Bodyboarding is for everyone

How a season of bodyboarding changed my perspective on surf culture.

Before I remember ever picking up a surfboard, a skateboard, a kayak, maybe even a bike, I have the faintest of memories.

It consists of a staircase to Bournemouth beach, a rusty handrail, and a blue and lime-green bodyboard with pyranhas printed on the deck. My Dad is carrying the board down the steps to the beach, surrounded by my siblings and me. And the feeling associated with this memory is pure excitement.

I have no idea how accurate this memory is or if it even happened this way. But this is where I remember it all beginning - Our first surfing adventure.

I have no recollection of using the board that day, but I have much stronger memories of a holiday in Norfolk and actually catching shore break waves on pebble beaches in just a pair of swim shorts and sandals.

Since that day on Bournemouth beach, there has always been a bodyboard in the family.

For many years, mine got neglected as I turned my nose up at it to focus on the much “cooler” stand-up surfing, telling myself that it was way more of a legitimate experience than bodyboarding. While Mum, Dad and many of my siblings would forgo the pain of spending most of the day waiting for waves and be racking up huge wave counts in between the red and yellow flags of Cornish beaches. But not a holiday would go by without me being lured into the sheer fun and simplicity of riding waves on your belly.

Friends, Boyfriends, Girlfriends, Wives, Husbands, and grandchildren have all been initiated over the years. Handed a spare wetsuit and the flimsiest board after everyone had fought for their favourite. To join in this longstanding ritual of our tribe.

Time has passed, people have come and gone. But there are still bodyboards scattered among the family’s houses, getting taken on adventures with the next generation.

Over the last few years, time had become so scarce with family commitments and responsibilities that I found myself prioritising wave count and started opting to take out a bellyboard or a bodyboard over a stand-up surfboard. I had become tired of sitting outback, feeling too unfit to stand up and surf, and not having time to dedicate to it. Last summer, I only bodyboarded and decided to make the switch, seeing bodyboarding as my primary way of surfing.

Don’t worry, I’ll change my mind next summer and in 10 years’ time I’ll become a longboarder. I’m aware that I am a midlife surfing cliche.

But in switching to bodyboarding, I was met with that feeling I had when walking down the staircase at Bournemouth beach. Pure, simple fun that could be easily shared with friends who, having never touched a board, could come together to share in something connective. Connective to nature, to the source and to one another. Bodyboarding was and is access to a lifetime of enjoyment.

So I set up this project to celebrate that. A bodyboard lifestyle brand sharing the small wave stoke with everyone. Reminding us all we don’t need to be chargers to be surfers. The ocean is for everyone who is willing to accept its call. Boogie Union is for the boy on the steps with his Dad as they share in the Joint excitement of something new. It’s for the big days when the sea rages and shows her power. And it’s for the party waves, the sibling sessions, the girls’ trip, the dads’ away day and for the old timers who keep young by turning up.

For all you Boogie Boarders & secret spongers.

Welcome to the Union.

The Boogie Union.

If this resonated, share it with someone who has a bodyboard gathering dust in their garage. They’ll know what to do with it.