Staying ‘stoked’: Surfing,ageing and post-youth identities

Abstract

Surfing has consistently been framed as a youth focused, male-dominated sport and culture. Despite surfing’s ageing demographic, neither the ways in which age impacts on surfing identities and mobilities, nor older surfer’s experiences and subjectivities, has been given scholarly attention. In this paper, I discuss research exploring the experiences and identities of middle-aged and older recreational male and female surfers in the south and south-west of England. The research illustrates that participation in surfing as a sport and lifestyle remains highly significant for some men and women through middle-age and into retirement. I consider the cultural barriers and challenges in dealing with a loss in physical performance through ageing, such as adaptations to their equipment, performance, and style, and the implications for how individuals negotiate bodily capital, space and identity. Nonetheless, older surfers also embrace different ways of being a surfer which challenge some of the more exclusionary aspects of surfing identities. Theoretically the paper develops an intersectional approach to sporting identity that explicitly recognises and accounts for the contribution of age to social identity. The research also contributes to the growing literature on physically active ‘post-youth’ leisure lifestyles, illustrating how shifting definitions of ageing have given ‘rise to new expectations, priorities and understandings’ of sporting lifestyles amongst those in middle age, and beyond.

Keywords

action sport ageing identity lifestyle post-youth surfing

Surfing has been framed as a youth activity. Yet, this representational scaffold privileging youth and white masculinity only emerged in the 1950s in the United States of America (USA) (Booth, 2001; Stenger, 2008; Wheaton, 2013). Fuelled by consumer culture’s obsession with youth, this construction of surfing’s visual economy has remained dominant, including in surfing’s own niche media (Booth, 2008; Comer, 2010). As an article in The Surfer’s Journal contends, ‘nothing is sadder than a 50 year old surfer’ (Warshaw, 2005: 53).

This association however, is being challenged. Older male and female surfers are gaining attention in surfing’s niche media (e.g. Rich, 2007; Warshaw, 2005), and in the mass media, where, dubbed ‘silver surfers’, (Laing, 2008; Lee, 2016; McWaters, 2008) they have been represented as ‘heroes of ageing’ (Featherstone and Hepworth, 1995) doing unusual and seemingly age-defying feats (Wheaton, 2017). Factors including more accessible and lighter equipment, and the revival of long boards (Waitt and Frazer, 2012) has made surfing accessible to, and popular with, those who learnt several decades ago, and to a new demographic learning to surf in mid-life or retirement (Wheaton, 2017). As surf journalist Warshaw suggests, whereas in the 1970s the average age of the surfer was around 18, in this decade it is nearer 30, mostly represented as a ‘grayer, balder, thicker-waisted version of the 22-year old’ (2005: 54).

Academic research on surfing has also focused largely on youth. This has not necessarily been explicit or intentional; nonetheless, it is the experiences, identities and mobilities of ‘core’ (usually young white heterosexual) men who ride ‘short boards’, the most athletic and physically demanding form of surfing, particularly in premier surfing locations such as Australia, Hawaii and California, that has gained most attention (see, e.g., Anderson, 2014; Booth, 2001; Evers, 2009; Sands, 2002; Stranger, 2011; Thompson, 2001; Waitt, 2008; Waitt and Warren, 2008; Walker, 2011). Short-boarding drives ‘a surfing ideology’ that positions their ‘stand-up style as the pinnacle of performance’ (Ford and Brown, 2005: 71). Yet a broader range of experiences, subjectivities and styles exist, depending on factors including: different types of craft used, the local context, and attributes of embodied identity such as age, gender, sexuality, ethnicity and fitness (Waitt and Frazer, 2012: 329). While recent research is revealing these different surfing mobilities and subjectivities, including post-youth male and female surfers (Beaumont and Brown, 2015; Olive, 2016a, 2016b; Spowart et al., 2010; Waitt and Frazer, 2012) none have focused explicitly on how age impacts on surfing identities and mobilities, nor older surfers’ experiences and subjectivities. Furthermore, while it has been widely recognised that age and ageing are powerful signifiers of how we are seen, and how we see ourselves (Hockey and James, 2003), particularly for experiences of embodiment like sport (Sparkes, 2015; Tulle, 2008), the implications for how age and ageing shapes our identities in such sporting communities associated with youth has received little attention.

In this paper, therefore drawing on research exploring the experiences of middle-aged and older recreational male and female surfers in the south and south-west of England, I address this gap in understanding surfing’s cultural politics. I explore these surfers’ identity-making over time: how they (re)negotiate their identities as ageing surfers, and how older bodies negotiate their place in surfing spaces.

In the first part of the literature review I discuss existing research on surfing, community and identity. Then I outline my theoretical framework, outlining the theoretical influences that I have found helpful for understanding the contribution of age to sporting identity, and how age intersects with other factors impacting on surfing mobilities and hierarchies such as gender and ability.

Recreational surfing identities and mobilities

While surfing has some organised elements, for the majority participation is best understood as a recreational lifestyle practice (Beaumont and Brown, 2015; Olive et al., 2013). The term lifestyle sport (Wheaton, 2004, 2013) has been used to describe surfing as it helps encapsulate the ways in which surfing participants, and consumers, seek out a particular style of life that is central to the meaning and experience of participation in the sport, and that gives participants ‘a particular and exclusive identity’ (Wheaton, 2004: 4), through which participants create relationships to people, places and communities (Olive, 2015). It is nonetheless an increasingly diverse activity with strong local and glocal cultures, and a range of styles and identities, from the ‘spiritual soul surfer’ to the ‘professional athlete’ (Booth, 2001: 71; Ford and Brown, 2005). Recognising the temporal aspects of the surfer’s leisure career, expressions are used to differentiate surfers by age and experience such as the grommet (a widely used term for the young apprentice), the legend and the old bullet (Beaumont and Brown, 2015: 69).

