We interview the best surfers in the world and the people behind them, so surfers can learn ways to improve their own surfing. The podcast is targeted to open-minded surfers who want to improve and progress their surfing as well as enhance their surf longevity & health. Each interview will educate the listener on ways to refine and progress their surfing and/or increase their surf longevity.
104 Candice Land - Exercise Physiologist for WSL and "The Female Surfer"
Oct 03, 2024
In this episode, we chat with Candice Land, exercise physiologist for the World Surf League and founder of The Female Surfer. Candice has an extensive background in exercise physiology, human performance, with over 20 years of experience. She shares her journey from sports psychology to exercise science, and how her athletic background—ranging from martial arts to rowing—shaped her approach to surfing, which she discovered in her mid-20s.
Candice delves into the unique challenges female surfers face and emphasizes the importance of core stability, movement efficiency, and understanding one’s physiology. We explore her methodology for training female surfers, including her Pillar System program, which focuses on core, upper body, and lower body development to enhance surfing performance.
She also discusses how female athletes can better connect with their bodies by recognizing the influence of hormonal cycles and lifespan changes on their training. Whether you're a beginner or an advanced surfer, Candice offers invaluable insights into surf-specific conditioning, injury prevention, and maximizing athletic potential.
Key Topics:
Candice's path to surf training and exercise physiology
How athletic backgrounds influence learning in surfing
The Pillar System: core stability, upper, and lower body development for female surfers
The importance of understanding hormonal cycles in training
Training strategies for female athletes to enhance movement efficiency and reduce injury
Resources:
Visit The Female Surfer for more information on Candice’s programs and resources for female surfers.
Sponsor for this episode is Flatrock Wetsuits, head to https://flatrockwetsuits.com.au and use code MASTER15 at checkout for 15% off.
Transcript:
Michael Frampton
So now I'm here. Oh, cool. So what, by way of intro, could you tell us a little bit of your background and what you're currently doing?
candice land
Sure. So I'll flip it around and start with the end first. I'm currently managing female surfer, which is something I created to ensure.
for that female athletes and female surface have the toolkit that they need to perform at their best. So that's currently what I'm doing.
But I've been in the world of human performance for about 20 years now. So I've been in exercise, which seems crazy, actually.
It seems like I just graduated from uni yesterday. But yeah, I've been in exercise physiologists now for nearly 20 years.
So delving into the world of human performance and how we can make that better.
Michael Frampton
Oh, wow. So did you dive straight into that world as soon as you left school?
candice
Fun fact, I actually was initially enrolled in sport psychology. I was always an athlete at school, so I always had that kind of interest.
I don't understand how we're supposed to even know what we want to do when we finish high school. For some reason I didn't get into sport psychology, but I'm so grateful that I didn't.
I ended up getting into sport and exercise science with a good friend of mine. She went on to physiotherapy and I stayed on as an exercise physiologist.
And I'm one of those lucky people that this is my passion and this is what I love. So from the from the get-go, this is what I've been, I guess, I feel pulled to do.
So I just stayed an exercise physiologist that whole time.
Michael Frampton
Yeah, awesome. When did surfing come into the picture?
candice
Late. I played a lot of sports growing up but living in the tropics, obviously we've got the Great Barrier Reef.
So I wasn't exposed to surfing until I lived in Ireland when I was about 25. So that's when I got exposed to surfing because when the weather was, I said to myself when the is good, I don't want to be in a capital city.
want to be out enjoying this, this beautiful country and I ended up in a small fishing village. in can carry and was just like, wow, the firstly, the beaches are stunning.
And secondly, I wanted to do something really random. So I was like, I'd love to just learn how to surf over here.
And then I ended up living with the lads that ran the surf school. So I just got to tag along with them.
Michael Frampton
So at 25, that's not very late.
candice
Yeah, that was only five years ago. No, it was a while ago. Longer than I would like to mention.
Michael Frampton
Yeah. What was your what was your main sport before surfing came into play?
candice
Or before I went travelling overseas, I was big into martial arts that actually represented Australia and take one dough.
So that was my passion. But prior to that, I was competing in rowing and my bike riding, played touch-fleeing at ball.
name it, I did it. Yeah, so a bit of an all-rounder when it comes to sport.
Michael Frampton
Do you think you're a high-level athletic background helped you to learn surfing faster than others?
candice
No. I think surfing is really unique as a sport. In some ways, yes, I think martial arts are still trained to this day and it really helps my surfing.
It really helps with focus and being able to stay calm in the water as well and it also helps me to feel more connected on the board as well.
There's a lot of breath work and stuff that goes in with take window that I think really helps with that core connection.
So but I feel like surfing is such a unique sport because nothing is ever the same and you don't surf how you look.
It's such an internal representation on the brain. So you know when you surf and you think you surf a particular way but then you see a video of yourself and you're like well that's not how surfing feels to me.
It's such the way the brain puts it all together. It's so reliant on the vestibular system and the proprioceptive system that it's a very internal visual thing.
So for me surfing, I would say I'm an intermediate to advanced intermediate surfer, but I wouldn't say that I'm epic at it and it's something I'll have to spend my whole lifetime learning.
So it's been the hardest sport for me to do well.
Michael Frampton
Mm, it is hard. I call this later once said that surfing is a martial art.
candice
Interesting perspective.
Michael Frampton
Mm, I think, and especially, I mean, he's a high level. I think you also hear high level martial artists saying that when you get to a certain level, it's kind of like you're dancing with danger, with your opponent.
And I think that's why I call it described it like that because essentially the best surfers in the world, they surf closest to the.
Did you do video analysis in the martial arts world as well and was it a similar thing?
candice
No, interestingly my martial arts felt like the way that it looked. I don't know if it's because it's in a more closed environment, the floor surface is always the same, you better, you kind of can orientate yourself better in space because the world around you isn't shifting, the horizon's that enabled me to have a more realistic representation of where my body was in space.
So when I did the martial arts I knew and I was executing a move and also it's so easy to repeat it in the same environment.
It's such a repetitive thing, so you get to really in the same environment really hone in and focus your technique so you get used to the sensation of feeling that it is, whereas unless you're like it.
a surf athlete that gets to experience or surf very consistent waves, 15 20 hours a week, of don't get that opportunity for repetition.
So don't know whether those things kind of play into it, where it enabled me to have more movement accuracy.
So it felt like the way that it looked, I'm not sure.
Michael Frampton (michaeljframpton@gmail.com)
Yeah, I think that's got a lot to do with it for sure, because you know you used to be into surfing and maybe if you're lucky two minutes of that is actually surfing a wave.
candice
Yeah, time on the wave, that's right.
Michael Frampton
Yeah. Yeah. And it's also, I think, I've had a lot of footage of me taking through coaching sessions and stuff.
And I think anyone who's seen themselves surf will relate to the fact that it looks completely different to how it felt.
And even the pros, I was talking about, I remember Matt Greeks mentioning that Mick Fanning often found that in Taylor Knox as well.
and they said they often found that sometimes the footage they watched that looked the most extreme like had the most spray and looked like they were doing the biggest turn was the wave that actually felt the smoothest.
candice
Yes.
Michael Frampton
Not necessarily the most sort of stops that where you think there might be more spray.
candice
Yes, that doesn't surprise me one bit when you understand biomechanics and human movement and the design of the human body and how we're designed for variability movement and when designed for efficiency and movement that's what the human body is designed for.
So when you hear comments like that, that makes perfect sense to me.
Michael Frampton
Yeah. Do you think that part of the reason that we sort of that mismatch in internal and visual representation?
Do you think that's part of fear as we sort of we sort of crouch down and we feel safer when we're surfing we end up in a bit of a poo stance.
candice
This is really interesting because this is bringing up a conversation that I had with one of the surf coaches from surfing Australia very recently and we were talking about these sorts of things like what we're talking about in the context of stability and courseability and how underestimated it is in surf training and surf conditioning and and what is the actual purpose of surf conditioning and what should it be involving and all those sorts of things and movement is a communication mode in the body right so movement tells the brain lots of different things but it works the other way around as well so that your cognitive processes can very much influence your movement so for example for me I know when I feel uncertain, unstable, I'm in a new environment the way
It feels a little bit different on a board that's a little bit funky. don't think I've got the right board for the conditions.
My surfing style, I'll compress far more because there is a lack of trust through the nervous system based on those parameters.
So I do think that fear can definitely, it has to be able to have that sort of influence because it's all, it's like this cyclical communication because the brain is always trying to figure out what is the best movement option.
The main priority of the brain is to keep you safe. So in that time, if you're feeling fearful, there will be a biomechanical and physiological adaptation to that because it's number one priority.
Michael Frampton
And that's happening where you're aware of the fear or not.
candice
Exactly. Yeah. It's a very perceptual thing. Surfing is very much a sensory based sport. You don't have a lot of time to think on a wave.
And the brain is picking up a lot of information and we manage. a lot through proprioception and the vestibular system.
with the visual system and more with those two elements of nervous system control. So, it's so cool how you need to do this as a Yeah.
Michael Frampton
So, what we're looking at, the discussion you were having with this person, you mentioned just to start of that bit.
Any conclusions or?
candice
Yeah, we're both think believers in creating a more efficient athlete. I'm a big believer in the fact that we have more available to us than we realize.
If we just look at emotions or maybe like a... framework issue like this, the lethal alignment or something along those lines, there's factors that can play into how efficient we are as athletes.
we're so, I'm generalising by saying we, but I'm concerned that as a culture, now we're so motivated to just kind of go hardcore and to go straight into strength and conditioning and to look at strength and to look at load and to look at high performance training and to do all those sort of things without understanding or realising what we've already got available to us.
And when you look at the best surfers or if I'm at a contest and I see a surfer that's completely on fire, it comes down to how efficient they are with movement because movement efficiency allows them to collect energy to transfer it into something else and to turn it into power.
So it's the timing on the wave, it's the smoothness and the way that they can draw down into their turns to collect energy and then turn that into something else and explode out their spins.
whatever it might be. So we're both big believers in that side of things. Yes, go to load. Yes, do all those things.
Absolutely. We have to have, you know, strong athletes, but it's part of the spectrum of training so that you're not missing out on everything that you've got available to you over here.
That's that's our approach.
Michael Frampton
Hmm. Yeah, I totally agree. And I give you a short story that kind of I think exemplifies that I was working with a very high level athlete a few years ago, rugby athlete.
And at the time, I'd just done three DNS courses and I was heavily into DNS stuff. And the first time I had him in the gym, I just wanted to watch and see what he could do, what he was doing already.
And he was deadlifting about 120 kilos. Um, and then all we did was some DNS based tweaks to the way that he was holding himself.
And it's because he was such a high level athlete. just picked it up straight away. He's like, all of sudden could organize his body in a new way.
And then I like, okay, well, let's try deadlift with those positions in mind. And then he went, he literally went from 120 kilos up to 160.
And I was like, okay, we've got to stop now because you've never lifted that much. He's saying it's, he's saying it's easy, but no, we've got to, we've got to stop.
So just by organizing his skeletal system in a more efficient position based on the DNS stuff, his strength went up.
So I think strength actually has a lot to do, there's more to do with efficiency, really.
candice
Oh, yes. Yeah, absolutely. And it's got to do with the eccentric phase before the concentric phase. So how you set up a movement is really important.
And that's where movement efficiency comes in, because the way if you, if you break it back down all the way back to human evolution, it always comes down to survival.
So for humans, the way that our bodies evolved, like I said before, was a to be able to find food.
in lots of different environments, so we have this body that's designed to be able to do all sorts of varieties of movement, jump, run, spin, swim, you name it.
So we can find food in all sorts of different environments. The other thing that we got designed into our framework and into our physiology was to be efficient.
So that to me is what we're designed to actually be efficient, that's the way our whole body was designed to work.
And so that comes down to how do you load into the body and how do you eccentrically and how do you collect energy within the body.
Because if there is a breakdown in that, it's too calorie expensive. So the movement is costing you more than it should.
And you can see that you can see people are strong and they can muscle their way through movement.
Michael Frampton
Great. what's the cost of that? Hmm. I'm going to ask you, so I love the sort of evolutionary biologist sort of background to what you just said there.
It leads me to ask you the question is, because that makes me think of sort of the hunter-gatherer world, and whereas the men typically were the ones who are running, jumping, climbing, doing a lot of the heavy lifting per se, so it makes complete sense to train a male athlete like that.
But is the same true for female athletes? Yeah.
candice
is. We have a dual-function pelvis, so our pelvis evolved to be wider, because the pelvis for a man is just going to enable you to be bipedal, walk, run.
For a female, we had to be bipedal, but then we also had to carry it in both child. So the shape of our pelvis is different.
The other thing that's different is the shape of the actual bony structures around the shoulder girdle. So it tends to be a shallower joint.
And there's some differences around muscle fibers and things like that. But evolutionary was still designed to do those two things as a species, yep.
Michael Frampton
Okay. So when it comes to training the female athlete, how do those differences change what you do?
candice
I'm a big believer in pelvic alignment and pelvic stability. I have a DNS background as well, I've done a few of the DNS training.
So my big believer in in Trunksibility and Causability functional Causability in terms of making an athlete more efficient and being able to transfer load for women I feel that because we can't rely on fast-pooch muscle fibers and big muscle mass necessarily We can train and develop those things to an extent and I feel that that's an area that female athletes can really encapsulate disability to transfer loads so that they work really efficiently mechanically and they connect all the dots in their body
That's our world where we can really capitalize on the power that's available to us. So I will try incorporate that in a big key and component to that for women is the pelvis.
To me, the pelvis is like a keystone joint. Like if you look at, did you want to do any of the footwork stuff with the DNS community with Marco Rintala and his online stuff?
Michael Frampton
A little bit. I've also looked at the foot through other modalities, yeah.
candice
You know how it's like a bridge, right? And you've got the keystone in the bridge and how well that keystone works determines whether the bridge stays up or whether it collapses.
I consider the pelvis also one of the keystone joints in the body. If it gets stuck in a certain position or if it's destabilizing before it needs to, if it gets stuck in what we call like a swing phase of gait instead of being able to be stable and handle stance and single leg load, it interrupts the whole mechanics of the body.
It can drive you into the neck pain. It can drive you into shoulder pain. And so for women where we have this wider pelvis and we have this q-angle where the knees come in a little bit, that to me is an area that we really need to focus on with female athletes as a potential powerhouse and in reducing low limb injuries.
So I will look into that as well. But that's first and foremost before I will even go into like shoulders and things like that.
For me, it's about again making female athletes more efficient and how do we protect the female athlete, how do we protect the female body and how do we make it more robust and more adaptable?
How do we power up this body? So those are the two things that I would tend to look at initially.
Does that make sense? Definitely.
Michael Frampton
That's essentially, that's very much DNS thinking as well, just in general. Do you find that the female athletes are actually more open to diving into some of them
more subtleties of DNS than the male athletes just wanted they just want to do some deadlifts and do what they do on TV.
candice
I think not hard to say I've got male athletes that I've worked with over like oh it's so nearly okay now in the surfing scene I see them at the contest and they come and say hi I'm a catch up and see how their bodies are going and and you've always got to get that athlete buying the athlete buying is the results and the change that they get so if you can if you can get that regardless of gender if you can get that with an athlete then they're more inclined to understand the value and benefit of that form of exercise are women more open-minded to it I would say that it depends on their background of training I've had and also the influence of the coach I've actually had instances where the coach hasn't allowed
the athlete to do anything outside of strength training because this is the Olympic model or this is the high performance model.
So this is what we're doing. I'm concerned about the rigidity that's coming into the surf training model. But then you've got role models like you've got kind of role models in the sport that are still doing their own thing and still getting really good results with that.
So I think that helps as well. But if they're more ever-minded to it or not, I couldn't say whether women are lot.
Michael Frampton
Yeah, it's a shame that there's so many studies out there saying that how bad heavy weightlifting is not just for athletes like surfers, but for almost anyone really.
candice
Yeah, I think there's a time and a place. There's been a lot of research to show the benefits of low training, and I think for female athletes-
It's really important because, especially as we change across the lifespan, know, we get to this point where estrogen isn't such a dominant hormone anymore, and estrogen has a really protective effect on muscular tissue, so we'll lose muscle mass quite quickly.
And so that has a ricochet effect through the body in terms of injury as an older athlete and in terms of just being able to do the sport the way that you've always done it.
So strength training I think has a little bit more, not a little bit more, I just think it's important, an important ingredient for female athletes to consider, but I think it's also important for surf athletes to understand their own body and to have the ability to work with what works well for them, rather than having to fit a rigid framework.
And you need a versatile practitioner and approach to be able to understand that spectrum and for it to be a very athlete-centered approach to training.
Michael Frampton
So you mentioned DNS?
candice
Yeah.
Michael Frampton
you still use a lot of that?
candice
Heaps. I still use a lot of it. I find it as a reorganization tool in terms of faulty movement patterns.
Yes. It was embedded so early into our central nervous system from a developmental perspective. You couldn't learn a movement pattern until you stabilized in a particular way.
the body had to get stabilization first before it could develop the next motor pattern as you know. So if we can draw back to that organization, you still see the body able to let go and come back to improving motor patterns.
So I find it really good at locking things. So even and creating change in a very short amount of time.
So when I'm working at events, I'll use that as a modality. I use quite a lot of different modalities, but I will still use DNS principles.
Michael Frampton
Yeah. So what are some of the other courses that you've done over the years and in particular, which ones had the biggest influence on what you do now?
candice
I first, you know, I am absolutely fascinated by the nervous system. I first became exposed to the nervous system when I was doing my post-grad in occupational therapy of all things.
And I delve heavily into the nervous system from a developmental perspective and dealing with pediatric health, then also dealing with things like stroke recovery.
that to me, I couldn't understand why that was a game changer for me. It totally changed the way that I
a sore movement, the muscles are the end point of the story. So it changed the way that I assessed and it changed the way that I prescribed movement.
So I've been interested in that and then through pediatrics I've also been interested in the developmental stages of movement and how that all kind of gets integrated and where it can go wrong as adults, what can we kind of pull back through.
So those two things. I've done additional training around like integrated neurology stuff. fascinated with the vestibular system so I'm diving into that a bit right now.
But then I also don't want to pull too far away from strength and conditioning side of things as well.
So because I have to spend the spectrum of injury prevention and injury recovery into managing complex injuries and complex movement patterns into
to all the way into high performance training. And that's just in the realm of muscle skeletal, that's not even including everything else that I need influence from a physiological perspective.
So we just look at that. So I wanna make sure that I feel that spectrum. So some of my training has also included things like kettlebell training courses and additional strength training courses just to know that I can still communicate with that audience and I can still bridge that and then I bring it all.
So I'll still, I'll manipulate some of these exercises. I stated people, right, you're at the point now where we're going to go to the gym.
I'm gonna give you your strength training program but it's gonna be your nerdy strength training program. Okay, so that I can bring in some of those postural elements and some of the DNS stuff and some of the pelvic restoration stuff into your strength based.
um Sometimes I try to remember the specific names of courses that I can't Yep.
Michael Frampton
I like that approach and I agree I didn't mean to sound anti-strength training before it's just I think you see a lot of athletes just overdo the deadlift, the bench press and the squat and you can see and then they just end up getting big without necessarily getting functionally strong.
candice
Um I think I can understand and see how that holds athletes together in bigger more powerful surf where they have to be working against some pretty big external forces.
Um but I do also think that that we don't operate that but when not I think sometimes of load as sound so that when we're under load from a nervous system perspective if we think about it in
In terms of sound, it's very high volume, very noisy. So you're under this load, you've got weight on your body, your brain knows where everything is in space, the volume is being turned up, and it's a noisy, loud environment.
If you think about how often we're in that context, in surfing, when is that? When are we getting the most input and most noise into our body from a movement perspective?
Michael Frampton
I would say in heavy surf or wipe out.
candice
Yeah, yeah. If we're dealing with a wave that wants to compress us, and we have to kind of resist against that, if it's lot of water moving, and we really have to load into that bottom turn to really be able to manage that power and control that power, it would be when we go to executed turn, where the timing is, or if we need to, again, load back into a bottom turn to collect energy.
But then what's happening in between that movement? Unless it's on a big, heavy, powerful moving.
Michael Frampton
wave, the volume turns down.
candice
Yeah. We need to be able to have strategies that enable us to work on the high volume situations and low volume situations and then be able to dial the volume up and the volume down.
Yes. think we're training on the high volume situations. How adaptable does that make you as an athlete in the real world?
Michael Frampton
Yeah. Yeah, I guess I kind of think of high level top to bottom surfing is kind of jumping and landing based really.
candice
On and off. Yeah. Yeah.
Michael Frampton
There's a nice smoothness.
candice
It's like saying thing with walking. You know, walking is meant to be so efficient that it costs you very little energy.
But we're not doing that. We're not doing that otherwise, we? But if I, you know, faulty movement patterns I see just in walking, you know, and that bipedal gate, that opposite arm to opposite leg situation is prevalent in so many other activities that we do in the real world.
world and I think you can squat this and you can bench press this, that's awesome but you can't get this, you're not stable on a single leg.
So we kind of need to look at this as well.
Michael Frampton
Yeah, and you mentioned neurological side of things a lot there as well. And I certainly, the type of training that I've done personally that affected my surfing the most was when I was doing a lot of DNS.
I was learning it and working with clients as well as seeing someone one on one at least once a week.
And I was doing a lot of vestibular and ocular training at the same time. And I actually got to the point where I was able to go, I went to Fiji on a surf trip and I was really nervous because I get seasick and a bath.
But I think because I've been doing so much vestibular and in training. I just didn't get seasick.
candice
That's awesome. Got to keep that up because that deteriorates as we age. And women, for women that change, fluctuates in a single cycle.
So women will have changes in their particular capacities within a single cycle. So all of those things kind of come into play.
So then knowing that then, does that shift and change how you would develop your own training program?
Michael Frampton
I would think so. You'd want to be cycling in time with the moon, personally.
candice
But also not knowing how the DNS work that you did and the best tibular ocular work that you did, how that enhanced your performance.
Would you be more inclined to go to the gym and focus on strength? Or would you be more inclined to do that training that you did prior to Fiji?
I'd do a mixture of both. Yeah. Yeah.
Michael Frampton
Yeah. Definitely.
candice
Yeah.
Michael Frampton
in just, yeah. Yeah, definitely.
candice
And I think that's fun. I think that makes it fun. I think if you can work across the whole spectrum, it makes it makes training a journey, not just a routine.
Michael Frampton
Definitely. I mean, I challenge anyone out there to stand on one leg with your eyes closed. That's not as easy as you think.
candice
I'm doing it this morning. I was like, okay, we need to do some work on this.
Michael Frampton
Yeah, it's hard. And then try and do it with your eyes closed and your head moving. It's interesting because I've had the pleasure of working with some high level athletes.
that's a test I'd always do. And some of the best athletes, they're just like, oh yeah, they'll just stand on one leg and with their eyes closed and just do it.
Even though they've never trained to do it, they're just naturally gifted. They've been gifted with a great VISTA. through their genetics or their background or whatever.
candice
Yeah. And I think if you took a surfer and you did it on a flat surface, they would manage differently on an surface.
Michael Frampton
Mmm.
candice
The surfer is always on a surface that's moving.
Michael Frampton
Don't you think the vestibular system would be pretty quick to learn that though, like if it's a high level.
candice
it's adaptable. Yeah, if it's adaptable. And there's things that kind of play into that.
Michael Frampton
Yeah. Mmm. think it also, like someone who's got an incredible vestibular system, I mean, you look at a surfer going through a barrel section with lots of chandeliers with visions gone.
And they just come through. It doesn't seem to bother them.
candice
And the areas are known where they are in space to be able to land that exactly where they need to be landing that to then.
to then going to another turn straight away. I love seeing that. Are you doing much sort of isolated vestibular work with any athletes?
Yes and no. I want to upskill in that area before I do whole people work in that area because I do think it's high risk.
So I tend to baseline set it up through the highest cervical area and then do some eye tracking training and then also eyes closed eyes open that sort of thing.
I think it's a really unique skill set.
Michael Frampton
Yeah there's also ways to sort of you don't necessarily have to isolate it you can add in fun little stuff so they don't even realize they're doing it sort of thing.
Very true yeah like strobe. Strobed glasses are a great way to do that or get them to blink blink slowly or yes Yeah, Yeah, just jump into I don't know if you have discovered Z health yet, but they've got heaps of cool stuff on that website You're giving me so many cool things today So that's dr.
He's a chiropractor neurologist guy who oh man a years ago. He's decided to start training personal trainers in neurology And in particular, you know the vestibular and ocular system.
