• Home
  • SOCRATES’ THINKING
    • News and comment
    • Editorial
  • About
  • US
    • Sportsocratic team
    • Contributors
  • Reviews
    • Adventures
    • Books
    • Places
  • Contributions
  • Advertise
  • Contact

Sportsocratic

Thoughts, ideas, opinions and postulations on sport and adventuring

  • Sport & society
    • Ethics & Values
    • History
    • Favourite photos
    • Cultural and social issues
    • Politics
    • Big questions
    • Sport fashion
      • Sartorialism and style
  • Wild sports
  • Silly stuff
  • Sports science
    • Research
    • Coaching
    • Innovation
    • HEALTH
  • The things that made me
  • Stories
    • General sporting stories
    • Waves of Pain
      • No Respect!
      • Death Wish at Fairy Bower
      • Fried nuts
      • The ocean is a trickster… especially Hawaii’s North Shore – Gas chambers bites the unwary!
      • Titus Kinimaka’s nightmare Christmas
      • Dix dumped – the trials of a self-confessed elite body surfer
      • The little surf that nearly ruined a promising career…
      • Rabbit killer – a master takes a caning at pipeline!
      • Death Wish at Fairy Bower
      • Easternmost memory – surfing in the wild at the end of the continent
      • Nothing ruins a good surf like a couple of blokes with automatic assault rifles…
      • Agony for Miki Dora
      • Smashed at Gas Chambers
      • Who was Europe’s first surfing woman? Introducing the wonderful Witch of Newbury.
      • A bad day at Palmy – surfies and clubbies at war!
      • When being a proven waterman is not enough!
      • The highs and lows of surfing Sunset Beach while competing at the Duke Kahanamoku Invitational
      • An American midnight surf – that goes very wrong!
  • What does it mean?
    • What is a snake?
    • What does “shag” mean?
    • What does “Freddy Jones” mean?
    • What does “hook and ladder” mean?
    • What does back walk-over mean?
  • Philosophers Sport Bar
    • Socrates and Aristotle debate football defence
    • Michel de Montaigne on coaching sports
    • Ancient philosophers discuss what makes the beautiful game beautiful! Laozi and Socrates get technical.

Agony for Miki Dora

January 7, 2019 By TIMOTHY EDWARDS Leave a Comment Filed Under: Waves of Pain

Many “Waves of Pain” stories are about merciless thrashing handed out by the ocean when it’s in an angry mood. Not all. Some come from a wholly different kind of pain. I remember thinking, oh… what a load of bullshit, the first time I heard the expression “sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” To me, an emotional beating has always been way worse than a physical one. This “Wave of Pain” story is very much about an emotional beating… and it was inflicted upon a bloke who had suffered (and handed out) more than his fair share of both physical and emotional beatings in his short life-time.

Miki “Da Cat” Dora was considered one of the greatest surfers in the world in the beautiful medium sized waves around Southern California

Miki Dora was one of the best surfers in the world throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s. He wasn’t the greatest nose rider, nor the most aggressive, nor the most graceful, nor the slickest walker, nor had the most powerful turns, nor had the most tricks but as a complete package of skill and style in the small and medium sized waves around Southern California, no one was his superior. Introduced to surfing by his surfing stylist father, Miklos Dora II, then drawn into a more aggressive style of surfing by his hard-man, rough-neck rebel step-dad, Gard Chapin, Miki’s surfing and lifestyle around his home break of Malibu came to reflect both the darker and lighter sides of his personality and the complex upbringing that he experienced.

To “lie, cheat and scam” to surf

As surfing historian Matt Warshaw has pointed out, while many contemporary surfers worshipped Dora like zealots (and considered it right and proper that a true surfer should “lie, cheat and scam” to enable his surfing life) and others considered him little more than a “charismatic sociopath,” lovers and haters alike felt a kinship with him. Admirers and detractors alike agreed that the bloke could surf and was committed to his surfing!

Never your average bleached blond beach bum, Dora only came to the beach to surf. Away from the beach he considered himself a man of style!

Strangely, it was a monster that Dora helped to create that brought out the worst demons in his own personality. In the early sixties, books and films about the skill and lifestyles of surfers around Southern California, launched the once esoteric sport of surfing into the public consciousness big time! Dora’s fame as the King of Malibu and the role he played as a stunt double in numerous box office hit films drove the popularity of surfing to craze proportions thus crowding out California’s best surfing breaks. It wasn’t long before Dora’s reputation as a wonder surfer was matched by his reputation as an aggressive and foul-mouthed surf bully dropping in on and heaping abuse on lesser mortals who annoyed him at the beach. Ironically, while he was always happy to accept the pay cheques from the people who were driving the new sport’s popularity, he was the surfing world’s most aggressive critic of the sport’s growth in popularity and commercialization.

