COMPOSURE By Nick Bruechle

Composure a short story from our resident surf writer Nick Bruechle

You tend to hear the word “composure” a lot when people talk about solid, hollow waves. Grinding speed tunnels like Kandui and Grajagan, bestial backlit beauties like Padang-Padang, dead-set legends like Pipeline and Backdoor, suicidal salt-bombs such as Teahupoo, and near-fatal novelties like Shipsterns and The Right.

Composure is what all the best big barrel riders have in spades. Truckloads. That ability to not just see the line but hold it, seemingly unflappable in a giant spinning crystal cylinder. Sly smiles on their faces, ice in their eyes, and their bodies exhibiting an incredible economy of movement. Not a muscle is twitched unless or until it’s absolutely necessary.

The flow, the poise, the self-evident serenity of it all, is mesmerising.

The apparent placid confidence these surfers carry that all is right and good with this world, even while it explodes around them, is most especially evident in slow motion clips. You can see every drop and fleck of foam flit by, study every tiny tweak of the line and microscopic shift of balance. Be nonplussed by that nonchalant lack of both haste and hesitation. Marvel at every glint of the eye and arrogant twist of the lips.

To watch it frame by achingly unhurried frame is truly hypnotic. Awe- and envy-inspiring.

But for most of us, that slow-mo serenity is a fantasy. Life is lived at full speed. Twenty-four blizzard-like frames per second. Particularly when that life is being lived hurtling along like a freight train inches above a bed of razor sharp coral, deep inside an incalculable mass of roiling water rifling down the reef at breakneck speed. If you had the time, you’d probably be saying to yourself, “composure my arse – what I need here is raw velocity, the ability to overcome instinct and keep my eyes open, and a solid serve of good luck.”

Even before you get inside that maelstrom, waiting in the line-up, composure can be shockingly hard to attain. Sitting there through the inevitable lulls produced by big, long period swells, you’ll no doubt make an effort to display an outer calm but expectant casualness while trying to compose yourself for the flurry of mad activity that you know is coming. But you know, and everyone else knows, it’s just an act. If you’re at the upper edge of your limits – or even within sight of them (it could get bigger, you know) – there’s a kind of hollow rattle in your voice, a mild hysteria in your laugh. Cracks in your bravado.

And then when the wave comes and it’s time to go, the clock shifts to double, triple, quadruple speed. That whole myth about time standing still in the tube is bullshit. You’re flying down that unbelievably steep face at Mach 10, feeling all the bumps, searching out the lumps and crevices that exist to bring you undone. And above all, you’re aching to push into that bottom turn even though you know to go too soon is death. Because going too late is even worse. The dilemma grips your mind so hard it almost hurts, like a titanium trap.

But then you’re in the thing. The belly of the beast. And consciousness of the mass and velocity of heavy water swirling, tumbling and boiling all around you, fairly whipping along beneath you, intrudes on your already crowded senses. There’s so much to think about. So many changes and fears and threats and joys to react to, and time is cracking along so quickly you can almost see its wake. Your face runs through a medley of expressions from terror to bliss and back again in a millisecond. Your limbs jerk and spasm as if they each had a mind of their own. Your eyes take in the whole scene, but your mind simply cannot. Because it’s happening at light speed.

And then one way or another, it’s over. You’re out and dealing with a surge of elation that threatens to blow your heart clean out of your chest, or coping with a monumental thrashing that compels you to focus only on survival. With either outcome, the moment for any pretense to self-possession is well behind you. It’s agony or ecstasy all the way.

So who’s got time for composure when all that’s happening?

The good guys, that’s who.

That’s what separates them from us.