Editor’s Note:
posted last week.
First off, let it be known that I’m not saying surfing leashless isn’t dumb, because for plenty of reasons, it is. It just isn’t not-wearing-a-mask-in-the-middle-of-a-pandemic dumb, as some might suggest. Here’s the dirty little secret about
wearing a leash – in many ways, it can be less safe than not wearing a leash, even and especially in the crowded lineup that supposedly is anathema to the leashless. Confused? Read on.
My main complaint with leashes is that they teach you that it’s ok to mostly lose control of your board. By mostly lose control of your board, I mean have it on the end of a rope tied to your ankle flailing around like a medieval mace-and-chain. Sure, it’s still attached to you, but you really don’t have a ton of control over it. Ever heard of the “circle of life/blood circle/safety circle” in knife handling? It’s got a lot of different names, but basically, it’s a circle (duh) the radius of which is