, we also talk with Hawaii’s newest face on the World Tour - Ezekiel Lau, recapping his incredible story of qualification, including the moment he “blacked out” after realizing that he had indeed made it onto the Tour, and what we can expect to see from him throughout the 2017 competitive year.
“I think in 10 years... I really don’t know where surfing will be,” says Leo, his eyes hyperfocused in an attempt to determine
All that, and and so much more. Although we’re over a month and a half into a New Year, by putting this issue together,
we as a staff realized that it’s never too late to take some of the advice gleaned from the interviews and commit to a year of being progressive in some way. What exactly does that look like? It could mean a change in surfing style or adding new boards to the quiver, even changing up the place called homebreak. In a more personal sense, it could mean bringing to life plans previously put on hold, chasing after a deep-seated career passion, or speaking out with a new idea. Those with their hands on the control board of surfing are moving the sport forward at a rapid, innovating pace, and we, as an industry, as fans, and as people, can be inspired to do the same.