deep thinking
Sometimes you have to say it …
Mick Fanning is righteous, this we know, he goes any size anywhere and looks good doing it, plus he never has to pay for an air-fare. The bloke is so rightfully in line with the ocean and its contents even oversized, hungry man-eating sharks like to score a close-up with him. Anyone else on the day would have been chomped, but our Mick just let the beast slide on by.
Jeffries Bay, who can forget?
Then the rescue sleds motored by, pulled him and Wilson out of the water and everybody departed for the beach and the interviews.
We’ve been told this seminal event hastened big Mick’s appreciation of the ten yogic principles.
- 1 Non-violence (ahimsa) …
- 2 Truthfulness (satya) …
- 3 Righteousness (asteya) …
- 4 Wisdom (brahmacharia) …
- 5 Simplicity (aparigraha) …
- 6 Worship of the spiritual goal (ishvara-pranidhana) …
- 7 Sacrifice the ego (shaucha) …
- 8 Self-discipline (tapas) …
- 9 Reading (svadhyaya) …
- 10 Contentment (santosha) …
Trouble was on the day nobody exercised enough (4) wisdom, or sourced enough (3) righteousness, or sacrficed enough (7) ego or employed enough (8) self-discipline to help out WSL photographer Kelly Cestari. He was left out the back, had to swim in alone. Probably lost a day’s pay and had to turf a pair of shorts.
Ten fingers, ten principles … how hard can it be to summon a cerebral calm before ploughing into a semi-final heat at Bells this weekend?
Trouble is we’re thinking, why doesn’t big Mick do his yogic routine back in the tent, over in the corner behind the broken boards and damp towels? Who needs clicking cameras and babes in bikinis when you’re winding down the cortex.
~~
We reckon the Champ has the answer to semi-final jitters.
Look dangerous and fire up a durry …
~~
http://www.worldsurfleague.com/posts/131677/water-photographer-kelly-cestari-shark-encounter
petebowes.com 
Hey Pete ….aren’t they 60 odd years late. Substitute a photo of Magoo for Fanning and the “Head ” Bennan with the smoke – it’s South Bondi Surfboard Riders in the late ’50’s. Of course, bikinis hadn’t really arrived yet ….but they weren’t far off.
I’m trying to keep relevant .. besides, those two blokes were goofy foots.
It all adds up for me, I was surfing in South West W.A, on the reefs south of Cowaramup at a start of Australia trip. I was playing it safe. Taking it from the shoulder, I was overshooting my cutbacks, struggling to get on the wave. I left the surf, a retinue of hurried surfers passed me by and ignored me, a camera man with his gear, with barely hidden look of contempt. Then Mick passed me, looked me straight in the eye and nodded acknowledgement.