Surf culture’s ‘subcultural credentials’ include its ‘core embodied practice’, ‘stylistic elaboration’ (Ford and Brown, 2005: 81) – including the equipment, clothing, lifestyle and media consumption – as well as technical knowledges, affects, bodily dispositions and values (Ford and Brown, 2005; Wheaton, 2004). Recreational participants emphasise the feeling of ‘being “stoked”’, an ‘intense awareness of the moment’ (Stranger, 1999: 269), and a sense of spirituality or being ‘at one’ with the environment (Anderson, 2014; Taylor, 2007; Wheaton, 2007b). Successful subcultural capital in surfing derives from present and past surfing skill which has been termed ‘performance capital’ (Ford and Brown, 2005: 82).

Every time a surfer enters into the surf-zone they must negotiate their position within a (glocal) surfing fraternity and hierarchy (Beaumont and Brown, 2016; Booth, 2004; Evers, 2009). Claims to authenticity emerge from differences in: types of activity, craft, difficulty of manoeuvre executed, and the most hazardous or risky form of the activity (Wheaton, 2000). Usually short boarders are positioned highest, followed by other forms of surfing craft (long boards, body boards, knees boards, wave-ski and stand-up surfing (SUP)¹) and other surf-zone users (e.g. windsurfers, kite-surfers). As Waitt and Frazer outline in the context of Australian surfing ‘not being able to stand-up, perform powerful turns or ride inside the barrel of a breaking wave thus falls short of being a “real” surfer’ (2012: 329). Derogatory terms label these inferior crafts (e.g. shark biscuits for body boards) reinforcing the idea that bodies that do not stand up on short boards are seen as deficient (see, e.g., Booth, 2008; Waitt and Clifton, 2012).

Surfing bodies and spaces are also located through ‘a range of gendered, racialized surfing discourses and ideologies’ (Olive et al., 2016: 329). The dominance of men in Australian surf cultures has been well documented (Booth, 2004; Evers, 2009; Waitt, 2008; Waitt and Warren, 2008), and how their practices in the line-up, such as ‘protecting’ their territory from beginners and outsiders (termed ‘localism’) can be understood as a struggle between hegemonic and other forms of masculinity (Beaumont and Brown, 2016). As Waitt illustrates, ‘the local specificity of embodied gender identities is complex, and manifested in the complex spatialities of embodied identities’ (2008: 77).

Empirical research on recreational female surfers has also explored how different locales, crafts (from long boards to body boards), ethnicities and sexualities impact on surfers’ knowledges, assumptions and hierarchies (Nemani, 2015; Nemani and Thorpe, 2016; Olive et al., 2013, 2016; Roy, 2016; Walker, 2011; Wheaton, 2013). Yet as Olive (2016a) argues in the context of women in Australia, it is primarily men ‘who continue to benefit from existing cultural knowledges, assumptions and hierarchies, and who are most implicated in regulating and maintaining existing ways of going surfing’ (Olive, 2016a: 172). Here I examine how older bodies are implicated in this cultural politics: that is how older surfers negotiate their place in the line-up, and how age intersects with other factors influencing surfing hierarchies, particularly gender and ability.

Some existing research has included older surfers, and provides useful insights into these different subjectivities (e.g. Humberstone, 2011; Waitt and Frazer, 2012; Wheaton, 2017). Waitt and Frazer reveal how in Australia long boarding is associated with an ageing masculinity, and Wheaton (2017: 3) explores how British surfers negotiate the ageing process through surfing. While Beaumont and Brown’s focus is on local surfer identities in Cornwall, in the United Kingdom (UK), they recognise the temporal dimension of surfing identities, mapping five experientially-based phases an individual passes through from the ‘nurtured phase’ to the ‘legend phase’ (2015). They suggest that the concept of leisure career helps illustrate ‘the changing sense of identity’ which may develop over the course of the life-cycle or ‘surfing career’ and how identification changes (2015: 71). While these are useful starting points in which age is considered beyond being ‘normalised’ in the framing of ‘youth’, as I argue in the next section, a more intersectional approach to sporting identity is required that recognises and accounts for the contribution of age to social identity.

Developing a life-course approach to conceptualise surfing identities

Identity is a term with many different theoretical genealogies. The theoretical framework I have adopted to understand ageing identities in surfing spaces draws on two different threads. First is sociological literature conceptualising the temporal framing of identity across the life-course. It is argued that age and ageing are powerful yet often ignored signifiers of both how we are seen, and see ourselves (Hockey and James, 2003). Second is literature deriving from the ‘post-subcultural’² approaches to the study of youth cultures (Muggleton and Weinzierl, 2003) which has subsequently been influential in understanding action/lifestyle sport cultures (Thorpe and Wheaton, 2013; Wheaton, 2007a, 2013). I briefly discuss each of these strands, advocating that their integration provides a productive, more intersectional approach to understanding surfing’s cultural politics generally, and ageing identities in surfing spaces specifically.

Hockey and James (2003) provide a comprehensive exploration of social identities across the life-course. Their starting point is that outside of gerontology, the social sciences have until recently neglected to account theoretically ‘for the contribution of age to social identity’ (2003: 5). They also challenge earlier ‘life-cycle’ focused research which they argue provides a static and repetitive sequence of ‘ages and stages’ within human lives and experiences. As Beaumont and Brown also outline, the concept of a leisure ‘career’ can reproduce ‘relatively fixed, externally referenced aged-based identity stages’, whereas engagement over the life-course may be non-sequential, fluid and fluctuating (2015: 73). Furthermore, chronological age tells us little about how a person feels or experiences age. So rather than seeing ageing as biologically-grounded, age needs to be recognised as a social construct that is made meaningful in relation to social interaction (Featherstone and Hepworth, 1991) and particularly to experiences of embodiment like physical activity (Sparkes, 2015). As Hockey and James outline:

We can think of it as a negotiated, unstable assemblages of ideas and perceptions within which age competes with other imperatives such as gender, class and ethnicity. These both delimit and afford opportunities for the practices which make up everyday social life. (2003: 4)

Following Stuart Hall’s (1994) conceptualising of cultural identity, they emphasise ageing as a ‘situated and experiential process’ open to forms of contestation (Hockey and James, 2003: 78).

