Reconnection

Along history, surfboards' designs evolved to make surf riding easier and more accessible.
To some extents, unless you are willing to reach high levels of performance or ride big waves, swimming proficiency and ocean's knowledge are not indispensable anymore.
Obviously surfing is now really popular and surf business has grown huge.
Ancient Hawaiians, men, women and kids rode tiny alaias, no flotation, no leash, in Hawaiian wild waters. Their swimming skills and their knowledge of the ocean was remarkable.
Surfing brought them joy, taught them respect and they were deeply conscious of being strongly connected to the natural environment.
Alaia riding is very much about re-connection.
It doesn't come easy but the all process is paved with infinite joy and gratefulness.

Pure Joy

Alaias are the most minimal tools you'll need to stand on a wave.
The thin wood flexes in very subtle ways and is very reactive to your body movements and balance.
The feeling of water flowing under your feet is exceptional.
Almost flat, finless, dragless, they rocket down the line like flying carpets.
Alaias bring the magic and the essence of joy back.

Social / Politic statement

Surfing was meant to be an original life-style in rhythm with wild nature.
Perpetually changing, waves are the ultimate canvas for riders to be creative and express themselves through the curves they choose to draw.
The consumerist system has turned this wonderful spirit into brands, products, fashionable attitudes and competition.
The once wild rebel spirit has thinned down into rebel attitude.
Wearing the same stuff, listening the same stuff, dreaming the same stuff, riding the same stuff, and riding the same way, the commercials' way.
Choosing the Alaia way is one statement, among others, that you make to disconnect from that system, one step away from that brain conditioning marketing to awake to your real self, your real desires, your real joy.

Sustainable development and resilience

Alaias are made out of locally harvested wood and their building process only needs a tiny amount of bond.
The wood is sealed with linseed oil and bees' wax.
Alaias can be 100% human power made, they don't need complex machinery nor high energy tools.
The wood shall be chosen among varieties grown locally in respect with the original forest.
Eco-design, awareness, re-localisation, re-appropriation of know-how, this project restores resilience in the peak oil and climate change's contexts.

Sharing

The surfing's stoke was always about sharing.
There's no strongest bond in between surfing mates than a shared perfect session.
The Alaia spirit brings back the very essence of what sincere sharing is.
A very special gift, a very special process, a special moment, a special knowledge that needs sharing to exist and evolve.

Subtraction

The race for more of everything has peaked.
The actual systems have come to an unprecedented level of complexity, they are stalling and not leading anywhere anymore.
Surfboards follow the same trends too, computer assisted designs, new technologies for new materials, infinite variations in fins' models, spectacular advertisement...
The all process requires an incredible amount of energy and finance to feed what ? Our simple wave riding joy ? Or the artificial marketing's need for "new stuff" ?
It's only when you invert the process, stop adding and start subtracting that you rediscover the very essence of things, hidden under multiple unnecessary layers.
There lies processes that always made sense.