Width. Style.

I'll admit it:  I wrote this whole article about how sick it must be to ride a backhand barrel that's so wide you can spread your arms out and claim it.  Then as I was about to publish it, I had another take and whoah: that's no backhand barrel...

Why did I make the mistake?  Kalani Robb here has enough space that he can twist his back and square his shoulders to his line of riding.  That means two things: girth (yes, that word again) and poise.  Where we would all want to lead with our shoulder, if the wave throws like this, and you've got enough class, you can whip this sort of thing out.  Vintage Robb, and what a fine vintage that was.

"I caught a barrel, and it was this big." Credit: Tom Servais

Espn runs a pretty good blog on surfing, even if they are focussed a bit too much on the comp aspect of it, but hey, it's all got it's place.  They had some recent coverage of the Clash of Legends run between the Reef Hawaiin Pro.  Kalani was invited and in seeing that I thought: "Jeez, what happened to that guy."  Someone else, and doubtless many people thought the same and they ran a piece on the guy a few days later.  Check it out if you will.

Shot ESPN/Servais for the pic.