So he's got a lot of really he starts base level Um, so it's heaps of free videos on his website as well, and he's got a course on vestibular training and vision training as well Yeah, awesome.
candice
Yeah a bit in terms of Yeah and the concussion side of things and Yes It's it's good that It's developing as a treatment like that, my dilating.
Michael Frampton
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And for prevention as well, like I know if you can cast without seeing it coming especially, your concussion is worse, but it also actually narrows your peripheral vision post-compassion, which makes you more susceptible to another concussion because your center vision, essentially you lose part of your peripheral vision.
So if training your peripheral vision, to rehab your peripheral vision and even improve it can help as well. They talk about that on Z-Health a lot as well.
friend of mine who did the Z-Health stuff, he's now into cognitive training as well. So it's really interesting, man, and you should have a look at his website too, SomaNPT.
got an app that's got all things like Strobe, so Stroop tests and visual reaction, audio reaction, yes. Yes, no, go, no, no, go, sort of drills on that app, really fascinating stuff.
He's working with some of the football teams in Europe and the Formula One drivers in Europe with all that sort of stuff.
Yeah, awesome.
candice
All that responsiveness and that decision making that you don't even have time to make that decision making, know, that lightning stuff that you need.
Michael Frampton
Hmm. And what's really fascinating about that, he's doing lot of studies with universities at the moment too, is they'll test VO2 max and the athlete that won't change any of their physical training, but they start adding in the cognitive training whilst they might just be on the bike or a treadmill doing their standard cardio training, but they'll add in the cognitive stuff so they might be doing stroke tests or visual reaction tests, and they're seeing an increase in their VO2.
Simply because the prefrontal cortex is dealing with the whole thing about her So it's fascinating Really cool. Yeah, really cool.
candice
You've added to my diving list.
Michael Frampton
Oh There's so much out there, right?
candice
Yeah, I spent all morning reading articles. I'm like oh Brain come on brain.
Michael Frampton
Keep going So what's so let's let's speak to this say the average The average recreational surfer that might be listening now the say the female one and the female one in particular what considerations should they be making to their training and In recommendations like what should they be doing and not doing for the average athlete?
candice
Yes, so for the average athlete I think I I think it's a female sometimes the hardest thing is that we don't necessarily know what we're dealing with we haven't had a Lot of time to really understand
our own biology and physiology, and how to manipulate that in the world of exercise, prescription that suits us the best.
We've kind of just been basing it off research, as you know, that's been predominantly done on men. So there's a lot of mistruth and misunderstanding.
So I think it's like the recreational female athlete and leaving the elite female athlete now is in this really cool realm or this really cool time where where we can really begin to understand ourselves.
So it means that you just need to cue in and listen to yourself. You are going to have fluctuations.
You are going to be in state of evidence law. But just clue in and monitor yourself and get in touch with yourself and start to understand your own rhythms, rather than kind of blowing them off as if they're nothing.
So for example, I didn't realize this until I started, you know, tracking my own cycles and getting a good understanding of my own rhythms, why I would turn up to, let's say, cabber.
And it would be two to three foot glassy, sunny day, similar conditions to where I was a week ago and I wouldn't want to go surfing.
Like I would actually be anxious about going surfing and I'd just be like, do you do? Like I'm talk so, I'd be so hard on myself, what you doing?
Why don't you want to get in the water? You've only got this amount of time, get in, go, go, go, go, go.
But inside my body's like, no, I don't want to, I don't want to go. I didn't realise that shift in anxiety was actually a cyclical pattern for me.
So in understanding that, I could prepare myself better for those moments, so that now I don't experience that so much.
But at the time I was able to bring in strategies to help me manage that a lot better. So I think paying attention to your own cycles is really, really important and what you experience and just get your head around who you are personally as an athlete because regardless of what, the one consistency in the research around female athletes is it's still very
inconclusive. It's still very much based on the individual athletes, so we have a responsibility to really understand ourselves. So that would be the first thing.
It's a really cool time to explore who you are as an athlete. And I think the other thing to know is that as women, we have these significant changes across the lifespan as well.
So for me, another journey that I've experienced personally as an athlete as well is the discrepancy between what I was like as an athlete at 25 and what I'm like as an athlete now at 40 something.
What used to work for me and what I used to be able to tolerate at 25 and what I can tolerate now at 40 something.
There's big difference there in terms of fatigue profiles in terms of the way that I need to manage myself nutritionally in terms of my stress profile and cortisol and what I can tolerate in
in an exercise session and what will burn me out. There's big differences there, so we need to understand that we also fluctuate across the lifespan.
So be prepared to be able to adjust the way you're surfing. So if you started surfing at the age of 45, but you're watching a 25, what a 25-year-old would do on social media for their serve training, and if it's not the right fit, then don't beat yourself up about that.
You might be in a different lifespan where you need to support your body in a different way. So to understand that, and another thing is to, if you're going to, if I was going to pull this back and go, this is actually, this is the number one question that I get asked from the female server community.
The number one question is where do I start? How do I get started? This is recreational athletes from the age of 20 through to 55.
And so that's the number one question. So I developed from that two things. One was a female server screening protocol, which is designed around age
around the female biology and physiology and how our bodies work and how we and how and matching that against the demands of that particular athletes type of surfing so that they can figure out from that assessment screening, oh okay I need to work on my balance or I need to work on my fitness or whatever it might be.
It's the way for them to really hone in as an individual and the second thing I did was develop the pillar system.
So the pillar system is based off screening hundreds of female surf athletes from beginner level to CT level and understanding from injury data and the injury information that we get from a competitive perspective and understanding the challenges that female athletes experience with progressing their surfing and if I had to pick the top three things what would they be and out of those top three things what would be the most important.
So the newer rope you know is courseability so if you're going to start somewhere and you had no idea where to start, pull it all back, come back to course stability.
It's a really important injury prevention capacity for female athletes, particularly when it comes to lower limb injuries. It's really important for powering up our surfing and being able to transfer load and to manage the demands of surfing even though we might have a smaller shoulder muscle mass size.
So I always will always start with a female athlete if they only have limited time and they only have the mental capacity to do with one thing that would be where I would start.
Michael Frampton
Okay. Does that help? Definitely, definitely. So it sounds like you're eluded to some programs that you have on your website.
candice
I do. I have programs that actually, I always rehash them and redo them. So they're actually all about to be updated.
But I have the pillar base system on the website and the surface screening is also on the website. And then we've been doing some really fun skiing.
what training which is orientated around preparation for surf trips and that in itself now is going to be designed into another program because that's actually been running really well.
Michael Frampton
Okay, what's the pillar program?
- candice
So the pillar program, there's three short courses that you can do. So each course is designed to last for four weeks.
You start with course stability, then you go into upper body development and then you've got lower body development. The lower body development is really about helping female athletes power up their lower limbs for force and speed generation.
And so we'd be looking at things like we were talking about early on in the podcast around eccentrically loading.
How do we collect energy? Where do we need to be stable to do this? With the upper body stuff, it's around being able to improve our paddling capacity, popping up, all that sort of stuff.
And duck diving and the challenges of making sure that you have the strength to get to be taking off in the most critical part of that wave and also getting yourself out of trouble.
So that's the upper body course and the first one is the most important pillar which is the course stability.
So that was set up to, again, if you were going to cover the foundations, you would actually be dealing it with those three courses and in that order of importance.
Michael Frampton
Yeah. How do you describe the course stability?
candice
Oh, yeah. I have an educational component about this in the course and it's the female server approach to course stability.
For me, it's very much orientated, I won't go into too much detail, but it's very much orientated around the axial skeleton because that is the axis movement.
So that's what core is to me. It's from head to pubic bone. It's includes the scapula, it includes the shoulder blades, it includes the pelvis, it includes the organisation and the alignment of the spine, it includes the jaw, all those sorts of things.
Michael Frampton
Okay, so we're talking to not just set up some planks?
candice
No, no, and I know there's a, yeah, I'm not a big believer again in bracing when it comes to courseability.
Bracing is a strategy that the body uses, again, under heavier load, but if you're doing things like planks, then that's not necessarily making you adaptable in your core.
Core is designed to enable you to stay upright and stable in space, and it's designed to help you transfer load, and it's there for movement efficiency, basically, yeah.
It makes it more robust and more powerful athlete, but you know when it's dysfunctional, as you know, you know when it's not working for somebody, you can see it in the movement.
Michael Frampton
Yeah, yeah, and what's the name of
candice
your website the female surfer.com perfect I will put links to that in the show notes and you're on instagram as well remind me of your handle at the female surfer too easy again I'll put links to that in the show notes we could talk for hours but it's coming up the top of the hour so we'll leave it there for today yeah well yeah wow cool it's been fun to get you on again yeah yeah love to be on cool well thank you so much Candace thank you for the listeners go check the show notes out cool too easy also thanks so much no thank you
103 Captain Liz Clark - Adventure Surfer
Sep 26, 2024
Captain Liz Clark: Surfer, sailor, author, change maker. In this episode Liz describes her deep, multifaceted relationship with the ocean, which has provided her a sense of peace, acceptance, and purpose over the years. She discusses how the ocean has challenged her to grow in many ways, reflects on her decision to embark on a solo sailing voyage in her 20s, despite the significant risks involved.
Liz shares advice for surfers looking to improve their relationship with the sport, emphasizing the importance of focusing on enjoyment and flow rather than performance-based goals. She discusses how her own surfing evolved to be more about the experience than competition as she got older.
Liz describes how her solo sailing voyage led to a profound "awakening" in multiple aspects of her life - discovering herself as a woman, developing a deeper spiritual connection, and gaining a clearer understanding of her place in the world.
Well, I mean, it's surfing is such a foundational part of my life. It's just one of the biggest pillars that I revolve my world around.
And so, yeah, surfing means so much to me. shape so many of my decisions around it, you know, based on being able to keep freedom and have a lifestyle that allows me to surf when the waves are good and be in a place where I can enjoy that year round, know.
Yeah, it's my salvation and my playground and You know, it gives me so, so much.
My relationship to the ocean. I mean, the ocean has given me so much, you know, when you think back to.
When I think back to my youth and. Just how the ocean was always a place that I could go to feel.
At peace and accepted. Always kind of a medium where I felt like I could be myself. And then, of course, when I spent.
Ten years, you know, more than a decade and. Thousands of miles traveling the ocean on my sailboat. You know, the.
Ocean gave me so many challenges and, you know, was a place where I was forced to grow in so many ways that, yeah, our relationship is something of like love and respect and a healthy amount of fear, but there's so much more to gain than, you know, to fear in my opinion, so something I keep going back to all the time to feel good, to stay inspired, to keep feeling a purpose in my life, and so yeah, I'm very close to the ocean and hope that I will get to continue to be.
You know, I've learned to kind of calculate my risks in my 40s now, you know, I used to kind of fling myself madly at my ocean escapades, but, you know, now I tend to use a bit more calculated risk when it involves surfing and, you know, long distance voyaging or sailing adventures.
But yeah, I mean, I don't really, to be honest, focus on the scariest parts, so I don't really even know what I would fear the most.
I try to focus on the good parts, and I think that's always served me.
Obviously, yeah, because I'm getting out on a solo voyage in your early, was it your 20s? Yeah, like, there's so much, like a young woman by herself on a second hand boat, like surfing to surf reef passes, like injuries, pirates, like the list of risks is insane.
Like, what gave you the mouse to sit across such upon such a voyage? Like, where did it come from?
Yeah, to be honest, I don't know. It's almost like it was born and instilled it into me always because, you know, I had the experience of growing up on boats and getting a taste of that pleasure of seeing the world by boat as a young child.
you know, neither my brother or my sister ever had quite the same desire as I did to continue that and live it out.
in such a way that I did. So I don't really know exactly where it came from, but the determination to do it and the desire was always just such a huge part of my world and I didn't really question why.
And yeah, the risks, I knew what the risks were and people were constantly telling me and talking about them, especially in the several years that I spent preparing the boat for the voyage.
You know, there was just constantly people telling me why this was not a good idea and kind of nacing it.
I think there was a deep down. I really knew that there was more to gain than to lose and that those risks were going to be like part of the fun at that.
age, I was really, you know, I loved the idea of adventure and unknown and kind of just going without a plan.
So at that time, there was parts of that that appealed to me. You know, what really I feared, I think most, as I said, out was failure, you know, like failing my job as people that helped me and whether it was financially or, you know, sweat, blood and tears.
There was just a lot riding on me pulling it all off. so that was the biggest fear, was just that I couldn't perform as a captain or, you know, do, fulfill those duties or things that I needed to do to be successful at the voyage.
I mean, Captain, I define as being able to manage your ship safely, to be able to, you know, your passengers safely to the other side.
You know, at the beginning of the voyage, I was always with different crew and friends who had very little boating experience.
And so there was a lot of responsibility on me to make sure everybody stayed safe and understood the basics of, you know, what the risks were of being out there on the ocean.
So, I think that's my definition of being a captain or being a good captain. And, and I would have defined failure at that point as, you know, running.
the boat of ground on the reef or you know in a way that it would have been like a repairable damage to swell or you know just deciding that it all too scary for me and I didn't want to do it you know giving up in some kind of way like that.
Hmm the subtitle to the book is a sale a sailing surface voyage of awakening. That sounds quite it's quite a spiritual subtitle what do you mean by awakening and describe what that means to you what's that journey of awakening.
Yeah, I think it means many things, to me it meant awakening in terms of me discovering myself and knowing who I am as a person, as a woman.
That was a huge part of the journey and then also kind of an awakening to the realities of the world and understanding my place in it, a connection as well to my spirituality and like a deeper understanding of my place in the universe.
All of those things were kind of like an unexpected part of what I did. I really set out kind of with just the idea that I was, you know, going
out there to find remote waves and and surf these breaks and have fun. And you know, there was just so much more to it.
When I actually got out there, I learned that to be able to succeed at what I was doing, it was really important for me to be able to look within and remove any of those obstacles that were blocking me from being kind of like in alignment with the greater forces of the world.
Because when you're out there, you're so vulnerable and so dependent on nature and the ocean to kind of cooperate with you, that it really became apparent that, you know, my inner journey and my outer world had connected in a really important way.
And that, you know, doing the work within, I would be rewarded on in the physical world, you know, externally, I guess?
What do you mean by that? I think I mean, looking within and seeing how I could be a better person, recognizing self-awareness, basically, you know, there's always things that we don't see being ourselves and that, you know, it takes, it took me time alone on the ocean with lots of time to reflect and really think about who I was and who I wanted to be, to be able to kind of like do that in our work, do that job of looking at things maybe you don't like about yourself or you wanna do.
better at and kind of put them into play in your everyday life.
Definitely, but I think my relationship with myself as well, you know, yes, definitely with other people, you know, there was a point in my voyage where I wanted to make amends with everybody that I felt that I'd wronged in my life and, you know, wrote letters to different people that I wanted to apologize to or clarify something with.
But there was also an ongoing relationship with myself that needed attention and, you know, me discovering my power as a woman, as a person, depended so heavily on me.
being able to be confident and learn to love myself really. that wasn't something that came naturally to me. I was kind of, I never thought that I deserved maybe as much as other people did.
And so it took me time to kind of develop my self-worth, I guess I would say.
Interesting. And you mentioned the connection between the inner and outer worlds. Could you think of a literal example? maybe when you were feeling a bit more self-worth and calmness was was the ocean karma at the time?
don't think it was so directly, visible, but I think, uh, over time, I, I understood that, uh, you know, my, not only my qualms, but my attitude towards things.
Like, during this voyage, you know, being on a boat, things are constantly breaking. Uh, I think there's just always challenges, you know, and at the beginning, I would, I tended to, you know, very quickly get frustrated and want to throw my arms up and be like, you know, everything's never going my way.
Um, then, you know, at some point, I kind of realized like, if I don't find a way to see these challenges as opportunities or, you know, at least try to like, stay calm and accept that this is absolutely going to be part, constantly part of my reality on this.
journey. I would have given up within the first year. I had to transform my way of thinking about those challenges in order to find positivity in them because it would have just been constantly too hard.
So I think over time as I began to understand that connection of me just feeling frustrated and it would almost always get just worse if I reacted in that way to a problem or in a difficult person that came in my life.
If I resisted it and made it a bigger fuss out of it, it always ended up being more challenging.
so I think over time as I realized like okay I've got to just you know consider this busted a windless motor, you know, a chance to maybe meet some interesting people that are going to help me fix it or, you know, I found that over time, you know, the challenges did lead me to cool, really cool experiences if I could keep an open mind.
And so I think it was, it wasn't so overnight that I said, oh, I'm calm and the ocean's calm.
No, the ocean was always throwing new challenges at me. It was just more a matter of like me seeing the alignment between going with the flow in those moments and letting them lead me towards somewhere that maybe I didn't have in mind.
And then getting there and having a really cool surprise happen, you know, going to having the wind push me in a direction that I didn't originally think I want to go, for example, and then getting to a place that I would have never gone to initially, but and discovering something really cool when I got there.
Yeah, no, I like that and it's also, I think that part of you was also very present before you set out on the journey, because do you see that in hindsight?
I mean, I think it was probably always there. I think being out on the ocean and kind of like especially when I was sailing alone, you know, just like the noise was gone and I could hear myself better and I could think clearer and, you know, kind of, it just accelerated the process of me having those realizations and understandings.
think being in the environment that I was out on the ocean, yeah, because I mean. Sitting out on on such a voyage at such a young age and ignoring all of the challenges and the people who are pointing out the barriers and challenges.
There's certainly an element of faith that led you to, you know, do it anyway.
Definitely. I, I certainly had a confidence in myself, a confidence in my capability to you know, problem-solve and overcome obstacles that would come up.
Maybe to almost a, maybe to almost a, you know, scary degree. My parents might have thought that but, but yeah, I who wanted to try.
to improve and do better and be a good person. So whatever that means to you. For me, being out there seemed to definitely accelerate the opportunities to have that inner growth in those relatives.
No, no real actual pirates. Um, no, but definitely plenty of unpleasant men and situations that, you know, I had to avoid or, you know, be smart and you know, I was pretty hyper aware of those kinds of dangers.
I'd say I was You know, I think those, those were the scariest things to me at that point was encountering dangerous men or, you know, more powerful than me that could do harm.
didn't overthink it or concentrate on it too much, but, you know, I definitely learned to tune into my instincts and when I met someone that didn't feel, you know, gave me an uncomfortable feeling, you know, a right away I would remove myself from the situation and do what I needed to do to not be in their path again, you know.
I mean, I had, yeah, definitely some moments that I wouldn't want to relive if I didn't have to, but in general, I think I was pretty smart about it.
But I always, you know, when I got to a new place, I kind of couldn't. you always met people, you know, generally upon arrival somewhere, the boating community is really small and, you know, tended to, with people who I felt safe with, and, you know, already creating that little bubble of people who are kind of looking out for me was, I feel like, a really good way to, you know, do you think it was a rite of passage, in a way, journey itself?
You know, I don't think young people have the same opportunities for that kind of experience in today's world, or we don't, you know, focus on it as much as certainly some civilizations and people did in the
pass and I do think I see the value in it so so much after having done what I did in my 20s, I see young people not getting that opportunity or giving themselves that opportunity and in that age group and I wish that our society did more to say like it's important for you to go out and spread your rings and fall if you have to and get back up and especially that age because you're really forging who you are, you're learning yourself, you're setting yourself up for the decision you're going to make and the life path that you're going to choose you know ahead of you so yeah I believe I didn't intend to write a passage really at the time but it absolutely was that I'm looking back hmm yeah
Well I think they're a really beautiful thing and we're lucky when we find ourselves in those moments where things flow and I definitely think that we can like I'm saying you know in terms of how our inner alignment affects our outer world you know when when everything when we're making choices and doing things to keep our inner world you know healthy and feeling good I do think that that is reflected externally and how things kind of happen around us and definitely lead us towards being in flow state more often I don't think we can be there all the time but I think
that's what makes it so special and and keeps us you know aiming to tune back in and and get aligned and try to find those special flow state moments again you know yes I imagine if you've been sailing and you're tired and then you turn up to some reef pass and it's just pumping it kind of has to be surfed and that the pressure of that situation would elicit a deep flow state I imagine yeah sometimes sometimes I think it would elicit the opposite because you know there was times when I would get somewhere and I was exhausted you know after a long passage and the surf would be good and I would force myself to go there when actually my body and everything was telling me you need to rest
to you know and I was constantly in conflict because the the boat and my you know the safety of the boat had to always remain first priority when in my heart like I was a surfer and I wanted to just jump off that boat and go surfing sometimes but a lot of times that that couldn't be you know that couldn't be my reality I had to deal with the priority of keeping the boat safe first you know interesting did you make some mistakes where you put surfing ahead of your own instincts absolutely especially at the beginning I you know I left my boat unattended and some bay and would go off hitchhiking to find waves and end up meeting some nice people and spend the somewhere you know and luckily for me I never had any big problems
you know, I never got too big of a consequence from some of those decisions that I made, but I definitely, there was a learning curve at the beginning where I was like, I would get back and I remember in Puerto Escondido, we'd gone, I'd left the boat at anchor, gone on a little surf mission for a couple of days and came back and when we pulled up the anchor to leave, the rope must have been, the anchor road had been chafing on something on the bottom and there was just like a tiny bit of rope holding it, you know, so I had those moments where I got really close to disaster and learned that I, you know, I had to keep my priorities straight if I wanted to avoid a crisis, you know.
I mean, I got Sony so many good waves. But there was a lot of time where, you know, there'd be a long stints in between sometimes because, you I'd be stuck somewhere fixing something and, you know, be in a port with dirty water where there was no surf around and then, but I think that's what made those experiences when I finally did get when all the elements came together and, you know, there was a safe anchorage and the waves were on and I had somebody fun to surf with and, you know, it just made it so precious.
Those experiences had to be so earned that they were sacred, you know? Yeah, so lots and lots of good waves.
out there. It's just matter of going out and getting off the beaten path. I think sometimes in today's world, I feel like when we have it too easy, we do lose that depth of appreciation that does make something so special.
And yeah, that can kind of affect our experience in a way, you know.
I think it was, I think it was one of the principal driving forces. I think I also had this very deep desire to live really close to nature.
and simplify and kind of get away from this modern world that didn't always make sense to me. always, from a young child, wanted to protect nature and was an environmentalist and really wanted to go out there and try to experience a life where I could have a lower impact and you know live in alignment with my values in that way and so I saw this journey as kind of a way to escape what I didn't think about the modern world and you know live those principles that I believed in.
But yeah surfing was absolutely like a huge priority for me as well you know.
So you've experienced competition surfing at a high level. And then you've also experienced what I would argue probably the purest form of surfing, which is adventure and just surfing for the sake of surfing.
No, I never really have. And I was so determined to get better at surfing in my teens and I didn't come from a family of surfers.
I didn't have any real role models close to me that could teach me to surf better. And so competition was a good way in my, you know, late teens and twenties to...
I felt like improve my surfing and meet other surfers and be part of the surf scene. But in the end, you know, after I won that competition, I think I realized a few things.
I realized that my love for surfing was more about those exploratory experiences. What I loved being out there and, you know, going through nature, whether was like sliding down a muddy hill or, you know, wondering what it was going to, a certain break was going to be like on a certain tide and going for that adventure and figuring it out.
You know, I definitely found myself lighting up more in those moments than, you know, competition started to feel stressful and not as fun, I guess.
So, and I also kind of realized like coming without a surfing background, like without that in my family. I don't know the surfing world at that time, especially as a woman, seemed like you needed a lot of support.
You needed to know people. It was kind of like a who's who thing at that point as well. And I didn't have that.
I thought, you know, pursuing professional surfing is going to be really hard for me with the background that I have.
So, yeah. it seemed like, especially when the opportunity presented itself and this mentor came in my life who wanted to offer me this bow, you know, it was like I can use all of this experience that I have growing up on boats, combined it with my love for exploratory surfing.
And this is just like the epitome of my voyaging dreams and my surfing dreams coming together, know.
I think my biggest advice would be to keep remembering that it's all about enjoying yourself and having fun. And that no matter if you're.
you know, surfing more difficult waves or improving in the way that, you know, the surf world deems as a better surfer.
I think focusing on going out there to enjoy yourself and remembering the benefits of camaraderie of meeting other surfers.
I think those are the important things to remember. I used to be so hard on myself if I didn't have a good session and once I kind of set up on the voyage and had this much more pure experience of surfing, I let go of a lot of those expectations on myself and really started to focus in on like doing it because
It's just so great and when you do end up having one of those moments of improvement or when things come together for you, it's just so wonderful, but focusing too hard on putting too much pressure on yourself is often backfire and make it less enjoyable and even causing positive to not improve quickly because you're feeling negative about yourself or the situation.