Post-youth leisure identities

Stuart Hall’s theorisation of cultural identity has also been influential in the ‘post-CCCS’ approaches to the study of youth and sport cultures (Bennett and Kahn-Harris, 2004; Muggleton and Weinzierl, 2003). Building on more static sociological models of subcultural identities and careers, this approach recognises the dynamic and unfinished nature of identity as a process undergoing constant transformation (Muggleton, 2000: 154). It foregrounds the role of power in the construction of identity, revealing the multiple voices, subjectivities and experiences within the cultural group, including the marginalised and potentially older participants (Wheaton, 2015).

While youth has been the prime focus, these researchers have started to recognise the importance of ‘post-youth’ leisure identities, where ‘ageing individuals continue to construct and articulate identities and claim distinctiveness in contemporary everyday life’ (Bennett and Hodkinson, 2012: 3). Empirical work exploring how youth and middle-age are being extended in contexts including fashion and style, dance and music is growing. On one hand, youth culture itself has taken on a more ‘malleable property’ and key aspects of youth culture have become more ‘connected and compatible with adult lives’ (Bennett and Hodkinson, 2012: 3). Second, these shifts correspond to the ways in which such cultures of consumption are increasingly been marketed and represented to appeal to a wider demographic. So as Featherstone and Hepworth (1991) suggest the ‘third age’ of life is for many increasingly resembling adolescence; people’s leisure and lifestyle habits remain ‘youthful’ for longer with groups of older men and women sustaining or creating new and meaningful identities via immersion in forms of serious leisure associated with youth.³ These shifting definitions of ageing are ‘giving rise to new expectations, priorities and understandings amongst those in middle age, and increasingly later life’ (Bennett and Hodkinson, 2012: 3). Surfing provides a vivid example of this process (Wheaton, 2017).

Embodiment, identity and ageing

Similarly, a growing body of critical research on sport, embodiment and ageing emerging from the sociology of sport, gerontology and cognate fields has revealed the meaningful involvement of older people in sport and physical activity, displaying the same passion, commitment and pleasure as during their youth (e.g. Dionigi and O’Flynn, 2007; Humberstone and Cutler-Riddick, 2015; Phoenix and Sparkes, 2009; Pike, 2011a; Stevenson, 2002; Tulle, 2008). Often framed within the discourse of ‘positive ageing’ (Pike, 2011b) this literature has highlighted how sports’ participants often resist the dominant medicalised narrative of ageing as decline and ‘optimise experiences of ageing’ (Phoenix and Griffin, 2012: 246). Sport and/or exercise participants are often held up as older people deemed to be ‘ageing well’ (Earnest, 2001; Phoenix and Griffin, 2012: 246).

There are clear synergies between these literatures on embodiment, identity and ageing emerging from the sociology of sports and leisure and post-youth studies, both raising questions that this research seeks to address. For example, authors highlight the ways in which ageing bodies often become less compatible with the physical demands of youth and sports practices, and so various adaptations and developments are required to continue to participate (e.g. Bennett and Hodkinson, 2012; Tulle, 2008; Tulle and Phoenix, 2015). They also consider how these ageing participants employ strategies and discourses to position themselves as legitimate or credible participants (e.g. Gibson, 2012). Research highlights the different ways in which individuals negotiate physical and emotional connections and relationships within a particular community or scene, as for example participants, fans, coaches, volunteers, mentors. They consider the ways in which participants negotiate involvement in activities, particularly ‘cultures of commitment’ requiring high investment in time, when they have conflicting priorities such as work and family life (Tulle and Phoenix, 2015; Wheaton, 2017). Lastly, they consider how participants challenge normative ideas about aging and embodiment. As Tulle (2008) revealed, the experiences of older ‘Veteran’ athletes (runners) is informing in illustrating how physical activity experiences become sites for resisting embodied ageing as a social and phenomenological process.

Methodology

The research focused on two surfing communities in England. While the British Isles do not have the same currency as the mythical epicentres of Hawaii, Australia and California, surfing and surf culture have been well-developed in some coastal pockets since the 1960s (Mansfield, 2009; Ormrod, 2008), and through the surf media the area has become increasingly recognised globally as a premier ‘cold-water’ destination. Furthermore, as Beaumont and Brown note (2015), surfing participation continues to increase rapidly, with particularly high visibility in the south-west counties of Cornwall and Devon. Venue one in my research was located on the south coast of England, a site where surfing waves are relatively infrequent, but is accessible to urban areas. The second venue was in Cornwall, considered the epicentre of British surfing.

My methodological approach was interpretivist, and used in-depth interviews and ethnographic fieldwork. I was also attentive to narrative approaches that have been prevalent in recent research on understanding the lived experiences and meanings of later life (Phoenix and Griffin, 2012; Phoenix and Sparkes, 2009). This ‘has developed our conceptual understanding of ageing as a biographical event’ providing ‘rich insights’ into the varied, and different ‘experiences’ and ‘story-lines’ of ageing (e.g. Phoenix and Griffin, 2012: 244). My interviews took a life-history approach, recognising that life-stories can provide insights into different ways of understanding ageing, changing identities and surfing mobilities (see also Waitt and Frazer, 2012: 28). However, I was also mindful that interviews can be ineffective in communicating the intense sensations and affective feelings that surfing participation can evoke (Anderson, 2014; Ford and Brown, 2005; Roy, 2013; Waitt and Frazer, 2012).

Eleven in-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with four women and seven men between 2011–2015. Participants ranged in age from 45 to over 70. They were all white, mostly relatively affluent, yet had forms of employment encompassing manual, professional, self-employed and retired. They incorporated a wide range of surfing experiences and crafts (short board, long board and SUPs) including life-long surfers (six), those who had taken up surfing post youth (four) and one newcomer. The interviews were conducted in a variety of venues from my camper van to participants’ homes, and ranged from one hour to over three hours in length. Snowball and purposeful sampling was used to identify potential participants who I delineated as being over 50 and who defined themselves as a surfer (however one participant was between 45–50). Being an active middle-aged woman who participated enthusiastically on a range of different craft (including short board, long board and SUP) but not at a high level of skill, facilitated rapport. I found that people were largely willing and interested to talk to me about their experiences, both in interviews and informal conversations.