As the 1960s progressed (and Californian surf became more and more crowded), Dora, like many other elite American surfers before him felt the lure of the magical waves of Hawaii. Dora knew that it was one thing to be considered one of the world’s greatest surfers by the hoi polloi of the surfing world but to be truly respected among his peers, he had to prove himself in the much bigger and more dangerous waves of the islands. While Windansea, Malibu and San Onofre might offer near perfect point break waves at between three and six foot in size, Makaha, Sunset Beach and Waimea Bay don’t even start to get interesting until the waves were double or triple that size, so, by 1963, Miki Dora had left the safe shores of Malibu and was plying his trade on the much more challenging breaks of Hawaii’s North Shore. While Oahu’s North Shore has handed out more than its fair share of physical hidings to unwary surfers it saved its worst kind of caning… an emotional thrashing… for one of surfing’s most emotionally fragile citizens.

Dora paid his dues and earned respect as a North Shore big wave surfer.

On a beautiful North Shore winter’s morning with a solid swell driving into Sunset Beach, Dora found himself paddling out with fellow Californian elite surfer, Rusty Miller. Away from the ever-increasing crowds of Malibu and mixing with a group of big wave specialists, Dora must have been feeling pretty good about things. No longer considered just a small wave specialist, Dora had earned his stripes in the world’s most challenging waves and was considered part of the elite crew of Hawaiians and Californians who ruled the waves in the nirvana of surfing.

Brothers in arms! Peers!

While Dora and Miller ripped on the challenging Sunset peaks on this blissful 1963 winter’s morning, pioneer surf photographer, Don James, was not far away, bobbing up and down in the channel and happily snapping images of the two as they dropped into the huge waves. Knowing that their morning was being recorded might have felt good for Dora. He may have felt that this was what surfing was all about. Brothers in arms! Peers! Facing a challenging ocean together and a photographer there to record the event! One moment grabbed by James for posterity might have been particularly pleasing to Dora. It showed Miller taking a ferociously late drop into what looks like a solid twelve to fifteen-foot bomb with arms spread and feet firmly planted to survive the approaching massive curl. In the foreground of the shot Dora is seen paddling out as Miller passes by on the set wave and it seems that Dora is pausing in his paddle to admire the craft and courage of his brother big wave surfer. It’s a beautiful shot. Two water men, in their element! What a story the beautiful photograph told.

Two great surfers, Rusty Miller and Miki Dora… enjoying a moment together in the ocean!

Not long after, James managed to sell the photograph to a Californian advertising agency. This was not surprising. Close up images of surfers challenging and surviving huge waves was something relatively new in the world of sport and photography and this photograph told the story about what Californian surfers were up to better than most seen before. Some months later the photograph began to appear, first around Los Angeles, then around California and then across the rest of the United States in the form of a huge roadside billboard advertising Hamm’s Beer. What better way of selling beer to athletic young men than to show the exploits of two of America’s finest and bravest water men?

Miki paddles behind a can of Hamms beer. How’s that for respect?

Miller and Dora should have been excited and proud of their appearance on the huge roadside commercial. Imagine taking a road trip across the United States and every couple of hours seeing a thirty-foot tall image of yourself doing only what the gods can do, laid out in vivid colour, to be admired by all Americans. Young Rusty probably was thrilled. Miki Dora wasn’t. Miki “Da Cat” Dora, the “Black Knight of Malibu,” one of the greatest surfers on the planet, had been unceremoniously deleted from the spectacular image by an advertising company artist and in his place had been inserted an enormous can of beer! If Miki had already been an angry young man, pissed off at the world and even more pissed off at a commercial world determined to cash in on his beloved surfing, no doubt this insult made matters a whole lot worse. The man had payed his dues… proved he was much more than a just a small wave stylist. Miki Dora, one of the world’s finest surfers and proven North Shore water-man, playing second fiddle to a can of beer. Now that is a “Wave of Pain!” I bet that hurt!