Yeah, I think the letting go aspect increases the chance of a flow state and really the deeper you get into a flow state is when you, know, time slows down and you read the wave at a better level and therefore you surf better.
Absolutely. Yeah, and the more of those states you enter, over time the better your surfing gets overall.
Yeah, it's so much more about your connection to the ocean and, you know, like, take for example the surfing of Leah Dawson, you you think about, she just breaks all the rules and does it her way and that's what makes it so special, you know, and in my opinion, she's one of the best woman surfers there is.
But yeah, so I think just, yeah, bringing your own charisma, your own personality into it and finding what feels good and enjoying it is really way to go.
Yeah, no, I agree. Karina Resonco comes to mind, like, she's such a free spirit in the way she surfs, she's like, always looks like she's in a flow state.
Yeah, I fell in love with French Polynesia for a lot of reasons and waves were definitely on that list.
But also, yeah, the people and the culture here and... Yeah, I met my now husband and so there was a lot of things that have kept me here, but yeah, the quality of the surf is so good and I ended up wanting to stay here longer because at the time I was like, you know, I'm only going to be able to surf waves of this level for so long and it's funny because now I'm 44 and I'm surfing better than I ever had.
haven't, you know, it's all relative, it's all about staying healthy and staying continuing to enjoy it. yeah, you know, my relationship with surfing has, it always, like anything has, it's ups and downs or it's moments where things plateau and you don't feel the same inspiration as you I'm at a really good place for surfing right now.
It remains a huge source of re-inspiration and re-powering for me. I'm doing a ton of community activism and work here, the environment and for animals and you know, I do give a lot of energy all the time and then, you know, when the wave turns on, when the waves turn on, it's like, okay.
It's my turn. It's my time. need to go fill my cup back up and, you know, it really helps keep me going to be able to give.
Maybe just time in good ways, you know, but also for sure taking care of my body, eating healthy yoga, all of those things have allowed me to, you know, stay physically fit enough to keep doing it at the level that I'm doing it, you know.
So, yeah, a combination of all those things, I guess.
Yeah, and I think too for me, you know, all those years while I was living on Swell and the boat was my main residence.
I always had to, had the boat as like the vocal point, like I said before, it just had to be the priority and in the last, since 2018, late 2018, I moved on to land and have a land base and have been able to kind of like put more time into surfing, which is really allowed me to, you know, not kind of like stay at that same level where I would get to do it just enough to feel something again and make an improvement, but also, you know, like go back out soon and just be able to improve quicker because I was, my focus can be more right on that versus.
is how this thing's broken and I got to take, I got to take the boat to this other island to do this vat and you know always some sort of complication of living on the ocean.
Um okay let's see. Top three books. I would say maybe in terms of like self-growth and self-awareness. would choose The Four Agreements by Don Ruiz Miguel.
Adventure books. I think it would be between the book Audrey Sutherland wrote called Paddling Really Love The Long Way by Bernard Montesier.
It's more of a sailing book but his way of describing his relationship with the ocean and the way he kind of rebels against society.
I saw lot of in our journey and really related to his story. I just recently read a book that I love called How I Keep Rising.
It's the story of the Hokulea and the how Polynesian navigation was kind of rediscovered through Nainoa Thompson and how they built this traditional sailing canoe and did the journey to Tahiti and it's so incredible.
learning how they rediscovered the use of the stars and the sky and the chart, it was fascinating.
wanted to ask you, you sort of mentioned it before. or femininity? How would you define that word? And how has the definition of it changed since you left Santa Barbara all those years ago?
Well, I think growing up in Southern California, I had this impression that femininity had to be a certain way and that beauty in general and femininity kind of were wrapped up in this one sort of way that women were supposed to look.
And when I got out on my voyage, it took me years to break down those principles in my mind.
It was so ingrained in me that femininity equaled like pink dresses and big and lipstick and you know the things that are traditionally kind of associated with femininity and to understand my own version of femininity and to allow myself to not only explore that but like validate it to myself what femininity could look like and being in places way off the beaten path where you know women weren't that those things the ideals weren't ingrained into them at all and their confidence and beauty you know I began to see femininity in a new light through a lot of these women that I met out in these really remote places and see that it has so much more to do with your confidence and
owning yourself and what you love, so, yeah, being able to start incorporating those ideas into my own definition and version of femininity, man, it changed my life so much to accept that, you know, I wasn't the girl who wanted to wear frilly dresses, but I was am feminine in such a beautiful way, you know, and the femininity that is part of me is what, you know, allowed me to kind of slow down and embrace nature in a way that maybe, you know, the more masculine side of me never really allowed myself to because I thought that especially trying to go out there and be a captain and live in this very male oriented world of being a boat owner
and even a surfer, you know, these were male-dominated scenes that I was kind of pushing myself into, and I thought I had to be masculine to succeed and to fit in.
And when I allowed myself to embrace my style of femininity, I think it really, it allowed me to succeed and being proud of myself in a new way that definitely, you know, changed the way I sailed, changed the way I served, and made my life a lot more enjoyable because I embraced really who I am.
Wow, I love that. So the subtitle is Sailing Surfer's Voyage of Awakening. It's very apt, but it's not just, it's sort of awakening in many assets.
spiritually, relationships, your relationship with ocean and surfing, talk about your diet and how it's affected your health or it's a very broad, it's an awesome book, there's so much in it.
Just as we finish off, let me ask you, if there was one piece of advice that from this book that you could give to your younger self, what would that be?
I think it would be to embrace those obstacles as opportunities, embrace challenges as something to learn from, embrace difficult people as your chance to practice your virtues, know, all of those, it's kind of the same kernel right there, which would have allowed me to
Avoid a lot of pain and frustration as a young person, I think, um, and really to just be myself and love myself and embrace who I am no matter what other people thought and don't compare myself to others as much, you know, yeah.
Awesome. Well Liz, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to check with Sir Mastery and my listeners.
Um, yeah. I will have links to all of that stuff in the show notes for listeners. And yeah, I encourage everyone to read the book and follow you on Instagram and what do you have any adventures coming up?
What's next? Well, I'm currently under. taking an adventure to spay and neuter, all the dogs on the island where I'm living, dogs and cats.
non-profit is undertaking a big campaign this year to reduce over population and animals suffering here on this island. I've kind of shifted my adventure into community activism and for the moment I don't have like a big sailing venture on the horizon but yeah I'm really enjoying this really different sort of adventure you know having to work with others and work with the government you know the municipality and its challenges in a whole new way so that's great.
Yeah thank you so much for the invite and the next questions appreciate it.
102 Tom Gellie-The Importance of Athletic Stance in Surfing for Beginners and Experts
Sep 11, 2024
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In this episode, Michael Frampton connects with Tom Gellie, a renowned ski instructor and bodyworker, to explore the intricate relationship between biomechanics and athletic performance. Tom shares his expertise on the gait cycle, its significance in both skiing and surfing, and how it can be applied to enhance technique and prevent injuries. The discussion also covers Tom’s journey in the field, his approach to movement analysis, and the resources available through Big Picture Skiing.
Key Takeaways:
Understanding the Gait Cycle:
Tom explains the concept of the gait cycle as detailed in Gary Ward’s book What the Foot?. He discusses how understanding this cycle can help identify movement issues and improve performance in skiing and surfing.
Biomechanics in Skiing and Surfing:
Tom delves into how biomechanical principles apply to skiing and surfing, sharing examples of how movement analysis can address performance issues and enhance overall technique.
Comparison of Biomechanics Approaches:
The conversation touches on the similarities and differences between Gary Ward’s approach and that of Gary Gray, providing insights into how these methods contribute to understanding and improving human movement.
Tom’s Journey and Resources:
Tom reflects on the impact of Gary Ward’s work on his coaching practice and invites listeners to explore his resources, including the Big Picture Skiing website and social media channels.
The Role of Gait Analysis in Performance:
Understanding the gait cycle helps diagnose movement inefficiencies and enhances athletic performance by addressing underlying biomechanics issues.
Application Across Sports:
Insights from gait analysis and biomechanics apply to both skiing and surfing, illustrating how cross-disciplinary knowledge can lead to better technique and injury prevention.
The Importance of Comprehensive Movement Mapping:
Detailed mapping of every joint and phase of movement allows for precise analysis and correction of movement patterns that contribute to injuries or performance issues.
Self-Study and Continuous Learning:
Tom’s experience underscores the value of self-study and staying updated with new research and techniques. Continuous learning can transform professional practice.
Holistic Approach to Movement:
A holistic view of how body parts interact during movement helps in identifying compensatory patterns and areas that need improvement.
Influence of External Resources:
Utilizing resources like books, videos, and courses from experts such as Gary Ward provides valuable insights and tools for enhancing movement analysis and coaching techniques.
Impact of Biomechanics on Injury Prevention:
Proper understanding of biomechanics is crucial for preventing injuries by correcting faulty movement patterns and maintaining proper alignment and function.
Tom’s Personal Impact:
Tom reflects on the transformative effect of Gary Ward’s work on his coaching practice, highlighting the profound influence of mentors and resources on one’s career.
For more insights and tips from Tom Gellie: Follow Tom Gellie:
Michael Frampton: [00:00:51] Welcome back or welcome to the Self Mastery podcast. I'm your host, Michael Frampton. Today's guest is Tom Gellie. Tom has a really interesting introduction to his newfound passion for surfing as an adult learner. Because Tom isn't a ski instructor, a very experienced and sought after ski instructor at that, as well as a body worker, a functional movement and biomechanical practitioner. He's also been podcasting for a long time, so he's very well spoken. And I really, really enjoyed this conversation with Tom. We could have gone on and on and spoken for a lot longer, so I know everyone here will enjoy this one. You can check out a bit more of Tom at Big Picture skiing.com, because Tom also teaches a lot of his skiing stuff online and of course, Instagram of the same name. There'll be links to everything Tom in the show notes to this episode. And of course you can check out my website, Surf mastery.com, but just before I fade in that interview, I wanted to talk about a new wetsuit I got recently from. I'll hold it up here if you're watching on YouTube. This is a flat rock wetsuit. You may have seen people wearing these, uh, quite new in the wetsuit game. And, uh, gosh, it is hands down the most comfortable wetsuit I have ever worn.
Michael Frampton: [00:02:24] It's, uh, it's made from Japanese limestone. Neoprene. And it, uh, it feels like a cross between silk and butter, and it fits so good. So stoked with this new wetsuit. And it's just it's a slightly more expensive than it needs essential wetsuit. So it's not an expensive wetsuit, but, uh, gosh, it's a lot warmer and better fitting and more comfortable than a needs essential wetsuit. I'll give it that for sure. And I actually wore this is the two three version I've got. I've had it for a little bit, and then I went to go surfing the other day in the middle of winter here in New Zealand. And my four three O'Neill, which is about twice the price. I had a hole in it and the crutch, so I couldn't wear that. So I grabbed this thinking, oh, I'll just go for a quick surf. It doesn't matter if I get cold. And I was really surprised with how warm this two three wetsuit was. The wind did not cut through it like it would my knee to central two three. So yeah. Anyway, awesome wetsuit and the guys at flat Rock have been kind enough to give my listeners a discount on a wetsuit.
Michael Frampton: [00:03:35] So if you go to flat rock.com dot a U and we've got a coupon code at checkout, which is master 15, so that's master one five, sorry, that's flat rock wetsuits.com dot a u. New flat rock wetsuit. Com.au. I will have a link to that website in the show notes though, and as well as I'll write down that coupon code for a 15% discount, which is master 15, master one five. So yeah, it's an also another way to support this show. Next time you buy a wetsuit, give it a crack. Great wetsuits. The fitting. I got a medium, I'm a medium and O'Neill and I'm. And I am in a medium, um, with my needs essential as well. And, uh, sizing wise, great wetsuits. Um, they also ship internationally as well. So it doesn't matter whether you're in California or Australia or New Zealand or wherever you're listening from. They ship internationally. And, uh, mine turned up pretty quick and it's a great wetsuit. So yeah, go and check out flat Rock wetsuits Ecomcrew discount code master 15 for that. And then, without further ado, I will fade in my conversation with Tom Gellie of Big Picture Skiing. You started your skiing podcast back in 2015, and that's when I started this podcast.
Tom Gellie: [00:05:15] Yeah. Right. Okay. Well, same, same sort of time. Yeah. What was the incentive behind you doing it? What was the main reason?
Michael Frampton: [00:05:23] So I mean, I started surfing, you know, I was a white trash dairy farmer. And then when I left school, I discovered surfing and the beaches that me and my friend would surf at. There was no one else surfing around. It was all self-taught, just on whatever board the local salesman decided to sell us. Um, didn't stop us though. We were so passionate about it. And, you know, obviously we picked up a little bit from magazines and that and then, you know, fast forward 15 years and I ended up living in Palm Beach and scored a job with Matt Grainger at the High Performance Center. And just around the corner from you. Right. And you said you're in the ravine. Yeah. And that was my first really introduction into, you know, the surf coaching world. And then obviously being surrounded by really good waves and really good surfers and people that, you know, I get listed their surfing performance quite high up. And it wasn't just what I was learning, you know, as through the journey of becoming a surf coach and getting surf coaching myself, it was the conversations I was having with everyone around. So I kind of thought, oh, podcasting was new back then. I was like, oh, I should share these conversations.
Tom Gellie: [00:06:36] That's right. Not not everyone gets the chance. Like I haven't had that sort of chance. Like you have to be around people like Matt Grainger on probably a daily basis, and then his friends who surf at a really high level And then all those things could be in a car, could be sitting, you know, because there's no surf. You're just sitting there talking. Those are gold. And that's what I realized. Same in the ski world happens. And it's really neat this in this day and age how we can share that stuff.
Michael Frampton: [00:07:07] Exactly. So big picture skiing. Why did you choose that name?
Tom Gellie: [00:07:13] I chose that name because I wanted something that sort of represented that I. When I think about something, I really try and look at it from all angles. And definitely at that point when I sort of started it, which was actually just COVID's hit. So my job as a sort of functional body worker type person, I had a pretty successful practice. People coming in couldn't put hands on people anymore. And I was going through this period of really just realizing, like the way I saw things, you know, like I was like, oh, I know how to fix people with knee pain, you know? Because I'd figured out this, you know, one method modality and had worked, worked, worked. But then it would come to a point where it would stop working, and I'd have to, like, find new ways. And so I just had so many experiences where I realized there's just so many different ways of looking at the same thing. And the more you can do that, the better you are at dealing with people when they come to you with their with their particular problem. Like the old don't use a like hammer for everything they're saying is. So yeah, I was trying to look for a name that encompassed that. Like, I want to teach you and view the way you approach skiing from the big picture right out here, so I can see it from all angles.
Michael Frampton: [00:08:35] So when did surfing come into the picture?
Tom Gellie: [00:08:38] Not long after that, because we moved from the inner part of Sydney to the Northern Beaches to North Narrabeen in January 2021, and I'd spent a lot of time, you know, being an Aussie, we spent a lot of time in summer holidays at the beach and body surfing, boogie boarding, that sort of stuff. So I was familiar with waves, but now being near the ocean, it's like this I'm going to give it a go. I'm going to take up surfing, because actually I was I was writing to kite surfing. And so we were sort of closer to botany Bay and Sydney. So kite surfing was an easier thing to do. And I loved it and I thought I'd keep doing that. But then, yeah, North Narrabeen, which is a classic break, was just getting the car for three minutes and I'm I'm there. So I decided to take it on and also, and I should say, a really important piece. I knew because skiing was growing and I just really wanted to find something that I could relate to my students in a learning sense, because my, as you probably know, the better you get. You're kind of just, well, there's no point in remembering. If you're if what you're trying to do is just get good at something. Once you get good at something, you shouldn't think about it. You should just do it. Thinking can ruin things, but I need to go backwards in my skiing to help people. And like, what am I actually doing here? Surfing really helped me be on the same page in terms of how it takes a lot of time. It takes going through frustration periods. It takes looking for different angles at approaching the same problem you're trying to overcome. So that was that was a big motivating factor. But then of course got got the feeling for it. And and I just do it because I love it as well. Yeah.
Michael Frampton: [00:10:28] Oh that's interesting. I bet you've got some interesting perspectives on your surfing journey. But before we get to that, obviously skiing has been in your in your world a lot longer. When did you start skiing?
Tom Gellie: [00:10:42] We would take family Trips, sort of for a week every year since I was, you know, one years old. I was in my dad's backpack ski touring around the Australian Alps, if you can call them that. And so we would do that every every year. And, but, but something inside of me always wanted to go to Canada. I can't explain, it wasn't like a book. I didn't read a book or whatever. But after finishing university in Albury, I was like, I'm going to Canada, I'm not getting another job. I'm going to see what it's like over there and get in some really good quality snow. So I went to British Columbia, had no job because the way uni lined up, I had to stick around. So all the jobs have been taken. So I just got a flight, got on the internet, found a job in a rental shop at Silver Star. That's when like the skiing really took off because then I was I started doing seasons. So that was 2006 and I did back to back winters like so Canada, Australia, Canada or North America somewhere and Australia. And that was uh, that was cool because your progress just goes like through the roof when you are teaching it, but also on snow every day. And Canada is great because it's not super busy as an instructor. So I had so much time to just go and ski for myself and learn from others and get better.
Michael Frampton: [00:12:11] Okay, so do you think that that journey like being passionate about skiing and I've been involved on the coaching side and the technical side as well as just loving it. How did that help you as a surfer?
Tom Gellie: [00:12:26] Massively. Do you know what? I think one of the biggest things I've learned in coaching is back to the big picture sort of name thing again, is a lot of people Like when they watch something like you performing a cutback, they put words to it and describe what it is from their perspective. Okay, so they're looking at you doing something. So then when they describe it, they describe it from how they're viewing it. But then the experience of that is not at all the way it's kind of described often by the coach or the person. So, you know, look at where the arm is. Look at how they drive and compress here and extend here. They can often be like sometimes that can work for people, but often that's just through a process of just a lot of time and repetition and little. You get these little gold pieces somewhere where you feel something. So just realized that when someone says to me, this is what you need to do, I'll take that. But I'll but I'll park it. Kind of, you know, if there's a sphere around me of like, ideas in part of the sphere and then keep searching off the side of that. To what else could he be trying to or she, if she's coaching me, get me to do and could I think of a differently and in my experience of it, would that be different? And maybe I can give an example from the ski world in terms in terms of stance.
Tom Gellie: [00:13:58] So athletic stance in in skiing so important. Just as in surfing. Like you get in a really good athletic position and it can make things much better and work a whole lot better. So you classically teach people about this position, like the flex in the ankles, the knee, the angle of the upper body, you know, where the hands are. And while that's one way of teaching it, you can also cue it up in different ways. Like, you know, when you lean out, like when you start adding like turn forces, you're leaning over, like in a surf turn or a ski turn, leaning right over. There's forces added on you. Some of those things force you into the athletic position naturally, as opposed to you faking this stance that everyone you know gets you to stand on a Bosu ball or something and stand here. And so, yeah, I'm always looking for like the simplest, most potent thing that kills like so many birds with one stone. If they're seeing that my stance is not right, but also this is wrong and this is wrong, can I find the one kind of concept or thing that hits all those, gets all those birds? And so searching for those types of things is um, is what I've been doing with my surfing.
Tom Gellie: [00:15:16] And I think it's going pretty well. I'm, I mean, it's hard to improve later in life, but I think I was telling you, I went to the wave pool for the first time yesterday in Sydney and finally got to, you know, like 21 waves in the hour period, which, like, it just never happens in, in real life. And it was so cool to be able to just practice this same thing over and over again and then see the video, which is even more cool. For me, because like I bought that, I was like, I'm going to buy all the videos. Go home. And I'd had my coach from from surfing video me over over the last few. Years as well. And I could and I can see the change. And then now I'm looking at. You know, for when I do something kind of more in the direction that I want to go. Okay, cool. What did that what did that turn? What did that wave feel like? Go through a process of going deeper on it.
Michael Frampton: [00:16:09] Interesting. The athletic stance for skiing. Is it the same as obviously you're. You know, the way you hold your.
Tom Gellie: [00:16:18] Skis and standing.
Michael Frampton: [00:16:19] Side into a.
Tom Gellie: [00:16:20] Boot etc..
Michael Frampton: [00:16:21] Is different. But maybe from the knees up, is there a lot of similarities in. That athletic stance?
Tom Gellie: [00:16:27] Absolutely. Yeah. Like I don't know so much of the time. Like early on in looking at my surfing, I'd get really annoyed because I knew all this stuff about athletic stance and what should should be there. And for instance, for instance, instead of compressing down through the whole stance, I'll do the cheat's way, which would be I would just drop my head lower around my back and so the knees and hips aren't like the hip joint is not really going lower, the hips itself aren't going lower, but I feel like I'm getting lower. You know, coach is like compress. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Compress, compress all this stuff. And I got so annoyed at that for so long when they would, they would say that like, I had a guy coach me who was really upper level coach, and we'd look at the video and, you know, I was obviously not doing things right. I was basically just going across the wave barely using the top or the bottom, uh, at all. And he pointed out he's like, well, you know, right there there's a section where you could have just made a really good, like, turn back to the pocket and then out and I'm like, I don't even know how to. What do you how do you even do that? So I just got frustrated, like, his things. And like, you got to compress here and all these new words and vocabulary coming in that I just had no way to relate it to what I already knew, but then luckily found this guy.
Tom Gellie: [00:17:46] Tony was more at my level of coaching, not just used to coaching people who had already gone through a lot of experience, and he likes the snow and he was always trying to relate it back to skiing. So I had something that I, that I was was tangible, felt sense. Okay, it's not exactly like that, but it's very similar to this. Tom. Yeah. And then also on the positive would just point out when I was getting things right, because it's so easy to point out, like you're doing this wrong, you're doing this wrong. But if you can show a student, I've definitely learned this from skiing. Like if you give them a task like say, it is the athletic stance this time when you get lower, just see if you can do it. Feel your knees actually flex, feel your hips get lower instead of just your head getting lower. And they just do it like 3%. You just grab onto that and you go. See? You did it. And all they're doing out of everything is focusing on that. And they can then go out and do it again and do it for five, six, 7% better. It's a lot.
Michael Frampton: [00:18:45] There. I would describe the athletic stance as a position where you feel balanced and able to move in any direction without moving in the opposite direction first. How would you.
Tom Gellie: [00:18:58] Describe? Yes.
Michael Frampton: [00:19:00] Is that yours?
Tom Gellie: [00:19:00] I like that description. Yeah. I really like that. But I would say this is interesting. I like the big picture thing. Like that is just. That is a really good description. And we always want to, like, be able to boil it down. So maybe we can put it somewhere. The athletic stance description in two sentences is this. Whereas I think if you can just like that is that is definitely a really good description of it. But then it can be some other things. And if you could come up with ten different ways to describe it. Then you're going to resonate with more people. Do you know what I mean? Like if the language you use like in your mind, that makes perfect sense and everything, you know, like you're, you're talking about without having to make a different, like go backwards first before moving. Like those things there's, there's it's a whole lot kind of behind that.
Michael Frampton: [00:19:53] Yeah. It's a technical way of. It's a coaches. That's how you would describe it to a coach maybe. Yeah.
Tom Gellie: [00:19:57] Yeah yeah. Exactly. Like I've just realized that cuz when you get something right or say like you say, you're coaching me Michael, over like a couple of weeks for sessions. We just worked on my stance and it started getting better by the end of that. And those, you know, our sessions, discussions, chats over message that whole time we combine it down to maybe me saying the same thing and you just have to say to me in that week three, Tom, let's just work on that athletic stance. Remember, like before you were moving back to go forward again, and I would be able to take that whole amount of time and words and knowledge, compress it like like a potent potion is a distillation of like a lot more stuff then it's potent. But I think you can only get those cuz after going through, you know, hearing it, thinking it over, dreaming about it, sleeping. Um, and I think coaches sometimes forget that because you might then go boom. Had this month with Tom. Look where he was. Look where he is now. So much better. And he understands this. And then I'm just going to say that to James next week. Got him for a month and expect the same result just by saying that, you know, this. That's where I think we can get caught up. Does that make sense?
Michael Frampton: [00:21:17] Totally. And it certainly it highlights a point that if you're a client looking for a coach and working with a coach, it's it's not a it's not going to three hours is not going to change anything. It's going to take ten hours before you even know what you're going to change.
