City Ordinance Requires Thirty Seconds Of Intentional Presence Before Any Surfer May Begin Paddling
Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat
Laguna Beach Introduces Mandatory Mindfulness Pause Before Each Wave, Backlog Now Extends To Thursday
LAGUNA BEACH — A Laguna Beach city ordinance that took effect Monday requiring all surfers at city beaches to observe a mandatory thirty-second mindfulness pause before beginning to paddle for any wave has, by Wednesday morning, produced a surf lineup backlog estimated at approximately four hundred wave-rider units, with the queue now extending into later in the week and several competitive surfers reporting they have not caught a wave since the ordinance took effect.
The ordinance, passed last month by the city council after a proposal from a wellness industry advocacy group called Mindful Coast Coalition, requires that any surfer who intends to paddle for a wave must first “pause in a stationary floating position, observe the wave’s approach with full present-moment awareness, set a clear intention for the ride, and breathe mindfully for no fewer than thirty seconds before initiating paddle effort.” Surfers who begin paddling before completing the thirty-second pause are subject to a citation and a 75-dollar fine.
City-appointed Mindfulness Compliance Officers, stationed on paddleboards in the lineup, are responsible for enforcing the ordinance. The officers carry stopwatches and are authorized to issue citations to surfers who initiate the paddle before the thirty-second requirement is met.
“We believe that every wave deserves to be approached with full presence and intention,” explained Laguna Beach Wellness Coordinator Serena Buckmaster-Okafor, who oversaw development of the ordinance. “The pause is not a delay. The pause is the practice.”
The Backlog
The backlog has, by Wednesday morning, produced conditions in the Laguna Beach lineup that several surfers described as “unprecedented.” The thirty-second mandatory pause, applied sequentially to each wave in a lineup of typically fifteen to thirty surfers, with waves arriving every thirty to sixty seconds, has produced a mathematical mismatch between wave supply and wave demand that is fundamental rather than incidental.
Under standard lineup dynamics, multiple surfers can catch different waves in the same set, with priority rotating through the group. Under the new ordinance, the mandatory pause requirement means that only one surfer can complete the required observation and intention-setting before any given wave arrives, with subsequent surfers required to restart their thirty-second pause when a wave passes without them. The reset provision was included, the ordinance’s authors explained, because “beginning a mindfulness practice and then abandoning it mid-wave is contrary to the intention of the ordinance.”
The backlog that has resulted is, several surf instructors calculated, theoretically permanent under current conditions. The wave supply at the affected break is approximately forty rideable waves per hour. The mandatory pause requirement, combined with the reset provision, reduces the theoretical rideable-wave throughput to approximately eighteen per hour. With approximately thirty surfers in the lineup, each surfer can theoretically ride approximately 0.6 waves per hour, or one wave every hundred minutes.
This kind of regulation that produces outcomes precisely contrary to the activity it nominally supports is consistent with a long tradition of wellness-oriented policy whose quantitative implications were not modeled before implementation.
The Surfers
The surfers in the affected lineup have had, by various accounts, an extremely mindful week. Longtime Laguna local Brecken Solaris-Vance told reporters Wednesday morning that he had been floating in the lineup since six a.m. and had, thus far, caught zero waves. He had, however, he acknowledged, observed several waves approaching with full present-moment awareness and had set clear intentions for each of them.
“The intentions were all good,” Solaris-Vance said. “The execution has been limited by the backlog.”
He reported that the extended floating time had given him significant opportunity to practice the mandated present-moment awareness, which he described as “genuinely deepening” after the first four hours. “By hour three,” he said, “I was aware of the present moment in a way I have never been aware of it before. By hour four I was primarily aware of being hungry.”
This is consistent with a wider pattern in which regulations intended to enhance an experience produce, through their implementation, experiences substantially different from those intended.
The Mindful Coast Coalition Response
The Mindful Coast Coalition, contacted Wednesday, expressed enthusiasm about the ordinance’s first week. Executive Director Tamsin Wellbeing-Park described the backlog as “a beautiful opportunity for extended practice” and said that the coalition had received “numerous reports from surfers that the mandatory pause had deepened their connection to the ocean.”
Asked about the zero-wave situation for several surfers, Wellbeing-Park said that “catching a wave is not, ultimately, the point of surfing.” Several surfers, reached separately, disagreed with this characterization.
The coalition has proposed, as a solution to the backlog, extending the mandatory pause to sixty seconds, on the theory that “a more complete mindfulness practice will reduce the sense of urgency that is creating the competitive pressure in the lineup.” The mathematical implications of doubling the mandatory pause time in an already-backlogged lineup were not addressed in the coalition’s statement.
The City’s Response
Laguna Beach city officials, contacted Wednesday afternoon, said they were “monitoring the implementation” and “collecting data on the ordinance’s effects.” The city has not, as of press time, indicated whether it plans any modifications to the ordinance based on the first week’s experience.
For more on California coastal wellness regulation, see The Daily Mash for related British recreational regulation coverage.
The backlog, by Thursday morning’s estimate, extended to Sunday. The surfers remain in the lineup, floating with intention, setting their intentions, watching the waves they are not catching pass with full present-moment awareness.