GYNOSOME: Tell me a bit about yourselves
Grace: I’m a theatre design student at Chelsea College of Art from Wokin
Caitlin: I ‘m a first year graphic design student at London College of Communication born and raised in London
Alex: I’m Alex, I’m a second year product design student at Central Saint Martins and the social secretary for the Surf club.
We do one trip a term and then a summer trip, and then we have other fitness lessons to get us ready for the sea and swimming and stuff. The trips are what everyone goes to and what brings everyone in, it’s an escape from the city, to get to the sea.
GYNOSOME: Where do you usually go on your trips?
Alex: Devon, Newquay, Cornwall, Scotland- we’re going to Dunbar actually in a couple of weeks and I can’t wait, it’s going to be amazing and we may be going to Morrocco in the summer and we’ve been to Portugal. That’s what we do, that’s pretty much it. I love the sea, I’m a bit of a-
Caitlin:We all do
Alex: I’m in love with the sea. If the waves aren’t good when we go up to Dunbar the guys have other plans for us like paddle boarding, as long as we’re in the sea it doesn’t matter and thst’s fine. It doesn’t matter how cold it is, we have wetsuits, that’s fine. It’s the actual ocean and it’s out of a city- that’s all that matters. That’s why I do it
Caitlin: My family all used to go to Cornwall. We have a house in Cornwall so in January we used to go when it’s freezing and not full of people. Even when I was about six or seven I remember my dad surfing and I would follow him into the sea, as soon as I could get on a board I was in there with him
Grace: I think I was fourteen when I first started, it was one of those things where we went on holiday and wanted to try out surfing and thought it would just be a holiday thing and then I fell in love with it, went back twice that same year and haven’t looked back. When I started my foundation here I just thought I’d look for a society, I’ve always loved the sea
Alex: I was surprised to find a surf club, I needed to join a group and find some friends, and then I saw surf club and thought ‘this can’t be real’. I was like ‘you do surfing? Where?’ That’s the question we always get asked; ‘you’re a surf club in London! What? Where’
Grace: My friends were like’ Do you go in the Thames or something?’
GYNOSOME: How many members are there in the surf society?
Alex: It’s quite difficult to keep a track of them, we always have a bout 100 people that pay and sign up, but the people that actually come to the fitness classes and trips ends up being about fifty. It’s not the same people every time, and don’t have fifty on every trip but there’s that amount that have the same kind of interest. Unless we do a really chilled out social though, nobody is there. Everyone is a little sporadic, people come and go but we have about 100 signed up members at a time
Grace: it’s quite nice because it’s not like a football team or netball team where everyone’s really competitive, it’s quite chilled if you don’t fancy going out or going to fitness one week it’s alright
Caitlin: Someone thought I made it up that there was a surf society
Grace: I remember going to one sports social and it was a bar crawl and everyone else was like ‘right finish your drinks we’re moving on’ and we were like ‘nah we’ll chill here for a bit’
GYNOSOME: Do any of you do any other sports?
Grace: I do ballet, it’s quite different. I used to do it a lot but when I had exams I stopped and I’ve just now started up again to keep fit and because I missed it. Surf is what I’m more engaged with.
Alex: You’re really good at it. I don’t really do any other sports other than swimming but I only do that when I go back to Scotland and that’s in the sea. We have one member that refuses to swim in a pool, it has to be natural water she swims in. Unless it’s extreme circumstances, she hates the chemicals and the chlorine. The sea is a much more natural experience. I prefer swimming in the sea, you have to fight against a current and you’re actually doing some work your pushing against something that’s there and real, not forced by a wave machine. In the sea you're working with nature. You're working with the tide- it's more natural to swim in the sea
Caitlin: Speaking of the sea, my friend is setting up a London based diving society
Grace: I’d love the get my license some day
Alex: I went to Egypt to get my license, I went alone and it was awful. It was the coldest winter they’ve had and there was nobody else there other than German families that don’t speak any other language. I had no internet and wasn’t able to call anyone.
GYNOSOME: It’s a big commitment for you guys to go surfing, it takes a lot of planning, and you can’t just wake up one morning and run to the beach. What makes it worth it?
Alex: It.
Grace: When you get there and actually doing it
Caitlin: Catching a wave
Alex: It doesn’t matter how many times you go under, catching one wave is amazing
Grace: even if you only get one wave it can make your entire day
Alex: It’s great because everyone else in the water just stops and cheers
Caitlin: I remember when three members all caught the same wave and it was amazing
Grace: I remember on our last trip I got my best wave yet. I waited the whole trip and it was right at the end and it made it all so worth it.
Caitlin: Every surfers aim is to get in the green room, which is to get in the barrel, the green far out stage of the wave where it curls over
Alex: One time I was trying so hard to do it and with every wave that came I was getting pushed out, I had to give up it wasn’t my time
GYNOSOME: Do you ever do it competitively or is it just for yourselves?