A tasteless and possibly deeply offensive image to many, this ad for Miki Dora model surfboards nonetheless captures the sense that Dora saw himself as a victim of the ever increasing commercialization of his sport

TIMOTHY EDWARDS

Tim Edwards has had a completely rubbish sporting career so it is odd that he seems so obsessed with sport and adventuring. As a basketball shooting guard he had an okay jump shot but couldn't do anything else. As a rugby hooker he spent more time puking then actually playing. As a runner he won an awful lot of consolation prize chocolates for coming fourth but almost never won a ribbon. Despite his inadequacies he still loves sport and has opinions on almost any sporting subject. Tim has spent large parts of his working life in publishing and writing roles and has even done his share of teaching sport management to Uni students. He has coached more sports teams than he cares to remember. Tim is an awful surfer and skier but his lack of competence does not bother him one little bit!

Support Sportsocratic

Thanks for reading this story! We appreciate your visit to Sportsocratic… and love providing alternative information, opinions and angles from the sporting world. The world of sport is so full of the same old stuff from the same old sources that it drives us nuts… and it makes our day giving voice to less orthodox views. If you appreciate our free service, give some thought to helping us out. It costs us big bucks to keep Sportsocratic going but, if our readers support us, our future is much more secure.

Help us to keep you entertained and informed… and enable Socrates to keep asking those big philosophical sporting questions.

Support Sportsocratic for as little as a $1 and we would love you to bits. It only takes a few seconds!

Support Us

Tagged With: 1960s, big waves, Don James, Gard Chapin, Hamms beer, Miki Dora, North Shore, Photography, Rusty Miller, Sunset Beach, surfing

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related

SOCRATES’ RECENT TWEETS

Tweets by Sportsocratic

Secret Sports Person

Their sporting life – A journalist’s story

April 7, 2021 By SOCRATES Leave a Comment

“Bill” could have been a great rugby player… but he was more interested in other things. Do people display characteristics of their personal and working lives through their performances on the sporting field? Socrates describes the sporting life of one of his favorite people, and shows how the skill and character of one of Australia’s best journalists was always on show, even as a young man, whether on the rugby field, the basketball court or even on a quiet country headland when threatened with fisticuff by a big bloke wearing a blue uniform. Get “Bill’s” story here. Click the pic!

Olympics Rugby Teams – Who are the greatest?

April 23, 2020 By SOCRATES Leave a Comment

The rugby trivia question for the century! Which national rugby union team holds the record for the most Olympic gold medals in Rugby Union (the full-team fifteen a side game)?

Ethics and fairplay

Wallaby v France test – the moment that soared above all the others

July 20, 2021 By SOCRATES Leave a Comment

There were many great moments in the final Wallabies versus France rugby test last week but according to Socrates, one stood our far above all the others. Was it a great try? A brilliant tackle? A perfect scrum or line-out? A fantastic bit of work at the break-down? According to the rotund Greek hooker it was none of those things. He reckons that the highlight of the game was a much quieter, simpler and more subdued moment. A moment that might have escaped the attention of millions of spectators. Find out about Socrates favorite moment of the test. Click the pic.

Never cheated in my life!

November 19, 2020 By SOCRATES Leave a Comment

What is cheating? Is cheating a black and white moral issue… or are there shades of gray. Socrates spent twenty years in the engine room of the beautiful game of rugby… the scrum. He loved being a rugby hooker. He reckons that being slap bang in the middle of sixteen enormous, sweating blokes desperate to secure possession of the ball for their team taught him quite a bit about the fine art of cheating… what it is… and what it isn’t…. and how it can be done. Here Socrates lifts the veil on aspects of the workings of the 1970’s and 80’s amateur rugby scrum revealing some of its secrets. In so doing he shows that cheating is not a simple moral issue. he also claims to haver never deliberately cheated. Do you believe him?

matildas

Just six words…

May 20, 2021 By TIMOTHY EDWARDS 1 Comment

Have you ever wished that you could meet and have a conversation with someone you idolize? What would you say to your idol to convince them to want to stay in the conversation? What would they say in response to your brilliant social skills? How would the conversation go? How would it leave you feeling? An Australian ex-professional athlete who had played with and against some of the greatest basketball talent that this country has ever seen (Andrew Gaze, Ricky Grace, Shane Heal, Phil Smythe) once, by chance, had a meeting with possibly the greatest and most famous professional sports person that has ever lived. The superstar he bumped into, in a New York elevator, just happened to be the Aussie basketballer’s idol. How did the meeting turn out? Click the pic and discover the six most memorable words in this Australian point guard’s life.

Outstanding achievement

RITUAL: BEING CHAIRED UP THE BEACH

September 13, 2022 By SOCRATES Leave a Comment

Why do we subject professional athletes to embarrassing and cumbersome rituals at times when they should be celebrating. Why do athletes agree to participate in rituals that make them look like nongs? Chas Smith makes the argument for banning the post-contest victory chair-up-the-beach. Click the pic to get Chas’ important advice to the world of contest surfing.