Tom Gellie: [00:21:33] Yep. There can be those moments. I think, you know, as a coach, you probably had it where you get that client who's ready. Maybe they've had a whole bunch of history beforehand, and they just needed to hear the right thing from you at that moment. That, of course, happens. And then they probably think you're amazing, but it's also the lead up and possibly all those other things, and you've just spun it in the right way. So there's that. But I absolutely agree with the long, long term approach. And part of my philosophy with coaching is making sure people have in their minds like an expectation. Do you remember the movie lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels? In that one Guy Ritchie film, I'm pretty sure it's in that one. There's this quote where the guy goes, he's like expectations. They're the mother of all f ups. So people coming in like expecting within this certain amount of time, they're going to do this. Not good. If you just get your expectations lower and long term and just see what happens. Be open minded to the result being this, this a, b, c not sure, but I'm just going to go through the experience. I find that's a much better way of doing it.
Tom Gellie: [00:22:49] Yeah, I prefer coaching people over like a season so we can then like get the vocabulary, get through some stumbling blocks. There's always prior knowledge that gets in the way. Like that's a huge, huge barrier. I find that if you can discover those like, like a preconceived idea that say, maybe they heard someone with a lot of status or even like maybe they're pro, they're their favorite pro surfer on a video said, you know, like you got to do this. Bear down with your toes with the with the bottom turn and really whatever. And so they've always done that. And anything that is not saying that they kind of throw out the window. Those situations can really get people stuck and not make them progress. So yeah, I'm always looking out. I'll give an example of one from the ski world because because that's where obviously I've got experience was working with this client from Park City, Utah, and he's been skiing all his life. Really good skier does ski racing, has had coaches from like the US team coach him. He's you know, he's connected so he can get anyone, anyone he really needs to help him with his skiing. And anyway, we do some online coaching work where he's sending me videos, I'm sending him feedback back and partway through I go, why are you not dragging your inside pole? Looks like you're deliberately trying to keep your inside ski pole from touching the snow at all points.
Tom Gellie: [00:24:17] And he said, well, I was told by this high level coach that I should never do that. That's bad technique. And I said, next time you go out, just let it drag. And the reason is you're going to get feeling from. You're not going to lean on it, but you're going to get feeling through that pole. To where your body is leaned over in a turn. Just like if you you know how we like to touch the the water when you lean over with the cup just helps when you're looking straight ahead to have a feeling of where you are in space straight away. Next day he tries this pole drag. Wow, so much better. I feel more relaxed in the turn. I feel like I can go further. Lean it over further. More comfortable. Fixed a whole bunch of things. It's like I can't believe I'd been doing for years, you know, trying to avoid that because someone told me it was the wrong thing to do.
Michael Frampton: [00:25:06] Yes, that person maybe had a bad experience. His pole got caught, and maybe he had a high level of body awareness, and he didn't need that pole to be there. And it worked for him. Just like the surf. Just like the surf you mentioned. Oh, when I do a bottom turn, it feels like my toes are digging in. Well, might not feel like that for everyone.
Tom Gellie: [00:25:26] Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it might just be whatever it is you've got to be able to like. And I think the joy of, like, sport and doing things is when you get those feelings because funnily enough, the other day it wasn't in the wave pool, it was at North Narrabeen. I had a bottom turn where I felt my toes like really dig into the board. And I'd never felt that before. Like I'd pushed through the balls of my feet, but never to the point of pushing over and the toes in and the board behave differently, and however many turns and waves I've caught never felt that. And for some reason that happened then. But being I remembered this YouTube video of this guy and my coach sending me watch this. It's a really good, good one on the bottom turn. It's a classic old one. And and anyway, so now that has clicked really really. So it's just kind of funny timing that. But but I love finding those epiphany kind of feeling moments. Once you get it, then you can then you can repeat it. You just got to get yourself in the situation or give your student the environment to feel it. And then they're off to the races.
Michael Frampton: [00:26:41] Back to your initial, I'm going to guess, because of your history with skiing and biomechanics and technique, I'm going to guess that you approach surfing with a pretty reasonable athletic stance right from the get go. So that part of your surfing.
Tom Gellie: [00:26:59] So yeah.
Michael Frampton: [00:27:00] So that part of your surfing, um, you sort of ahead of the game in a way. So which aspect as a beginner surfer like new to it, maybe you just think back to your first year, what were some of the biggest, like roadblocks and the biggest plateaus and learning curves?
Tom Gellie: [00:27:19] Yeah, I mean I think the having the wave pool, if that was back in the beginning, that would have helped, because I think the biggest difference between learning to surf and skiing is that skiing, you can just go up a lift down the same run and do it over and over and over again. You can even stop and just do part of a turn. Like you just do the top half and then stop or the bottom half and then stop or do like all those things. Be able to break it down. I was always trying to find I was just like, I just wish I could do that in surfing. Like, I just want to, like, just do a bottom turn and then stop and not be, like, brought on with all the other things going on and just do it again and do it again, and then do it to the right and then to the left. That was the most frustrating thing for me, because I knew how important. And when I teach skiing, I break that down for people and I force them into just doing it, doing it to find that feeling. And then they can go like link turns and keep searching for it and spend more time doing it. So it was the amount of repetitions was very frustrating. The surf we have locally here is kind of challenging, like you got to make. It's not like there's not really point breaks or anything like that. So you take off, get a maybe a chance to do one maneuver. So just being able to do a bottom turn and a cutback or something took a so many waves to for that to happen.
Tom Gellie: [00:28:45] Oh yes. Actually you know what a big thing. Because I'd also done a lot of snowboarding. I would bog the rail so much because I'd put too much weight on my front foot. I was just so used to like keeping the weight really, even on a board snowboard, that I would just try and do the same on a surfboard. So that was a problem. But then it's funny that, you know, we talk about this and I'm just starting to get to the point now where I'm figuring out that now I've gone too far to the back foot, because I know you've spoken to Clayton and he's you know, and I and early on I found him and he was really helpful, by the way, and how he talks about, like, people just don't stand on the front foot enough. And and now I finally get that. But I needed to go through, like, what a lot of other people went through, which is, is back foot and realizing how you can really turn the board very sharp off the back foot and all this stuff I just went straight into with probably hardly much speed, just trying to rail this thing from snowboarding. So I was yeah, I made this for now. I need to start coming back into that. And because I look at videos of really good surfers and their bottom turn, how much more the front of the board is in the water when it's on rail versus mine, and I can see I'm losing speed to come back up the wave. Yeah. So that was frustrating. Bogging rail so much on.
Michael Frampton: [00:30:07] That note, like the front foot. It's so it's also so dependent on where your front foot is as well because there's a tell me about that.
Tom Gellie: [00:30:17] So, yeah. Here we go. I'm going to get it. I'm going to get some help.
Michael Frampton: [00:30:20] So every surfboard has like a center point or a balance point or a pivot point. Right. Usually the widest point of the surfboard. Now, if your foot is at 45 degrees directly in the center of that pivot point, then your front foot is not good enough. It could be the heel of the front foot, right?
Tom Gellie: [00:30:41] That's behind. You're still behind.
Michael Frampton: [00:30:43] So you're still behind the center point. But then you go. But then if you really want to drive more of that front of the rail of the board in the water, you're going to have to put a lot more weight on the toe, on the forefoot of the front foot. So that heel toe. So you might have you could even have 80, 90% of your weight on the front foot, but still have complete control over back over the rocker of the board. Does that make sense? But if that foot's two inches forward, you're going to have to go all the way to your back foot, and then all of a sudden you're moving more and vice versa if that, if that.
Tom Gellie: [00:31:18] The four and a half being controlled completely in the front foot.
Michael Frampton: [00:31:21] Yeah.
Tom Gellie: [00:31:21] And it makes sense.
Michael Frampton: [00:31:22] And if the stance isn't wide enough, then you're going to put all of your weight on the front and find it frustrating because nothing happens, because your foot's actually just needs to be forward an inch more. But that's that's just something that is obviously avoided with skiing and snowboarding because you're locked into your bike. You set that up. You set your bindings up right before you even get on the board.
Tom Gellie: [00:31:40] Yeah. You can't change that. Your foot is where it is. And you and you learn to use the front of the foot in the back of the foot, but you can't move that entire foot as you said. So then I'm just now thinking like, okay, I really want to go out now. Like you've said that I want to go out now and play with this. Be more mindful of where I place my front foot other than just like intuitively, I've been probably moving around at different points but deliberate with it. So what I'd be looking for then is like some guidance, say from you on. Okay. Well, like, maybe even Mark, like, would you Mark? Mark it with a texta. Yeah. Okay.
Michael Frampton: [00:32:19] Find the wide point of your board or. Yeah. And, you know, one of probably the best way to do it is if you if you surf a wave, you're like, oh, man, their board just something clicked on that wave. Before you pull off, look down at your foot and then put your thumb in front of your toe and just scrape a big mark in the wax and go, bam! That's where my front foot needs to be because that's the most accurate. Now obviously, measuring the board and and putting a line through the wax of where that midpoint is. Okay, that's a good way to start. Or should it be. Is it right. Because maybe it's not literally the widest part of the board. It depends on, you know, there's the rocker and the contour. Every board is different. So it might not literally be the widest part of the board where the pivot point is, but it's going to be very close to there. So that's a good guideline to start thinking of. Right.
Tom Gellie: [00:33:06] That's gold. What you said there. Because I could like picture like taking off having a good couple of turns and then actually, like, not being taken out by the lip or something and being able to ride out. Now my cue is going to be, if that felt good, I'm going to look and try and figure out where my foot foot was. And same goes, if I have a bad one, I'm going to do the same thing. I'm going to go slow. So then I can compare and go, right. Okay. What Mike was talking about, I can I can really see that because my foot was in a totally different position. Love it. Yeah.
Michael Frampton: [00:33:40] There's so much like you said, there's so many more variables. And surfing can be, you know, so many more. Yeah, it's I mean, the mountain obviously changes day to day with the snow and stuff, but nowhere as much as every individual wave and ocean conditions. Every time you you pop up. Your feet might be in a slightly different place, especially if you're not surfing that much. Yeah.
Tom Gellie: [00:34:02] And the other thing I must say that I was thinking about, you'd probably ask these questions and, uh, skiing versus surfing experience with other people around, and probably where I'm located in the world. North Narrabeen is maybe not a great starting point for feeling like people are your friends at that break. Luckily, I've gotten to know a lot more in the community, but I'm still very much aware of this. But even so, even elsewhere. That was one thing I wish would be different, because if you go skiing, it just feels a lot friendlier to like, I could be like, you know, the beginner person. I'm not going to look down at them. If they just talk to me. I go, wow, that was really cool. And what are you doing there? Or another good skier that I've never met before. And in in surfing, it just seems people even even on like a really nice morning, there's two people out, like I'm out there and there's another guy out there. Just feels very much like people don't talk to you. And I'm not sure there's probably a whole bunch of reasons, you know, like, this is my time to get away from the family and work, and I don't want to talk to people, you know, other things like this is my wave, all that sort of stuff going on. But I find that that really that frustrates me, actually. And, um, yeah, it was awesome at the wave pool, actually, because I went there with a friend. But then there were, you know, six other strangers I'd never met. And as it gets going, everyone's more supportive and cheering for each other, different levels we're all at. And probably just because everyone there's a wave, another wave coming, there's a respectful line. Even if you're better than me, you're not going to drop in on me because you don't need to. And that part, I just wish there was more of that because, yeah, I'd love to go out in the morning to to just the feel of being out in the surf to be more friendly in general. Do you find that?
Michael Frampton: [00:36:02] Oh, totally. The surf culture is unique in that way. I think it is partly simply because each wave is such a limited resource. So obviously the wave pool takes that out of the equation. But it's also, you know, in the last ten years there's been an influx of surfers. So the old salty dogs that are out there and oh, there's Beckett should have been like this back in the day. That sort of vibe is out there a lot. For some people, it's yeah, I don't want to talk to you because I just want to zone into the ocean and. And who's this guy? Like sort of thing and all of those things. But, you know, have you ever you've heard the advice. Oh, it's just hours in the water. If you want to get better at surfing, you've just got to spend time in the water. Part of that, actually, probably the biggest reason why that's true is that's because you get recognized. Everyone gets to know who you are, then you.
Tom Gellie: [00:36:54] Don't drop in on you.
Michael Frampton: [00:36:55] Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Simple as that. Really. They recognize your face because you probably find it every time I go out. There's. These three dudes are always out there and they always get the waves. Well, that's not a coincidence because they've always been out there for hours every day for 20 years, and that's why they get them. Not only do they read that beach really well, everyone knows who they are, and everyone respects the amount of time they've put in the water. Um, and so that's that's a big part of it. I think the wave pools, the driving range for, for surfing. And it's going to change the game, especially for, for, for coaches and stuff, because I also I listened to one of your, uh, podcast episodes when someone else was interviewing you. Um, and the one big thing it highlighted for me is that surf coaching is nowhere near as technical as other sports like the technical. You guys were talking about such detailed technicalities that it's like, man, because because surfing is such a limited resource, we just don't have the luxury of of thinking about our inside edge at the apex of a bottom turn 20 times in a row, like you might do at half a day. Skiing.
Tom Gellie: [00:38:13] Yes, yes, I totally agree. Now. So again, perspective on that. I've taken some really positive things from the surf coaching world into my skiing in terms of keeping things simple and not overcomplicating things. And I'll tell you maybe a story here. There's interviewed this guy Sasha Rearick, and Sasha is the former US ski team coach. And he was sort of around where there's this girl Mikaela Shiffrin and Ted Ligety. So world champions, really great skiers, and he was a really interesting person to interview. And one of the things in this conversation that I took away was his focus now on, uh, constraints based learning. And so the idea with constraints based learning is you try and find and you don't give people the answer. So you don't tell me, Tom, you need to keep your back straighter. You create an environment or a situation where I'm forced into doing that through this experience. I'm going to do that because of how you've set it up for me. You've guided me. You've put me in this, in this position to experience it. And so it's far more powerful because I will discover it and do it as a result of something else. It's there because it's necessary and needed. And I've really taken this sort of tack now in my coaching and looked right into this deeper and, and really believe it's, it's the way you want to do things. And I think a lot of that is going on in surfing because you can't get too Involved, you know. You know, with this, I can I can ski with you next to me. Michael, stop. We can have a conversation on lift. But if you're coaching me, usually you're on the beach and I'm out in the water for 20 minutes, and then you come in so you can kind of get in my ear, and.
Tom Gellie: [00:40:19] And you very much want to do that as a coach. You want to tell people the answers, like just do it while there's certain parts of that's helpful. Really, the coach should be there again as the guide to go. What do I need to change in this experience or the cue to just make them feel it? And that's what I should do. Don't give them the answer. Just like, you know, I've got a six year old son. Same thing. You know, he's probably ready to tie his shoes. And I just, like, I got to let him do it. You know, show him. Let him figure it out. And same with maths. Like I got homework. I just want to go get dinner done and go go to bed. I'll just help you and give you, you know, more of the answers instead of letting the person struggle. It's just how we learn. We need to go through that. And so positives in the surf world, I've taken a lot of like seeing that in action and like they don't get into such detail yet. These people are still achieving mastery and and amazing stuff and great performance. Yeah. So that's that's that's a cool takeaway I've had. Whereas you're probably seeing it from the other end because you're seeing a lot of like generalizations and then you're seeing, wow, they're like talking about like angles of 0.5 degrees, like inside the boot and like how that makes a difference.
Michael Frampton: [00:41:33] And yeah, it's a it's a good perspective. So I'm just trying to think of an example like let's say someone's surfing with the with just pin straight. So instead of telling them to compress a little bit, you might say pretend to surf in a room that's slightly shorter than you are or something like that. Is it an example?
Tom Gellie: [00:41:53] Yeah, that would be an example. I would that because I want them to feel it, not just like just having a mental image.
Michael Frampton: [00:42:02] The presence is such a common, which we sort of touched on before, where people just dip their head forward and feel like they're actually compressed. How would you constraint based?
Tom Gellie: [00:42:12] How would you put it? Yeah. How would you put a constraint on that. So the first thing I mean you've got different things you can change. So. So if you can always try and look for the environment. So obviously tricky with surfing waves again because it's different every day and the tides and all that sort of stuff. But if you can change where they are surfing. So maybe the poo stance is because of yeah, the wave is too steep or something like that and they can't relax or the board they're on is forcing it. So the equipment factors, if you can find those things that then let them discover it more themselves, that would be great. The other thing that I'm thinking of like, because the obvious would be just stand up straight as a, as a board, you know, the other thing would be, do take what you're doing wrong and make it even more wrong, because these people don't realize it's a wrong thing. They're there in their poo stance surfing, and it's currently they're doing that because it feels comfortable right there. They feel safe. They feel good.
Tom Gellie: [00:43:15] So then tell them to do even more of a poo stance and they'll feel something hopefully different and go, oh, it's that. It's more in that direction, like pushing my hips, whatever it is. I thought I was getting lower, but it's back to again, me and my head being low, instead of my hips getting lower and my back staying straighter. That was a that was a really cool thing that I've had a lot of success with. Is, is take the thing that's wrong, don't try and fix it. Make it even more wrong. Have you ever done that with someone like a because most of the time we wouldn't be like, hey, you've got this poo stance, don't do it. Whereas if you say, I want you to do it even more, I want you to have the most ridiculous poo Stance, and then they'll probably come up and they go, wow, yeah, that felt odd and weird. Then they can go, you've got an end of the spectrum now. And it's like, now just go, you can't go any more that way any more. Wrong. Go the other direction. Yeah.
Michael Frampton: [00:44:09] No.
Tom Gellie: [00:44:09] And that's a concept and constraints based learning. It's one of the ones they've shown is really. Yeah. It's really useful.
Michael Frampton: [00:44:15] Like when you let your kid eat as much chocolate cake as they want and then they make themselves sick.
Tom Gellie: [00:44:21] Exactly.
Michael Frampton: [00:44:23] And then they realize, oh, it's actually not good. It's not good for me. I'm only going to have one piece next time.
Tom Gellie: [00:44:27] Yeah, that's that is a concept, I think finding the end ranges, the spectrum of something. And it doesn't have to be movement. It could be anything, like you said, food, feeling hungry versus totally full until you know where those ends are and you really like that's where you learn. You know a lesson is the end ranges. So back to like when I was doing a lot like my main job was working with people with pain problems, chronic pain. They'd go. They'd been to see everyone else in Sydney. No one had an answer for them. Uh, a lot of the time things were people weren't. They got stuck in one part of this spectrum of movement so their back could only move one way, or their knee could only move one way because of an old injury that caused them to stay there, or something. That was scary and it was just about getting them. You know, sometimes they couldn't go the opposite direction. So if you go further into the wrong one, almost like a like pulling a tight rubber band even more, it pulls and then snaps them back out into the into the direction they actually need to go into. Mm.
Michael Frampton: [00:45:35] Yeah, that makes sense I like that.
Tom Gellie: [00:45:37] Gives you more options as a coach right. Because if you're like this is not working, stand up straight back like straighter in your back front foot, you know more weight, that sort of stuff. It's not working. Do the opposite. Do the opposite. I told this story the other day on, um, did a webinar for all the Thredbo ski instructors to kick off the season, and I told them about this moment and this. So, so back in 2014, I just made the Australian demonstration team. And that's like the top instructors in Australia and every country around the world has this kind of selected group to represent the country and show what our technique is about. So here I am and I'm in Canada, and I think I'm pretty hot stuff because I've made this team and I know everything there is to know about skiing. And, you know, people must be looking at me on the lift as I ski down. And, you know, this one particular morning was doing this run where the chairlift runs over the top of it so people can, like, watch you. And I was like, yeah, sweet. I'm, I'm crushing this. And I stop and I turn around and I look up the look up the slope, and, um, there's this guy coming down who is just way better than me.
Tom Gellie: [00:46:45] He's quicker, he's more refined. He's definitely got way more skills than me. And I go, Whoa! I need to find out who this who this guy is. So he comes down and I go over to him and I say, hey, that was really impressive. Skiing. Like, who are you? Like, what are you doing here? And he goes, uh, hello, my name is Fritz. And Fritz is this Austrian ski instructor. I go, I'd love to have some time to, like ski with you if you make that happen. I'd be really grateful. He's like, yeah, sure. I have to work now, but let's catch up. You know, a couple of days time and go for a ski. So a couple of days time we go skiing and we have a fantastic time. And I'm just in awe of this guy because we're skiing these really challenging runs. And he's on like GS skis, which is longer, thinner skis, stiff race skis and, um, be the equivalent of like, you know, a surfer just being able to surf really mushy waves on a high performance board that shouldn't be able to generate speed and do all this stuff. We'd all be sinking and not able to do anything. So he's doing these impressive turns, but particularly the short turn really fast That that I was always never as good at my short turns and I wanted to get better at them.
Tom Gellie: [00:47:55] And so I, so I at the end of this sort of time with him, I say, Fritz, you know, how did you get so good at your short turns? And he sort of mentions this guy in the ski world, this guy Richie Berger, who's like a kind of like a legend, one of the best ski instructors, skiers you'll ever see. Versatile everywhere. It's like I did some training with him. Okay, cool. Anything you did in particular that really made it, like, really helped your short term says. Oh, and I said, and what about for me, like particularly anything you see with me, he goes, Tom, you need to rotate your upper body. And in the ski ski world doing that, what I learned was not was don't do it like that's a wrong thing. You should not do that. So suddenly I'm there confronted with some advice that is completely against everything that I've believed in and has got me to where I'm at. My association would say this is a wrong thing to do, don't do it. And he said, I got to go now, Tom. I'll catch you later. So I'm left there in the middle of this run going, well, jeez. Okay, here's some advice. Totally seems wrong. I've got two options.
Tom Gellie: [00:49:02] I can try it, or I can just keep doing what I'm doing. So luckily I try it for a few runs and it feels different. Feeling some new things I've not felt before, but I wasn't sure if it was the right thing because I couldn't see myself and I'm like, oh, this is going to look wrong. And when I get back to Australia, they're going to say, you can't ski like that. That's not our technique. So I'm conflicted in my mind about this. So I go get my wife and I say, Jenny, can you just video me? I need to see if this is this is really kooky and weird or if it's good. So she says, fine, whatever. It's always sick of videoing me. So I ski down video doing these short turns, rotating, doing the wrong thing. And then I give me the camera, give me the camera, go look at it. And I look at it and I play it back and it does not look like I'm rotating. It doesn't look like I'm doing an error. You know, be like the stance thing. Imagine saying like, you know, Tom, you need to do even more poo stance in your surf stance. Like what? That's the wrong thing though. And so as I'm doing this rotation thing and it's looking better and nothing's looking wrong and so confirms that what Fritz tells me is something I need to go work on.
Tom Gellie: [00:50:08] So then I spent the rest of that season implementing that, playing with it, and it changed my work like world completely, because this thing that everyone says is wrong was suddenly right. And I understood more about like context. And sometimes, just like the timing of something can make something good or bad. There was that in there, and it was like my skill level at the time needed this opposing idea. But it was it was transformative to realize and be way more open minded to these things that you perceive are wrong and and. Yeah, So I'm kind of, like, interested. I wonder what would happen if I went out even tomorrow and did more poo stance in my. Yeah, I know, it's like I'm like, I wonder what happened to you if you do it like, because it's very hard when you're good at something to also like make an error to to like pretend to surf like the person is because there's always a reason they're doing it back again. Like they're doing that because they feel safe. Um, how can you put them in an environment, a situation that gets them to feel something new and discover it on their own?
Michael Frampton: [00:51:18] I think that that's I'm wondering what it's like for skiing, but when it comes to changing someone's stance in surfing, it's quite important to make that stance stronger and more self-aware outside of surfing. So on dry land training, for example.
Tom Gellie: [00:51:36] Totally, totally like the surf skating, that's that was that's definitely helped me. I went to a pump track once and after seeing one of Clayton's videos and him demonstrate. That was really helpful too, when instead of just talking about it, he took someone who wasn't front foot enough on his simulated wave here thing for the skate surf skate. And he fixed him and I went, okay, cool, I don't have that ball, but I can go to a pump track, went to a pump track, tried it on the surf skate, got a new feeling to simulate a dry land. Oh, that's where I need to be. Back to the front foot kind of position and and like still flexed in, in my joints but more upright in my upper body. Not hunched over. Yeah. Those simulation things that are unreal, aren't they?
Michael Frampton: [00:52:25] Oh, yeah. And even before you get into skating, like if you're trying to coach someone to be more on the front foot with a with a better stance, their body just might not have much self awareness or strength in that position. Full stop. So no amount of coaching is is going to allow them to get there unless they can stand in front of a mirror and do it first. Yeah, yeah. Like with skiing, you find that as well.
