Risk Reward of Barrel Riding

“I’ll be honest, Rob. Now that I’ve tried barrel riding, and have felt it on my body, I don’t think the reward is worth what my body will go through to get it.”

Fair enough. I was speaking with a client and friend of mine who was eager to learn how to barrel ride so we embarked on setting the foundation with his paddling and takeoff.

Introducing him to various wave scenarios at Ocean Beach, Surf Ranch, and Waco, we focused on getting into the wave early, setting his feet in the wax, finding appropriate trim, and crouching low while still remaining in control of the board. He took a lot of wipeouts. A lot. But not as many as many other surfers on their journey to barrel riding.

Wise advice for barrel riding has been to pull into a lot of closeouts and barrels. The problem is, pulling in gets you the view, but also trains your brain to eject wipeout after wipeout to preserve life and limb. The brain begins to associate the view received with a correlation to bailing early to avoid violent wipeouts.

And when the brain doesn’t do that, the surfer is provided with a severe thrashing in shallow water.

We attempted to ease the risk by setting up the view at places like Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch, where a surfer can get up, set the feet and ease into the almost perfect barrel; with an added bonus of knowing that the barrel will stay open – they just need to hold the line.

That was nice for him as he proceeded to emerge from the barrels presented to him at Surf Ranch. Then came a more technical barrel at Waco (the Keg profile) from which he received one of the worst beatings he has ever experienced since starting to surf.

Subsequent sessions at Ocean Beach, San Francisco proved to confirm his initial feelings even after the Surf Ranch session – the barrel might not be worth the risk taken to put himself in that location and situation on the wave.

A philosophical discussion ensued. The prompt? Is the barrel worth it?

I leaned on the affirmative. He leaned on the negative side of the discussion. But I could understand his point of view.

I started getting exposed to barrel riding in my late teens. He began in his mid-50s. Every once in a while, I am in situations that end up pulling my limbs away from my center of mass and colliding with the ocean’s bathymetry – and in these situations I’m reminded that I am no longer in my late teens.

Barrel riding when completed successfully is the most basic form of wave-riding with as little movement and energy employed. The surfer is just going straight and holding the same line. It’s simple, clean, even effortless.

However, barrel riding when not completed successfully can often be the most horrendous wipeout a surfer can experience, especially if the surfer holds on longer than they should. People say the barrel is the safest place to wipeout – which is partly true – if and only if the surfer ejects at the correct moment and location. If the surfer bails too late on their mission to come out of the barrel, they are now in the shallowest and most powerful part of the wave expressing its fury and wrath.

High risk, high reward.

Ah, the reward of a good, in-and-out barrel. The sound of water exploding, the movement of water flowing around you, centimeters from scalping your head – a cocoon of chaos. Then emerging unscathed. It is the definition of being right on the edge of destruction and just barely skirting it. That is the reward. Your heart pounds through your chest and you have a renewed evaluation of being alive.

An adrenaline junky’s drug of choice perhaps? Maybe. The neuroscience and neurochemistry going on with the dopamine and adrenal glands surging has been studied for decades now. It is what allows humans to survive in life-threatening situations – increased alertness and focus, boosts of energy, heightened senses, reduction in any sort of pain – all neurological effects from this experience.

But the best effect from the brain releasing these neurochemicals – the formation of strong, long-lasting memories of the event. The memory of the view, the smells, the sound lasts for decades. Each new barrel memory builds upon the previous memory (sometimes exaggerating parts to glorify the ride more).

Maybe this is why some surfers continue to hunger for more barrels while others who have sampled it have decided it’s not worth the risk. Maybe it has to do with the memories formed.

A historical track of positive outcomes reinforces the urge for more; which a history of negative outcomes reinforces memories not so pleasant.

And there’s the rub. In order to get the positive outcomes, one needs to proceed through the forest of wipeouts, while not getting lost from the path so they can eventually proceed out.

The question we all have to ask ourselves – dare enter the forest at all? Should we walk in a bit, then decide to back out while we can still see where we came from? Or go all in, getting lost in the trees and dark corners, until finally we find our way out?

That sounds like a personal question.

Let me know what you decide on.

As for me, I’m still addicted to finding that perfect straight line to thread through the churning ovals of water. At least until my body tells me otherwise.