Watch: A light touch, with Jon Gubbins
I'm not sure if I've ever seen ol' Jonny Boy Gubbins do a turn. I've seen plenty of videos of him surfing, lancing Indonesia, dissecting Peru, but each time he's stuffed way back behind the section, hunched in his own imitable way, two steps up the board and right arm pointing the way home. And it's this deceivingly simple stance that I dig. Like a modern day Banksy - surfer not artist, though Jim has his own creative talents.
Check Jon's back foot in almost every scene of this vid; never touching the deck grip, not even atop the stringer. It's up the board and to the side, often just his big toe making contact, feathering control of the board while his front hoof is planted over the wide spot.
And that, my good friends, is an art in itself.
Comments
He's got his own system.
He's wasting his money on tail pads, and that poised/arched back foot is unique. Definitely not a Neanderthal back foot planted right over the back fin, very interesting.
His board looks tiny too. What was the song? I figure it is well known but not from my era :)
'Hands' by The KVB
How's he manage to slow down when needed.
Clearly at DP it's a freight train but does he use that style elsewhere?
Joel fitz has the same stance especially the back foot I have always picked up on it as I have the same foot placement as well Jon's in good company Haha.
https://imgur.com/WZy5VDv
That’s a cool style and a fricken unbelievable wave in that photo , Fraser.
Oh, to be a great barrel rider :-/
Just spent two weeks in Indo on my Desert Storm and Byrning Spears, and while I got more shacked than in a year at home, I was never as deep or stylish as this.
Surfing is a wonderful thing, isn’t it. Whether doing or watching.
Tube hound.
He’s not constantly weaving and pumping unnecessarily like on the Peru vid. That was awesome, sick style and deep tube riding
Surfer not artist?
Geez, I'd have said that weaving in the barrel around 1:50 was about as artistic as it gets. It might be no frills, but that's the purity of it.
I believe he was comparing him to Jim Banks the surfer/shaper rather than the street artist, Banksy.