Surfing Waves

David Nuuhiwa - Rainbow Bridge -- am looking at 0:36

It does seem to me the knee orientation capture above is very different from what's being taught as good angles nowadays

Initially he does something like poo stance where his arm hang out over one side of the board counterbalanced by his butt sticking out over the other side but he is crouching very low and his arms and legs are in contact. The rest of it not so much but he does have an unusual stance for these days. But that’s Nuuhiwa and he was an exceptional surfer so forget what he does

Looks like he is surfing a single fin which he is messing around on, so not the same requirements as a tic tac shortboard

But, more importantly, surfing is a bit like golf, there are beautiful textbook golf swings and there are ugly as fxxx swings that hit the ball down the middle. Now competition surfing requires a certain style, but free surfing doesn’t really and our surfing certainly doesn’t.

They always said Nuuhiwa had lots of style but it seemed to me he was doing his own thing. He surfed how he wanted to, so his own style. Perhaps this was not the board for him on those waves but look what he could do with it! Certainly these days they have made great improvements in board design compared to then. If you watch old movies of Gerry Lopez when he wasn't riding Pipeline he seemed kind of goofy as well but perhaps it wasn't the right board for him for those waves however he still did okay.

Greg Noll famously had a, well, 'different' stance, but it was very effective for what he wanted to do.

I don’t think that is Poo Stance, but even if it was just look at the buckets of spray he threw. You may not surf correct or the current style, but it’s the end result that matters.

Someone who is surfing fluidly and surfing well with knees slightly outward doesn't look bad, if not quite as stylish as Craig Anderson or whoever.

What I notice most about beginner poo stance is when a surfer's bodies, arms, and legs are all frozen in place as they are afraid to fall. That's what looks kooky IMO (but hey we all go through it!)