SURGE: Do you wish you would have accepted Quiksilver’s offer? Also why do you think big surf companies are so anti bodyboarding now? MS: I don’t. They are surfers, their heart is in the surfboard (as ours are in the Bodyboard). While we are all wave riders this hasn’t seemed to made a difference to them. Nothing has happened since that would make me think otherwise. What I find ironic is that many of the people working in these large surf organizations are Bodyboarders that eventually have had to shed their identity to cater to the surfers egos within them. I personally don’t care what you ride. I have good friends of every wave riding discipline. I do wish they could experience what I did last winter: I was on the west side of Oahu over at Makaha and I watched a white hair man do a pretty good spinner on a big bodyboard. The man was legendary surfer Buffalo Keaulana who is now in his 70’s and is now a bodyboarder to. This is a perfectly acceptable scenario there as Buff mixes it up with just about every form of wave riding there is, and no one blinks an eye, except me of course, whom is not entirely use to this most diverse and traditional cross section of wave riding at one place. At Makaha there is no age paradigm. No method bias. You ride a wave, you are a wave rider. No one said you have to be this age or that to ride this board or that. Imagine that. Imagine if these large companies had this perspective. How much further and more positive the spirit of wave riding would have on the rest of the world? SURGE: When the day comes that your body cannot preform physically and surfing critical pipeline is no longer an option because of your own health and safety, what’s next? MS: The coffin SURGE: What’s mike’s official statement on the BP oil spill?
SURGE: Who’s the greatest bodyboarder ever? MS: Bodyboarding is many things to many different people. The most diversity of participants of any wave riding discipline. The reason we started is to have fun. To me the one having the most fun embodies the spirit of bodyboarding the greatest. SURGE: How do you feel that these young surfers these days are making millions and you have been pushing the limits for years. Don’t you think bodyboarders should be compensated just as fairly as they are. MS: I guess you could say Bodyboarders have walked a more difficult path. I am completely cool with this. Life is about challenge. Reaching your goal is an amazing peak experience, but what I have realized is that the striving for things is more about truly living. SURGE: What do you think It’s going to take to bring our industry back to the limelight it once was in, and is it even possible? MS: An event at El Fronton during peak season with the same set up as the Confital, Canary Island event. The event would also need prize money and a great webcast. I think this would be a good start. At the same time a grass roots bodyboarding tour. Add a couple technical board breakthroughs to get people interested and back to the beach. These are some of the things I can think of. SURGE: What Hawaiians do you see that have the it factor? (This goes for Australia, West Coast, East Coast, Japan, and anyone that has really caught your eye.) MS: There are now many amazing riders from every part of the world. Not just Hawaii or Australia. Look who’s leading the world tour at the moment. SURGE: It seems like Style and Power have taken a back seat in the sport with the exception to a handful of guys. Why do you think some guys are not giving a crap about what their riding looks like and do you think progression of these new maneuvers need to adopt a more polished look and why? MS: I think there is a huge opportunity for someone to combine the both and when they do they will lead the sport at least from a technical riding’s standpoint.
STEWART PRE-THINKING HIS PADDLE OUT / PH: CONAN WHITEHOUSE / CONANWHITEHOUSE.BLOGSPOT.COM
MS: Totally bummed about it. One of the biggest problems is this is (for most all of us) in our peripheral as it’s not in the ocean we surf. But imagine it being your Ocean, your break. How bad would that be? Imagine what would be happening with all the ocean creatures and just how utterly bummed you would be? We ride a board from petroleum yet I hate oil! I would rather ride Alaia’s and get ride of oil and abandon Bodyboards all together that’s how bad I hate Oil. Too many war’s, too much pollution, it’s greed fuel!