Surf Sliding Wahine

Comment Share Posted on Saturday December 26th 2009 at 6:00 a.m. Tweet

While Hawai‘i is the birthplace of surfing, it is also home to some of the world’s most radical breaks. For women, elegance on a wave has evolved into extremism—a keep-up-with-the-boys mentality that pervades everything from personal style to paychecks. Surfing royalty ranks on the ASP world tours, or regularly appears in surf videos and photo spreads. But in the beginning, surf royalty was quite literal. Many of Hawai‘i’s revered queens and princesses were avid surfers; take a trip to the Bishop Museum in Honolulu and you will see royalty as well as everyday Hawaiian women and men playing in the ocean on long wooden boards, “surf sliding,” as depicted by explorers’ drawings from past centuries.

Hawai‘i's Professional Longboarding Females Talk It Out. Interviews by Tiffany Hervey - Slide Magazine #15

Look around any Hawaiian break now and the scene is much the same, women and men sharing waves-albeit with much more aggression and technical expectation than surf sliders of oceans past. Longboarders are the minority these days, and female longboarders are the ultimate throwback.

In this era of extreme, do the women of longboarding still get respect? We decided to ask a wahine roundtable, each leading a very different life on land, but, in the water, they are all surfers rooted to Hawai‘i by birth. They are professional longboarders who have more options for making a living off of their passion than those who came before them, and their respective industry hustles vary greatly.

Meet the Wahine:

Daize Shayne-Goodwin is a two-time world longboarding champion (1999 and 2004) and has added rock star, philanthropist, and mommy to her titles over recent years. She is married to pro surfer Aamion Goodwin and resides on Kaua‘I, where they raise their one-year-old son, Given. Daize is one of the original Roxy girls, paving the way for the lifestyle-model-video industry that is now commonplace for female pros.
Crystal Kapono Dzigas is a fierce and feisty noserider who has been competing since she was 16, hitting the professional circuit at 18. Now 26 and consistently competing in events around the world, Dzigas represents the timeless female Hawaiian dichotomy: genetically superior strength and powerful grace. She is known to be fearless in big surf and invincible at the afterparty.

Joy Iwalani Kinue Monahan was the 2008 ASP Women's World Longboard Champion and has been competing since she was 13. This past summer the 24-year-old won Uncle China's Wahine Contest in Waikiki. She comes from a surfing family and has honed her skills on the diverse breaks O‘ahu's shores have to offer. She is the smiling example of Hawai‘i's mixed-plate beauty, and is currently pursuing her education at Brigham Young University.

Kelia Michiko Moniz, daughter of big-wave rider Tony Moniz, knows that the family that surfs together stays together. The only girl in a family full of boys, "Sister," as she is appropriately nicknamed, rips on any waveriding device available to her. But when you see her perched on the nose in her trademark pose it is obvious that the stuff of legends is in her blood. She takes classic moves and makes them contemporarily her own. Watch out for this one. She is just 16 years old and is clearly the future of women's surfing.

Crystal Thornburg was born and raised on O‘ahu, and travels the world as an ambassador for Patagonia. This has allowed her to teach English and share information on environmental issues with Buddhist monks in Thailand, build a community organic garden in Laos, discover new surf breaks and civil unrest in Liberia, travel 3,000km of Chilean coastline to share ideas about marine conservation with locals and to urge the International Whaling Commission to end whale hunts, and work with the Audubon Society with propagating and air-layering endangered plant species in Waimea Valley on O‘ahu. Crystal is known for being the only female competitor to bodysurf Pipeline on an 8- to 10-foot day during the annual bodysurf contest. She is nationally ranked in Olympic flat water K1 kayaking, and recently placed second in the women's division in the Moloka‘i-to- O‘ahu Paddleboard race.

Aloha ladies. When did you realize you wanted to be a professional surfer?

Daize: I remember being on the beach at ‘Ehukai and this girl Ipo had Roxy shorts and told me they gave them to her. The next week they picked up Sanoe [Lake], and then Veronica [Kay] a month later. This is before Roxy even ran ads, in the early days.They paid for us to go all over the world and just be who we were. It wasn't about being a pro surfer, or winning contests or modeling "Roxy" clothing, it was about sharing waves with your best friends in a sea of boys. We weren't trying to be anybody else, we were just being who we were. We were total nerds really. It was an amazing moment in women's surfing.

Shortly after that it seemed like we all got a bit jaded, along with the companies and the whole innocence turned into a money-making machine.

Crystal T: I first realized I wanted to be a pro surfer when I was in high school, after I got sponsored. I guess it finally hit me that I was doing something I held close to my heart and enjoyed, while getting paid to do it. I figured not to mess it up! I've always strived to keep going, evolving, creating...

Crystal D: It kinda just happened to me. I knew that surfing was always gonna be part of my life, and I didn't really care if I got paid for it or not.

Joy: When I started to compete at 13, I just loved it and knew that if I could reach that level of becoming a professional it would be pretty cool.
Kelia: It just kind of happened...

