True story ...
"Stand-up paddle surfing may sound like a scene from a screwball comedy, but no one's laughing in a sports and fitness industry that has hit the recession skids as hard as any other business.
SUP, as it's called for short, looks exactly as it sounds: you stand on a large surfboard and propel yourself forward with a paddle. But, unlike traditional surfing, you don't have to wait for the waves. In fact, SUP, which is wildly popular, can be done on lakes, rivers, pools or any sufficiently large body of water. "It's completely blown up in the past five years and every spring it just blows up even more," says Jim Brewer, 45, a painting contractor who, in October 2008 and in spite of everyone calling him nuts, opened Blueline Stand-Up Paddle Surf in Santa Barbara, Calif., the first fully dedicated SUP shop in the country. "We thought it was phasing out, but then we realized that it's just beginning. It's going mainstream.""
Continued at:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...901908,00.html