Tom Gellie: [00:52:51] Oh, massively. And I'll take this from this guy, Thomas Meyers. He's sort of big in the body work world. Talks about fascia like connectivity of the whole body. And he talks about yeah anatomy trains. Yeah yeah he talks about cake. So we've got IQ intelligence sort of rating or IQ is like kinesthetic intelligence. So your body intelligence. So many people like the people who pick up sports fast like your friend. And he's like try surfing and just picks it up straight away. He's probably got a very high level of KQ. Whereas, you know, the one who doesn't grew up playing video games didn't move a lot just for whatever reason. You can build that. You can improve your kinesthetic intelligence, which is what you're talking about going and doing exercises, going to the gym, doing movements in front of a camera, in front of a mirror to to realize, like, I'm doing this, but it's not what it what I want it to look like. Oh, I need to feel this muscle stretch instead of that one. That's huge. And that's a big part of actually big picture skiing. I have a lot of videos on movement, and I actually think that body awareness trumps strength massively, massively.
Tom Gellie: [00:54:05] Like take kids, for example. There's kids who can, you know, seven, eight years old, make turns better than a lot of adults, and they're not very strong. They haven't gone to the gym, done nothing like that. But they've spent a bunch of time feeling into their body. And when you're younger, if you're moving a lot, you tend to have a high level of kinesthetic intelligence. And so I think a lot of people go down the wrong road of like building strength instead of building body awareness first. Yeah. So having such a good example of that, like some of the best surfers I've seen look like skinny, you know, like scarecrow people like. So, you know, there's not much. But then they can pull these amazing turns through, just positioning their body in the right way and timing things at the right time. So that part absolutely. The way I see it is this body awareness people. People need to work on it and it's very easy to do. You've just got to start doing it.
Michael Frampton: [00:55:03] And yeah, no, I totally agree with that. In any major advance, advancements I've made is in body awareness and strength, and body awareness is so interwoven anyway. Like some people, totally. Yes. Some people would argue that there isn't a difference, especially when you look at someone who's like, what's that guy? Have you seen the guy, Anatoli, doing all the gym? Like he goes into a gym and he just out deadlifts everyone and he's dressed as a janitor. You know, he's just.
Tom Gellie: [00:55:33] I'm not saying that, but I can imagine what that would. Yeah. Surprising everybody.
Michael Frampton: [00:55:37] Yes. Yeah. Just has great body weight to strength ratio because a big can mean strong. But you don't have to be big to be strong. Bodybuilders are big because they're training to be big, not training to be strong. You look at a gymnast who's not there, very muscular, but they're not big. They're just they have great posture, they have great body awareness. And that's that's why they're strong. Not because they're huge.
Tom Gellie: [00:56:05] Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's what I mean. Like if you get the body awareness right and then you start using your body, you just surfing more and you can then tip the board over more and you can do these different maneuvers which require you to flex and bend, but with good awareness. Then like as soon as the joints bend and move, like you're stimulating muscles, they're going to have to grow stronger to deal with the the situations you're putting them in. Same with gymnastics. It's not a lot of that, you know, hanging off of bars, flipping, Um, you know, jumping off things that requires they don't need external weights with things, whereas I just see it like like when people just generally do squats that like. And then, you know, if they don't have stuffs that are right in terms of body awareness, using the joints really well, then they can fix problems by being stronger, using strength to get out of certain situations instead of finesse and awareness. That's that's probably like why I'm saying that's why I think that trumps it. And then all you just need to do is go find an activity which forces you to do more and more and more of it. Well, then you can add weights on top of it. Go for it. But but you know, get the foundation right. Like a good house. Don't don't fix a falling down house by slamming more hard bits of wood all around it and drilling more screws in and everything like fix it all, make it neat and working, and then you can be more efficient in the structure.
Michael Frampton: [00:57:36] It seems like good technique closely related to just good gate.
Tom Gellie: [00:57:40] Yeah, absolutely. That was yeah, yeah, I've learned a ton from gate, actually. There's this guy and people should look up this book. It's called what the Foot? One of the best books about if you want to learn about your own body and and the gait cycle and how that's connected. It's written by a guy named Gary Ward. And I read this book after hearing Gary speak on this podcast about the foot and everything, because I was riding to the foot and skiing. Wanted to find experts in you more. So read this book and then, like, found every single video I could find on the internet at the time that this guy had produced, or someone had interviewed him and just soaked up every bit of information because he was in the UK. I'm in the Australia side on the Australian side of the world, so I didn't have access to him and learned so much stuff and started piecing together like, like walking is the most natural thing, like we do And what Gary talks about is that basically he breaks down. Most people break it down to the gait cycle into six different phases. So, you know, heel strike. Transition phase shift. Phase propulsion phase swing.
Tom Gellie: [00:58:48] Phase five. Sorry. Get that wrong. And in each of these phases and through all this phase. So when you put your left foot down and the right, and by the time the left foot comes down again, you go through every single possible joint range of motion movement in all planes available in that joint in between the left foot going down and then the left foot coming down again. And so he's mapped. This is the most incredible thing about actually, he's mapped every single joint in the body from the big toe to the talus, hip, spine, scapula, wrists, everything, the neck and how it heals. Strike on the left foot. You know, your your chain reaction. Ankle. Yeah. Your ankle should be dorsiflexing and inverting the big toe should be extending the knee joint should be internally rotating and extending the hip joint should be flexing and externally rotating like. And so you've given this map and through the courses he does you go through like getting this into your brain. And so I've lost a bit of it now. But I used to have this map so I could watch someone come in. They'd come into my studio to get, you know, treated for the for their knees or something.
Tom Gellie: [00:59:59] I'd watched them and I'd film them and I'd put together and I'd go, right, left heel strike! The knee is doing not the right thing. It should at this moment in terms of his perfect model of of gait. So there's your entrance into fixing that person's like possible or it's an entrance point. And maybe it's like they've come with knee pain, but you watch that the neck is shifting or rotating the wrong way when it should be going, you know, the other way. And so you stop talking about that knee and you go, what happened to your head? Yeah. Oh, nothing. 20 years ago. Like fell off a cliff and nearly died. But it's fine now. Like I've no problems, you know? Yes, you do, because your head, like, doesn't get over your left foot when it should. It needs to. And this could be why your knee is is stuffed. Because you're just protecting your head or whatever it is. Anyway, yeah, the gait cycle is amazing like that. That helped me understand how everything's connected. And then look for patterns of up and down the chain to try and figure something out.
Michael Frampton: [01:01:02] Sounds very similar to Gary Gray's work.
Tom Gellie: [01:01:05] Yeah. Similar. Similar. That's funny. Both Gary's. But I would also say very, very different. Like, really like you should get the book. What? The foot. It'll. Yeah. Let me know. It's, uh, it's that in terms of, like, transformative things and people that have influenced and helped my life, that is one I would when I'm, you know, at the end of my life, thanking people. He'll be one of them Mhm. A change in my life.
Michael Frampton: [01:01:31] Yeah. Yeah I definitely check him out for sure. Yeah. Oh man. It's just coming up to the hour. We could just keep talking. That went fast. I got to go pick up my. I got to go pick my kids up so. But we should. We could do another one at some point, though. But. And thank you so much for your time.
Tom Gellie: [01:01:44] Oh, thank you for. Yeah. Bringing me on. I know I'm not a pro surfer or surf coach, but hopefully some different perspective helped. Just like surfing has helped. My skiing certainly helped my coaching, my skiing as well. Like massively looking for different ideas on how to approach the same thing. Yeah.
Michael Frampton: [01:02:02] Yeah, we needed an hour. People know. What's your website?
Tom Gellie: [01:02:05] Big picture scheme. Com so if you just search big picture skiing there's a podcast, there's a YouTube channel, the Instagram as well. All the same things. Check me out there. First a lot of people go through the social media route to find out who I am. And then if you're really interested, all the deep dive videos on skiing are on on the Big Picture skiing app and website.
Michael Frampton: [01:02:24] Okay, awesome. Tom. Thank you.
Tom Gellie: [01:02:26] Thank you very much, Michael, for the time.
Michael Frampton: [01:02:29] All right, dude, thanks for that. Thank you for tuning in to the Surf Mastery Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. Also, the best way that you can help support and grow the show is to subscribe, rate, and review on whatever app you're using, be it Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and of course, we are now on YouTube, so you can watch the video version of this podcast on YouTube. Be sure to check that out. Also, go to Surf Mastery Comm for more surfing tips via the blog. You can also book in a personal online surf coaching session with me, also at Surf mastery.com. There are two free downloadable PDFs, one with the five best tips from this show, and one the five best exercises to improve your surfing. So go to Surf mastery.com on the homepage. There you'll see them. Until next time, keep surfing.
101 Matt Grainger - Choosing Boards and Breaking Surfing Rules
Aug 27, 2024
In this episode, Michael Frampton catches up with renowned surfer and coach Matt Grainger to talk about the highs and lows of surfing, the challenges of big waves, and the innovations in the sport. Matt shares his experiences with heavy waves, gnarly wipeouts, and the current state of surfing on the Sydney Northern Beaches. The discussion dives into the recent swells, the changing conditions, and how they impact surfers of all levels.
Matt also discusses his latest project, the "Surfer's Compass" app, a comprehensive guide for surfers to improve their techniques, mindset, and fitness. He shares the inspiration behind the app, the process of its development, and the exciting features that it will offer.
Episode Highlights:
Matt's Recent Surf Trip to Indonesia: Matt shares the story of his recent trip to Indonesia, where he suffered a significant head injury after a day of surfing at Macaronis. He details the moment the injury occurred, the aftermath, and the crucial steps taken to avoid infection.
The Importance of Surf Safety: Despite years of experience, Matt explains how ego and overconfidence led to a dangerous situation. He emphasizes the importance of wearing a helmet in heavy conditions and the risks of surfing over shallow reefs.
Injury Management and Recovery: Matt provides valuable insights into managing injuries in remote locations, including the use of bottled water, antibiotics, and proper wound care to prevent infections from coral cuts.
Mobility and Strength Training for Surfers: As a coach, Matt discusses the significance of maintaining mobility and strength as surfers age. He highlights the role of a balanced training program in injury prevention and long-term surfing performance.
Mindset and Longevity in Surfing: Matt touches on the importance of a positive mindset, quoting Bruce Lee on the power of words and how they influence our physical and mental well-being. He encourages surfers to stay active, eat well, and maintain a youthful outlook to continue enjoying the sport well into their later years..
Surf Culture Evolution: The changes in surfing culture, including the influx of new surfers and the impact on traditional breaks.
"Surfer's Compass" App: Insight into Matt’s development of this app, aimed at improving surfing techniques, fitness, and mental strategies.
[00:00:00] Matt Grainger: I think so. You look at all the surfers now. It's all legs. Hardly any upper body. Only back and legs. You don't want any chest, and you don't want to overload the shoulders as well in your rotator cuff. Exercises are really good. So light weights on the shoulders, nothing heavy. So you can still get that mobility in your padel. And you've got the power for your back for your paddle. So a lot of the strength training is like just Olympic rings, pull ups, maybe some skin. The cat. Um, um, dumbbell pull ups as well off the bench, all that kind of stuff. And then a lot of, a lot of, um, obviously squats with the.
[00:00:40] Michael Frampton: Back to the Surf Mastery podcast. I am your host, Michael Frampton, and the ethos of this show is education and inspiration for better surfing and a better surfing life. And Matt Grainger, today's guest, not only was a huge part in the inspiration for the birth of this show, but he epitomizes that ethos as well. He is in his mid 50s now, and he's still out there surfing a ton and stays fit and healthy for surfing, and also teaches others to be better surfers and better people through better surfing mindset, health and fitness, etc. Matt is just a pure inspiration in the surfing world and just an absolute frother and a rips. He rips. He's an incredible surfer and stoked to get him back on the show. And like I said, he first appeared back in episode number one. He's. This will be his fourth appearance. Uh, he also appeared in episode 30 and episode 55 as well. And, uh, without further ado, I shall fade in my conversation. My fourth conversation on this podcast with Matt Grainger from Manly Surf School. How did it happen? Was it just a freak random thing, or was it a lapse in concentration or what?
[00:02:07] Matt Grainger: Yeah, it was a bit of the ego took over and ego took over. Um, we'd had. Every day was the best day ever. We had this the first swell in June. And, um, this one day just got bigger and bigger, and it had a lot of south in it. There was two swells. It was like a south swell and a bit of south west as well. So you could get a chip in, you could chip in from behind, behind the tower, and you could backdoor where you'd usually take off. So you'd get like more barrel time. And I was riding this magic six zero Psi Pro, one that I've had for about a year. Felt unreal under my feet. Been riding it for days straight. And then, um, this guy Sean came out from South Africa. He rocked up on a boat. Him and I started paddling up the reef and just trading wave after wave and making him. So just making these unbelievable tubes and no one came up there because, you know, it was pretty gnarly. So if you fell, it was like two foot deep and it was like an eight foot swell. So when Max, probably 8 to 10, you probably saw footage of Nathan Florence. I don't know if you saw some of the footage of him and he's it was like 10 to 12 foot hits that day, whereas Max doesn't get bigger, it just gets thicker. So it's probably 6 to 8 foot, but really thick, like a chokes kind of way. You get this, you can make this really nice drop and then come in with speed.
[00:03:28] Matt Grainger: And just if you made it, you're fine. But if you didn't make it, that's what happened. So after five hours, I actually wasn't even tired. I was after like five hours, I was just just getting cocky and I probably should have gone in. It was more like one more, one more. And Shaun and I were trying to outdo each other, and he he actually snapped his board, his board on his last wave, and I snapped my head, but I took off, made. It made. The drop. Drop was on the foam ball. As I was pumping on the foam ball, the wave turned the corner. So kind of that south west angle of the way though, turned a massive corner. So I've just got catapulted on the foam ball and I got thrown out head first, and that's as soon as my head landed, the lip hit the back of my neck and just drove me straight into the reef, like, instantly. It was only like two foot deep. It was low tide and I just it was just like, bang. I was like, no, I got a bit on here. And then I went into worry, went into warrior mode. You know, when you when I'd said us the way, way my eyes. Okay. It's actually got a cut there as well. So I've got to cut. I got cut either side. I got cuts either side of the nose down here on the bottom of the nose as well on this eye.
[00:04:43] Matt Grainger: And obviously here I have about 25 stitches here, five stitches here. And I just went I knew the session was over and I just paddled back. Everyone was like, we'll get a boat. Everyone's screaming, get a boat, get a boat! That's it. I'm like, I'm good, I'm good. Getting myself back almost on my own. You know, like one guy got scared. Good on ya. Um, this guy Hans from America. He goes, good on you, tough guy. I'm like, nah, I've got this, I got this. Anyway. So I went back and got on the pontoon and just started pouring bottled water over my head. And then I got the boat back to Max and then looked for Shaz, and she was already stitching up my brother. He had a little cut on his back. So. And then someone said,, Matt's looking for you. Cut his head and neck. And she thought,, if he's asking for something, he's in a bad way. So then she saw my head and she thought I'd cracked. I'd actually, like, fractured my skull, but it was actually bits of coral coming out of my head. .Far out. So she pulled that, pulled the bits of coral out. He got some local, which was good. We'll just put it in the carts and then pulling bits of coral out the tweezers, and then got a toothbrush for an hour and just scrubbing it. That was the gnarly part. I just had to.
[00:06:01] Michael Frampton: Scrubbing and all this peroxide or iodine or something. Yeah.
[00:06:04] Matt Grainger: With, um. Yeah. Just with, um. Yeah. Like light alcohol. Yeah. Just. And just so you don't kill the flesh too much. Like, not too gnarly. Um, but just getting it all out, and that's. I reckon that saved me for sure. And then obviously took about two hours to stitch up, which was gnarly. And I was just doing I've been doing a lot of breath training like coaching, apnea training. And I saw resonance breathing, which is like a second inhale six second exhale.
. So just going into that just and that helped big time. That was like a three hour ordeal which could have been a long time. Felt like a long time. But it wasn't as long as I thought. And then she put like a face mask over it so I couldn't see. And then, um, yeah, The rest is history. And then I surfed the next day., you did not. Yeah I know. He taped it up. I just said, I'll get two. I'll get one. Wait, I'll get one wave. And I did some tests, like I was jumping on one leg to see if I had concussion and then, no, I'm not well in the head anyway, uh, and then I came. I wore a helmet, of course, and then I didn't surf for after that day. I didn't surf for three and a half days. And then after that I was good to go because I was on.
[00:07:21] Matt Grainger: I was having, uh, four courses of antibiotics. I four, four tablets of antibiotics every day, washing it with, um, fresh water. And we're getting she was breaking up antibiotics and putting it inside the cup as well. Yeah. And she and she left a little bit of one of the gnarly cuts. Didn't do it too tight. So bits of coral would still come out if it did. There's still little bits popping out, far out. But yeah. So I'm wearing a helmet from now on when it's gnarly like that. So I went to G-land. After that we had another swell at Max and Surf Greenbush, but I had one of those soft shell helmets that Tommy Scott wears. Yeah. By, um, DMC. It's like a rugby helmet. Yeah, yeah, but they're nice and light, but they're, um. Yeah. So that that felt good. And then I wore it in g-land every surf even because I didn't want to get hit and break the cuts open anymore. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got the stitches out after six days and they healed well. Yeah. So wow. But from now on I'm going to. If it's gnarly and low tide and heavy, I'll be wearing a helmet. Yeah. No. Fair enough. But I was lucky I didn't get concussion and brain damage or lose an eye or nose or whatever. Yeah., yeah.
[00:08:32] Michael Frampton: And I mean, and any sort of coral cut infection is such a huge risk, right?
[00:08:38] Matt Grainger: I reckon like, even there was a girl, it was actually a girl out in the water. She. Her name's Kat. She does immense heavy new for about six months with a with harm. So her partner and they they had a long boat with um with a solar panel on top and just go around the islands and she, she had a cut on her foot. She went to seek a cut and just had a shower. So that got that sort of told. And she told me this story like a week before. And then she got this, this flesh eating, um, microbe in her foot. And she basically went delirious and had to go to she went to Padang and their hospital was too dirty and gnarly. So the hands got her out of there, carried her onto the fast ferry, then went to Jakarta and she had like three skin grafts and then back to LA. Yeah, just from that. So that straight away I was like, I'm not getting my head touching any, any, um, any shower water. So I was just it sounds very first world, but I was just every time I wash my head, I was just with bottled water. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a good tip for people out there. yeah. Yeah. Look after your carts. Yeah. Always look after my carts. Even feet. You know, I went to Chofu. First time I went to Chofu in 2000. A tiny little cuts on my feet. And it was the last day. And I was like, last day, who cares? And then I got home and I got stacked. I couldn't walk. I went to my. I went to my glands. And straight away I was on antibiotics and prednisone and it went away. But that was nasty. So it taught me a good lesson. Yeah. So get on, get on to your rep cards quickly people when you go to the tropics.
[00:10:17] Michael Frampton: Yeah. You got to clean them eh. I remember I touched the reef in Arugam Bay in Sri Lanka once. Like just got this tiny little graze. Thought nothing of it. Just put like a little bit of iodine cream on it. That's all I did. And then two days later, it's just like 50 cent welt that's throbbing.
[00:10:33] Matt Grainger: And I had to hit.
[00:10:35] Michael Frampton: Yeah. Had to get some antibiotics. So should have just scrubbed it out with a toothbrush and done the right thing at the time. But it was such a small cut, you thought nothing of it. But they must have just been little bits of coral in there or something.
[00:10:47] Matt Grainger: Yeah, yeah, that was one of the ones where the feeder chirps. Tiny little, like little nicks. Yeah. So, yeah, to get that tape. Yeah. So the tip from Shaz. Doctor. Shaz, my partner. Get. Take her. I always have, like, a spare toothbrush. That's clean. You can't even get it from that. If you get it from the hotel. But you never brush your teeth with it, so it's totally clean. And just scrub it. Scrub it. Um, use the little wipes. The the iodine alcohol wipes. So you do one offs and not nothing else dirty. And then just keep checking it. Yeah. And there's that. There's that tayo gin. That's pretty good from Indo. You know that Chinese, that red bottle. That's always cool. That Chinese. It's called tayo gin or the ayam. They don't use cream. She said use because it just festers in the tropics. Use the powder. The powder? Yeah. The powders of the guy. Yeah. Okay. So that's a go and then cover them up. Yeah. If you do your feet too. I always wear shoes. People give me heaps of crap in Indo because I'm always wearing. If I've got cuts, I'll put shoes on because you're walking around. You get dirt in the cuts. Yeah. So it's important if we always forget especially. Yeah. You're like, oh nah, I'll be right. Or, you know, you see so many guys just get smashed and don't even do anything. Yeah.
[00:12:03] Michael Frampton:yeah. It's not worth the risk. I used to you're still out charging, catching heaps of waves.
[00:12:07] Matt Grainger: Yeah, still surfing a lot. Um, pretty much surf every day. Sometimes twice. Um, got the gym. Surfer's gym. Which is good. That keeps me fit and healthy. They working on the mobility that you taught me years ago, and. Yeah, just building on that. I think that's a big key is mobility. As we get older and even the younger athletes that we coach too. I've got some pros that train at our gym and and we've got them on a mobility program. Whereas strength training and I found lately like in the last few years, like having the ability and also the strength training is huge just for reducing, reducing injury, keeping strong. Like I'm 55 this month. I don't even talk about your age too. It's really important what you say out of your mouth. You know there's a, there's a quote by Bruce Lee is like be careful what you say with your words because that's why it's called spells and spelling. Like you're saying, you hear heaps of guys walk around and go, I'm done. I'm old, I'm an old man and all this. And you're like, hey, mate. Like, no, it's all relative. Like it's it's you know what? It's time. Really anyway. You know, like just this thing we've made up, but, you know, there's biological age. And if you keep yourself fit and healthy and moving and eat well, sleep well. You can keep keep rocking till you're in your 80s, I reckon.
[00:13:29] Michael Frampton: Yeah, man, I was just reading. Listening to a book, actually, about all of that. And this Harvard professor did an experiment where she got a bunch of 80 year old men, and she put them in a house where everything in the house was as if it was 30 years ago, and they were only allowed. So the TV programs, the books, the furniture, and they were only allowed to talk, talk about things as if it was 30 years ago in the present. And within a few days, their eyesight improved. Health, like blood pressure, improved everything just by just like placebo. Like extreme placebo effect. Wow.
[00:14:11] Matt Grainger: That's awesome. Yeah, it's rare to get that book.
[00:14:14] Michael Frampton: It's a rare book. I'll. I'll forward it to you and I'll put it in the show notes for listeners, too. I think it's called the mind body Connection or something. I'll put it in the show notes and I'll send it to you.
[00:14:23] Matt Grainger: And even when I was at, um, not trying to name drop here, but when I was at Nazaré, I came in, I totally led back to the harbor because he broke down. It's quite funny. Like it was a big day. Like 60 foot. Perfect. Nazaré. And I was with Lucas Pereira, who's from Mavericks, who trains with me. He was towing with me on that. We were just shifting partners all day. And then I said, you lead like I don't even know lead any way from then. And I said, you make leads out to sea doing nothing. We should go check on him. And he's like, yeah, right. So we hammered out the lead and he goes, yeah, I ran out of fuel, guys. And you're like, why? He goes, I was having too much fun. You know, every time the beeper light came on the warning signal that was low on fuel, I just turned it off. And because it was a really good day and it was a really good Nazaré, like, clean 60 foot faces and whatnot. Anyway, so I, we hooked up my ski to his ski and towed him back to the harbor. And we got back to the, um, got back to the wharf, and I was just chatting to him about how we've got a gym and I've been following what he does working XPT programs, and I do a lot of breathwork, but I really like breathwork.
[00:15:36] Matt Grainger: And and I said, yeah, yeah, we don't we don't talk about age, you know, in our gym because what you said the word, don't you ever say that word in front of me again. And he got really gnarly. And I was like, okay, man, settle down. And um, so it's there's a lot of truth to it. Hey, I see, like, Chaz is, um, she's my wife. She's over 60, and she's getting better because she only started 20 years. And there's guys at the beaches that used to rip when they were 20, and they've given up at 50, or probably given up at 50 because it's in their mindset., my knees and stuff and my back stuff. And you're like, well, what do you do about it? Do you um, do you do any mobility or you know, what are you eating? What are you how are you sleeping? Or you know, I don't know. They're like, I don't know, you just like, okay. So yeah, it's funny isn't it? And I think I think we were lucky our age like we've, we've been introduced to a lot of stuff. And if you're curious about it, which you are and I am, there's so much stuff you can learn going down that rabbit holes.
[00:16:41] Michael Frampton: yeah. It's never ending. Kind of.
