Merv Larson got the #10 spot last week on my Most Advanced Wave-Riders of All Time list, but having just rewatched Larson's part in 

 I have reassessed. John Severson filmed Larson in 1969, at Rincon. I've seen this footage dozens of times over the years, and always been astounded by the sheer creativity of the riding, but what grabbed me this time around is how smooth and fluid Larson's line is. The most progressive high-performance surfers at this point—Wayne Lynch, Nat Young, Rolf Aurness, Ted Spencer, Reno Abellira—were still very much in the process of knocking off rough edges. Choppy turns were the rule. Body dynamics were all over the place. A-level surfers were still often bending at the waist, not the knees to ride the tube. Counter-twisting their cutbacks. Hell, Lynch was still cross-stepping to the nose. 

Merv Larson's first ride here, meanwhile, every part of it, every turn and adjustment, from the opening fade to the cheeky side-slip to the big turn combination, is balanced and linked and calibrated. 

Of course, there's all the freaky stuff. Multiple spins, riding backwards (Larson remains the only person to not make it look cheap and tricky), controlled whitewater bounces, and whatever that Euclidean fourth-dimension shit is in the final shot—some kind of tailpick flip or whatnot. John Florence or Dane Reynolds will stomp one of those in 2015. Merv did it in 1969.

SURFER raved about Larson. "What he does on his ski," the magazine wrote in 1970, "is as exciting, maybe even more so, than what Greenough does on his kneeboard." 

Seeing as I had Greenough at #1 on my list, yeah, I've been thrown for a serious loop.

MERV LARSON AT #10? WHAT WAS I THINKING?

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