I focused on the surfers’ stories and experiences, inviting interviewees to talk through their surfing careers and to highlight key or significant moments both in terms of surfing participation, the broader meaning it held in their lives, and how it related to other aspects of their lifestyles, including work/retirement, family and other leisure interests. I tried to get a sense of shifts in relationship to surfing bodies (their own and others) and surfing spaces. I also identified the various factors that enabled and limited surfing participation amongst older participants. The interviews were fully transcribed and analysed thematically according to themes emerging from the discussion, and some codes identified in the literature identified above. To ensure anonymity pseudo names for people and places are used throughout the text, but, to provide context, participants’ age is provided in brackets after the individual’s first mention in the text.

The interviews were supplemented with participant observation at surf beaches in the south and south-west of England. In some venues, my observational visits were quite brief and helped me to understand the context and environment, such as: what type of craft dominated and the range of surfers at the break (their ages, genders, etc.). In other locales, I spent more time including being out on the water in the surfing line-up (the term for where the waves break and the surfers sit waiting). This enabled me to get a feel for the space, such as whether the vibe in the water was mellow and friendly or more aggressive and competitive. Four of the surfers had surfed at a beach I frequented over a period of several years. These interviews were longer and more comprehensive than the ‘strangers’, and their experiences could be contextualised using my observational insights. My positioning as someone who was not a core young male short boarder opened up many lines of discussion that they may have been less comfortable discussing with someone who held more ‘performance capital’.

I recognise nonetheless that such narrative accounts are ‘performative’ social activities in and through which the participants respond to the others present (Phoenix and Griffin, 2012) and others imagined present. As Ford and Brown outline, surfers ‘have rich memories, invoking past, and (possibly) reinvented, emotional experiences of their own personal surfing histories’ (2005: 72). A post-surfing ‘sharing of stories’ (Ford and Brown, 2005: 71) is an important part of the surf culture, and I felt the interviews often worked in this way: that is the participants’ sharing stories with another person who surfed (see also Wheaton, 2017). Emotions and feelings often make events significant, particularly replaying, reliving past emotions, experiences and events that helped to shape identity (Ford and Brown, 2005). The individuals I had surfed with often recounted experiences and events which we had shared. However like Waitt and Frazer, I saw these stories not as factual or truthful accounts but as performative accounts of the surfing identities they wanted to embody, ‘phenomenological-interactions constitutive of embodied socio-cultural worlds’ (2012: 333). My analysis therefore considered the ways in which these conversations were used to reinforce particular identities.

Surfing identity across the life-course

The surfing experience in England is characterised by cold-water and inclement weather. Full wetsuits are required year-round, with hoods, boots and gloves in the winter; sunshine and surf is rare. Skill levels tend to be lower than premier surfing locations. Yet in many beaches overcrowding is less of an issue, and so localism and competitiveness in the line-up is less prevalent than at the overcrowded premier surf spots in Australia and Hawaii (see Beaumont and Brown, 2016). These social, cultural and situational factors frame individuals’ different experiences of, and access to, surfing as a sport, culture and identity.

Negotiating subcultural style post-youth

Style is seen as an important identity symbol in many youth cultures, and surfing is no exception. Yet Ford and Brown suggest that as involvement in surfing increases, the image and fashion related aspects of the subculture become increasingly taken for granted and of less personal significance (Ford and Brown, 2005: 82). Indeed, the stylistic attributes of surfing become increasingly seen as contrary to the authenticity of the experience in itself (Ford and Brown, 2005: 82), particularly amongst ‘hard-core’ surfers (Booth, 2001: 68). Life-long surfers spoke nostalgically of the era when surf fashion was still a marker of being a surfer, an identity that retained some uniqueness. Contemporary British surf culture was criticised as having ‘sold-out’, becoming a highly commercialised and over-popularised lifestyle:

My mates that surf don’t wear surf clothes. All the guys my age, we kind of made a decision about 10 years ago… Yeah, because all the townies [outsiders] come down with their surfie T-shirts on. (Dave, 55)

This ‘ambivalence towards surfing fashion’ (see also Wheaton, 2000) was widespread amongst the male surfers I interviewed:

At one time I wore surf stuff, but now I find… there’s too many people wearing surfing gear that don’t surf. You know, and I think I don’t want to be part of that. (James, 67)

Furthermore, some older surfers perceived having an interest in clothing and fashion as something associated with youth, and were wary of looking ‘silly’.

I think you get to a certain age, where you have to be conscious that you aren’t looking your best anymore. (John, 55)

As Bennett and Hodkinson (2012) suggest, ‘post-youth’ individuals attempting to hold on to their youth is seen as a refusal to grow up, even a form of social pathology amongst individuals (often men). Robinson similarly observes that amongst older male climbers the ‘ageing Peter Pan figure was often constructed as an object of pity’ (2008: 117).⁴ Interviewees recognised that aspects of the surfing lifestyle, such as fashion, needed to be carefully negotiated, so that you didn’t end up being ‘seen as an old git’ (James). Dave admitted that when he and his mates, all in their 40s or older, go away on a surf trip, they probably look a ‘bit sad’:

you know 4 old guys, you know, it’s probably me thinking it, I think we’re no different, but I actually felt a bit, ‘look at those old guys; who do they think they are with their Quicksilver t-shirts and their surf boards?’ (Dave)

Age and gender in the line-up: Declining performance capital

Despite recognising that surfing was associated largely with young people (men), and that they were different, being older than the ‘norm’, being a surfer was certainly not an experience or subjectivity limited to youth. Many were keen to differentiate themselves as surfers who had a longstanding credential as participants, which involved ‘just getting out on the water and surfing’:

I don’t know that I’m conscious of my age, because you know, there’s not much I can’t do, that I couldn’t do 20 or 30 years ago. (James)

The chronological age of a participant was often very hard to gauge, particularly if the person was wearing a wetsuit, hat and gloves. Interviewees acknowledged that on the water people didn’t really know how old they were. In some ways, it was therefore easier to fit in: ‘I never feel out of place in the water at all’ (Peter, 64).