Grace: No
Alex: I think if we could we may do but it doesn’t feel like it’s that kind of team. We’re all about getting out into the country and experiencing it
Grace: We compete drinking. Something I’ve always liked about surfing was that it wasn’t really competitive, you can just go out by yourself or with your team and if you’re not having a good day and keep falling off you all just support one another. No one can control the waves completely, everyone has fallen off no matter how good you are so everyone can understand and support one another. There’s no judgement
Caitlin: Well I like competitive sports; I’m more competitive with myself though
Alex: Yeah I remember one time there was a really tough wave that none of us could get on but you were really beating yourself up about it
Grace: It’s good to be competitive with yourself, looking at your best level and best wave rather than concerned about other people
GYNOSOME: What do you think surfing gives you that others sports doesn’t?
Grace: I think, personally what I’ve experienced, you know after you exercise you judge where you’ve burnt or how well you’ve done by where you ache? The best ache I ever got was from surfing- it was better than anything I've ever got from a gym workout. When you get out there you just enjoy it so much it doesn’t feel like exercise
Alex: Until you get pushed out by a wave and realise the waves are much stronger than you and then you have to walk back through it. It doesn’t matter if it’s raining when you’re in the water, that’s fine but when the current is so strong it takes you longer to get in than to get out.
Sometimes when it just isn’t working you’re like ‘Earth, help me!’
GYNOSOME: Is it harder to surf when it rains?
Grace: It depends on the wind, if it’s rainy and windy then yeah
Alex: The current is the main problem, I haven’t experienced it really windy. When you swim and it rains it doesn’t matter, it’s all water isn’t it?
Caitlin: When you go under water and it’s raining and you can see all the drops, it’s beautiful
Alex: If you get dunked under from a wave and you can see the waves crashing and the boards, it’s amazing. It sounds quite spiritual, but surfing and being in the sea is otherworldly. I feel more comfortable being in the sea than on land
Caitlin: I made a short film set under the sea because that’s where I feel best
Grace: someone asked me if id rather live under water or in the moon, I chose under water
Alex: For sure
Grace: It’s a no brainer I guess
GYNOSOME: What do you enjoy about the society as a whole?
Grace: It’s definitely for me a social thing, meeting people outside of my course. I still live at home with my family so I haven’t met other people as much. Meeting like-minded people is what I like
Caitlin: I definitely learnt a lot more about yoga. We learn a lot about yoga and new positions every week. Now I’m teaching my friends to help their balance
Alex: We do three hour sessions where it’s half cardio and half yoga and we have these boards on a cylinder- to help our balance and core strength
Grace: The fitness classes are amazing
Alex: You don’t realise until you’re out in the water how much strength you need to cope with the water. The strength of the sea if something you can’t imagine unless you’re in the sea all of the time
GYNOSOME: Have you guys ever heard of surfers against sewage? Is it something you support?
Alex: Yes. I do, a lot of my work is involved with waste disposal and cleaning up plastic in the ocean and how plastic degrades over time and how it affects the bays and the reefs. I’ve talked to them a lot and the surf camps we use on our trips are great because they have beach clean ups at the end of every week so it means every single week the whole team clean up their whole beach and they’re a part of surfers against sewage too. It’s interesting work and it means I get to be in the sea more and helping as well. A lot of the surfing in Bali and Indonesian areas- there’s so much rubbish, you see pictures where you can see the surfers and it looks like they’re just sat amongst rubbish, you can’t see the sea. It’s awful; it’s not only bad for you but also horrific for the world
GYNOSOME: What you do is reliant on nature; do you find that makes you more conscious of how we treat the earth?
Grace: I guess it does, I haven’t heard of surfers against sewage but I guess so, you are with nature and it’s quite-
Caitlin: I would agree. I'm so angry at how we treat the environment. I'm very passionate about it. I don’t know if its because I surf or because of people I’ve grown up with because I know a lot of surfers and people who are a big part of surfers against sewage.
Alex: It’s interesting that those decide to surf are often like minded in that sense originally anyway
Caitlin: I think most people in general are more away of it now, aren’t they?
GYNOSOME: Do you think surfing is dominated by either sex, is it a biased sport?
Grace: I think there are a lot of female surfers, a lot more now and it’s getting more popular with girls
Caitlin: I remember when I was younger I watched blue crush, have you seen that? It’s a film about a teen girl surfer and she hits coral and it’s really dramatic, there’s a lot of blood
(All laugh)
There’s a scene where they are walking underwater with a rock for training, it’s a really good film. Maybe that’s subconsciously what got me into surfing. After that I started shopping at Roxy
Grace: There’s a lot for the girls, there’s a surf girl magazine
Alex: For a sport where you have to be really fit and really strong, it requires the same kind of strength as rugby or football but different discipline, because it’s in the water it’s not the same as on land
Grace: Maybe it’s because it’s not as competitive
GYNOSOME: Less testosterone filled aggression, maybe
Alex: For some places it’s a culture based on location rather than gender biased. I personally don’t think there’s a gender bias
Grace: Neither do I, maybe that’s why I like it.
Alex: It’s a unisex sport and that’s brilliant, it doesn’t matter, there would be no way it could be only male or female sport, your league and team can’t be split based on gender. Also that’s another thing, we aren’t a competitive team, we’re a community.
GYNOSOME: You can really tell. Thanks so much for speaking to us!