[00:16:42] Matt Grainger: Ten. The crew ten years before us, probably a lot of them missed out on that eating poor food, poor movement. Um, yeah, I think it's good. I've got the hoop. I've had the hoop for, like, uh, probably five years now. I find that's really good because I'm. I'm really diligent about my sleep. It can be gnarly some days, and it gives you a bad sleep score. You've got to kind of let that go, and not even your day is ruined. Because I know some athletes who will like that, and they're like, I had to get rid of it because it said I had a bad sleep score and I'd have a bad day. I'm like, no, no, you got to get past that. But sleep is huge. Hey, like and probably read that book by Matthew Walker that was, you know, everyone knew how important sleep was. You know, we cure cancer and all sorts of ailments. Balance. Yeah. So yeah, they'll always I try to have a little nap in the Arvo if I get time. Yeah. Try to have a nap every Arvo. And I think it's good to have a nap if I have the luxury, because you're just not talking. You're not thinking. You're just having a little break from the world and then back into it. Have a training session at the gym with the crew and then dinner in bed again. So that's my little routine. Yeah. And not being and not used to have to always wake up super early or to plan that I ought to be up early and out there for stuff. But if now if the waves aren't that good, I'm not going to get up early just to punish myself for the early just for the sake of being the first guy out there. So now, because I've found on the sleep on your sleep scores, when you do actually sleep that extra hour in the morning. Yeah. You get a lot of benefits. It's crazy. And if you do go to bed early. Yeah. Mm.
[00:18:18] Michael Frampton: Does does is surfing the main motivator for you to stay fit and healthy?
[00:18:23] Matt Grainger: Yeah. For sure. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Like I couldn't give a stuff like what I look like. I just want to actually be able to catch waves and still be able to surf. My brother and I just went to Macaronis together and we were both chatting that we probably surf better now than we were in our mid 20s, just because the boards are better. We've got more knowledge and we've kept our bodies good. Yeah. Yeah. So we've had no we've had no serious accidents though which is lucky. you know obviously head knocks and all that kind of stuff but nothing like haven't broken any major bones like bony broken hands and a few things like that, but not, you know, haven't broken a femur or anything, you know. So some guys obviously are disadvantaged if they have a major injury but haven't had any major injuries. And then now I've realized I used to always think when I was have had a niggle like a, like a niggling hip or, you know, you had to go to the chiropractor and you had to do this, you had to do and now you can kind of push through it and move through it.
[00:19:24] Matt Grainger: I found that like. And if it's really serious, obviously go and see a physician, which is good. and you can get a really good massage or just to break that tissue down. But I found now you can move through pain and throughout the whole day like not, you know, everyone thinks, I've got to train for an hour and that's it. So I don't do it. You know, you can do little snacks like ten minutes here, you know, ten minutes in the morning, another ten minutes at lunchtime, another two minutes here, and then another two minutes and eventually kind of work through it. I remember when we were working together, you were pretty onto that early in the early days. Good diets. I love I like got into my fasting, which is good pretty much two meals a day. Love the bone broth. I'm doing a coffee, obviously. Black coffee, a little bit of coconut oil. So, yeah, that's just all these little hacks that we're learning. Just helping along the way, I reckon.
[00:20:21] Michael Frampton: Yeah, but you've got that motivation. You want to keep surfing, you want to keep going to Indo and that's what. Yeah. That's what get you. Okay. No I'm not going to have that donut. I'm going to and I'm going to go to bed early because I want to I want to go and get barreled at Indo like.
[00:20:36] Matt Grainger: no, it's such a good motivator. Yeah. And and it's, it keeps you young. Yeah. It keeps you young and young in the head too. And looking at boards that, you know, I'm still riding shore boards and my short boards like a five, five, nine. And I've got A53 Bobby quad that I ride in the wave pool. Yeah. So I can still ride short boards. yeah. And just having that and and the boards have gotten so good. Now, you know, just the rockers and the things all the shapers. And I remember Mike, Michael Ho was talking with his son Mason. I saw in an interview that he said, oh, dad, why do you think you're ripping so much now? And he goes to the boards and Michael's like, doesn't care. You know, he just he doesn't have Instagram or Facebook. He's just surfing and I've I've seen Coco out in the water when she's in Indo or here and she said, yeah pops. Just he just the proper. So he's, he's, he's not thinking about how he's 60 and he's charging you know. Yeah he's right. He's got, he's got new blades and getting tubed out back door and ripping on the backside at Alma-Ata and things like that. But yeah, that's the motivation is surfing. Yeah. And it's, it's such a fun sport. And I just always say to people, it's a puzzle.
[00:21:51] Matt Grainger: You know, you every time you go for a surf, you're trying to work out that puzzle. It doesn't matter if it's one foot onshore or it's 20 foot bommies or it's crazy tubes in Indo, you're still trying to figure out how you're going to paddle in. How are you going to get to your feet? How are you going to generate speed? Is it a straight down drop? Is it a knifing drop? Am I going to get in my front foot early? All these little things that just come into play from all those years of experience, and you're trying to work out that puzzle, and then it's one foot. You just want to go out and do one big turn on a one footer and you're happy. So that's what keeps me motivated. Some days, even if it's crap, I'll still go out for like three waves and just I'll get my three waves and go to work and train. And I've got the training to, I've got rid of the cardio. So I'm sort of not really doing the cardio so much now. It's just strength and movement because if you do a good movement flow, you can get good cardio from that anyway. Yeah, I forgot my heart rate monitor and you're actually getting flexi, whereas you don't want to get stiff and then just doing the right strength training.
[00:22:53] Matt Grainger: So you look at all the surfers now it's all legs, hardly any upper body, only back and legs. You don't want any chest and you don't want to overload the shoulders as well in your you know, the rotator cuff exercises are really good. So light weights on the shoulders, nothing heavy. So you can still get that mobility in your paddle. And you've got the power through your back for your paddle. So a lot of the strength training is like just Olympic rings, pull ups, maybe some skin. The cat. yeah. dumbbell pull ups as well, off the bench, all that kind of stuff. And then a lot of, a lot of,, obviously squats with the barbell, goblet squats, front squats, split squats, all that kind of stuff. It's super important, I reckon. So getting that mobility and doing the weights and getting that connection and feeling when you're doing the weight, not just doing it for the sake of it, like doing those reps and really thinking about that rep and just getting your body in those positions that you could do in the water on land. So when you go out there like a martial artist, you're you're ready to go. You've drilled it so many times it becomes second nature. Yeah.
[00:24:01] Michael Frampton: No, strength training is so good. It's also for like strength training gives you it increases your body awareness actually, and just increases your maintains your bone density. And it's just it's so helpful. And if you're doing it do upper body. Lower body. It's it's about as doesn't get any more hard of a cardio workout than doing like a strength training circuit if you want to, you know, get the heart rate up.
[00:24:26] Matt Grainger: What sort of work? What sort of stuff are you doing these days, like in your regime?
[00:24:30] Michael Frampton:. Mine's so I had I've got,, I had ACL surgery in my early 20s and it's now almost, you know, bone on bone, basically. So a lot of my, a lot of my training is just keeping on top of that. so like, slow moving, heavy stuff with,, you know, have you seen the knees over toes guy?
[00:24:55] Matt Grainger: Yeah, yeah. He's awesome.
[00:24:56] Michael Frampton: Hey, backwards walking on the treadmill and just. Yeah, following some of his stuff. Uh, and just to keep the legs strong. Because it's interesting. Because they say it's bone on bone, right? And it can get like that, but your cartilage is gone. Your cartilage doesn't really come back. But there is scar tissue forms where the cartilage was. As long as that scar tissue is there, you're fine. If you do too much stuff and that scar tissue wears away. So if you do too much volume and you don't allow that scar tissue to to heal and reform and the fluids to come back, then it can be bone on bone, you get a real sore joint. But so now, as long as I keep the volume of what I'm doing on the knee, it's fine. You can actually you can actually go.
[00:25:39] Matt Grainger: How many reps?
[00:25:41] Michael Frampton: Actually, I would just sort of more like six reps. Only a couple of sets. But you know, because I've got a history of strength training. I know the form. I'm strong, I know what to do. But a backwards walking on the treadmill and some and lots of balance work as well, because it's actually those small little twitching movements in the joint that do the most damage. So if your balance is on point and your joint is nice and stable, then it's one of the big things as well. So keeping the balance, like standing on one leg with your eyes closed. Little things like that. Yeah I do.
[00:26:16] Matt Grainger: I love the pendulum jumps with the, you know, the pendulum jump. So it's a one legged jump. Yeah. and we'll do that. More eyes closed as well. Yeah. When I coach a lot of the athletes as well, like before, they were competing, like, I'd say, like they'll do five jumps, eyes open, and then the last five closed. And it helps for that body awareness, you know, for late drops and. yeah, no big drops out of the lip and being aware of where their body is. Yeah. Yeah. And I even did it when I crack my head to check if I had concussion, I was like, yes, I'm fine. You know. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a doctor. But if you can jump one legged with your eyes closed, you pretty much. And you're fine. You don't have concussion. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:27:03] Michael Frampton: No, I do a bit of sprinting. Sprinting as well. Sprinting is really good for you. So I do a bit of that and I still do like the bodyweight gymnastics style strength training as well. Still doing that. Following a guy called, uh, Nardi. Oh, man, I can't even pronounce his name. Nardi Orejuela or I can't remember how to pronounce it, but it's functional performance training. He's doing a lot of really unique stuff. He's worth a follow. He's pretty out there with some of what he says, but he's also got some really interesting tips. A lot of, you know, not necessarily heavy weights, but functional, functional stuff. Just he's worth a follow.
[00:27:39] Matt Grainger: Cool. yeah.
[00:27:40] Michael Frampton: And just keeping on top of the diet, diet and sleep, man, that's like you mentioned, man. Just keeping a clean diet, getting enough sleep and giving a good balance of rest and stress.
[00:27:49] Matt Grainger: Because, yeah, life can get stressful, but it's only what you make it really like. But yeah, if you if you sleep well, if you have a good sleep, you can conquer anything. Really. Hey, I'll find two. The shoulders are important. Like the rotator cuff muscles. Important to keep that on top of that. Just like maintenance work like prehab, like lightweights, like 10% of your body weight, just getting in all those different angles because you do you can, you know, when you're, you know, those days when you're paddling super hard trying to make that wave where it's hollow, you're going to put a lot of stress on the shoulder joint. And I've had seen so many mates like you look at you got to look at your mates who had surgeries, you know what I mean? Like, it's always so, shoulders, knees and hips if you look after those. And spine pretty much ahead of the game. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:28:40] Michael Frampton: Hanging dude. Hanging for your shoulders. Really good.
[00:28:45] Matt Grainger: Just hanging. Awesome.
[00:28:46] Michael Frampton: Active and passive. Hanging. And, I mean, I'm lucky. When I was living in the US, I did. I did three different DNS courses., yeah.
[00:28:55] Matt Grainger: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember you doing that. Yeah.
[00:28:57] Michael Frampton: And so I do a lot of that sort of rehab style training still. And that's really good for shoulders and and core that helps keep my shoulders in check.
[00:29:07] Matt Grainger: I remember, I remember you got injured and I did the Ido portal course. Yes, I remember you did. Yeah, I think you did your hamstring right. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. And I was a day before and he said, Matti, can you do this? And I went, yeah. And did a whole week with it.
[00:29:22] Michael Frampton: Yeah. That's right.
[00:29:23] Matt Grainger: Yeah. He was massive. It was massive on hanging. Yeah. And you know, the ring and the rings too. Yeah. And I find the rings or rings are better for a surfer too. Like doing chin ups, pull ups on a ring because you get that nice. Like you get that movement in the shoulder joint where it's just a straight bar. You don't really get that movement because we actually reach out and rotate our shoulder as we paddle. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah, yeah. You know, it was it was pretty. It was an interesting guy. Cool guy. Full on. Yeah. He is. Yeah. But yeah, I learned a lot. Yeah.
[00:29:59] Michael Frampton: cool. Are you still doing ice baths?
[00:30:01] Matt Grainger: Still doing that.
[00:30:02] Michael Frampton: Yeah.
[00:30:03] Matt Grainger: And our boss. And so on. Got an ice bath in the backyard and a sauna, which is lucky. And we got two at the gym now. We got two saunas and two ice baths. Wow. So. Yeah. Yeah. It's good. Everyone loves them. Yeah. Everyone's created a little community there. Yeah, yeah. It's awesome.
[00:30:21] Michael Frampton: What about LA? Have you looked into Light Health?
[00:30:24] Matt Grainger: I have seen it. I haven't really done it personally. And it just looks it looks pretty interesting. It's just a matter of time and money. Yeah. In our in our sauna. I do have some infrared, but, like, not, some lighting, but, you know, it's not huge. Have you been looking into it? Well, it's it's just really interesting.
[00:30:42] Michael Frampton: There's this guy, Jack cruise, who's been on about it for years, but now that there's sort of like 20 years, but now there's all these scientific studies coming out proving his theories right about how important, sunlight exposure is for health and how it turns on certain genes like the Pomc gene and and how if you're exposing yourself to too much blue light after the sun's gone down, how that affects blood sugar and circadian rhythms. And but if I mean, if you're getting up and going, surfing every day and getting to bed on time, it's funny, that's all.
[00:31:14] Matt Grainger: Like Huberman and all that, like, yeah, they say go out and play, you know, go get the sun. Yeah. And, I, we live on the East Coast here, so every early surf, you're like, looking into the sun exactly in the morning. You know, you're blinking, going oh. And, you know, different on the West Coast. Yeah. If you go to bed at the right time. And I try not to look at my phone before I go to bed. So, Yeah, I just try to banish that, put it away because. Yeah, that's a bad habit, isn't it? Just before looking at the screen, try to look at computers as well. So onto that in that way. Yeah. Yeah. You can just go. Yeah. Just basic stuff. Yeah. Keeping those circadian rhythms. Yeah. Haven't done the glasses or anything like that. Like the.
[00:31:58] Michael Frampton: The blue blocking glasses. Yeah.
[00:32:01] Matt Grainger: Dave Asprey and whatnot.
[00:32:02] Michael Frampton: Yeah. Yeah, they get into it a lot. They go hardcore on everything.
[00:32:06] Matt Grainger: They go hardcore. I'm like, no. How am I? It's none of them. Don't you think there's a fine line between how much time you got in the day and.
[00:32:15] Michael Frampton: exactly. But I mean, David Beckham and his mates, they're spending a lot of money on, like, days. Dave Asprey has a goal to live to 120. I think he might have even said 100, 150. But like and be healthy and functional at that age. So he's making sure that, you know, every day he's doing as much as he can. So those guys are going. I don't know.
[00:32:38] Matt Grainger: I don't know if I want to live that long. Yeah. It's damn sad. You know what I mean? Like, you kind of want to just die normally. You know, like.
[00:32:45] Michael Frampton: With dignity. Yeah.
[00:32:47] Matt Grainger: Dignity? Yeah. Like you don't have to go. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:32:50] Michael Frampton: Because if you're the only, you're the only one doing it. And like, you're you're still alive and healthy. Yeah. Friends are dead. You're like.
[00:32:58] Matt Grainger: What was that? I mean, let's talk about that all the time. Yeah. They just overboard and and almost bring a lot of anxiety, I think, to like trying to keep on point. Like you're not actually like they want to get to this goal of being this age, but they're not actually having fun in the present. Like it's like I've still got to live your life. Hey, you got to still have fun with your friends, with your friends. And, you know, like, I'm not like, a total. I'm. There's no way I'm a total monk. Like, I'm. I still eat really well, but if I, you know, if I'm with with friends and family, I'm not going to go. I'm not eating that because I'm this, you know, like, yeah, I'll still want to be part of the group, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. It's not going to kill me. Yeah. I don't want to have a good time with with my friends. I'm not going to be that guy that's like, oh, no, I don't do that. Because, I want to live to 150.
[00:33:46] Michael Frampton: Exactly. Yeah. I'm going to go to bed at 8:00 on Christmas Day because you want to live to 150?
[00:33:55] Matt Grainger: You know, it's kind of like. Yeah, it's counterintuitive. Really?
[00:33:59] Michael Frampton: Yeah.
[00:34:00] Matt Grainger: What about if you get to whatever, you get hit by a car? Exactly. You know. Exactly. I don't mean that in a bad way.. You got it. Still? Yeah. And it's funny, like, all this grounding, you know, we we hardly wear shoes in was, you know, you hardly wear shoes when I, when I hang out with you. Yeah, but hardly shoes. Oh, Maddy, you're wearing shoes today. That's weird. I'm like, oh, well, I had to go to remaining shoes.
[00:34:27] Michael Frampton: I hate.
[00:34:28] Matt Grainger: It. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:34:30] Michael Frampton: No, but that's the thing. All the stuff that's coming out in the latest health stuff, all these guys, it's what we do anyway. Especially as surfers. We get early morning sun. We're getting lots of grounding work because we're surfing in the ocean. That's the best way to get your. Your grounding done is in the ocean or walking on the sand in bare feet. We're getting it done anyway. But it's just interesting, all these studies coming out and and proving that.
[00:34:55] Matt Grainger: You can you can buy a grounding mat and walk outside. Put your feet on the on the cold grass, you know, like, the cold sand. Like I'll be surfing the wave pool a lot lately and it's super fun. But you still don't get that, feeling of the energy or the ocean. Like, you know, it doesn't matter if your body surf, surf, body board, whatever. If you dive in the ocean for a swim, you always come out feeling amazing, don't you? Yeah. Just from it's from the negative ions though, isn't it.
[00:35:24] Michael Frampton: Yeah. That's part of it. Yeah.
[00:35:25] Matt Grainger: Yeah, yeah part of it. Yeah. And just maybe the salt, the energy of the waves just being in nature and. Yeah, it's funny, you can go on the wave pool and you have a good time. You don't get that buzz of that feeling on your whole body from the natural waves. Yeah. And the salt and all that. Yeah.
[00:35:46] Michael Frampton: How much time have you spent in the wave pools?
[00:35:49] Matt Grainger:there's a new one in Sydney now. Sydney and I. Every Thursday I teach a fitness class to the staff. I've been doing that for the past six weeks. So I go out every Thursday and I make sure I serve from 4 to 5, and then I run the class at 530 to 630. So that's pretty cool. Like, I'll ride my little five three Bobby quad and, get about 20 waves. And then we ran our we ran a pretty cool course the other week. We did a get ready for your master class. It was like an endo masterclass clinic. So we taught people how to ride left tubes. So we had the expert mode, which is just a barrel. It's pretty cool. You take off, you can do a Rio or just a set up turn and get this nice tube. That's a pretty cool tube. Like the barrel is wider than it is high. Yeah, you got to get quite low in the tube. And then it kind of turned the corner a bit like macaronis. So we did um, we did about 30 minutes. I broke down all the best surfers in the world getting tubed on the TV screen have had eight participants, and so we broke that down for placement, for backhand front side, you know, getting and then we did movement patterns like mobility patterns to open up people's hips and, and ankles, because that's pretty much what you need when getting low in tubes and most tube riding.
[00:37:08] Matt Grainger: So we did that, we went and surfed for an hour. Everyone got about 12 waves. And then we there's a I it's crazy. They film this. I called Flow State on the left and the right, but we're only on the left. You come in and it's got all the clips of you. So I got a coaches password. So I went through everyone's clips and broke down what they were doing. Right. What they're doing wrong. Yeah, it was rad. And then we had had lunch and then we did apnea training. So then we went into the leisure pool, which is heated because the wave pool is only about 11 degrees at the moment. So yeah, it's quite it's quite cold. Yeah. So they just pulled 28. So we, we taught them the science of breath holding. Then we went and did it in the water. And then she did a chat on our endo. What's it like in your first aid kit? And, you know, rough cuts? Yeah, it was awesome. That was a that was a full day. It was fun.
[00:38:00] Michael Frampton: All right. So I did.
[00:38:01] Matt Grainger: That., had some fun days with the Surface Gym crew. We'll book out the pool for two hours. And so two different modes, one the tube, the expert modes and tube. And they've got advanced, which is half turns, half tube. Yeah. It's pretty cool. Good fun. And then Isabella Nichols two. She'll fly down and we'll I'll coach her for two days before an event. So before Huntington, we tested out two of the boards. See what you actually got. Two brand new boards of the HD and then obviously had more, but she had these two boards that she thought were going to be the ones. And they were so pretty cool to work that out. Yeah, we did some also some work before Bolido. So it's not a it's a good coaching tool. Yeah., because you got you guaranteed getting one left and right, so I'll book it. We'll book a session on the right and the left, and you're right there that she can come in and break it down each wave and go through some foot placement and hand placement stuff where you place the board on the wave and back out there. Yeah. So it's pretty cool. And you got all the footage on film as well and also got the flow state.
[00:39:04] Michael Frampton: All right. It's like the driving range for surfers.
[00:39:07] Matt Grainger: Yeah it is. It's the full driving range. So it keeps you fit too. Like it's actually it's a full leg workout because the way you get weaker, you've got to stay right in the pocket and push real hard with your feet and your hips. Yeah a lot of. Yeah. It's pretty interesting. Yeah. It's good. Good fun. You feel like especially in the tube major. Every time I'm just on the tube I feel like a 15 year old kid again. Like you're guaranteed a barrel. You know, you're guaranteed 15 to 20 barrels that up and. Yeah. Pretty amazing.
[00:39:34] Michael Frampton: Oh, that's so good. you're still doing good. Did you. Are you still taking people to macarons as well?
[00:39:40] Matt Grainger: Yeah, we've got one coming up, yeah. Next February, March 2025. We're doing. Chaz is doing the movement, and I'm doing the surfing right. Yeah, we've got two and I got a goose and Ari, who helped us as well as coaching. They're awesome guys and good coaches. Yeah. Yeah. It's rad. Yeah. So we basically surf from 6 a.m. till 1130 and there's two filmers there. So they the filmers get all the footage and then we, we break down the footage at 1:00 for about an hour, and then we'll go surfing again. And then sometimes if the waves are small, we'll do apnea training in the pool. So that's like a week, seven day classes or seven day clinics. So and then some people do two weeks. Yeah. Wow. But yeah it's super fun. And you know, we go to the Thunders as well because, uh, McKenzie's small. It's always two foot bigger up there. So yeah, it's good fun. Yeah. It's an awesome, awesome clinic because it's such a mechanical wave that goes from 1ft to 6 foot. Such a rippable wave. You know, just in the pocket. You can work on people's techniques and you see people improve real quick because they've got a running wall. It's not like a, you know, sitting right here, but sometimes you can just get close down. If it's the south swell you just got, you know, the people can only do one turn if that. Obviously if it's perfect, no swells here. Great. You know, all the all the, all the beaches are lining up. Machias is unbelievable. You can do four turns so you can really work on people's, you know how they you know how they sort of start the wave speed generation where they do their bottom turn, their top turn and good place for an upper body rotation. Yeah. It's cool. Yeah. It's good fun. Yeah. All right. That's it.
[00:41:29] Michael Frampton: They all filled up. Clean up?
[00:41:31] Matt Grainger: Uh. Not yet. No, I think there's still some spots left. Yeah. So they're filling macaroni, doing the marketing right now for next year, but yeah, they get. Yeah. We got some good numbers this year. I think next year is going to be even better. Yeah. So it's a good gig? Yeah. It's good fun. Yeah. And, you know, good, good bonding with people. Everyone's there to learn and have a good time.
[00:41:51] Michael Frampton: I'll put a link to to details about that. Show notes.
[00:41:55] Matt Grainger: Awesome. Yeah. Awesome.
[00:41:57] Michael Frampton: You guys had a big swell there a few days. Yeah. We had.
[00:42:01] Matt Grainger: Yeah. Last week. Uh, last. Yeah, we had a massive swell. Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday. Friday. Only bummer had really strong southerly winds. So we, being the captain, towed the car and naughty bomb in the mornings when it was southwest. And then the wind just came up and blew it out. The dead man's was on. Yeah. We got to surf that on our own. Dead man's pumping. Have a look at that.
[00:42:27] Michael Frampton: I saw the footage. Yeah, some of it, but it was.
[00:42:30] Matt Grainger: It wasn't many people making them. Hey, it looked pretty gnarly. How cool is it? If you have a look at, uh, this is living by Carl how often he flew. He flew all the way over for it.
