🏄‍♀️ Is it about time we went left? 🤔

👋 Happy National Sugar Cookie Day! That’s all I’ve got for this week for the intro. Wait! Next week: the big drones debate. Don’t miss it!

🏄‍♀️ Let’s surf:

• Is it about time we went left? 🤔

• Surfing has a hair problem 💈

• Maine has a seal problem 🦭

• From South America to SW Europe 🇪🇺

• Surf news roundup 🗞️

• “I love Fatty” goes wild 🦦

^SURFODRAMA

🏄🏻‍♀️ Is it about time we went left? 🤔

I'm regular footed. Most of my best rides were going left. I could never put my finger on it, never spent much time thinking about it. I always assumed it was a fluke.

But a member of our community posted this week: "My best backside rides are often the ones where I am not necessarily planning on staying backside, but then it opens up perfectly."

And she wasn't the only one. How was it that riding backside was miraculously improving surfing for so many?

Which is not what the data says should happen.

🔬 What the science says
In 2018, three researchers from German sports universities published a study in a journal with the extremely serious name Laterality: Asymmetries of Body, Brain and Cognition. They surveyed surfers around the world and analyzed over 4,000 waves from the 2014 WSL Men's Championship Tour.

They found that recreational surfers prefer surfing frontside, and that they rate themselves as more skillful on their forehand. Even at the professional level, both regular and goofy surfers favor their forehand. Goofy-footers are 1.71 times more likely to go left than regulars in contests offering both directions.

Also interesting: recreational surfers ranked "speed" as harder backside than tube riding, harder than getting barrelled. That should tell you something about how shaky most people feel on their backside.

👩‍🔧 The mechanics agree
A surf forum thread from a decade back dug into why backside is objectively harder. In short, everything goes weird.

Balance goes all weird. On your toes going frontside, your weight sits over your board's rail naturally. On your heels going backside, you're perched on the outside edges of your feet with less contact.

Vision goes all weird. Your body is turned away from the wave, so unless you're actively looking back over your shoulder, you can't see what the wave is doing behind you.

Your back foot goes all weird. It ends up parallel to the stringer (middle of the board), so you're only really pressing down with the ball of the foot. Less surface, less stability.

The result: harder drops, bigger bottom turns to compensate, and less confidence when the wave gets bigger.

🔮 But then this happens
Here's where it gets interesting. That same forum thread had one longtime surfer note that his backside rides were consistently better than his frontside rides. His theory was psychological. He couldn't see the wave well going backside, so he stopped hesitating and just sent it. He committed because he couldn't afford not to.

You may remember that we wrote about hesitation as being the biggest mistake a surfer can make. I guess it's true.

That echoed something in the community thread this week. When one member said her best rides were the ones she wasn't planning to take backside, she wasn't saying she'd figured out a secret technique. She was saying that on those rides she wasn't overthinking. The wave opened up and she was already going. No hesitation, fully sent.

Could it be that this technical "inferiority" is creating psychological "superiority"? Meaning, when you don't hesitate because you can't afford it, the ride just gets better?

4️⃣ Four theories for this paradox
Let's assume the paradox is real. Why?

You stop fighting the crowd. In most beach breaks, the lineup skews regular and everyone paddles for the right. Which means the left is often uncontested. For a regular surfer, that's an uncrowded backside wave all to yourself. You get more waves in, you get better. Period.

Your body doesn't fight you. Sharp cutbacks going left, then right feel more natural than the reverse for a regular surfer. Your body naturally wants to close in, not open out.

You see better. Finally. On small, mellow waves, going backside means you can't see the wave face. On some steeper waves, it can flip. Suddenly you may be looking more toward where you’re going.

You don't get to hesitate. Backside forces you to trust the wave. One of the biggest problems in surfing gets suddenly solved.

🤡 One more thing
And this one may be just me projecting.

Imagine you are at a beach break that skews male in the lineup. Everyone fights for the same rights. But the girls often take the path of less resistance. For a regular surfer, that's the left, which is our backside. Over time, we get more reps on our backside than we would ever have chosen. The side we were supposed to be weak on is actually the side we got to develop.

There's a version of this for goofy surfers too, but the mechanics flip. Same lineup pushes them toward the left as well, which is their frontside. So the effect is asymmetric. Everyone drifts toward the unclaimed side, but for regulars that means accidentally training the backside, and for goofies it means getting more frontside reps.

🏄🏻‍♀️ What this means for longboarders
We hear that backside on a longboard is its own particular kind of hell, and its own particular kind of reward.

The board is designed for gliding. Gliding is easier frontside. Everything about a longboard (the length, the rocker, the surface area under your feet) is optimized for reading a wave you can see. Turn your back to it and the board turns clumsy. Cross-stepping to the nose feels unnatural because your body is angled away from the wave you're trying to feel.

Which is exactly why it's worth doing. Longboarding was never about speed. It was about grace. And there is no faster way to develop grace than being made to earn it. Slow, peeling lefts are the perfect training ground because the pace gives you time to think, and the wave gives you room to fail without punishment.

🙋‍♀️ The bigger question
The 2018 study measured what surfers preferred and what they thought they were good at. It never measured what they'd have been good at if they'd been given equal access to both sides.

Preference and practice are entangled. In a mixed lineup where everyone wants the right, the surfers who quietly kept taking the left have spent years on the same side of the wave. Whether they call it their weaker side or not, they've been developing it the whole time.

