A single beginner lesson yields sweeping conclusions about a completely different sport
DANA POINT, Calif. – Endurance sports influencer Blake Farrow, known online for detailed breakdowns of transition times and heart rate zones, completed his first-ever surf lesson Saturday and, within four hours, published a twelve-minute video comparing the sport in detail to CrossFit, a conclusion that has puzzled instructors and, quietly, delighted comment section regulars.
Farrow, who has never competed in or discussed surfing prior to this weekend, described the sport in his video as “explosive, community-driven, and honestly pretty punishing on the shoulders,” observations his surf instructor said were “not wrong, exactly, but also not really specific to surfing.”
The Comparison, Explained
“There’s a shared vocabulary,” Farrow says in the video, standing on the sand still holding a foam board. “You’ve got your reps, your form, your community that judges you if your form is bad. I mean, functionally, paddling is just rowing with worse odds of success. I think surf culture could learn a lot from how CrossFit built its brand.”
Instructor Marisol Vega, who taught the two-hour beginner lesson, said Farrow caught three waves total, all with assistance, and asked at one point whether there was “a metrics app” for tracking wave count over time. “I told him there sort of is, but mostly it’s just remembering,” Vega said. “He seemed genuinely disappointed by that answer.”
A Familiar Pattern
Vega said Farrow’s reaction, while unusually thorough, is not unique. “We get a version of this every summer,” she said. “Someone from another sport tries surfing once and immediately starts drawing a framework. Triathletes do the metrics thing. CrossFit people do the community thing. Once we had a marathoner try to explain surfing to me using splits. I just let people have their framework. It’s usually harmless.”
The video has drawn a mix of amused and mildly annoyed responses from surfers in the comments, several of whom pointed out that surfing, unlike a WOD, does not offer a scoreboard, a set duration, or, notably, dry land, a distinction Farrow addressed in a follow-up comment by suggesting “that’s actually the next opportunity, a scored format.”
The Opportunity, According to Farrow
Farrow has since floated the idea of a “surf-based fitness challenge” combining paddling intervals with beach sprints, an idea he says has already generated interest from his audience, most of whom, by his own estimate, have also never surfed. Vega, asked whether such a format would resemble actual surfing, said only that “it would resemble something, I’m just not sure it would resemble the ocean.”
Coverage of the growing overlap between fitness influencer culture and traditional action sports has been tracked by outlets including The Inertia, which has documented similar crossover attempts in skateboarding and climbing with, per its reporting, mixed long-term results.
The Instructor’s Perspective
Vega, who has taught beginner lessons in this area for nine years, said Farrow is far from her most memorable outside-sport crossover student, though she declined to name others out of professional courtesy. “I’ve had CrossFit people, I’ve had a professional chess player once who tried to explain wave selection using something he called ‘board position,’ which, again, not wrong exactly, just not really surfing-specific,” she said. “Everyone brings their old framework. Most people eventually let it go once they’ve been humbled by the ocean a few more times. I give it three more lessons before Blake stops mentioning heart rate zones mid-paddle.”
She added that despite the framework confusion, Farrow was, by her account, a genuinely enthusiastic and coachable student, catching more waves in his first lesson than most beginners his size and fitness level typically manage. “The instinct to over-explain everything is annoying,” Vega said, “but the actual paddling was solid. I’ll take a strong paddler with a weird theory over a weak paddler with no theory any day.”
What Comes Next
Farrow says he plans a second lesson next month, this time with a heart rate monitor, and has already registered a domain for the fitness challenge concept, a step Vega called “faster than most of my students learn to pop up.” She added that she has agreed, mostly out of curiosity, to consult on the format, on the condition that “it involves an actual wave at some point.” Farrow, told of the condition secondhand, said he considered it “a fair ask” and had already begun drafting a waiver, a document Vega said she has not yet reviewed but assumes “will use the word optimize at least once.” Vega added that regardless of how the format turns out, she was glad to see someone new fall in love with the ocean, even if he arrived describing it, unforgettably, as “a really inconsistent gym.” Farrow, for his part, said the phrase was meant as a compliment, and that he intends to keep using it in future videos regardless of how the surf community feels about it, a stance Vega called “consistent, if nothing else.” She added, half laughing, that if the challenge format ever actually launches, she has already decided her one non-negotiable condition for staying involved: no leaderboard for wave count, since “the second you start ranking people on that, you’ve built a worse sport than the one you were trying to improve.”
Ongoing coverage of the collaboration, should it proceed, is tracked at bohiney.com.
Further dispatches from the humor desk: Reductress.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com