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Gerry Lopez: Shaping a Greener Future
By Diane Ako
(Bend, Oregon) If there is one thing surf legend and board shaper Gerry Lopez wants you to think about, it's how to save the waves, not just ride them. “It can be as simple as picking up your rubbish at the beach. The idea is, don't leave the world a mess for your children.”
58-year-old Lopez has been riding the waves along Oregon's coastline for 14 years now. “I go wherever it's good. It's not like Hawaii for surf. Nowhere is. I just go wherever the conditions break the best. I live in Central Oregon, so there's no home break. I'm like an inlander now. I go when I get a call from my friends.”
It's cold, but he says he'll tolerate it. “Sure! If I want to surf, I better get used to it. But the wetsuits now are good.”
Gerry, his wife Toni, and son Alex moved to Bend in 1992, and the senior Lopez applied his craft to shaping snowboards. Father and son spend more time now surfing mountains instead of water. Often, you'll find the duo at Mount Bachelor.
Lopez sells his boards online, and he works as an Ocean Ambassador for Patagonia, maker of activewear and sporting gear. (Check out his bio on http://www.patagonia.com/web/us/contribution/patagonia.go?assetid=1895 ) “It's a great company. It's interested in preserving the earth, they have a saying that goes like this: make the best product, cause no unnecessary harm and use business to inspire and implement solutions for the environmental crisis – right up my alley. I just went to Ventura, California, to do some work for Patagonia's Ocean Division designing clothing and surfboards, then stopped by the tip of Baja to surf.”
Lopez only rides the boards he's shaped. “Right now my favorite board is a 6' little fish-type board. It seems to work pretty well just about anywhere- it does here in Oregon, and it probably would work well in Hawaii, but I haven't ridden it there. I rode it in Indonesia and Mexico and it works great.”
It's on the delicate subject of surfboard building that Lopez pauses, before letting out a measured diatribe on the ripple effect the current trend is having on the future of his beloved industry. “Sadly, it seems a lot of the surfboard manufacturing is moving to Asia for the cheap labor. The surf industry was tiny when I was growing up- was just a few guys making surfboards. I was fortunate enough to get into it early and have been building surfboards since 1968. It's been a great life and lifestyle to be able to have a good job and still be able to go surfing whenever the waves were good. The industry has grown tremendously in my fifty years of surfing and if all the manufacturing goes overseas, some kid won't have the same opportunities I did…to build his own surfboards and maybe make a career of it. I shudder to think tat surf kids in the future when comparing surfboards will discuss who endorsed it and whether it was made in Beijing, Bangkok or Shanghai.”
This worries Lopez. “The foundation of the whole surfing experience is changing. When it shifts, I don't know what's going to happen. How is surfing is going to be perceived? What if all of a sudden, that imperceptible ‘whatever it is' that makes surfing so appealing is lost?” he muses aloud. “The foundation of surfing is the surfboard, you can't do it without one.”
Lopez fears this will have an intangible, but important, impact on the soul of his sport. He cites a belief that craftsmen impart a certain mana , or personal power, onto the item they're lovingly creating. “When I'm building a surfboard for someone like Laird Hamilton to surf the huge waves at Jaws in Maui, the entire building process, but especially the shaping part, takes on a whole spiritual nature. I really feel I'm channeling energy- created by my thoughts and feelings of how this board is going to be ridden by him- and that energy is going into the board as I shape it. Sometimes I get lucky: he gets the board and rides it and connects with the energy inherent in the board, which enhances his ride. When it does work right, the board it takes on a life of its own. I definitely think there is mana in all the surfboards I make. I'm really trying to put some life into that board for Laird or for that matter, anyone I build a surfboard for. Now, what's going to happen to our sport if suddenly all the surfboards are made by people who not only don't surf but worse, don't even understand or even care that much about it.”
Why is this important to Lopez? He says he hopes others experience the spiritual richness surfing has provided him. “I've been really fortunate I took this surfing path and it's really opened the opportunity to finding the way to the truth and a spiritual awareness. That's what we're looking for. I have this thing I've been toying with for a long time- I call it ‘surf realization.'”
Lopez references Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramhansa Yogananda as having an influence on his life and philosophy. The life story of Yogananda becomes the springboard for a look at the mysteries of human existence. Yogananda's teaching blended Christianity and the second century Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, a yoga school of philosophy stressing nonviolence, self-discipline, physical exercises, breath control and meditation. Yogananda also founded the Self-Realization Fellowship, to help people liberate the soul through meditation. "The bliss you feel in meditation is proof of God's existence," the Indian swami liked to say.
The teachings resonate with Lopez. “My path happens to be the spirit,” he says. In a deferential nod to Yogananda, Lopez founded a similar group. “I have what I call Surf-Realization Fellowship. It's a bunch of surfers like me, interested in higher consciousness, who've found a lot of answers and insight through surfing. Anyone that really takes a good listen has to agree surfing operates at some point on a spiritual level.”
He continues, “One of the many great lessons surfing has taught me is to be more aware of what's going on. To be here now.” In 1995, Lopez founded Surf-Realization Fellowship, but isn't sure how many members belong. “Whoever wants to be one,” he shrugs.
Did Lopez know surfing would dictate his life when he took up the sport all those decades ago in Honolulu? “There is no plan. There has never been any plan. Some like to think their life is all planned out, but I truly believe in destiny and I feel the road was there. All I had to do was choose to make that one turn and get on that road.”
The road has taken him away from Hawaii. The last time he was in the islands was October 2005. He has no idea when he'll return for a visit. “I spent 45 terrific years of my life there and now I'm in Oregon and at present, this is home. I guess home is just wherever I am and wherever I'm comfortable being home. I have a deep attachment to Hawaii, I love the islands and the aloha spirit, but I don't need to be in Hawaii. I like when I visit, but I don't miss it when I'm not there. Hawaii is in me, in my soul, it's a part of me and will always be. I'm okay wherever I am.”
Lopez sounds like an Eastern philosopher. He laughs at the suggestion. “I'm nothing and everything. I believe in the essential truth of all religions, but I guess if you dissected me, I'd be more Buddhist than anything else.”
He expounds on the thought. “All of us are here to find peace. Once we are at peace, we have a chance to discover the Supreme Being. I think the purpose of life is to find a path to God, and there are a lot of different paths to get there.” It seems he finds his by walking down the slippery surface of a wave.
http://www.gerrylopezsurfboards.com/