Regardless of age, they described surfing as incredibly life enhancing and meaningful, and shared the feeling of ‘stoke’, well-being and a sense of community that younger surfers have described (Evers, 2009; Ford and Brown, 2005; Waitt and Warren, 2008). James said he was ‘like an excited child’ driving to the beach knowing there are good waves. The commitment displayed by these silver surfers who had the financial resources, and physical capacity, equalled or exceeded many younger participants. As Wheaton (2017) describes, for some, retirement allowed them to become more active than in their youth.

They also highlighted the importance of their friendships, emphasising the intergenerational nature of their surfing groups. Connecting with younger people helped them to feel and to stay ‘young’ (Wheaton, 2017). Nonetheless being an older surfer was a contradictory position, as Dave reflexively recounted:

I’ll catch myself in the mirror and I’ll think, ‘you old git, you’re talking waves to all these guys who are half your age and less’, you know, they must think… or maybe they do, or maybe they don’t, but in your head you think, they’re thinking ‘that old git’ (laughs).

In many ways these surfer identities, pleasures, emotions and mobilities remained quite stable across the life-course. However, performance identity and status was contingent on being able to demonstrate performance capital, the central way to exhibit being a good surfer. This performance capital tended to decrease with age, having important implications for participants’ ability to gain status. Indeed as Waitt and Frazer discuss in Australia, ‘there’s no respect for the elders’ (2012: 336). These British surfers also attested that older surfers did not gain particular respect, but had to fight for space and status alongside other younger participants:

I don’t think they’re going to respect you, really. […] I don’t think anyone compliments you because you’re older. They complement you if you did well. (Jenny, 68)

But I never feel that [out of place] in the water, because I know my surfing ability is okay. And so I don’t feel that… If I was out floundering around, I might think, ‘Oh gosh, you know, I’m not very good at this’, you know, perhaps my age is something which people are laughing at. (James, 60)

Declining ability, gender and age tended to be inter-related, and could impact on an individual’s ability to feel comfortable and included in surfing spaces. In the more premier locations, as Jenny who had travelled extensively had experienced, you have to be very aggressive:

You can’t just sit on the side-lines and expect to get waves, and expect people to give you. Nobody gives you a wave when they’re older, you have to earn it. (Jenny)

Many of the surfers I interviewed felt that as individuals they had respect from the surfers in their local communities; some were ‘admired’ by younger surfers, and peers for their continuing commitment, and refusal to define ‘retirement’ in traditional ways (Wheaton, 2017). Yet they also recognised a degree of ambivalence, even intolerance towards older people, particularly in premier (and/or more crowded) surfing locales, and especially toward older wome. As Jenny had experienced: ‘People say “you shouldn’t be in the water,” particularly if they do anything dangerous: You’re an older person, you drop in and you’ll be screamed at!’

In contrast, on the south coast of England the waves are not considered to be inspiring for elite short boarders; ‘the vibe’ in the water was different than more elite locations, and overcrowding was less of a problem. Often the most competitive and elite surfers gravitated to one peak, leaving the rest of the beach for others to enjoy. As Waitt and Warren (2008) highlight, thinking spatially is helpful in highlighting the variability found in surfing masculinities at different breaks and conditions.

Yet these aspects of surfing’s spatial politics such as aggression and localism appear to be so taken for granted and normalised that none of these surfers were overtly critical of this intolerance behaviour, and how it contributed to excluding less able and older participants. As Olive (2016b) outlines discussing how spatial politics impacts on female surfers, their gender is always implicated, and identities contingent and co-constructed in and through the surfing space. Thus surfing mobility is always dependent on gender and age.

Dealing with loss in performance: Adaptations to performance and style

Many of these recreational surfers described themselves as ‘physically fit’, with the same enthusiasm and commitment they had displayed in their youth. Yet in surfing, like most physical cultures, adaptations are required to accommodate a body which is declining in physiological capacity, particularly in strength and flexibility (Dionigi, 2009; Gibson, 2012; Grant, 2001). Older athletes often have to make adjustments to the way they perform some of the skills. As Jenny acknowledged, ‘older participants in general: if they still want to surf, they’ve adapted different ways of surfing’.

Here I explore these adaptions, and how these impact on surfing subjectivities and mobilities including the craft they used, location frequented and surf conditions. These all have consequences for how an individual engaged with surfing, and negotiated their surfing identities.

Older athletes often adopt different performance measures than those who are younger, for example focusing more on the avoidance of decay or decline, rather than aiming for improvement in performance (Dionigi and O’Flynn, 2007). Likewise, some surfers preferred less extreme conditions where they had a greater degree of control, and less chance of injury.

The surfers I interviewed all recognised that as they moved beyond middle-age, aspects of their performance decreased. Most evident was a loss of agility and strength which meant they were slower to their feet on the ‘take off’. Peter suggested that this problem was exacerbated for cold water surfers wearing a thick wetsuit; ‘because you get up that much slower’. Jenny had adapted the way she popped up to suit her slower pace; ‘Lame, but there it is’. The cold water was widely cited as a factor hindering enjoyment; many felt the cold more acutely than when they were younger, and also found the effort of putting on so many items of neoprene daunting (Wheaton, 2017). For some participants, this was given as a reason for stopping surfing.

Yet these surfers also emphasised how particular knowledges gained over time were important aspects of surfing capital (see also Beaumont and Brown, 2016), such as: knowledge about weather and tides, how to negotiate the line-up, and how to read waves and how they break. As Jenny put it:

You have to grow into surfing, you have to find out where the best places were. It shouldn’t all come to you on a plate… I think surfing’s about knowledge. And it’s knowledge you accrue over the years. […] I’d say I surfed, the best I surfed in my 60s. It’s weird knowledge.

