Q & A / Great Britain, England

If this does not impede on the purpose of this forum, I've had a few questions about England/Great Britain. Some serious but for starters, this is rather light in tone.

On the West Coast, USA, surfing of course, is well known, I've barely been out there but also the Muscle beaches are known keeping this a bit on the topic of this forum.

Ah, the movie "Blue Juice" has surfers in Cornwall, I think a fair movie to watch starring Catherine Zeta-Jones, Sean Pertwee and Ewan McGregor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Juice

Is this so that sometimes, people can go out there and surf? Does the area have it's own culture? Now, I sure haven't seen the Western Meccas of Gold's Gym, Venice Beach, the muscle places but would England have anything that might be kind of like this?

Again, I hope this subject is not awkward in this forum.

For the record, I'm not into the surfing scene, for a scant few days, I was in San Diego and met some locals and yes, that culture did seem to be there observing from quite a distant way. The movie in fact, has terminology similar to what is in the movie, I forget now, to denote say locals, maybe "townies" vs. Outsiders, but those terms escape me now. The picture of Pete makes it look like he'd be comfortable in the sun.

And for the record furthermore, I do like some Surf Music and for the record even further, I was down in Mexico some years ago when things were more tranquil there, I rode a train and in fact, befriended an Australian in case Court sees this. The guy was really into surfing and was checking out Mexico for the waves.

England hasn't got anywhere like Venice beach or similar muscle Mecca, but surfing has a place in a few areas in the South West. Our muscle culture seems more diffuse, we tend towards smaller, hardcore gyms, tucked away in cities around the country rather than one big concentration. It might have something to do with the fact we don't have a hot, summer place with miles of sandy beaches to tempt everyone to?

By the way this is the "Off Topic" section, so you're encouraged to chat about things not related to training.

What's "far out" is there is this movie called "Riding Giants" documentary, I did not know the "Mavericks" were big waves discovered by San Francisco, bigger waves than maybe Hawaii, this guy Jeff Clark rode there for around 10 years before anyone else did because it's out in a bunch of rocks and they saw it off from the shore, he started doing this in the '80s, around then.

Southern California, sun, Hawaii sun, San Francisco, well GrayFox and a lot of people might know, I haven't been there but must be a lot different, I think it even is known for its fog sometimes and so it's a bit cool.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mavericks_%28location%29

So, a lot of these guys even surfing are wearing scuba diving like suits and the like, there are not girls in bikinis on the shore, they just discovered those waves "widely" in 1990. Just some dvds, not really my thing, surfing. They first saw these waves watching from the cliffs over the seas, they have to paddle about a mile out to get to where the waves are real big and then, there jagged boulders and rocks around the area. Dangerous. None of the glamour of the surf/muscle beach culture out there it seems.

Hope to "shoot the curl" before the summer's over.

In 'Blue Juice' which predates Mavericks and all that, they talk about surfing in the bone yard, meaning jagged rock, maybe reefs too. That predates the 'Riding Giants' movie, anyway, they sell dvds of lesser known movies for low prices nowadays so I just happened to pick these up. And the main character makes this heroic ride on a big wave near Cornwall.

Now there are water parks and some of the features they have is where the water rises up, like jet propelled or something and one can try and balance themselves on it,

Sort of like you do with a bosu really.

I'd have been square for all I thought about surfing, Beach Boys music and all that though some of that music, eh, kindof good.

'Billabong' must be the Australian twist on a lot of this. Good surfing down there, as if I knew anything of all this.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cornwall/content/image_galleries/surfing_international_gallery.shtml

Just for the record, here are some surfing photos, from Cornwall and around the world. 'Jaws' referred to in the first photo is I think, near the island of Tahiti.