Recommended by the United States Surfing Federation as a book that every beginning surfer should read, this instructional guide details the basics of surfing gear, conditions, safety, etiquette, and history. Written by someone who went through the learning process, topics are covered with just enough detail to get the reader riding the waves qui...

I wrote this book with the confidence of 25 years teaching and coaching surfing and feel I have established a technique that will help beginner to intermediate surfers learn and reach their potential faster while staying safe and respectful to other surfers and the ocean. I have used my techniques to help surfers of all levels while keeping in mind the different body types people have and hope you enjoy the techniques and teachings the book provides. You can view the slide up technique and a few other things I teach in the book on YouTube under Natural Surf Technique to better help you understand and connect the techniques better. Enjoy and better safer surfing, Frank Caronna(Author owner and surf coach for Natural Surf Technique)

“I don’t normally read books about surfers, but this is like Truman Capote, with shorts.” —Lee Child “Andy Martin, to his immense credit, knows that surfers are misfits and accidental comics, as well as great athletes.” —Matt Warshaw “A sublime mixing of stoke and sorrow, hedonism and the macabre—skillfully and deftly penned by someone who had, and still has, intimate access to many of the key players." —Tom Anderson, author of Riding the Magic Carpet: A Surfer's Odyssey to Find the Perfect Wave This is the true story of Ted, Viscount Deerhurst, the son of the Earl of Coventry and an American ballerina who dedicated his life to becoming a professional surfer. Surfing was a means of escape, from England, from the fraught charges of nobility, from family, and, often, from his own demons. Ted was good on the board, but never made it to the very highest ranks of a sport that, like most, treats second-best as nowhere at all. He kept on surfing, ending up where all surfers go to live or die, the paradise of Hawaii. There, in search of the “perfect woman,” he fell in love with a dancer called Lola, who worked in a Honolulu nightclub. The problem with paradise, as he was soon to discover, is that gangsters always get there first. Lola already had a serious boyfriend, a man who went by the name of Pit Bull. Ted was given fair warning to stay away. But he had a besetting sin, for which he paid the heaviest price: He never knew when to give up. Surf, Sweat and Tears takes us into the world of global surfing, revealing a dark side beneath the dazzling sun and cream-crested waves. Here is surf noir at its most compelling, a dystopian tale of one man’s obsessions, wiped out in a grisly true crime.

An insightful, joyful tour of the transformative powers of starting something new, no matter your age—from the bestselling author of Traffic and You May Also Like “Vanderbilt elegantly and persuasively tackles one of the most pernicious of the lies we tells ourselves—that the pleasures of learning are reserved for the young.” —Malcolm Gladwell, bestselling author of Outliers Why do so many of us stop learning new skills as adults? Are we afraid to be bad at something? Have we forgotten the sheer pleasure of beginning from the ground up? Inspired by his young daughter’s insatiable curiosity, Tom Vanderbilt embarks on a yearlong quest of learning—purely for the sake of learning. Rapturously singing Spice Girls songs in an amateur choir, losing games of chess to eight-year-olds, and dodging scorpions at a surf camp in Costa Rica, Vanderbilt tackles five main skills but learns so much more. Along the way, he interviews dozens of experts about the fascinating psychology and science behind the benefits of becoming an adult beginner and shows how anyone can get better at beginning again—and, more important, why they should take those first awkward steps. Funny, uplifting, and delightfully informative, Beginners is about how small acts of reinvention, at any age, can make life seem magical.

**Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Autobiography** Included in President Obama’s 2016 Summer Reading List “Without a doubt, the finest surf book I’ve ever read . . . ” —The New York Times Magazine Barbarian Days is William Finnegan’s memoir of an obsession, a complex enchantment. Surfing only looks like a sport. To initiates, it is something else: a beautiful addiction, a demanding course of study, a morally dangerous pastime, a way of life. Raised in California and Hawaii, Finnegan started surfing as a child. He has chased waves all over the world, wandering for years through the South Pacific, Australia, Asia, Africa. A bookish boy, and then an excessively adventurous young man, he went on to become a distinguished writer and war reporter. Barbarian Days takes us deep into unfamiliar worlds, some of them right under our noses—off the coasts of New York and San Francisco. It immerses the reader in the edgy camaraderie of close male friendships forged in challenging waves. Finnegan shares stories of life in a whites-only gang in a tough school in Honolulu. He shows us a world turned upside down for kids and adults alike by the social upheavals of the 1960s. He details the intricacies of famous waves and his own apprenticeships to them. Youthful folly—he drops LSD while riding huge Honolua Bay, on Maui—is served up with rueful humor. As Finnegan’s travels take him ever farther afield, he discovers the picturesque simplicity of a Samoan fishing village, dissects the sexual politics of Tongan interactions with Americans and Japanese, and navigates the Indonesian black market while nearly succumbing to malaria. Throughout, he surfs, carrying readers with him on rides of harrowing, unprecedented lucidity. Barbarian Days is an old-school adventure story, an intellectual autobiography, a social history, a literary road movie, and an extraordinary exploration of the gradual mastering of an exacting, little-understood art.

Expert instruction you need to take your skills from kook to boss Author John Robison uses hundreds of pictures--comical, cartoon-like drawings--to clearly illustrateevery aspect of surfing: wave dynamics, riding techniques,etiquette, logistics, and more. This entertaining,easy-to-understand visual presentation makes it easyfor you to pick up his techniques and use themon the waves. Robison covers every aspect of thesport, from paddling out through the surf zone andcatching and riding that first wave to nose riding, acrobatics,shortboard riding, and to equipment repairs.

Like the ocean, the marketplace constantly changes and today's cresting?reward?becomes tomorrow's crashing?risk. Even the best surfers fall, but they learn from their wipeouts and paddle back out again, knowing that with big waves come big opportunities. Innovation expert Louis Patler explores why 8 out of 10 business ventures fail and offers lessons learned from elite athletes that apply to business.?Before you venture out, take some advice from unlikely experts: Big Wave surfers who ride waves the size of a five-story office building using only a 9-foot piece of styrofoam. Like successful entrepreneurs, they must rely on preparation, planning, patience, and passion--and they relish a challenge. Packed with stories of innovators, entrepreneurs, and legends, Make Your Own Waves reveals 10 Surfer's Rules that will guide entrepreneurs and innovators including: Learn to swim--the basics set the stage for everything Get wet--you can't succeed if you stick to the shore Always look "outside"--watch for what's coming or you may miss a better opportunity Commit, charge, shred--you have to go all out to be all in Never turn your back on the ocean--always stay in touch with the marketplace and the customer Stay stoked--desire drives success Discover the do’s and don’ts for innovators and entrepreneurs that will lead you to success.

A digital edition short story about a wife coming to terms with her fading marriage from bestselling author Elin Hilderbrand. Margot's reservoir of romantic feelings for her husband Drum is running dry. But while the family is on vacation in Nantucket, Margot finds an opportunity to potentially regain her romantic love for her husband - in the form of Hadley Axelram, his ex-girlfriend. She is counting on jealousy as a relationship defibrillator. But after forcing her surfing-god husband to make plans for a surfing lesson with Hadley and her son, Margot is left to reminisce about the summer she fell in love with Drum, and the unexpected blossoming of their relationship. When she sees Drum and Hadley spending time together, will the spark reignite - and will her marriage be saved? Or will she find that love is truly gone from this relationship? This touching short story about a poignant stage in a marriage explores the backstory of Margot Carmichael, one of the stars in Elin Hilderbrand's novel Beautiful Day.

Design innovations and a new appreciation for the grace and poise of surfing a longer board has lifted the art of longboarding back into the limelight and more importantly, back into the minds of serious surfers who are looking to expand their wave riding experience. The first-half of this guide covers the basics of longboard equipment, wave selection, courtesy, and surfing technique through standing up. The second part gets into intermediate and advanced longboarding skills including: cross-stepping, trimming, turning, turning maneuvers, essential noseriding, and finally, some of the breathtaking tricks that the pros execute so flawlessly. The key points are brought home with a stripped down text and photos featuring some of the best longboard surfers on earth, including Ted Robinson, Colin McPhillips, Jeff Kramer and Mark Stewart.