Tomo recall

dan 2004 hi from Free Rad on Vimeo.


Great surfing on a classic design. Thanks to RK at free-radicals.tv for sharing this.


Tomo's surfing on these waves, on this board, appeals to me more than his more radical current surfing. I am enjoying one of his current designs a lot right now as well.

Wonder down under...

Mark and Daniel Thomson are interesting surfers. They both are making surfboards and Mark just started selling surfmats. Oh, and you might want to pick up the new Surfer's Path. It has a profile about Daniel that iss perhaps the finest piece of surf-journalism of all time. For sure.

From Pen to Press...

The Surfer's Path, a publication I have long appreciated for it's international appeal, has seen fit to publish a profile I wrote about Aussie surfer-shaper Daniel Thomson. Please read it in the current issue and comment with exuberant praise!

Quote...

DT a surfer who shapes. He won "board of the show" or some such award at Sacred Craft. Photo Marsek

"You can only become a Jedi when you can craft your own light saber."
-RK as quoted by Daniel Thomson. We had a chuckle about this line, but how true it is...

I spent some time talking with Daniel "Tomo" Thomson at his short-term surfdorm residence in deepest, darkest North County San Diego. His is a fantastically hydra-headed story. Part Greenough neophyte, part fish-renaissance inspiration, part shredding bro/brah, part visionary shaper of the moment. Undeniably, he is a surfer. The most refreshing piece of our conversation was his view of himself not as a shaper but as a fully involved surfer. He just loves surfing so much that he wants to understand and explore all it's facets. He shapes because he surfs. He shapes because it gives him entrance into realms of new capabilities.

I have a friend who is an average surfer, much like myself. He got the bug to shape his own fishy and set to work in my "shaping bay" (bwahaha). The boards he made are not the prettiest, but they're his. Note to all: shape your own board, at least once. It will at least give you an appreciation for the undeniable skill of the shapers who put boards under our feet. Maybe, just maybe, it will fulfill the part of you that Tomo speaks about, the part that is in search of a complete involvement with surfing in its nebulous, beautiful forms.