Winter Bliss from Brendon Gibbens on Vimeo.
Brendon Gibbens brings an artist’s eye to high-performance surfing. And a creative, adaptable approach to the industry. He’ll need both as he carves out a niche of his own in the culture. By Hagen Engler
“I honestly don’t know.”
Brendon Gibbens has no idea of the biggest wave he’s ever ridden. “Overhead, that’s all I can say. There are so many different ways of measuring wave height. I really can’t say.”
It’s also just of no real importance to a guy who measures waves by what they enable him to do while he’s on them or above them. Putting into words and numbers what is after all more of a feeling, an experience, holds little interest for him.
Similarly with the obscene air-assault he’s becoming known for in the water around Cape Town and on the internet. “It’s hard to explain what I’m doing on the wave, because there’s nothing really going through my head. Once I take off on the wave, my mind pretty much goes blank.”
Maybe that’s the essence of surfing’s lesson for humanity: live in the moment. Don’t plan things too carefully, don’t overanalyze them afterwards. Take off and ride the wave as it presents itself to you. Kick out, go get another.
Of course, this is exactly the kind of pretentious hippy bullshit Brendon might subtly dismiss with a quizzical, “Ja, I suppose so…”
Because putting words to something so experiential, so real, seems pointless to him. Why talk about surfing when you can do it? Why describe backside varials when you can actually land them them?