Risk-management, ageing and identity

Risk-taking has been widely discussed as an important aspect of the identity of surfers (Stranger, 1999), although this literature tends to focus on physical risk, rather than social or emotional risk. In interviews, we chatted about participants’ favoured surfing conditions and their attitude to risk-taking, to see if changes had occurred over their surfing career. Surfing in big(ger) waves is seen as an important marker of performance capital (Booth, 2004), and several men, particularly those who had been more elite surfers, claimed to favour big waves, denying preferring less challenging conditions as they got older. I interpreted this as an identity performance; that men needed to ‘prove’ they could still perform in the most challenging conditions. Jenny claimed that the men she surfed with often felt they had to mask any change in their desire to take risks, particularly with regard to wave size: ‘Well, the men have the macho thing’ but privately admitted they ‘now preferred smaller fun waves’.

Nonetheless, there was variation in attitudes to risk-taking and many men talked reflexively about feeling more vulnerable, injury prone and fearful:

when I was younger, I would ride into something and think nothing of it. Now, I will weigh up the risk factor. […] I have been frightened when I’ve been surfing. … But I got over all of that, and now I’m conscious that we can get hurt. (Peter)

James claimed that he still enjoyed big waves best but as he has got older he’s become more cautious about ‘self-preservation’:

and the brain actually tells you, ‘this is not right.’ And at that point, you either keep going forward, or you turn around and go back to the beach. …You know? Any idiot can paddle out.

Reflecting the wider literature on the gendered nature of risk-taking in lifestyle sport (Laurendeau, 2008; West and Allin, 2010) the women I spoke to were reflexive about risk-taking, seeming not to need, or want, to demonstrate their risk-taking ability as part of their surfing identity, and preferring to emphasise being responsible (see also Spowart et al., 2010; West and Allin, 2010). Jenny said she was more calculating – ‘I just don’t get into situations where I would be afraid’ – recognising that surfing in conditions that scared her would result in poor surfing. Lucy (55) was also happy to concede being a ‘little more careful’ than in her 20s, motivated by the fear of injury:

I do have days where I dip back into being twenty, and I’ll take a risk that … But generally, I want to get back at the end of the day, in one piece. (Lucy, aged 55)

While these gendered narratives, and how they align with risk and responsibility (Brown and Penney, 2014; Spowart et al., 2010), need further investigation, surfing big waves did not appear to be important to these recreational female surfers’ identity performances. Nonetheless, for older women their very participation in an adventurous sport like surfing is in itself seen as a ‘display of a youthful risk-taking persona’ (Pike, 2011a: 8), marking themselves off as different than other women of their age, and challenging the limitations presented by an ageing corporeality (Pike, 2011a: 8).

The long board and negotiating bodily capital

To deal with a loss of strength and mobility, some surfers adapted the equipment they used, for example, using a longer or floatier board, where it is easier to jump up. As outlined above, short boards sit at the top of surfers’ cultural hierarchy, but require ‘flexibility, physical strength and fast reflexes’ (Waitt and Frazer, 2012: 329). Long boards have more buoyancy, requiring less physical effort to catch a wave and less agility to ‘pop-up’ into the standing position. Waitt and Frazer observed that the majority of male long borders in their research in Australia were lifelong surfers over 35 years who had converted from short boards as the ‘“style of surfing” suited them physically with ageing’ (2012: 330). Thus, long boarders had a stigmatised identity that was related to age:

There’s a real stigma you know. Most of my friends go ‘Get off that old man board’. They [short borders] hate them. (Graham, 50-something, around 30 years’ surfing experience cited in Waitt and Frazer, 2012: 333)

Similarly for some of these British surfers, becoming a long boarder was seen as a visible and negative marker of an ageing surfing identity:

But if you’re living down in Cornwall where you’ve got powerful waves, then the transition from a short board onto a long board, is like … Yeah. You know, it’s denoting that I’m getting old.

Dave, who had surfed a short board throughout his surfing career was adamant he wouldn’t surf a long board as it would challenge his identity as a short-board surfer which he saw as different and superior to being a long board surfer:

No, no, I’ve always ridden short boards. […] I’d be a hypocrite if I bought one. (laughs) I used to give them a hard time when they come padding out on those big long boards… So I think I could never have a long board really … I just feel a bit like people on snow-boards and the skiers, you know they’re definitely a different culture.

As Waitt and Frazer suggest, ‘ageist discourses that cast shame on longborders through the category of “old man board” is an effective manner to police the surfing hierarchy, preventing some older surfers from pursuing long boarding’ (2012: 333–334). As a consequence, many of the West Country-based short board surfers who were in their late 40s and early 50s had gradually become less committed to surfing post-youth. For some their withdrawal was a gradual shift. For example, Mike (53) still checked the surf conditions as he passed the beach each morning, yet admitted he hadn’t actually been in the water for over six months. He was finding it hard to give up being a surfer. Mike and others I interviewed reflect the surfers Beaumont and Brown (2015) describe in the ‘legend phase’ who are not necessarily active surfers, but still part of the surfing scene. This includes individuals who don’t surf but tell you they do, motivated by ‘pride and self-importance’ thus pointing to the complex negotiations for these individuals for who, ‘age and physical condition become increasingly socially visible’ and must either ‘yield or resist such traditional views of ageing’ (2015: 81).

In contrast, a number of older surfers I interviewed and observed did successfully convert from short boards finding that the long board style of surfing suited them physically (see also Waitt and Frazer, 2012).

it’s kind of, it gets to me that I can’t ride my short board anymore but, I think I’m really not bothered and I’m happy riding long boards and I get as many waves as I want so you kind of, although you are a bit upset that things aren’t like they used to be you kind of just get on with it and think you know, I’m still getting waves, it’s still good so you just come to terms with it. (Peter)

While certainly recognising that short-board surfing holds most status, they offered an alternative or counter narrative to the dominance of the short board, suggesting that the long board is a different style of surfing that emphasises ‘grace and poise rather than aggression’ (Waitt and Frazer, 2012: 330). As Olive explains, long boarding, which is located as ‘graceful, flowing and feminine’, embraces a different approach to surfing, ‘leading to a different cultural politics than the short boarding cultures’ (2016a: 172):

That’s only because of their preconceptions, isn’t it… about short boarding as being the pinnacle of surfing. Well I don’t agree with that. I never did. […] But there is another whole set of skills, and surfing a long board that looks right …the good long boarders, they do things artistically. A beautiful long boarder is dancing. It is very graceful. (Jenny)

For those who had ridden long boards through their surfing career ageing was less of a challenge to their identity as a ‘real’ surfer. Similarly, for those participants who had learnt to surf in mid-life, or had a long break, this transition represented less of a loss in their status, but provided a new and exciting challenge.