So maybe the question isn't "is it time to go left?" Maybe it's "when was the last time we actually paid attention going right?"

^{(MINI) SURFODRAMA}

💈 Surfing has a hair problem

It appears that no matter how much we write about hair and surfing, we keep circling back to the same topic.

Let's face it. We are as hair-obsessed as we are surf-obsessed. And that's okay.

Two threads this week racked up over 80 comments between them, all asking the same question: how do I keep my hair from turning into a bird's nest?

Here's the shortest version of what the community said this time round:

1. Wet your hair with fresh water before you paddle out. The most-repeated advice, and there's actual science behind it. Hair is hollow. Fill it with fresh water first, and it physically can't absorb as much salt water. Free, effective, no product required.

2. Coastal GRL, Betty's Special Sauce, Kind Sol, and Calleja Surf Hair Co are the surf-specific brands the group added to the mix this week. These are newcomers to our list.

3. New second-hand tip from a hairdresser: try a hair mask on dry hair before you shower.

4. Braid, bun, or swim cap to keep the strands managed.

5. Or, as one member put it: "Just lean in to the surf hair. It means you're enjoying life."

We wrote the full playbook based on more than 42 posts and 190, sorry, 270, comments from the community. Pre-surf rituals, post-surf rehab, reef-safe brands, mistakes to avoid, everything hair.

👉 Read the updated ultimate guide to keeping your hair healthy while surfing

^{PIC OF THE WEEK}

🦭 Maine has a seal problem

What a treasure unearthed on Threads this week!

This is a picture of “Harbor Seal juvenile joyriding on a stolen boogie board off Old Orchard Beach, Maine” taken by, we believe, @herringnugent. You never know for sure on Threads.

If Santa Cruz has surfboard-thieving otters, Maine has its own seal problem.

^{LATEST FROM GIRLS WHO CAN’T SURF GOOD}

💬 2 things we’re figuring out this week

🌴 Beginner-friendly December surf destination in South America, bonus points for diving? Community top picks: Santa Catalina in Panama (with Coiba National Park for diving), Guanico via El Ranchito Surfcamp in Panama, Nosara in Costa Rica, Popoyo in Nicaragua via Sardina Surf Camp, San Juan del Sur in Nicaragua (Verdad + Sandbar Surf School in Costa Dulce), and Weligama Sri Lanka via Riptide Surfhouse if you're willing to stretch beyond South America.

🇪🇸 Beginner-ish surf camp in Spain, Portugal or Morocco for mid-August to mid-September? Community top picks: Women + Waves runs trips in both Portugal and Morocco (September), Tamraght or Taghazout in Morocco via Sun Surf Stay, Essaouira in Morocco through local camps, Sharks Lodge Portugal (surf + CrossFit + HYROX + yoga), and The Dames Raglan Surf Culture retreat in Les Landes, France (Sept 6-12) if you'll broaden to France.

👉 Join us for more recs, chatter, and support

^{THE WIPEOUT WEEKLY SURF NEWS ROUNDUP}

🗞️ Surfing sells out. Surf media goes sharky. Teen surfer's year-long charity mission… and more

📈 Surfing must really be taking off if it's selling out
Carpinteria Surf Camp, at 27 years old, reports its busiest start ever, with opening week sold out and summer sessions filling fast.

🦈 Surf media goes sharky
Stab and BeachGrit covered NSW schoolteacher Riss Lasair's two close-call shark encounters at Inyadda Beach 48 hours apart.

🌊 Teen surfs every day for a year
16-year-old Isaac from Bude, Cornwall is six months into surfing every single day to raise £3,650 for BBC Children in Need.

🐻 Dylan Graves takes on Alaska
Dylan Graves and FCS GO released “The Outer Edge of Alaska,” a film Tracks describes as 'part surf film, part David Attenborough wildlife documentary.'

🇺🇸 Wounded Warriors ride the waves
The Wounded Warrior Project and the Adaptive Surf Project hosted an adaptive surfing day for veterans in North Myrtle Beach on July 7.

🏛️ A century of surfing in Jersey
The Jersey Maritime Museum in the UK opened “Wave Riders — A Century of Surfing,” spotlighting Nigel Oxenden, who brought surfing to Jersey in 1923.

👉 Read the full news roundup

^{WEE SURF SHOPPE}

🦦 “I love Fatty” hats go wild

The “I love Fatty” hats have officially escaped containment, as seen in this video from your very own The Wipeout Weekly editor.

Anyway. Da merch is getting ridiculous. Please accept our apologies.

If you, too, would like to declare your love for Wee Fatty, our otter mascot, in public, the hats are waiting for you in the Wee Surf Shoppe, alongside stickers and buttons.

👉 Check out Da Merch at the Wee Surf Shoppe

^{ALL THINGS THE WIPEOUT WEEKLY}

_{The Wipeout Weekly—our home and digital magazine.
The Wee Surf Shoppe—explore useful, cute, and sometimes simply outrageous surf “stuffs”.
The Wipeout Weekly podcast—daily surf stories and weekly* guests.
All Things Surf Directory—surf retreats, learn to surf, classifieds, surf-side lodging, you name it.
Girls Who Can’t Surf Good—an 86k-member-strong private group on Facebook.}
Feedback—we do want to hear from you! Whatever is on your mind, drop us a line.

⬆️ Aaaaaaand that was the last wave of the week!
If a friend forwarded this and you liked it, hit subscribe & join us! We will see you all next week! 🌊

With stoke,

Zuz & The Wipeout Weekly