Nat Young, Honolua Bay, and Passover!
T hose younger surfers just don't get it! With an absolute cavalier attitude, they paddle out at their favorite surfing break, drop in (usually vertically!), and proceed to stuff their "pocket-rockets" ( 6 ft. boards and smaller) into ridiculously insane tubes, pull out and get ready to do it all over again! Seems they just don't appreciate the "short-board revolution" and the impact that it had on the world of surfing, how it literally changed the way man perceives a wave. The very concept of "riding" the tube, carving turns while locked in the barrel instead of just "escaping" out of the tube, was an event no less momentous than the discovery of gravity!
Where did it all start? Some people say that the world of surfing owes a debt of gratitude to Robert "Nat" Young, the great Australian, who along with Bob McTavish paddled out one day at Honolua Bay on their "short" ( 8"6') boards and made history. John Witzig recorded it all on film back in '69. His movie, the "Hot Generation", captured the imagination of a world still bound by the constricting "straight" lines of the older, heavier boards.
Nat's revolutionary break with a world of confinement, restrictions, a "narrow" mindset, recalls the very Exodus out of Egypt! The word "Egypt", the sages of the Kabbalah tell us, infers "limitations, restrictions". For in order for a people to become really "free", not only must physical limitations be broken down, but there must also be a spiritual element, represented by "the bread of faith" ( michla d'meheminuta, according to the Zohar)- motzohs or unleavened cakes- symbolically so well illustrated by Nat's incredible performance years ago at the "Bay"!
A happy Passover to all!
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