Why longboarding?

Daize: To be honest I love small waves. To me, there is nothing better than knee to shoulder high waves that are playful. It's like a dance floor while Michael Jackson is playing, a lot easier to get your groove on than to AC/DC. Don't get me wrong, I love AC/DC, as I do shortboarding, but I could dance all night long to MJ.
Crystal D: I like the gracefulness and the flow of riding a longboard. I think it's way more fun to noseride the shit out of a wave than tear it to pieces.
Crystal T: For me it is not about longboarding versus shortboarding. It's about being able to ride every type of floating device, and doing it with grace, style and respect; having the ability to be a well-rounded ocean creature, like Rell Sunn. She swam, paddled, bodysurfed, longboarded, shortboarded, all with simple elegance, and respect. That is my goal in surfing and life.
Joy: I love the feeling of noseriding, which you can't get on a shortboard. I actually shortboard probably half the time just because I think when you can ride a variety of boards it helps your style and control of whatever board you choose to ride.
Kelia: I can catch more waves on a longboard!

Female surfers seem to have more options these days: competition, stunt work, lifestyle modeling, endorsements and sponsorships. Is this an empowering development and how do you make your money?

Daize: I have to say I've been blessed with so many opportunities as a pro surfer and made a good living from it-stunt work for movies and TV shows, won contests, I had and still do have amazing support from my sponsors. Hurley has backed my surf camp for a couple years now and it has become something I look forward to every year. A "surf model" can mean many things and with my career it was rewarding, however I don't know if I would recommend it if you're a water baby. As a surfer it was hard a lot of times because you're not surfing as much as you'd like to be. The money is great, but it's nothing like practicing for an event where you're in the water hours at a time with your friends.
Crystal D: I always liked to compete, so I kind of stuck with that throughout the years. The modeling thing never came very natural to me. I am naturally pretty muscular and it does not turn out well in photos. The male surf industry uses surfers in their ads, the female industry uses models. I like competing because no matter how good or bad you do there's always a fun afterparty. Oh, and if I win I like to rub it in peoples faces [laughs]. I worked on three seasons of Beyond the Break doubling for a girl. ... We finished filming in 2006, but I'm still making money off of that series! I still have to work a real job, too, though. Surfing doesn't pay all my bills.

Crystal T: Most of my salary comes from sponsors, Hollywood stunt work, photos, and films. As a Patagonia ambassador, I test gear and work with the design department to refine and validate the products, making sure that they pass the test on the road in harsh extreme conditions. From this traveling we return with adventure stories, films, and photos for others to be inspired. I also travel to destinations around the world to work with a number of environmental and social organizations. Most of the female surfing industry is geared around modeling and fashion, not too much around actual surfing, traveling, and exploring. It seems more based around material products.

Joy: I don't make a living off of surfing. I make money, but not a living. Last year, for example, I won two contests, one being the World Championship, and in total I earned less than $8,000. I was always more into the competing aspect of professional surfing rather than the modeling. If you can do both, you are more of a complete package to your sponsors. And, I think, for the most part, surf modeling makes more money, only because there is hardly any money in contests. For me, though, I really love the feeling of pushing myself mentally and physically in a heat and seeing how far I can go, trying to improve through competition.

Read more in SLIDE #15 Out Now!

SLIDE Magazine's new issue is now hitting surf shops, bookstores, newsstands, and more around the world, and this edition is overflowing with fresh features sourced from an international cadre of writers and photographers, both esteemed and green, and all points in between.

No less than 14 exclusive articles are showcased in SLIDE #15, including:

• Surf Slidin' Wahine - a roundtable interview with five of Hawaii's best professional female longboarders, colorized with photos from Jim Russi, Paul Teruya, and Anthony Walsh

• In Search of Crazy Horse Point - the treasure hunt for a mysto Central American pointbreak by Chris Del Moro, Neal Purchase, Jr. and Kieren Perrow, captured by hot-handed photog Todd Glaser

• Skip Frye's Fifteth - an exclusive interview with the inimitable Skip Frye

• Shadows of The Sleeping Lady - a look at the famed waves of Raglan and a few of the shapers that call the region home

• Harnessing the Here & Now - the first-ever gallery of moody surf photos from the talented eye of Ryan Tatar

• Ship to Shore - a timeline documenting the complete history of Grain Surfboards, written by Jon Coen and shot by Nick LaVecchia

• North Atlantic Gifts - a quick surf check in New York and New Jersey with Mikey DeTemple and presented by local shooter Tommy Colla

• Back to Basics - Cyrus Sutton's latest film endeavor, highlighting the alaia-inspired wood craze with Tom Wegener, Ryan Burch and crew

• Merging - the unique relationship of Dane Peterson and his Japanese borad-builder Takuya Toshikawa, photographed by Peto, himself

• Plus a powdery Pacific travel tale from Michael Kew and Art Brewer, Uncrowded Indo with Martin Daly and Brian Keaulana, a quick interview with Robert August, the South Island art of Patrick Bonner, and much more...