Trident has no prejudice. Some of our best friends are goofy footers.
What is the meaning of existence? Is there life elsewhere in the universe? Is there such a thing as a human being who actually enjoys broccoli? Ever since the first primordial fish crawled out of the ocean, then became dinosaurs, birds, sabretooth cats, cavemen, lawyers and ice cream salesmen on bicycles then decided to go back into the ocean – we surfers have pondered one universal mystery: What makes you Goofy or Regular? Is it based on what hand you pick your nose with? What leg you would you karate kick a friendly rival with? How much broccoli you ate as a kid?
Although this is difficult to confirm, legend has it the term “goofy” comes from the 1937 Disney cartoon, “Hawaiian Holiday,” in which Goofy surfs with his right foot forward. Now, being named after a talking dog of sub average intellect seems inordinately mean to me, but it’s a helluva lot more exciting than being called “regular”. This author is regular (or natural), which sounds about as awe-inspiring as a box of all-bran cereal. Which keeps you Regular. And is all Natural. So, one could argue if it was another character that went surfing with his right foot forward, said stance could now be called “Mickey” or “Pluto” or – heavens-to-Betsy considering current events – “Donald”.
While snowboarders and skateboarders have become fairly ambidextrous in their preferred stances, as have windsurfers, wakeboarders, kitesurfers etc; surfing by its very difficult nature means we all pretty much stick to the initial stance we began riding when first we started surfing. This is appearing to change however, and soon we’ll find 10-year old groms shredding 15 foot Pipeline in a goofy stance then shifting to Backdoor regular footed. Just don’t ask the awkward question of how we’ll be dealing with our surf leashes. (Old school loggers, no need to be so smug right now.)
So let’s consider some questions about stance. Does being right-handed or left-handed determine your surfing stance? No. Although most surfers tend to be natural, this has very little to do with being left or right handed. Roughly speaking, only about 10% of the population is left handed, yet worldwide, the spread of regular vs goofy is slightly more even (just look the numbers of the WSL surfers.) So what then determines your stance? Well, there is some science to it – apparently we have a “balance” leg and an “action” leg. The majority of us use our right legs as the action limb (ie: kicking balls or annoying douches in the balls), and our left leg as the balance limb. Go on, fat toothless dude who snaked me last summer, try balancing on your left leg on a 10 foot lamppost. Please. I implore you.
Still, for action and balance, our legs are slightly interchangeable in their prime roles here. Yet, interestingly enough, it seems our “balance” leg is most likely responsible for our stance, not our “action” leg which seems counter-intuitive. Hence, we have surfers talk about front- or back-foot surfers. So, Trident would guess if your “balance foot” is in front, you’d be a back foot surfer (“action” leg behind), and if your “balance foot” is in the back you’d be a front foot surfer (“action” leg forward).
So what can we take from this? Trident reckons unlike lotto tickets or American presidential candidates – stance is not entirely random. Yet it isn’t particularly predetermined nor related to your preferred writing hand either. So here’s a final thought. Why not switch things up – literally – and try surfing for half a session in the opposite stance. At the very least, you’ll see how the other half lives. So let it not be said Trident doesn’t strive for equality and social cohesion folks. A Nobel prize for peace beckons. Also for science.
