ISLAND VOICES
Surf's up — treat it with aloha

By John Y.U. Choi
Makiki resident and a surfer for 22 years

Although I feel the frustration of Michelle Noelani Medeiros, who wrote in an Oct. 12 letter that the surfing community lacks aloha, I disagree with her conclusion.

Surfing by nature is a dangerous sport, but people tend to forget about that because accidents are not that frequent. In her letter, Medeiros talked about "accidentally" cutting someone off and being yelled at for being, as she put it, a "stupid haole." I have had my share of serious surfing injuries caused by someone "accidentally" doing something they should not have been doing.

I recently got out of the water at Ala Moana Bowls after yelling at someone with a light blue longboard and yellow surf shorts with red flowers on them. Not because he was haole and not because he cut me off. He opened his mouth when he never should have. Allow me to school you.

This guy cut me off and not accidentally because he looked right back into my face before he did it. After bottom turning on a head-high wave, he fell on his face and his board almost hit me. I never said a word to him. I just paddled back out with aloha in my heart and mind, remembering that I was once a beginner, too.

Then two waves later, the same guy has right-of-way position on me and I just took off anyway, cutting him off and giving the guy a bit of his own medicine. We both rode the wave, and at the end he did something worse than cutting someone off accidentally. He swore at me as if I had just purposely knocked a plate lunch out of his hand.

That was a mistake. This guy, it turns out, was not a beginner. I saw him get some nice rides. If not a beginner, I thought, then what? A kook.

A kook is someone who does not even pay attention or concentrate on what he is doing. Any conscientious surfer would have known who he or she had cut off. Any conscientious surfer would not swear at someone he didn't know, especially at Bowls.

So here are some basic rules to live by when surfing:

• Always show respect to everyone surfing the spot you just paddled out to.
• Respect means looking back before you take off to make sure you are not cutting anyone off. It's not their responsibility to yell at you, it's yours to look back to make sure you are not "accidentally" cutting someone off. It's just like making a turn in your car onto a busy street. Always look before you go.
• Do not open your mouth to someone you do not know, no matter how wrong you think they are or how frustrated you feel. Just let it go — and especially do not swear at anyone.
• All beginners and most intermediate surfers should stay way from the following spots on the South Shore of O'ahu: Ala Moana Bowls, Kaiser's and Kewalo Point. These spots are for the advanced and expert. Not sure what category you are in? Then you are not advanced or expert. It's just common sense because it's crowded, the reef is shallow and the wave itself is dangerous when over head high.
• Make friends. Paddle up to a total stranger and talk story with him. What do you talk about? Talk about surfing. Ask him his name. Ask him what school he went to. I bet you both know the same people.

If you do this regularly, you will know that aloha is a state of mind, not something that is not given to you by someone else when you accidentally cut them off.