[00:42:41] Matt Grainger: He does that. does that blog and, Yeah, he did. He didn't even make a way. Like a proper big one. He didn't make one way. He broke in the board, got smashed. He was coming this way. Gnarly. Cuz it's kind of like the heavy cake. Then it's got a step. Yeah. And if it doesn't open up, it just collapses on you. Yeah. And you don't know when you're paddling in. You're going to be a good one or not. there's one guy called Sam Jones. Got a cracker like he made. He actually made a really good one. But the rest of the crew. Yeah. Pretty much got smashed. There was a lot of carnage. Choo choo. Kelleher did a big airdrop. Dislocated his elbow joint., he got that? no. He just airdropped and then went back over the fall. Popping the elbow. Yeah, I'm kind of done with that wave. I know it's pretty gnarly backside. You just be looking for an injury and it's crowded now. Like I have to surf it on my own with, like, you know, 4 or 5 people. And now it's everyone's out there trying to get their photo taken or their clip, which is cool. You know, they're all younger and there'll be 30, 40 people out on a semi-closed reef that's 10 to 12 foot.
[00:43:52] Matt Grainger: So we can get the jet skiing off the off the car and step on it. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And then we can check out Makaha, you know, go. Makaha. German banks, North Bay cruise around being the captain. It's fun. Yeah. Yeah. You got to be ready to go for dead man's like I've. I've snapped boards out there. I've had 30 sea urchins at my 40 out there once. I just went over the falls and landed feet first. And that was pretty gnarly. Injury. Went to hospital. Like, I, I couldn't walk, so I had to paddle back to North Steyne, back to the school, and drove up to the hospital. And they couldn't even get they left about four in there. And then three stayed. Three stayed in there for about three months. And and I Right when I popped out about that big, like three months later when I went snowboarding. gnarly. I remember Barton Barton Lynch actually got. He had to go to surgery with sea urchins out there. Scotty Romaine broke his back about four years ago. Out there, captains broke ins, MCL, PCL. Just copy breaking your ribs. Yeah, that's a good way to get injured. But it's if you're young, young buck and you want to charge, go for it.
[00:45:03] Michael Frampton: Well you gotta you gotta pay to play sometimes.
[00:45:06] Matt Grainger: Yeah. Yeah yeah. The, the the risk out there that have outweigh the rewards. But yeah there's some really there's some good surfing going on. Some of the young guys the young guys in pressure like so grueling. Lex O'Connor, some of the young dudes are like 18 year olds just charging it and making barrels, too. So. But this last world was pretty wonky. But we had a real good swell a week before that. Like a beast or a swell like Narromine was off its face, mouth narrower. We had like nor'west winds and eight foot barrels and that was that was pretty fun. So yeah, that was a more user friendly. And it was pumping north out or the whole East Coast. Yeah. On the Sydney Northern Beaches was going off. So yeah that went that went for three days. So we've had a really good year. Last year was about like a pretty bad winter. Yeah. To be here for Sydney and the sandbanks are good because we had that big swell. But yeah, pretty pretty stoked. What about yourself? Any waves your way?
[00:46:05] Michael Frampton: Some. Not. Not too many. We've had a shit winter, actually. We've had heaps of. Usually you get the southerly swells here where I'm staying at the moment, but,, I've just been heaps of northerly nor east swells of low period for some reason. Almost like summer had weird weather patterns here. The south swells that come through have heaps of west in them, so they just go straight past. I don't know.
[00:46:27] Matt Grainger: And the baits are good.
[00:46:28] Michael Frampton: There's there's points and river bars around here. So we just need a decent high, long period swell and it turns on, but it still goes surfing but. And get waves and had a great summer. Great summer with the kids. Yeah.
[00:46:42] Matt Grainger: Awesome.
[00:46:43] Michael Frampton: But the winters. Yeah. Average winter here. And it's pretty.
[00:46:47] Matt Grainger: Crazy. We've actually got,, the water's cold, like, it's, 14 degrees. Yeah. So sometimes it'll be. It'll be 20 in winter usually. But this year it's cold. Yeah, but the good. Yeah. So every morning pretty much offshore. So that's kind of cool. Yeah. With this with this cold water being lucky. Yeah. Random.
[00:47:06] Michael Frampton: The water here, the water here is warmer than usual. I can still go surfing in A23 at the moment. No way. Yeah. The water's so warm here. It's just all these east and northeast flow. It's keeping the water warm.
[00:47:19] Matt Grainger: That's pretty cool. Yeah, we. The wave pools. The wave pool. Actually, the concrete holds the cold. yeah, I bet I pulled about about 1111.
[00:47:29] Michael Frampton: That's 43 bodies business.
[00:47:31] Matt Grainger: Yeah, yeah, I just I don't wear booties, but I the guy's wearing gloves and hoods and just make sure you paddle out real quick and keep yourself warm. But yeah, last year we were last year we went to, Mexico and I. Yeah. So that was cool., but this year I'm just going to hang back. I've been building this app called The Surfer's Compass, so I want to get that out by the 1st of September. Hopefully I'll be doing that for a year. So just breaking down all the best surfers in the world. Women and men take offs, paddling, bottom turn, top turns, cuttings, airs, tubes and then throwing in movement patterns that will help those maneuvers and then breathwork and mindset. Yeah. So that's been a fun little project.
[00:48:15] Michael Frampton: All right.
[00:48:16] Matt Grainger: So yeah be working on that. I was helping with the graphics and Joe Barker with all the edits. But yeah, that's keeping me busy. It's like a, you know like you've done a lot of projects and you just want to get it done? Yeah. I mean, I'd want to do it right, but we were told we probably could have had it done in May, but I want to do it perfect. So yeah, hopefully we get it out by. Yeah. So I got like Ethan Ewing, Mick Fanning and Kelly Slater, Jeff Gilmore, Aaron Brooks, Isabella Nichols.
[00:48:42] Michael Frampton: Parker cool. Look forward to seeing it.
[00:48:44] Matt Grainger: Yeah. So that's what's keeping me busy. Yeah, yeah. And all the other stuff. The surf school and and the surf gym.
[00:48:51] Michael Frampton: And all the barrels.
[00:48:53] Matt Grainger: All the barrels.
[00:48:54] Michael Frampton: Oh, sweet. You have to let let us, let us know when it's when it's released. And I'll spread the word.
[00:48:58] Matt Grainger: Sure. That'll be awesome. Yeah. But yeah, you can't beat a barrel, can you? I always say to people, once you get it, why don't you get tubed? You're done. You won't be able to hold a relationship or a job and.
[00:49:09] Michael Frampton: Yeah, it's addictive. Yeah. Healthy addiction though. It's on my list. I'll probably sit down with the boys this evening and we'll watch the replays and stuff. Yeah, one.
[00:49:18] Matt Grainger: Of the local boys did really well, so yeah, it's pretty, pretty good result. You got to check it out. Yeah, it's actually awesome spectacle. How was,. Did you see the the big day? Yeah.
[00:49:29] Michael Frampton: Yeah. No, I watched that with.
[00:49:31] Matt Grainger: Joe and Ramsey. Booker. Joe, do you reckon they were charging harder than the WSL because there was more on the line, like, you know, medals and, like, they always charge in the WAFL that they go hard as. But some of them are not the nailing. Some of the Wipeouts were heavy weren't they. But yeah.
[00:49:47] Michael Frampton: And also.
[00:49:48] Matt Grainger: Connor O'Leary.
[00:49:49] Michael Frampton: Though also like they had different camera angles too to the. So I don't know if they had even more expensive cameras to it just. Yeah different like just a higher level production as well. I think that helped. but certainly in the Medina it was just always everything Medina does just looks effortless, doesn't it?
[00:50:06] Matt Grainger: It's that good, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. He's amazing. Yeah. He's. He's,. Yeah. There. Ethan Ewing. Yeah. They're solid as those guys. But it was good seeing the other guy from Peru. Yeah, it was Cabrera, wasn't it? Yeah. Like,. Yeah. Just seeing the other countries. That's pretty good, isn't it, about the Olympics, like, cared a lot more diversity. Yeah. I mean, I love the WAFL, but especially when they do the cup after the cup is just too much familiar., everyone's too familiar. You know, you go,, I've seen this heat before, even though it's in a different location. But it's good when you get wild cards and that variety and you just think,, I've seen another angle of surfing, you know, like, wow, this guy's insane.
[00:50:48] Michael Frampton: All right. Matt. Hey, it's just gone 3:00. I better go in there. I got to do school pickup now, but thanks for thanks for doing the show again. Really appreciate it.
[00:50:57] Matt Grainger: Awesome, mate. Awesome, brother. Take it easy.
[00:51:00] Michael Frampton: Good to catch up.
[00:51:01] Matt Grainger: Good one. Hopefully. See you when you come to Sydney.
[00:51:03] Michael Frampton: That'd be great. Yeah. For sure. We'll be over there at some point., yeah. Keep me in. Keep me in the loop. Yeah, yeah. Keep me in the loop with the app. So. Yeah. Excellent.
[00:51:13] Matt Grainger: That'd be cool. Awesome. Awesome, mate.
[00:51:15] Michael Frampton: Thank you for tuning in to the Surf Mastery podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. Also, the best way that you can help support and grow the show is to subscribe, rate and review on whatever app you're using, be it Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and of course, we are now on YouTube, so you can watch the video version of this podcast on YouTube. Be sure to check that out. Also, go to Surf mastery.com for more surfing tips via the blog. You can also book in a personal online surf coaching session with me, also at Surf mastery.com. There are two free downloadable PDFs, one with the five best tips from this show, and one the five best exercises to improve your surfing. So go to Surf mastery.com on the home page there. You'll see them. Until next time, keep surfing.
Matt Grainger on the Surf Mastery Podcast
100 Devon Howard-Understanding the Connection Between Form and Style in Surfing
Aug 09, 2024
In this milestone 100th episode of the Surf Mastery Podcast, host Michael Frampton welcomes back the stylish surfer Devon Howard. Broadcasting from the Channel Islands office in Santa Barbara, Devon shares his insights on the elusive concept of style in surfing. The episode delves into the historical evolution of style, its significance in competitive surfing, and the subjective nature of defining style. Devon emphasizes the importance of making difficult maneuvers look effortless and how personal demeanor often mirrors one's surfing style. He contrasts the stylistic approaches of surfers like Joel Parkinson and Kelly Slater with the more explosive style of Adriano de Souza. Listeners are encouraged to focus on form over presentation, maintain a relaxed and efficient approach, and view style as a natural extension of personal expression.
Episode Highlights:
Introduction to Devon Howard: Recap of Devon's previous appearances on episodes 41, 77, and 86.
Importance of Style in Surfing: Exploring the subjective nature of style and its impact on surfing performance and aesthetics.
Origins of the Word 'Style': Michael provides a brief etymology of the word 'style' and its various meanings throughout history.
Cultural Influence on Style: How different surf cultures and eras emphasize or de-emphasize style.
Effortless Style: The concept of making difficult maneuvers look easy and the importance of being relaxed and calm.
Influence of Personality on Style: How a surfer’s personality often reflects in their surfing style.
Contrived vs. Natural Style: The difference between genuinely stylish surfing and trying too hard to look stylish.
Technical Aspects of Style: Tips for improving style through form, patience, and not rushing maneuvers.
Style in Tube Riding: The inherent style in good tube riding and how it relates to other surfing maneuvers.
Practical Advice: Devon’s practical advice for surfers aiming to improve their style.
Key Quotes:
Devon Howard: “Style is oftentimes making the difficult look easy.”
Michael Frampton: “You can be quick without being rushed.”
Devon Howard: “Don’t try to contrive it. Don’t rush your surfing.”
Follow Devon Howard
Check out Devon’s surfing and updates on his Instagram. Devon_howard
Devon Howard: When I. When I often think about style, there's always like there's two camps. There's the people that get it and and style is usually it's like you know it when you see it. I said, how do you know that something's pornographic versus art or beauty? And a lot of times the answer is, well, you know, when you see it, you know, something is gross or smut as opposed to art.
Michael Frampton: Welcome back to the Surf Mastery Podcast. I am your host, Michael Frampton, and this is episode 100 of the podcast. A little bit of a milestone. Special guest for this episode. And we've also revamped the website Surf Mastery. Com and on the front page of that website is a free PDF listing the top five tips from the Surf Mastery Podcast. So go to Surf mastery.com and you can download that PDF for free. Today's guest. Well, I was looking back through all the stats on this podcast and the the most downloaded episodes have been from Devon Howard, so it made sense to have him on episode 100. And so you can go back and listen to. He first appeared on the show, uh, episode 41, discussing longboarding and nose riding. Then it was back in, uh, episode 77 zero. Uh, we talked about Mid-lengths in episode 86. It was Twin fins. And today in episode 100, Devin Howard joins us again to discuss style. Style is something that is in it's fundamental. It's paramount for every type of surfing that is done, from traditional longboarding all the way through to high performance, short boarding. All of the greats, all of the most memorable surfers have good style. They are stylish. From Joel Tudor in traditional longboarding through to Joel Parkinson as a high performance, competitive short boarder Tom Curren. Uh, mid lengths and twin fins. You got Torin Martin.
Michael Frampton: And of course, Devon Howard himself is a very stylish surfer. He's very smooth, very graceful on a longboard, on a mid length and a twin fin. We've even seen some footage of him riding, uh, three thrusters out there on his Instagram. And his style, his technique, his gracefulness runs throughout his surfing. So a perfect topic for us to discuss in episode 100, so I would love to hear your feedback on the show in general. Last 100 episodes and of course this episode. Go ahead, send us an email Mike at Surf mastery.com. Or you can DM me on Instagram or leave a comment under the, uh, the visual for this episode. And of course, support Devin Howard, give his Instagram a follow. And of course, he's, uh, joining us from the Channel Islands office in Santa Barbara. Uh, Devin is currently working with Channel Islands, are working on some new surfboard models as well as he's you know, some of the most popular boards recently have been he's been a part of. So without further adieu, I shall fade in my conversation with Devon Howard. I actually see a lot of agreement between Brett and Chaz on this subject. Yeah, yeah, because there are there are thing right that you go to a Grateful Dead concert and you experience the show and the vibe, you don't really listen to them on Spotify.
Devon Howard: Yeah. It's it's something to be enjoyed live.
Michael Frampton: Yeah. There's a certain style and vibe to them I think that come across differently in person than it does. And also the audience they sort of draw in. Yeah. Rather to the music on Spotify right there.
Devon Howard: There are two bands that I think are better live as well, which I think Radiohead is better live. I like Radiohead, I think a lot of their albums are great. I've been to a few of their shows that I think, no, this is 10 or 15 years ago. I don't know if that's still the case, but at the time when they were really peaking, they were insane live. And then I also saw James Brown live. Oh, wow. 25 years ago. And that was incredible. Mhm. I mean what a showman.
Michael Frampton: Yes. Yeah I can imagine I mean there's the Radiohead live from the basement. Um unbelievable. Like gives you I can't remember what album it's they play in full from their studio basement studio and just makes you appreciate them on a whole nother level. Yeah. Just just by watching that on YouTube, not even being there. Well, yeah. Um, I remember seeing a gentleman called AMP Fiddler, another one of the best live acts I ever saw. Um, gave me a new appreciation of his music. He's sort of new, new age funk slash reggae. Um. Interesting music. Yeah. Catch a fire. Catch a fire. They're doing a tour through California at the moment. There are another unbelievable band live. Their live performance and sound is bigger than their their studio albums. I think they actually New Zealand band. You get a chance to see them. They often play in Santa Barbara. I forget the venue names, like a 500 capacity venue in Santa Barbara. They always play there.
Devon Howard: Is that the ball? I'm not sure.
Michael Frampton: Can't remember.
Devon Howard: Anyway, a lot of venues there, but yeah.
Michael Frampton: Style. Let's talk about style. Do you? Yeah. What would what do you know the origin of the word.
Devon Howard: Um, I don't, but I'd imagine. Uh. Well, I hope you did some research on it. Is it, um, the Latin word is it is it is it Greek? Is it? Where does it come from?
Michael Frampton: Let me sort of summarize from etymology online from the early 14th century started out as a writing instrument, pen or stylus, uh, a piece of a piece of written discourse or narrative, uh, characteristic. Characteristic, uh, rhetorical mode of an author, a manner or mode of expression. Uh, a way of life behavior. Uh, then the word sort of transformed, uh, the evolution of the word uh, from writing tool went into writing into manner of writing, into mode of expression, uh, in writing of a particular writer, writer or author. Um, and then it was in the 1500s. It was paired with the word substance, um, which basically meant back then, divine part of essence, sorry, divine part or essence, uh, and that, sort of, that sort of gave the word, uh, a deeper meaning, including finer parents or dashing character. Um, then it was the word then went into an artist's particular mode or form of skilled presentation that was later extended into athletics. Um, then by the 1800s it was distinctive or characteristic mode of dress. Obviously it was more in regards to fashion. Um, and so there's a, there's a little bit of a history of the word. So I think there's a lot of lot of depth to that. And it's certainly, um, it's very, uh, apt for, for surfing. A lot of those meanings, I think. Yes. Had tell me what you think about style and how important it is.
Devon Howard: Well, style is um, from my personal experience growing up, it was a, it was a measure of good surfing and, um, it was a marker of, like, one's own presentation of their expression of surfing. Uh, I don't want to cheapen it by, I guess, using the word brand, like your brand of surfing, but, um, everyone has their own form of expression, and style is. Oftentimes I see style as making the difficult look easy and my own belief in, you know, just absorbing what was around me when I was a kid. You know, we're humans. We we sort of mimic and and imitate what's around us. I haven't innovated anything really at all. I've just looked what's around. And you take bits and pieces of first. You take it from your parents, of course. And then as you get out in the world, it's like what's going on around you. And in San Diego, where I grew up. And I think this was the same in many other served cities in not only the US but the world. Um, in the 80s, the older surfers, 10 to 20 years or year older than you, where style focused as opposed to this idea of, um, ripping or tearing something apart and in doing it with reckless abandon. Um, that was something that started getting more popular as I was a kid. So I was sort of born into this era where one thing was kind of falling out of favor. Um, and this other form of surfing was gaining popularity. And, uh, sorry, that was kind of a muddled answer, but it's it's I think it's one of the most difficult subjects in surfing to discuss or to describe because it's so subjective. Um, and it comes with the word style, comes with a lot of different ideas to people ranging from beauty to something that's very contrived and nonfunctional.
Michael Frampton: Yeah. I mean, has the word style itself has, as you sort of addressed, has a lot of meanings, like everyone has their own unique style, you could say, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are stylish. So when we think of when we think of stylish surfers, we do. We think of beauty and grace and flow. Um, so and I think it is related to, to that and it's related to efficiency, right? I mean, Rob Machado comes to mind. I think he's sort of an incredibly stylish surfer, but he's also fits in that modern category. Category of radical. Yeah, he encompasses both. And I mean, world champ Joel Parkinson obviously fit the criteria of of competition surfing but remained incredibly smooth and stylish.
Devon Howard: Yeah. Well, um, you know, I think depending who where you grew up and what culture you came from or grew up in, um, style could also just not be that important. You know, if, if surfing to to you or just to any individual is about, um, really pushing as hard as they can with maneuvers and being as radical as they can and, you know, tearing apart a wave of, you know, like you think of the Brazilian storm. Guys there for years have been, you know, they're well deserved. They're incredible athletes. They are highly athletic. And it is explosive maneuvers. And they're acrobats in many ways. Um, for some reason, as that game has gained popularity, some aspects of the presentation and sort of fall into the wayside where, uh, in gymnastics, um, presentation and form is still really part of the whole thing was never really let like if you do a floor routine in gymnastics, um, or let's say dance or anything like that, they're doing really kind of athletic, powerful moves, but they also keep the form and I don't know quite the exact reason, but, uh, that sort of started falling out of favor in surfing, mostly because what drives our conversations oftentimes revolves around competition. Surfing, um, like competition surfing drives a lot of the media narratives, um, let's say, who are like, where do we get our information from? It's driven by the cell to, to whatever extent that is, stab in their audience.
Devon Howard: Um, surf line kind of, sort of. But they're more focused on cameras and whatnot. And then the most of the magazines have gone out of business. But only ten years ago, a lot of the stories were driven by the the personalities and the folks that competed. And there was a mixed bag in there of surfers that had great style, like Joel Parkinson. He mentioned, um, I would say Kelly Slater has a good style. It's a different style. It's his own. Um, and then on the opposite end of that would be like an Adriano de Souza or somebody like that, where he's clearly just incredibly talented, but sort of putting his surfing together and like one seamless, fluid motion was not a focus of his. And so, um, it's been interesting to watch and the broader conversations of the mainstream, how that sort of played out, uh, in back to where I grew up. I grew up on the fringe of all that. Anyways, so I was riding longboards in the 80s and 90s that was as fringe as it got. And in that world, all through that time, um, style was still important, even when folks were trying to emulate Shortboard maneuvers on longboards, there was still an emphasis of style. Um, sorry. I'll shut up. I don't know where I'm going with that, but yeah.
Michael Frampton: So I'm just wondering when you look at, I mean, I think that you mentioned the Brazilian storm. I think Gabriel Medina is quite stylish. Not all the time, but probably actually more so when you see him. Freeserve he sort of. He just seems to be more relaxed when he's not surfing in a competition. And I think that's maybe what separates the I think that's a big part of being stylish is you're very calm and you're relaxed. That doesn't necessarily mean you're going slower or that you're even putting less effort in. It's just maybe you referenced gymnastics. I think a gymnast could do the same routine. They get the same height, the same amount of power. But if one of their runs, they were purposely trying to keep the presentation of themselves relaxed and calm, it would be more visually appealing. Sort of making it look, look easy.
Devon Howard: Yeah. That's the that's the thing. Making it difficult look easy. Mhm. In the 60s or 50s or whatever the boards weren't very maneuverable. So um clearly the market did. Surfing was just people who were stylish and could kind of keep it together. Um, hang on one second. Um, are you hearing a beeping on your end? What? I'm getting messages. Yeah.
Michael Frampton: Is that your phone?
Devon Howard: Yeah. I don't know how to turn off the iMessage on my, uh. Oh, it's on the computer. I'm trying to see how to undo this. Is this on.
Michael Frampton: Your phone, a phone or your laptop or your iPad?
Devon Howard: It's on my laptop. Oh, sorry. You're going to have to edit this out. That's all right. I'm just getting, like, every one of them. Don't fuck me up. The client. Claudia, um, do you have any idea how to get rid of iMessage off here? Preferences services?
Michael Frampton: That's a good question. I don't I don't have my, um, I don't have my laptop linked to my phone, so. Yeah.
Devon Howard: Don't do it. References. Let's say.
Michael Frampton: I'd say I'd be under notifications, notifications and focus is like a bell symbol.
Devon Howard: On, uh, on the computer itself or on the phone.
Michael Frampton: I'm looking on my laptop.
Devon Howard: Where did you find the notifications in System Preferences?
Michael Frampton: Okay.
Devon Howard: System preferences notifications. There they are. Look at that.
Michael Frampton: And top top right there's a there's a button. Allow notifications so you can turn that off or on I'd say that's it.
Devon Howard: Only five messages? There we go. Okay, I want to turn that off. Okay. Apologies for that. Okay. So, um. All right.
Michael Frampton: So where were we? Let me throw out some some adjectives that I wrote down after thinking about style a little bit. Um, efficient. Graceful. Functional. Calm. Focused. Relaxed. Grounded. Present. Fearless. Or maybe, better put, courageous. Is there anything you would add to that or you think shouldn't be there?
Devon Howard: Uh, no. I just think it's more about a calm and a gracefulness. It's mostly what it is. And it's just a it's just the form of your personal expression. I think a lot of the style, you'll see style of folks from a distance, and a lot of ways it matches up to their personality. Right? You'll see someone who's quite busy, a lot of a lot of kinetic, sort of frantic, uh, motions and, and not always the case, but sometimes, like, okay, this person's a little overcaffeinated in general, you know, they're really mellow, kind of quiet. People have this very quiet. Always meet a really quiet surfer with their style, and they're really loud and and obnoxious. There's exceptions to the rule, but if you think about it quickly, there's not often the case. And so, um, I think a lot of those adjectives actually work pretty well. Um, I don't what did you say? Courageous.
Michael Frampton: Yeah.
Devon Howard: I don't really know that that applies to it. Really. I don't think it's really much to do with courage other than. Well, I was.
Michael Frampton: Thinking that I was just wondering if that was a better word than fearless.
Devon Howard: Mhm.
Michael Frampton: Because if you, if you look, if you look scared, that's not very stylish is it.
