Your River Surfing Style?

*“Hey, I know you.. and your surf style.”*

Style (noun) a particular manner or technique by which something is done, created, or performed; a distinctive manner of expression; a distinctive manner or custom of behaving or conducting oneself.

There is no one correct style of river surfing, all are cool. And there is no one distinctive style (or community) that one must conduct oneself by for river surfing.

But river surfing style has a key ingredient and that is the word “surfing”; and, all river surfing style purposefully, or not, originates from ocean surfing.

Let’s take a look at some surfing style:

“Pig-Dog”– Iconic Hawaiian surfer Dane Kealoha (1958-2023) is credited with developing the “pig-dog’ style in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, a distinctive low squat wide stance for power surfing style.

*Dane Kealoha and his power style on an iconic surfboard, Town and Country! Cancer sucks by the way…*

Modern Style– This style will change over time but you can see it mimicked on fast moving steep green-faced river waves and standing wave pools. World Surf League (WSL) champ Gabriel Medina comes to mind with his wider stance off the back of his board used to ramp airs (typically 360’s). River surfing mimics this style but usually while doing air reverses (ollie 180’s to reverse) and 360° spin turns.

Single Fin Mentality– This is an catch-all style that borrows from the historical shift in surfing from longboards to shortboards in the early 1970’s and lasted up to the multi-fin days of twins, quads, and thrusters. This style works well in all conditions of river surfing from green-faced fast waves to burly natural river waves to crumbly groveling waves. Check out Colorado local Eric Thomas river surf, he has the best Single Fin Mentality in any river wave.

*Cheyne Horan, 1970’s Aussie/World legend single fin surfer*

Longboard– This classic ocean surf style if you ever see perfected on a river wave just makes you want to pack your shit up and go home and go bowling. Proper cross-stepping walking up and down a longboard (not shuffling) is difficult in the ocean and very difficult on a river wave. Longboarding style can be simplified to just riding down the line making sweeping turns either in the ocean or on a river wave. But, pull up some vids on classic longboard style and learn to: walk the nose and back, nose ride, cheater-five, hang 5/10, drop knee turn, etc for more style points!

*Afro-Latina surfer Dominique Miller* cross-stepping to the nose.

Nuanced Styles– There are so many other ocean styles of surfing that are adapted to river surfing. Some styles come naturally and some are styles of necessity. For example, back-footed surfing is often needed to keep from pearling the nose on a river wave, but this is really a form of longboarding off the very back of the board to make the board become alive. Another example is “the Huntington Hop” of bouncing the board to stay on the wave, both in the ocean and in the river. Or even, four-time world champion surfer, Mark Richards (“MR”), with his tall outstretched wing-like arms style. Heck there is even the broken down old guy hunched over style. Reality is, all these surf styles work and can be improved upon to make your river surfing more stylish and pleasing to you mind’s eye.