Sidão Tenucci

Sidão Tenucci Jr is a surfer/writer and founder of Brazil’s OP brand. He is also the cre­ator of O Sur­fista Pere­grino (The Surf­ing Pil­grim) and poetry with Almaquática (Water Soul – together with pho­tog­ra­pher Klaus Mit­tel­dorf and designer David Car­son). We recently caught up with him to find out more.

What was your life like grow­ing up?
We played soc­cer on the streets when we still had dirt roads in São Paulo. I used to body­surf on the big stormy swells when I was 11 to 13 years old. A year later I started surf­ing in Guarujá (coast city in the state of São Paulo). I used to horseride a lot with my friends at a ranch that belonged to my father.

When did you get your first surf­board?
I was about 13. It was an Induma, a brand that didn’t really go too far.

What was the feel­ing you had when you first stood on a surf­board?
Mag­i­cal, like it is for every­one I guess. My young teenager per­cep­tion was that I had found at least one real mean­ing for life.

Who did you look up to and admire when you were a young man?
I used to read a lot. I enjoyed writ­ers like Dos­toyevsky, Her­man Hesse and Gabriel Gar­cia Mar­quez. I’m a big fan of the bands that truly rev­o­lu­tion­ized music on the sev­en­ties with qual­ity, inno­va­tion and per­son­al­ity, like Yes, Gen­e­sis, Jethro Tull, The Bea­t­les, Emer­son Lake & Palmer and Pink Floyd. I also enjoy the eter­nal Brazil­ian icons like Chico Buar­que, Tom Jobim and Cae­tano Veloso. Ghandi, Jesus and Buda are also fig­ures that always come to my mind.

What do you try to trans­mit in your lit­er­a­ture?
I try to trans­mit what I feel with the least pos­si­ble intel­lec­tual inter­fer­ence. There is a level of inter­ac­tion with ones inner self that is really an eter­nal search. The task to express these lay­ers which are not detectable by the ordi­nary mind that belongs to music, poetry and this spon­ta­neous nar­ra­tive that can let us have access to our deep­est emotions.

Of all the places you have trav­eled to, what place in par­tic­u­lar stands out and why?
I can’t say only one.

Sri Lanka was sur­real with wild ele­phants strolling on a desert beach as I was surf­ing in the other side of the island, in Aru­gan bay in the vil­lage of Ulé. I ended up there in an unex­pected way. Once again, get­ting off the beaten track cre­ated some major spir­i­tual interest. Bali was the largest con­flu­ence between an excep­tion­ally rich cul­ture and a diver­sity of per­fect waves that I have ever encountered. Hawaii dur­ing the sev­en­ties, it was still exotic and to surf there was like being in another planet that almost no one had ever heard about. The north coast of São Paulo in the late six­ties and early sev­en­ties, when the explo­ration of the unknown was really strong, in a place that nowa­days seems really near to the big city. But in those days it was like another galaxy we discovered.

At the end of the day, the magic of dis­cov­ery is always the nec­es­sary ele­ment of enlight­en­ment that opens the young (and old) souls, still today (laughs).

Who/what inspires you?
Every­thing. It’s ran­dom. It can be any­thing, really. From a leaf falling from a tree to a fem­i­nine fig­ure that sug­gests, but not actu­ally reveals its mys­ter­ies. A breeze that comes out of nowhere and gen­tly combs the crest of a swell that has arrived just before dawn.

What is the great­est thing you have learned in your life?
I’ll just men­tion a few exam­ples. They were things that I learned over the years and that I obvi­ously still keep learn­ing because they hardly ever incor­po­rate them­selves in a per­ma­nent fashion.

That a sec­ond is all that exists. That the love you give lasts forever. That surf­ing is a divine vehi­cle for the devel­op­ment of the con­science. That hum­ble­ness is taught to us along our lives in both a soft or aggres­sive way. It is a con­tra­dic­tory learnt gift. That the ego has got its essen­tial value, but its not what really who we are. If we learn to look at it from the out­side we will have given a gigan­tic step towards the truth of what we really are.

What are you most proud of?
To be able to keep evolv­ing, learn­ing and hav­ing the abil­ity to refine my per­cep­tion to the point I could visu­al­ize new worlds with­out leav­ing my house.

What mean­ing does surf­ing hold for you and how has it changed your life?
I would add courage in the sense of pen­e­trat­ing fear and reach­ing to the other side. I’m also work­ing on my inter­nal plea­sure in a way that I can gain more and more integrity.

What brings you the most hap­pi­ness in the world?
Every­thing. It all relies on myself, and not other peo­ple and things.

Who are some of the peo­ple you feel are shap­ing the path for surf­ing today?
It might look con­tra­dic­tory for some­one that owns a sur­fwear brand like OP, but it is all those indi­vid­u­als not involved in con­tests and pro­mo­tion linked to surf prod­ucts. And all exte­rior activ­ity that is not attached to the sim­ple and pure act of glid­ing over the waves.

What is your quiver at the moment?
A cou­ple of 9’2 long­boards and a 6’2 fish model (still to be delivered).

What’s your favorite meal?
Brown rice, black beans, shrimps in gar­lic, boiled zuc­chini, rocket salad, cau­li­flower, let­tuce, broc­co­lis, a good wine and a good com­pan­ion. Oh, and choco­late for dessert.

What are you cur­rently lis­ten­ing to on your iPod?
Bach and all the bands I’ve men­tioned pre­vi­ously. Also time­less instru­men­tal music like Cecilio & Kapono – a Hawai­ian band that makes me travel through time, Astor Piaz­zola, MPB (Brazil­ian Pop­u­lar Music) and Chet Baker.

What are you most grate­ful for?
Everything.

You directly helped con­struct­ing the sur­fwear indus­try in Brazil in the late sev­en­ties. How do you see the evo­lu­tion of the surf­ing cul­ture in this coun­try? Does it have a true iden­tity?
It has been swal­lowed by com­mer­cial excess, most of it becom­ing pas­teur­ized and with lit­tle iden­tity at all.

What’s next for Sid­ney Tenucci?
I have many books yet to pub­lish, some trips to be done and many peo­ple still to meet. The recov­ery of OP has been full of plea­sures but deep inside I really don’t want to know what’s going to hap­pen. It would spoil the surprise.

Top photo by Paulo Vainer. All other pho­tos pro­vided cour­tesy of Mr. Tenucci. OP Brazil can be found here: www.op.com.br.  Check out the Por­tuguese ver­sion on Surf & Cult.