Like mountain climbing or back country skiing, off shore paddling often happens well away from observation except by those engaged. On a good run, the participant is the soul witness to an almost constant barrage of beautiful little moments (watch for the little fish flicking out of the bow wave in “4 Days in September”). In my filmmaking, I have never sought to produce any sort of “how to” or expository narrative but instead tried to bring back to shore what this“natural art” looks like. The watcher may notice that much of the footage is in slow motion. The truth is that down wind paddling in its best form (for me and I believe many others) is very conducive to bringing on a deep flow state in the athlete, and in this state of hypo-frontality, the practitioner sees everything around him much the way I have tried to present it in the following films.

Note:

I first heard surfing described as a Natural Art in the late 70's by Scott and Carol Busby in the name of their surf shop in Buxton NC. It still rings true.