Everyone’s Invited to Benny’s Club
Surfing is a notoriously exclusive club.
While it’s free to enter the big blue, expensive boards, access to the ocean, and a level of physical exposure you have to be comfortable with, even if it’s covered in rubber, are all factors anyone has to overcome to even start. Like any club where white, straight men dominate the scene, it takes a certain level of self-confidence to feel like you deserve a spot in the line-up. As a beginner surfer or someone who just doesn’t fit the ruling line-up criteria, paddling out can be close to the most intimidating thing on the planet. Let’s face it, fellas, big dick energy is a real problem in surfing.
Benny’s Club is the antidote to this. After meeting at one of the paddle outs that the Black Surfing Association organised in the wake of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor’s deaths, founders Momo Hudes and Jonny Cappetta started Benny’s Club to champion a more inclusive and diverse surfing community out of New York. It’s a collective for people of colour and queer folk to come together to enjoy the good sport of surfing with friends who don’t usually get the insider status. The club organises lessons and meet-ups with a focus on creating community and providing a physical outlet for people to feel less alone in the big city. Getting more people into surfing also means connecting people to the environment, which inevitably leads to more people caring about the planet. We love to see it.
While seeing a large group of people entering the surf at one time is enough to get any surfer pretty riled, Benny’s Club emphasises correct etiquette and technique to its members so that everyone can enjoy the ocean safely. With surfing’s natural competitiveness, line-ups can omit a pretty aggressive vibe at times but this quickly dissipates when someone paddles out, a big smile on their face, saying hey to everyone, and generally not taking themselves too seriously. Not to sound all hippy, but the energy you bring into a space changes the energy of that space, and the ocean is no different. Benny’s Club carries this same notion, shifting an aggressive line-up into a cheerful, inclusive one with a few soft-tops and good intentions. Their icon, a black sheep, fittingly represents the Benny Club members—not really fitting in, but doing their own thing anyway.
Benny’s club proudly welcomes anyone, regardless of their identity or ability, to share in the joy of surfing, because, at the end of the day, that is what it’s all about. Whichever macho white man yelling at you because you fell off a good wave that you abided by surf etiquette to deservedly be on is doing it wrong. In fact, if you are angry in the surf, you are doing it wrong. Take the day off and go boxing instead, dude.
If you’re in New York, keep up to date with the next surf through their gram or check out their site here.
