The Way of the Surfer focuses on the "soul of surfing" and riding waves as a life path. Profiles of eleven icons of modern surf culture reveal both both the physical and the spiritual dimensions of surfing. Between these profiles, a series of short essays describes the evolution of surfing and surf culture.

The Way of the Surfer (published in October 2003 by Harry N. Abrams, New York) is copiously illustrated with over 150 portrait and action photographs by surfing's top photographers.

The Surfers:
1) Woody Brown - surf pioneer, over 90 and still surfing
2) John Severson - co-inventor of surf culture and Surfer mag
3) Dick Brewer - top surfboard builder, psychedelic guru
4) Nat Young - 1966 World Champ, surfboard pioneer, iconoclastic Aussie
5) Bill Hamilton - top star, dropped out to do it all on Kauai
6) Rolf Aurness - 1970 World Champ, son of Gunsmoke Jim, mysto seeker
7) Gerry Lopez - Zen surfer, Pipeline master, movie star
8) Tom Curren - 3-time World Champ, huge fame, soul man
9) Lisa Andersen - 4-time champ, most popular female surfer of all time
10) Kelly Slater - 6-time Champ, best surfer in the world
11) Titus Kinimaka - Hawaiian warrior, tow-in surfer & king of Hanalei

An excerpt from:

The Way of the Surfer
by Drew Kampion

Beauty's Edge

The beach is a tidal zone, a ragged and chaotic borderland where the interplay of planetary and cosmic forces is perhaps most clearly revealed. As an expression of those dynamics, the surf is beauty's edge, an eternal dialogue between utterly different yet complementary worlds.

Out on the ragged edges of islands and continents, where whump of wave and surge of sea wears monuments into sand, someone is always watching. They're out there now, following twisted, sodden trails down to the shore. They're leaping from slick boulders into icy brine ... clawing over thundering cornices into the torquing pits of powerful pulses ... gliding like gulls across the smooth, glassy slopes of silently advancing swells. Those surfers, those riders of waves.

Survival out here is always a question of balance. The principle is expressed in the equation "Nature = God" carved into the sandstone above Malibu by Tom Blake. He enlivened the essential surfer's philosophy of respect - for others, for history, for the power of nature. He understood that it was all nature. He believed that it was all God. The intrinsic sustaining balance of the natural world is self-evident. It is something that is educated into each surfer. If you ride waves long enough and keep your eyes and heart open, you get it.

There's a million surfers you'll never know or even hear about, pockets of them everywhere, sub-sub cultures where daily "heroics" and communication with the wild plumbs the depths of natural relationships and begs the question of man's purpose on the planet. Out of many paths, one path ... the way of the surfer.

Order The Way of the Surfer now!

© Drew Kampion, 2006