The growth of the SUP

The transition onto a stand paddle board (SUP) was also a strategy being adopted to keep surfing. Paddle-surfing has been gaining in popularity over the past decade. Like the long board it suits the less powerful and smaller waves prevalent on the south coast of England. Instead of lying prone and paddling using the arms for propulsion, participants stand upright and use a paddle to catch the wave. The boards are usually bigger and more stable than surf boards, and it does not require the participants to ‘pop-up’ to their feet, a manoeuvre often cited as the hardest part for older participants (personal interviews, 2010–2011).

[he] used to be a good surfer, but he now stand-up paddles. He’s only 60. It’s because – I know exactly why; he can’t stand up fast enough to get the best part of the wave. […] by the time you stand up, you’re half-way down, and you’ve lost your speed, you’re sitting at the bottom and the thing closes out on you. (John, 62)

Although becoming popular with some young elite participants, SUP riders tend to be characterised by surfers/surfing media as less skilled, and at times they display real hostility to their presence causing similar conflict to those documented between short boards and other surfing craft (Reimers, 2012).

There is a body in surfing, that hate stand-up paddle-boarders. You see it all the time. … Most of the time they haven’t tried it. Most of the time they think it’s really easy… Until they try it. (James, 60)

Several of my interviewees had moved from surfing to SUPs; others started SUP as a ‘small wave’ option. Like many surfers their initial perception of the SUP was negative. James stated: ‘I hated the SUP, I thought it looked impure, ungainly’. But despite negative perceptions, and finding it ‘harder’ than he had anticipated, ‘I realised, that for me, this was the way forward. The sport really grabbed me. And I’ve never really looked back’.

SUP advocates cited the new challenge and versatility of the SUP, however for many of these older surfers it was sporting injuries or agility and mobility issues that ‘forced’ the transition. For many, including short boarders, the SUP had provided a lifeline to enable them to stay active in the surf.

Formal competitions and positive ageing identities

The research on Masters’ athletics illustrates the value of age-specific categories for veteran athletes who experience a loss of performance, by providing an environment where they can still be competitive (Dionigi, 2006; Pike, 2011a), and thus a site in which successful sporting identities are forged, and ‘bodily agency is re-articulated’ (Tulle, 2008: 159). Surfing, however, is not generally associated with competitive practice. Yet three of these recreational surfers had in middle-age or later competed in various forms of formal competition, which they found a particularly validating experience.

James transitioned onto a SUP for wave riding in his 60s. He was subsequently introduced to racing on the SUP board via a friend, and instantly took to it, starting with a local race series, and then participating in national events. He recalled a particular race early in his career that was significant in getting him ‘hooked’, eagerly recounting his exact race time, and how far he was behind the winner:

I ended up winning, the over 52s championship. […] I beat hundreds of guys who were in the 18–41 group.

James enjoyed this ‘success’ in winning a UK Masters’ title, but most importantly beating many younger people validated his performance capital. SUP racing with its first-past-the-post format provided a structured environment similar to Masters’ sport, allowing his sporting prowess to be measured in a quantifiable way. However, like many Masters’ athletes the social element was also highly valued (Dionigi et al., 2011), and his participation led to attention, friendships and status within the SUP community:

The social element was an important part. … You turn up at a race, you pull into the carpark, and just everybody’s coming over to you, talking to each other, sharing experiences.

Jenny was also attracted to surfing competitions in general, and Masters’ events specifically. Her early foray into surfing competition was very validating of her ability as an older surfer; her narrative emphasised that she beat younger women. It was also something she enjoyed doing with her daughter – ‘she would always beat me, but we would always be mother and daughter’:

The [event] was quite exciting for me to even get a trophy. But then I realised I surfed as well as some of the young ones. So there you are, almost 50, and you’re surfing against the teenagers.

We spoke about what winning a contest meant to her – whether it was an affirmation of her ability, demonstrating she was good at it or that she enjoyed formalised forms of external recognition. She admitted ‘All of the above’ and that she had a ‘big ego’ and ‘liked to win’. Subsequently, after reading about the over 50s long board tour, she travelled to [country name] to compete, gaining success and so returning for several years.

In a context of feeling bodily decline, and a culture where status is increasingly hard to obtain, for some formal competition, whether a race first-past-the-post or more subjective but nonetheless person-on-person competition provides a space to validate an ageing surfing identity. Yet, like other Master sport competitions this was only a part of the picture, and certainly these events provided avenues to build friendships with like-minded people, and gain identity and status in a new community (Baker et al., 2010; Pike, 2011a; Tulle, 2008). As James said:

I like to share that experience. You talk about it, you paddle back out, and somebody says, ‘Well, that was a great wave.’ So it’s about the sharing of it. And paddle boarding actually, or the racing scene is very, very much like that.

Discussion: Older surfers embracing different ways of being a surfer

The surfers in this research tended to embrace a broader set of surfing values, and ways of being a surfer than is typified in the literature on the ‘core surfer’.

