In all most all sports in the world, where players play as a team they usually call their team-mates with their nicknames. The nicknames associated with the people have a certain significance, and they possess such names because of a particular attribute they have in their personality, or it can be their likings as well.
Surfing is a sport where teams do not play rather a fierce competition is held between the individuals who possess multiple attributes. The sport in which a surfer rides the board and sails on the sea waves while battling their gravity and destructive nature gets particular set of marks.
The marks are accorded to the people who perform special maneuvers and do multiple acrobats while sailing on the board. The sport in itself is quite dangerous and has multiple threats associated with it. The threats could be your life as well because water once takes hold of someone never forgives.
How difficult is this sport?
It may seem quite easy from the shore to see someone making maneuvers on the board while keeping himself stick to the board but it is no easy sport. The board, the nature of the weather, the wind speed and the climatic conditions all play an important role in carving the situation. The playing field keeps on changing all the time, and there is no certainty what kind of circumstance would be the next minute.
Once has got to be quite professional before he jumps into the wild ocean waves. For surf beginners, it is difficult because of multiple reasons. The inability to keep stick to the board, the inability to balance on the board, unable to make maneuvers while battling sea waves but once the player catches the first wave, he has done it. This is why when professionals are productively surfing the waves everybody in the audience watches them with awe.
Using nicknames
The professionals when getting into the competitions which are both national and international level prefer to get called by their nicknames. The nicknames are usually derived from the body language, the shape of the board or the kind of maneuvers surfers make while performing acrobats. The nature of nicknames is usually different for people belonging to different areas.
For example, Americans generally do not follow Australian trend where a surfer named Malibu had the nickname of “Miki Da Cat” which was derived from his catlike grace on the longboard and his alley-cat lifestyle after hours. Similarly, world champions Bernard Farrelly had the nickname “Midget,” and Robert had the nickname of “Nat” owing to their size.
In the era of 1970, surfing nicknames took an abbreviated form such as Barry Kanaiaupuni had the nickname of “BK” and Dick Van Strallen was known as DVS. Similarly, one player may have several other nicknames such Michael Peterson was known as The Monk, Reggie The Veggie, The Wizard for his surfing magic.
Nicknames can be crude and may be hilarious at times, but they are part of surfing folklore.
