The open air screening of Stacy Peralta's new documentary film The Yin and Yang of Gerry Lopez...

The great British summer did it's thing with the heatwave turning to mist and mizzle for last nights screening in Croyde but the turn out was great and the rain stopped just in time!

Film producer and Z-boys legend Stacy Peralta was on site for a Q and A and to introduce the new movie documenting the life of Mr Pipeline himself, Gerry Lopez.

I have to admit I was really unaware of Stacy Peralta until Dog town and Z boys was released although as a kid in the 80's with an older sister into skateboarding, I had multiple Bones brigade stickers and scrawled their designs on my school books...I never mastered skateboarding but loved (and still love) my quads!

I discovered surfing when I was about 13 and was obsessed... back then there was little to no coverage on TV (we only had the 4 channels) I used to record the surfing on VHS, it used to be on channel 4 at about 3 am I think, probably the ASP pro but I watched those recordings over and over and was totally sold on the lifestyle ideals of surf culture, of freedom, travel and adventure!

The yin and yang of Gerry Lopez

The movie basically tells the story of a man in the right place at the right time, following his two callings of surfing and yoga and combining the two into a lifestyle and career that didn't really exist before.

Documenting his early days balancing his sheer determination to master pipeline at any cost with the mental stillness that yoga brings, being at one with the ocean whilst being ruthless to his fellow surfers, onwards through a dabbling with Hollywood to discovering new lands and new waves...

There's great footage from the first days surfing Ulu Watu in Bali showing just how much the world has changed in the last 50 years and how the sports of both surfing and skateboarding have grown from from the fringes of counterculture into massive mainstream industries.

Go watch it...I'm off to do some yoga...