New surfing podcast

One of Australia’s greatest ever surfers – one of surfing’s greatest story tellers – “Rabbit” Bartholomew – talks to award winning journalist Tim Baker about life, surfing and stuff. Perfect listening for lockdown entertainment.

professionalism

To smash or be skillful? Can good defense be coached or are accidents like the Latrell Mitchell and Joey Manu incident inevitable?

August 31, 2021 By SOCRATES NEWS DESK Leave a Comment

In a tough body contact sport are occasional horrible accidents inevitable? Possibly. But probably not with the frequency that many former elite players and expert analysts argue. Socrates believes that good coaching and hard work from highly skilled players can prevent many potentially dangerous tackles and that accepting the horror accidents as inevitable and high level skills as “uncoachable” sells athletes, professional sports and coaches short. Get the story here. Click the pic.

wisdom

Its just a job. Grass grows. Birds fly. Waves pound the sand. I beat people up. – Muhammad Ali

sport at mardi gras

Athletes in the LGBTQI Mardi Gras

March 12, 2019 By SOCRATES 2 Comments

Twenty-one different sports teams marched in this years Sydney Mardi Gras. That’s twenty-one groups of out and proud queer athletes. The LGBTQI community need to be “fearless” and queer athletes are no exception. Check out these fearless sporting clubs living it up on their night of night!

A life with horses

A life with horses – or Lulu in wonderland

August 8, 2018 By TIMOTHY EDWARDS Leave a Comment

It’s well known that playing sport can be a life-changing experience. For one mum, adventurer and businessperson, having a sporty pastime was more than life-changing. Lulu’s friendship with her horses has touched her and her daughter’s lives in a million ways and created a whole new life in an ever-changing wonderland for them both. But don’t think for a moment that their horses are the purpose built catalysts for their ideal lives! Its way more complex than that… and more respectful. Read on! It’s worth it!

wisdom

“Pressure? Pressure is a Messerschmidt up your arse. Playing cricket is not!”

Keith Miller

One of the greatest cricket “all-rounders” of all time, Keith Miller was not only an exceptional performer in multiple elements of test cricketing (batting, bowling and fielding) but he was also gifted in numerous other aspects of his life. Witty, entertaining, handsome, a renowned war time pilot and gifted Australian Rules Footballer, Miller was famed for calling a spade a spade and acknowledging that there was much more to life than elite sports. Having flown fighter bombers in the Second World War under life threatening circumstances he was not one to take the “pressure” of high level sport too seriously!

trivia

Here is a cracker of a trivia question.

Who was the college recruiting scout talking about when he said the following to his head coach.

“I’ve just seen a fat guy… who can play like the wind!”

Yup. The same guy who told people that just because they had shoes like his, it didn’t make them like him in any other way. Charles Wade Barkley.

Etymology

Postecoglou coaching pointers

March 8, 2023 By SOCRATES Leave a Comment

Celtic football coach Ange Postecoglou’s post League Cup interview avoided the normal “we knew we had to…”, “full credit to the boys…” and “we talked about blah blah blah during the week…” bollocks that is so common in post-match player and coach chats with the media. The coach actually revealed important insights into the way great coaches think and how they seek to get the best out of their players. Any coach aspiring to become a great coach, no matter what sport they teach should listen to this interview. Postecoglou is the real deal. There are few coaches better at getting the most out of their team.

What does it mean?

What is Elvis leg?

Admit it. You’ve never heard of “Elvis leg,” have you? What the blazes is “Elvis leg?” As is the case with every other “What does it mean…” story we have ever posted, the answer is not directly related to the name itself. It is indirectly related to Elvis, though. Have a guess what the relationship is… then click here and check out whether your were correct. Find out for certain which sport uses this term and what it means.

What is a liberator?

Of course most you aviation buffs will think that a liberator is an American WW2 heavy bomber. Fair enough. But in a sporting context does it have a completely different meaning? Indeed it does. You are going to have to click here to find out what a liberator is and does in the world of sport.

Aphorisms, insights and wisdom

“The thing that’s depressing about tennis is that no matter how good I get I will never be as good as a wall.”

More perceptive sporting analysis from Mitch Hedberg, comic genius.

 

ebook

Phillip has returned to the south of India after eighteen years. But who is the young girl staying in his hotel? And what will he learn about his estranged brother through Inez, the Spanish backpacker?

To buy The Bangalore Test, John Campbell’s new ebook novella, just click the link.

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter

©2019 Sportsocratic