Tiger Espere of Hawaii is a hard surfer to appreciate in 2018, nearly five decades after his peak, when he stood proudly shoulder-to-shoulder with the best of the North Shore Thunder Gods. Tiger's trip was subtle. Subtle. Maybe subtle to the point of obscure. A sensitive young WCT fan wandering onto this post will connect with the above Tiger Espere here more than this recitation of the 

Even 50 years ago Tiger was an acquired taste. He didn't have a particular move, a signal trait, you could latch on to. He didn't have crazy Polynesian John Bonham power, like Barry Kanaiaupuni. He didn't zen-out in the tube, like Lopez. Tiger charged Waimea like the beautiful beast he was named after, but did so in the warm shadow of Eddie Aikau, same as everybody else.

Maybe it's because there isn't a stand-out aspect to Tiger's surfing that I've come to regard him as the great exemplar of, for lack of a more specific phrase, "Hawaiian style." Darrick Doerner once called it "bully" style. Not "bully" like Nelson from the Simpsons, but in the British sense of the word—meaning excellent, masterful, with a dash of flair.

Hawaiian style begins in the feet and knees. The front foot is toes-forward, sometimes even parallel to the stringer. The knees are open. Somebody on a Facebook thread recently described Eddie as having a "diamond" stance, which is a nice way of saying "bowlegged." The back knee bends to the rear at about the same angle as the front knee bends to the fore. Stylistically, it is the opposite of the tucked-in knee.

During the late '60s and early '70s (for reasons of accuracy and punning, let's call it the High Hawaiian Style), Tiger and his cohorts did their best work at places where they found the most declivity: Sunset, Waimea, big Haleiwa, Honolua—and Pipeline, if you were Gerry Lopez. There was beautiful music from takeoff to kickout, but the angels sang loudest and sweetest on the drop. To that end, the top of the wave, far from being viewed as something to rip into to, was more of a way station, a briefly-held inhale, an energy dock, before loosing off the next downhill run. Much attention was given to the bottom turn, yes. But to my eyes—and I say this as a man who would happily install on his front lawn a gilded life-size statue of BK halfway through a bit of French curve trough-carving at Sunset Beach—the bottom turn was really more an add-on to the drop itself. Masters of the Hawaiian style rode top to bottom, in other words. Those who followed (Shaun Tomson, MR, Bugs; the whole Free Riding rip-tear-lacerate crew) rode bottom to top. This is a defining point. What I see in Tiger Espere is a surfer who wants above all things to go with the grain; to seek out a natural line already embedded in the wave. The Free Ride surfers, by comparison, looked for counter-angles, went across the grain, used oppositional force. There was plenty of flow in the new surfing, too. But it was no longer 

 about flow. Something gained, something lost.

As it exists in my head, and by no means is this a complete reckoning, the family tree of Hawaiian style begins with Paul Strauch. One branch goes off to the right (Barry, Tiger the Aikau brothers; regularfooters who excelled at Sunset), another to the left (Lopez and Tom Stone; goofyfooters who lit up Pipeline). I don't know how it happened, but Billy Hamilton had Hawaiian style before he ever set foot in the Islands. Terry Fitz too. Stone and Hamilton made Hawaiian style work on their backhand, but most of the rest didn't. In small waves, Hawaiian style worked like a Bentley Continental on a go-kart track. Except, again, for Bill Hamilton—the dude had 

 up to his sky-blue eyes. And of course Larry Bertlemann. And 15-year-old Michael Ho. Dammit, I'll have to rethink the small-wave thing.

Ronnie Burns and Marvin Foster stick in my mind as the last great textbook Hawaiian stylists, and I'm inclined to say that the movement died when they died. But no, that's wrong too. Hawaiian style lives on with Michael and Derek Ho. Success on the world tour should not count against them. So live well and prosper, both of you. Stay bully. Keep those knees open!

[Photos, top to bottom: Paul Strauch by John Severson, Tiger Espere by Curt Mastalka, Bill Hamilton by Art Brewer, Michael Ho by Warren Bolster, Clyde Aikau by Art Brewer, Larry Bertlemann, Ronnie Burns by Don King]

WATCH: TIGER ESPERE'S MASTER CLASS ON HAWAIIAN STYLE

Subscribe or Login

Subscribe or Login

Encyclopedia of Surfing

History of Surfing

Interviews

Features

Videos