Dane Kealoha Obituary, Death Cause – After a courageous fight against cancer, a pioneer of Hawaiian surfing and one of the sport’s all-time greats in the tube has passed away.
Dashel PiersonMay 10, 2023 11:27 PM EDT The passing of Dane Kealoha, a legendary surfer and a pioneer in the sport, has been announced. He was 64. It was reported by Hawaii News Now, which also confirmed the news, that “he passed away peacefully after battling cancer.
” In the days leading up to his passing, surfers all around the world started talking about their favorite moments spent with the great surfer, including 1977 World Champion Shaun Tomson. “When I first met Dane in the year 1976, he quickly became one of my favorite surfers because of his total raw power and foot to the floor approach. No softness like that of a ballerina dancing with her feet close together, but rather a forceful and magnificent rendition of a classically pure Hawaiian technique that can be traced back to the great Eddie Aikau.
“Dane was on the cutting edge of progression, inventing the backside pig dog technique at Pipe and winning the Masters in 1983, as well as carving up Backdoor and Sunset with creativity and ferocity.” “He was a truly gifted tube-rider, attacking the spinning tunnels with machismo, commitment, and an attacking rhythm like a Hawaiian warrior going into battle.” When discussing Kealoha’s influence on the sport of surfing, it is common practice to focus on the Hawaiian surfer’s invention of the tuberide.
For example, Tomson mentioned the pigdog posture that was taken at Pipeline. If you watch any surfer surfing backside at Pipe today – or any surfer at all, for that matter – you’ll see that everyone is doing it. Glowering power surfer from Honolulu, Hawaii who achieved the number two spot in the world in 1980. He is renowned as the best tuberider of his generation and is frequently credited as the originator of the ‘pigdog’ tuberiding position.
Kealoha was born in Honolulu in 1958 and raised there his entire life. His father, a Hawaiian carpenter, is of full Hawaiian descent. At the age of 10, he went to Waikiki with his father in order to try surfing for the first time. After failing to ride his first wave, Kealoha swam back to shore crying, ran across the street, and wrapped his arms around a tree. He didn’t surf again until age 14.
