I have a great sense of justice… No but seriously you guys, it’s true! OK, justice is a big word and it probably shouldn’t ever be used in an obscure blog about surfing, a fun source of entertainment that no one should ever take too seriously. Still, as a huge student of our sport, it kills me to see some super talented guys not getting their fair share of recognition and exposure just because they don’t match the industry needs in terms of image. With this new column, Shredding Some Light, I will try to bring some attention onto some of our unsung heroes, those underground rippers, boys and girls, shamelessly forgotten by our surfing community that seems to be caring more and more about how it looks rather than how it actually performs in the water.

It is a pleasure to start this program with Kaimana Henry.

I don’t know much about that guy. Just that he is from Maui, Hawaii and that he was one of my favorite surfers growing up. I clearly remember one day when I was 14, trying to figure out who I would put in my top 10 list and Mr Henry’s name naturally popping up in my head along with the likes of Occy, the Irons bros, Kalani Robb… I always found the way he surfs fascinating and I also remember spending a lot of time slowmo-ing every single one of his waves I had on VHS or DVD just to dissect his style and try to understand how possible it was to displace so much water through a single turn.

You probably never heard much about Kaimana either. The reason being that he grew up surfing in a small island at a time when if you weren’t Laird Hamilton towing in Peahi, you might as well not exist as an aspiring Maui pro surfer. Today’s newest crop of local talent is able to get immediate, self-created exposure thanks to social media networks but it must have been an almost impossible task back then and so Kaimana, among others, never really got the attention he deserved from surf media outlets. He did make some remarkable appearances in some of the best surf action movies of the late 90’s (Bill Ballard’s The Moment, the legendary Raw Irons…), but then it gradually became difficult to find new footage of Kaimana In the 2000’s. The trend in surf performance slowly shifted to airs, airs and more airs, leading to today’s uni-dimensional state of surfing video productions, and leaving pure power surfers such as Henry behind.

Kaimana never seemed to be the type of guy that could be featured in this kind of scheme and slowly lost his share of coverage to a bunch of blond, button-down wearing, electro-loving blond surfy surfers that can daily produce the amount of air reverses required for yet another tightly packaged 3:30 video edit.

So imagine how joyful I was last week when I stumbled upon this clip, uploaded by the man himself on Youtube. Enjoy:

Let’s talk about Kaimana’s style for a while now. Raw power. Constant aggressive attitude on each wave. When he takes off you almost feel sorry for the wave. So fun to watch. He is the archetype of Hawaiian surfing: He has a super fast transition from bottom to top of the wave, mastered the art of matching power with power and is at ease in big and/or hollow stuff. He mixes the energy of an Andy Irons, the impeccable rail work of guys such as his pal Tai van Dyke, Kekoa Bacalso or Akila Aipa and the power of Sunny Garcia. His back-foot moves in the pocket are truly impressive, some of the best in the game, with his trademark frontside snap simply being one of the best in the world. Just have a look at this other clip, it has to be one of the most powerful turn I have ever seen.

BOOM! I can’t believe I missed that clip from 2007. I just discovered it and it is one of the best turn I have seen in a looooooong time. I feel 14 again just watching this video 100 times. I just can wish that some mags, surf brands or websites would give that guy more opportunities to provide more clips like this one so we all have something else to watch than air reverses on surfline.com. Kaimana certainly deserves more exposure but in the end, I think it is the surfing audience that needs more of this guy. Keep shredding Kaimana and thanks for the inspiration.