Waitt and Frazer’s long boarders often characterised surfing as ‘a place of peace and harmony’ devoid of human impact, and a desire for freedom (2012: 340). This reflects the soul surfing ethos which, as Booth (2001) has explored, has long been part of some styles of surfers’ ethos. However, in this project involving long boarders, short boarder and SUP riders, almost all these mid-life and older surfers emphasised this spiritual relationship with the activity and their environment. Surfing participation was part of a broader lifestyle, avoiding the urban rat race, getting ‘back to nature’ and for some valuing less materialistic values (see also Bell and Wheeler, 2015). Jenny had grown up on the beach, but spent most of her adult life in cities. She said ‘nostalgia’ for the beach drove her to surf again in her 40s. Steve (55) recounted how he had moved his family to Cornwall from London when he was in his early 40s. He didn’t have a job, but was driven by a fear of ‘time running out’ to experience a ‘better’ lifestyle for him and his family:

You know what, I just want to live on the beach and go surfing now because I’m mid 40s, who knows what’s around the corner you know cancer and all, stuff runs through your head, how much longer have I got, how much longer am I going to be fit enough to enjoy surfing.

As Evers (2009) has described, surfers develop an embodied sense of connectivity to surf breaks which is about much more than surfing waves. Many interviewees stressed the importance of this connection with nature in their lifestyle, and specifically the water or sea as a specific place of meaning (see also Olive, 2015):

Well surfing, surfing is the sea. […] I think as you get older, you realise how important the sea is. […] I can’t say from someone who grew up in the inner cities, but for me who started at the sea, it is going back to the sea, going back to the ocean. It’s the place where you totally lose yourself.

Most of the interviewees emphasised the mindful and spiritual aspects of the surfing experience. As Olive describes, surfing creates ‘opportunities for individuals to experience the interconnectedness, the more-than-human-ness, of the environment and to develop a sense of themselves as a part of that’ (Olive, 2015: 503).

Several interviewees valued being a role model for their children and grand-children, and particularly enjoyed surfing in inter-generational groups. This was also observed by Beaumont and Brown (2015: 79) who describe how in the responsible and nurtured phases of the surfing career, there is a shift from an individualist engagement towards ‘surfing-for-other focus’, suggesting children and families become important. Despite their stigmatised position, some long boarders in Waitt and Frazer’s (2012) research positioned themselves as surfing elders who were more tolerant and had a more shifting notion of entitlement. Similarly, amongst the African American surfers Wheaton (2013) interviewed, some talked about how their otherness had led to an expanded sense of self, a different way of embodying being a surfer that is less tied to status, exclusion and territory. Olive argues (2016a) that by adopting more ethical approaches to the surfing line-up, the women in her research were challenging dominant ways of being a surfer, and in so doing contributing to cultural change in the surf. These experiences across different contexts remind us of the value of adopting an intersectional approach to understanding identities, and specifically how bodies negotiate their place in the line-up. However, to do so requires a methodology situated in participants’ experiences as embodied subjects, and that teases out the subtle, multiple and shifting forms of inclusion and exclusion that operate.

Conclusions

Although the dominant narrative associated with ageing in Western cultures is in of decline, public health messages increasingly promote a ‘new ageing ethic embodied in the ideal of active, productive or successful ageing’ (Higgs and Gilleard, 2015: 38). Yet as Bennett and Hodkinson argue we know little about the range of ‘age-based identities which people actually take on across the life course’; nor how they are made sense of by people in ‘relation to wider social and cultural norms of ageing’ (2012: 5). This research contributes to the growing literature on physically active ‘post-youth’ leisure lifestyles emerging across literatures in youth studies, gerontology, leisure and in the sociology of sport, illustrating how shifting definitions of ageing have given ‘rise to new expectations, priorities and understandings’ of sporting lifestyles amongst those in middle-age, and increasingly later life (Bennett and Hodkinson, 2012: 3).

This article has illustrated that participation in surfing as a sport and lifestyle remains highly significant for men and women through middle-age and well beyond. It focused on some of the pleasures, cultural barriers and identity strategies employed by recreational older participants as embodied ageing subjects engaging in a sport defined and dominated by youthful masculinities. Yet while age is an important aspect of surfers’ identities, ageing does not mean the same thing to all surfers, but varies in how it is ‘understood, experienced and lived out’ in sport practices (Sparkes, 2015: 137). As Hockey and James argue, ageing is a ‘situated and experiential process’ that is also open to forms of contestation (2003: 78).

In surfing, like most sport and physical activity settings, the body is foregrounded. Yet, in surfing culture age and ageing is often ignored or masked. Participants take for granted the ways in which youthful, agile bodies define surfing ideologies, and how that impacts on surfers’ experiences, identities and mobilities in surf spaces. Older surfers, particularly those clad in neoprene can, to some extent, mask the physical appearance of an ageing body, and many rejected some markers of surfing identity such as clothing. But they were not able to conceal the loss of performance they inevitably experience. For some participants, particularly the most elite, the loss of identity experienced as their physical performance levels decreased had a significant impact, and in many cases resulted in them stopping surfing, temporarily or permanently. The autobiographical accounts of ageing elite surfers emerging predominantly in the surfing media provide a valuable resource to explore these experiences. In contrast to many institutionalised sporting pursuits, there are few opportunities for participants to participate with only those of the same age, as is the case with, for example, Masters sports competitions. Others adapted how they surfed such as changing craft or location. In doing so they were forced to confront, and challenge, the dominant surfing narrative that ‘real’ surfers ride short boards. Thus, while acknowledging their loss of performance capital and status, they also recognised a different and expanded sense of being a surfer, valuing different types of experiences and subjectivities. Many continued to appreciate the surfing lifestyle, particularly the natural ‘blue space’, their intergenerational friendships and the sense of excitement and achievement and well-being as well as physical fitness gained.

Age is clearly important in surfing’s cultural politics; yet, it is primarily men ‘who continue to benefit most from existing cultural knowledges, assumptions and hierarchies, and who are most implicated in regulating and maintaining existing ways of going surfing’ (Olive, 2016a: 172). This project therefore reasserts the importance of research revealing experiences beyond the normative young male heterosexual ‘core’ participant⁵ (lisahunter 2015; Wheaton, 2013) and of short boarders, while also teasing out the ways in which gender/sexuality, ethnicity and age are embodied in and through different surfing spaces.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the editor and anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments, and additional Dr. Rebecca Olive for her insightful comments on an earlier draft.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

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