Devon Howard: No, no it's very your tent style. And yeah I've said to people I don't do surf coaching, but if I've ever seen someone in the water and looks like they're struggling, if it's appropriate or sort of convenient, like they're just sort of right there. I'll say, do you do you mind if I offer some advice? It's usually well received. Um, a lot of times I've said, I think you just relax a little bit. Your body's too tense. Looks bad, but it also screws up the your ability to surf because now it's affected the form. Like you're sort of hunched over and bracing for, like, some sort of impact where you need to be more relaxed. The arms need to be relaxed, the shoulders should be relaxed. Surely you should be able to sort of slink back and into your knees and your hips and let those kind of bend and sort of sit into the board nicely. And so I think, um, what I, what I often think about style, there's always like there's two camps as the people that get it and, and style is usually it's like you know it when you see it. I said, how do you know that something's pornographic versus art or beauty? And the a lot of times the answer is, well, you know, when you see it, you know, something is gross or smut as opposed to art.
Devon Howard: Like you go into an art gallery and there's naked, you know, images of a naked person. How is that not pornography? And it's like, well, you know, when you see it and it's like, style. You sort of know it when you see it, and then you have, um, the other end of that where people will feel style is just posing and looking cool, like you're putting your hands in the air to, to look like Alex Knost or Mickey Dora or Rob Machado, whoever the insert the surfer, you're trying to mimic their hand placement, and sometimes the hand placement provides no real function or value to the to the ride. Other than it. It might feel good, I guess, but it's not making you surf better. Um, where I like to, I often will. I will argue or believe that yes, there are people that pose and that does exist, I exist, grant you that. But good style also brings about, um, really good form. Or I would look at it a different way. Really good form pulls along the style into it. So if you have good form and whether that's in a barrel or a cutback, if your body is doing sort of the right things to make a beautiful, seamless ride easier.
Devon Howard: Um, along with that usually comes a pretty good style if you don't have a good style. A lot of times the form is really working against your surfing. So for example, you got to do a cutback in your arm is up and back, um, front side. And let's say I'm turning this way. Front side cut back. Well, if my back arm is in the air waving behind me, I'm really struggling to get my body around and I'm actually having to work really hard for could potentially even injure yourself. Um, so that really hinders your surfing. But if I brought the arm in and drop it down and then have the arm kind of point toward where I want to go, the rest of my body goes. And it's actually quite easy to do the turn and consequently it looks much better. Doesn't look so awkward. Yeah. And and this could be said of your front arm. I've seen folks do cut backs with. I don't know why this happens, but sometimes their front arm is is sort of flailing and going behind them over here. Or they're extending and reaching too far. Um, so when there's this nice balance of the front and the back hand on the front side, cut back looks cool. Hey, that's great. If someone took a photo. Yeah, you probably put on the wall.
Devon Howard: Looks pretty good. Looks like Michael Peterson or somebody or whatever. Joel Parkinson Ethan Ewing would be a really good contemporary example, I guess. And, um, but when it's all sort of like the form is there, it looks good, but now you're surfing better and the turn is faster and more complete. And also when you have nice form, you get the board in trim. What I mean by that is when when the boards in trim, it's sort of if you know anything about sailing, when everything's in alignment with the bow and the sail and the the boat is really hitting its top speed, there's nothing really hindering or dragging or fighting against um, that top trim speed. In surfing, you want to get to the top trim speed, because when you have speed, it's easier to complete maneuvers, it's less work. You go into the maneuvers with speed, you can do a lot better. It's like snowboarding. If anyone snowboarded you know that the first few days you're learning, the instructor will say, you just need to get going faster. You know what? We know that's scary. I don't want to go faster, but. Well, you're going so slow that that's why you're tumbling and you're catching an edge and you're getting stuck on the hill. Go faster. And then you see this light bulb moment with people like, my gosh, well, I should have just been going faster all along.
Devon Howard: It's the same with surfing. You'll see people struggling to get trim speed because their form is so terrible. They're not understanding that the board is not even in trend. The board then noses out or they're waving their arms. They're there. They're there shaking their body like this, and they're trying to wiggle and do stuff. And you're watching the board underneath. And the board is just like on a gimbal, just like not getting any trim. It's just stop and go, stop and go. So it's this utter fail where if the person just relaxed a little bit, relax their arms, don't try to flop the body around and just get the idea of even going straight, which is hard to do on a chalkboard. Clearly, if you're a beginner, you probably shouldn't even be on the floor. Um, it's just going to be a struggle. Yet a board that's medium like a mid length or something, or a long board where you can kind of stand there and glide and trim, and then you can kind of get that form where your body is body's relaxed. And um, so a lot of times good style, I believe just comes with the right form, if that makes sense.
Michael Frampton: I totally agree. Yeah. And that's what I think. That's what a surf coach, the surf coach's job is. And then it's once, once the person becomes at first the new, the better form will feel strange and maybe even, um, abnormal and uncomfortable. And it's only once that form becomes, uh, ingrained and you become comfortable with it, then it looks stylish. So it's it's maybe it's a precursor to style. Is is good form.
Devon Howard: Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Um, another thing that I've thought about a lot in the last several years about style is, um, it, it sort of belies the, the technique or the difficulty of the maneuver. I think if it looks like someone's trying really super hard to do like a, let's say, a crazy air or just like the craziest turn where like, they blow, they like, blow the tail out and spin the board around and like, oh, whoa, that was insane. That was so difficult. But if you see somebody do a top speed cut back and they don't lose or drift the fins and they just go and mock 20 and just bam, come up fluid and seamless. You might say, man, that was really smooth. That was really stylish. But you don't often think that that was also really difficult. It's interesting. And, um, I'm not trying to get people to cheer more for the stylist, I guess, but I think it's worth sort of acknowledging that Mikey February or Torin Martin and some of those things they're doing, um, we're drawn to them because they're beautiful, which is undeniable. Um, but it's also interesting to think that these are the highest level people at the very upper echelon, at the top peak of, uh, you know, ability of sphere fame. And it something to be learned there, like to not just only acknowledge and only see the style which is great.
Devon Howard: I love that I'll watch that stuff all day long, but to like hit the rewind button and look at what they're doing and how on rail that board is and how difficult it is to hold the line and not lose it. Because a lot of times, especially in performance, short boarding it, it's incredible what the surfers do. It's like it's a controlled failure of the surfing. So a lot of times when the fins release, it's a and I know this because I put a lot of thought into fins and foils and whatnot. A lot of the best high performance surfing maneuvers are, um, a controlled failure. Mhm. Um, they're pushing the limits of the board, and a lot of times the fins or the equipment can't really handle what these surfers are giving it. It's really interesting. Look at look at someone laying into a turn and their butt is sliding across the wave and the fins and the board and everything's sliding. Um, and then look at, like a mick Fanning or somebody who can hold that or Ethan Ewing and hold it all the way through. That's gnarly. That is just like peak form. But you're like, man, that was so smooth, but you're not ever saying that was so difficult to do. And I don't know what the point is I'm making.
Devon Howard: I guess it comes back to, uh, like the kind of surfing I like to do. It's could be easily scoffed at as pretty easy, like, hey, mid-length surfing, you're just going straight. It's not really difficult. Um, but I don't know, man. At the highest levels. Like, I think what Torin Martin does, I think what February does if he's on a mid lake or other, you know, there's other surfers out there doing it and I cut a watch. Wow, look at that. 5/6 of the rail of that board is buried. And that's what I do myself. And that's to me that's the most thrilling thing is to bury that rail. How how far can I push this thing before it fails me? That's just really, really thrilling. You're just on the edge of disaster. You know, when you go on one of those seven foot boards, go to the bottom, slink, you know, and and coil up into the board and push it as hard as you can. Alex Moss does this really good as well. I can go on forever. People do a great job of this and they push all that board through. And then if you don't watch it, you know, if you're not too far forward or too much weight on your front foot, you'll slingshot up the face as this fast, free feeling, like a flying feeling that's highly addictive.
Devon Howard: It's something that you just keep my people that are into those types of boards, they just keep chasing it. Um, and then down the line, do the same thing again. Now I'm going to bury a whole lot of rail on the cutback. How hard can I push it? And when I get down to the bottom of the wave, can I just keep going right back to the whitewater? Oh yes, I can. Damn. Just keep going. Sometimes it doesn't work out. Uh, and if you blow that, you're doing the split that's on the board. Now you've got a torn MCL. Um, but you're going full throttle. And that on that type of equipment. Um, the form is important so that you don't botch it because you really could get injured on some of these things. It probably someone who hears has got a laugh and think, this is a joke. Like, you're being really hyperbolic, bro. Come on. It's just a mid length and you're over water. Um, yeah. When you're pushing it really hard, it's it's it's thrilling and it's exciting and it is difficult to do and it's I think it's, um, it's really appealing to a lot of people. Um, and then they, you know, they go and try and do it and say, man, I, I wish I could surf like Rob Machado on this thing. Yeah.
Michael Frampton: Well, all the surfers.
Devon Howard: Take ten years.
Michael Frampton: Yeah, if not longer. I think all the surfers you mention and the way you talk about their surfing is they're. Can they stay connected? You know, that as, as they're going through the, through the turns and in between turns, there's no there's no radical gain or loss of speed. Right. So that where they do the cutback isn't just a change of direction. It's in sync with that part of the wave. So they stay connected to the power source. So there's a certain it's a radical maneuver, but the speed doesn't waver too much, whereas some surfers might jump up to the top and bust the fins, and they might slow right down and then fall back down into the wave and go again. And it looks good in photos and maybe gets judged well in a competition. But it's not necessarily they're not as connected to the wave as other surfers.
Devon Howard: Yeah. And again, that's debatable. I'm sure there's other people who will feel opposite of that. And that's great. You know, surfing's subjective. Yeah. And you know, in in just to bring it back a little bit to competition if that's okay. I know lots of people don't care about surf competition, but it is where a lot of the best surfing's happening. It's where the like the high bar is a lot of times um, and in the 60s and 70s style was just sort of, um, it wasn't like there was a style box that was ticked. It was it was sort of like this nice little cozy little wrapping around the surfing that was just a given, you know, so it didn't really need to be discussed. And then in the 80s, when in probably really the late 70s when the twin fin was really coming on with Mr. pushing that and Sean Thompson and other people chasing him. Um, they were packing in as many maneuvers as they possibly could into a ride to take away more points. And and this isn't my own thought or original idea. I've read these things elsewhere, and I agree with his take, which is somewhere along the way. The beauty just sort of eroded because the focus is now like we're getting really fixated on number of maneuvers. And this like real technical aspect of the difficulty of the maneuvers.
Devon Howard: And surfing is already highly subjective. And you have this even more subjective thing, style. Um, and some of them may be, correct me if I'm wrong, maybe there was a style element at some point. I'm not aware of it, maybe there was. And um, so anyways, the 80s kind of moves on and there were clearly lots of stylish surfers. I mean, I grew up like many people my age, I'm 50, so I worshiped Tom Curren and I loved Tommy Carroll and a bunch of folks. There was lots of style, but there was also some people with some really hideous style, like Gary Elkerton and David and all these people. Nothing against them, man. Like, I think they're all incredible surfers, but there were some hideous styles and they crushed it in contests because they were just animals, like lacerating, tearing it up. And because the broader culture is being driven by whatever media is being consumed. And the media at the time was really sort of swiveling and craning and watching what's going on in competition, because that's like where the money's being plugged in. So those brands like, hey, we validate this thing we're doing, which is competition surfing. Um, and it just boiled down to what do you got to do to win this thing? And if making it look beautiful was not ever important, why would you spend time doing that? Tom Curran couldn't help himself.
Devon Howard: He was stylish no matter what. But, um, lots, lots of other surfers weren't, and they did very well. Um, and so as the decade or two ensues, um, just the sort of broad mainstream viewpoint was, that style just wasn't important. However, the people that were in the sort of the underground, your locals, people that sort of stuck to the fringe and even the in people that short boarded as well, obviously still kind of kept style alive and in it. And the reason style always stayed alive is because the idea that human beings are drawn and attracted to beauty is as old as time, I think. I mean, who knows? When that began, I had a really nice chat with David Scales on, um, Surf Splendor, and we spoke about this there. So if you want to hear more about this, go check that out. I think it was a nice conversation, but I'll sort of reiterate some of the points there was. I read an article by Scott Hewlett in The Surfer's Journal, and he wrote quite a bit about style, and he illustrated a point that I'd never considered. And he sort of talking about this Greek artists. It was like 500 BC. I'm like, where is this thing going? Why are we talking about bronze sculptures? Um, but he made a really brilliant point, which is, okay, why does style matter? Why do we keep talking about it? Um, it's because beauty endures.
Devon Howard: It is a common theme in human nature. Now, in recent times, I'd say beauty is being abandoned. If you look at modern architecture and just about any town, everything looks like shit. So I don't know what's going on there. We used to make beautiful buildings and now we're stopping doing it. Um, you we can't control that. But in surfing, we keep getting drawn back to this idea of beauty. Despite all those things that happen that we just talked about in the 80s and 90s competition, surfing and getting derailed. The broad culture still is always known instinctively that this is something that should, um, we should never stop cherishing. We should never stop celebrating. Um, and I think it's backed up by if you go to any Torin Martin video, go down to this thing below the screen that says views. A lot of Torin Martin videos have like a million plus views. Um, go over to Gabrielle Medina or anyone, and I'm not picking on these people. Just pick anybody. I'll bet you right now that Torin is is beating a lot of those surfers, 2 or 3 or 4 to 1 in terms of views. Now, you could argue that, well, there's more a lot more Gabriel Medina type surfers and there's not that many tour Martin's, I'll give you that.
Devon Howard: But I, I think it's really because we are drawn to beauty. And so back to that Surfers Journal article, which is he he said, imagine taking those Greek statues and putting a surfboard underneath them. And when I was done reading the article, I went and I googled 500 BC Greek statue and I forget the artist's name, its Greek name, and I was instantly like, huh, look at that. You just put a surfboard under these statues. And some of the form and posture was a little bit silly, but a lot of it was pretty spot on. And then you go right over to Jerry Lopez, or you go to Mikey February or somebody else, and you can see that, um, there's a similarity to this idea of beauty. And then you go take it steps further, take it to, uh, any type of traditional dance. Have you ever seen ugly, poor form at any dance scenario where there's, like, serious people, whether it's ballroom or it's swing or it's foxtrot or it's tango or it's salsa, it's just incredibly beautiful. And it's this expression. The music is coming in. You're viewing and watching and feeling the music. There's that input, and the output is what these people are feeling. And so that our output in surfing is, is that form and that expression. Um, bullfighters. Same thing.
Michael Frampton: Mhm.
Devon Howard: Now the bullfighters have a little more of a pose at the end, the bulls coming in and the bull goes through the cape and they kind of hold it and they sort of like it's almost like a taunting of the bull. Like you didn't kill me. And look how calm I am right here. And a lot of the surfers in the 50s and 60s, they really admired the bullfighters as a great shot of Joey Cobell in Peru in the 60s. Guys never bullfight, but bull fought before, and he's down there and there's pictures of him in the bull ring with a Hawaiian print shirt on and doing the whole full Ole, you know. And so this idea of style really, um, is always going to matter and always be important to us. Um, so long as we don't ever abandon this, um, attraction of ours to beauty, you know, we're attracted to beautiful people. Clearly, that's a given, right? Um, but we're really drawn to beautiful, um, things art, architecture, wonderful garden, uh, an unmolested landscape. And so it I don't think people really care to give too much thought about style.
Devon Howard: I think it's just sort of like I said, you know, when you see it, does it really need to be talked about? But I think in the context of a podcast like yours where people are trying to improve their surfing, um, having a real understanding that this isn't just for show style isn't just to look cool. It's not like putting on a cool outfit to look cool. Um, it's a real purpose driven thing. Certain articles of clothing look great, but they also have a purpose. Maybe it has SPF in it, maybe it's, um, built for a particular, um, activity to make it more comfortable. Um, for us, as I was saying in the very beginning, like the form, um, the style sort of follows the form. And if you, if you really think about your form and you're relaxed and you're sort of paying attention to the things that you talk about on your podcast or where people get their information, There's lots of different YouTube things, obviously. Um, you two could have nice style if you so desire.
Michael Frampton: Yeah, I 100% agree. Surfing is first and foremost an art form. Mhm. It's only within competition that it becomes a sport. And then yes, sometimes we don't necessarily we sacrifice a bit of style for progression perhaps as well as what's happening in windsurfing is a sport. I still think the best of the best, the best of the best can buy. Like John John, he's number one at the moment for a reason. Not just because he's progressive, but because he he would do a progressive turn with calm style like no one else. Yeah, yeah. So I still have faith. I think there'll be the odd slip up. You know, Toledo's frantic aerial maneuver that goes higher than everyone else. The judges kind of. They can't not score it, you know. So, you know, there'll be blips in the system, glitches in the matrix, per se, until until the judges, you know, really start to consider style and and make that a point which hopefully, maybe one day they will. I think it would make, uh, I would make surfing more watchable.
Devon Howard: Well, they have done so in longboard surfing. Yes. Longboard surfing has a much smaller audience, obviously. Um, but as I believe you and I talked about in the past, I think we did. I was at the WSL for a few years, and I worked on the longboard tour and built into the criteria is the word style also two other words flow and grace. Um, Style. Flow. Grace is in the criteria and it's hard, a little difficult to train the judges on it, you know? Um, it's highly subjective. It's something we could we could sit here for an hour, breaking down style, flow, grace. It will still feel like we barely scratched the surface. Um, because it's it is highly subjective. Just like art is just like music is just like food is just like, what kind of waves I like? Ah, it's just like that. It's just, um, really can be difficult to put your finger on it. But the way we did the training to help, um, these judges, if anyone cares to know this stuff is, um, have them really focus on somebody making something really difficult look easy, but also at the same time, dealt with sight of the positioning of the wave or the difficulty of the maneuver, because to the untrained eye, you could you could see someone doing a nose ride and maybe they're doing something really what you may think is beautiful on the nose.
Devon Howard: Maybe their arms are held a certain way. It just looks kind of like cool. But if you pay close attention, they're like ten feet in front of the pocket and you're like, that's not that hard to do. Mhm. So the so what helps is in the other part of the criteria is um, the degree of difficulty that is part of it. So you have to, you're looking at the style of flow and grace but you're applying it to are these surfers in the pocket. Is the surfer using their rail or are they lifting the board out of the water? Because to lift the longboard out of the water and turn it as far easier than engaging the rail in the water and pushing it through a turn. That's much more difficult. And so it has been applied in longboard surfing. Let's see if we can. If anyone cares, we could try to do a campaign to get the Shortboard tour to break more.
Michael Frampton: I'm with you. I'm with you. Ultimately, I do think it shines through and the cream always rises to the top. But it would be nice if it was literally in the criteria, and it was considered by each surfer to be a worthy consideration. Um, coming back to form, let me I'm going to share my screen with you. Let me. Hopefully this works. Oh, shit. Did that work? Can you see my screen?
Devon Howard: I think so. Let me move my notes here a little bit. Oops. Too many things around here. I'm terrible at computer stuff, but second. So where it is now? Okay, I can see it now.
Michael Frampton: So there's an example of a, you know, if that was placed on the nose of a longboard, it'd be quite cool.
Devon Howard: Yeah, it's pretty close.
Michael Frampton: But then also so here's you see on the left there is the way that a baby learns to stand now because the infant is so weak, there's only one way that they can learn to roll over and learn to stand up and hold themselves. Because their muscles are so weak, their bones have to be placed so accurately in order for them to be able to stand and move. And that's how we learn because of our our weakness and our slow progression into strength, we learn the most efficient way possible. Now it's the athletes that maintain that neurological efficiency that end up with the best form naturally, i.e. the way Kelly Slater's standing there in those barrels. Not only is he standing in a very similar way to the infant there, he's also very calm and relaxed in that position.
Devon Howard: Yeah, I would definitely not be that calm in that way. Those waves.
Michael Frampton: Exactly. So it does come back to to form. And it's also when when an athlete is standing with their joints in DNS, we call it joint centration and that the bones are stacked on top on top of each other in a very efficient way. It just looks right. Not only does it look right the way the forces are spread throughout the body, it doesn't feel hard. Anyone who's ever tried, if anyone, has ever tried to skate a vert ramp, for example, half pipe, it feels like, oh man, my legs aren't strong enough. How do people and then you watch a 12 year old just go up and down. They're not doing it because their legs are stronger than yours. They're not even doing it because they're stronger relative to their body weight. They're doing it because they're stacking themselves. Their bones and their joints are centered properly, and the force is being transferred throughout their entire body through the center of the bone and into the skateboard. Whereas someone who doesn't know what they're doing, they're trying to muscle their way through it. They only does it feel terrible. It looks terrible. Yeah. So I agree with that. Yeah. So it does come back to efficiency. And you said no good style is that you know it when you see it. My question to you is, do you know it when you feel it?
Devon Howard: Yes. Um, I believe so. Um, I know, um, I've even had moments where I just didn't feel like I was in the right form. It just didn't the the turn didn't feel good or the particular move movement. Maybe it's a nose ride or something. Didn't feel great. And if you get a chance to be lucky enough to come across a video or a photo of that moment, you're like, mm, yeah, that that is actually backs it up. It looks a bit awkward. It looks a bit off. So and you definitely can feel good style because you like it, like it's all tethered to, to itself. Like it's it feels good. It looks good. Um, and it, it's sort of like carries on the ride. It's it's like when you get off the very beginning of the ride and the first bottom turn is successful and your feet are in the right place. It really sets up the rest of the ride. Um, if you botch that, let's say you screw it up getting to your feet or off the bottom. Then you get you. You screw up the pace of the wave. So, um, yeah, I've had times where my feet were too far forward or back or whatever. Um, or I hit a chop and my arms sort of waved a little bit, and then I got out of that rhythm. Um, and that didn't that definitely didn't feel good. And it certainly didn't, because it looked like I was rolling up the windows as opposed to my arms being sort of down and going the direction that I want to be headed.
Devon Howard: A lot of times the front end, the back end oftentimes are going the direction you want to go. I find that to be very helpful, and that feels good to me because I feel really centered. I or you'd say stacked. You know, I never thought of it that way, but, um, so yeah, I would agree. I would say you definitely. You definitely feel it. Um, my own belief is I don't I don't do anything in the style that I feel is what's called contrived, where I'm trying to present before of some kind that it has a certain look. The form I have is, is really based off of function, and that's because I watched the generation two ahead of me at a waves like wind and sea and Cardiff Reef, and I watched the elders and what the I really watched closely what they were doing. How they were sinking down into the board. And I noticed that their hands, their fingers were never apart. Their, um, hand gestures were sort of always in the direction of where their board and body was heading. It was like this stacking or centering. He kind of like hunkered down, but they never looked stiff or scared or afraid of anything or timid. It was very, a very confident, almost like a martial artist, like a kung fu person or something that has confidence in the form of that particular move.
Devon Howard: Um, the really good surfers, the real standout surfers. I, I identified that pretty young and I said, I want I need to learn how to do that. Um, so it was never a contrived thing, like, I need to look good and look cool. I just knew that that was good surfing. And as a consequence of learning going through that, it also felt really good. It was like a good golf swing. I don't golf at all, but I have friends who do and I can understand like how much work they put into that golf swing. And when they do that, clearly it looks good from a distance because they hit the ball and it goes right where they want it to go. So that's pretty awesome. But they'll tell you it feels good. It's like uh, or baseball. If you've ever played baseball, you know the feeling of a homerun. There's a sound of the bat and the feel through the bat into your hands, and you feel it. The follow through of the swing. You're like, that ball is out of here. It's pretty cool. Um, Mhm. A reward to not that it's work but there's sort of like this payoff and a reward to the dedication that it took to learn that, that art form. Mhm.
Michael Frampton: But it always comes back to the feeling. Yeah.
Devon Howard: It really does. Yeah I didn't I haven't put too much thought into the feeling piece of it. But um yeah. You know it's disgusting and really dumb and shallow. But I've, I've had moments where the way where the ride did it feel good, and I didn't even finish the wave. I was so not into the feeling. I just kicked out. I was like, I've botched this thing so bad that someone else just needs to finish it. I'm just. I just kick out and I go back up to the top and kind of regroup and go, what? What just went wrong there? And then, you know, like surfing. Everyone surfs for different reasons too. Like for some people, surfing is a couple times a month. It's an escape for them. They don't care if they surf. Well, that's not what they're there for.
Michael Frampton: Like they're probably not listening to this, though.
Devon Howard: Probably not. Um, and I like I've had people say, man, you look so serious when you're surfing. I'm like, I'm pretty serious about it. Like it? I'm to me, it's so strange. It's serious fun and and it's as I've gotten older, I haven't lost interest in it. It's like a it's like a hunt to me. It's really weird. No, and I don't I don't know if it's just some human thing of like the game and the chess moves and the everything involved with observing patterns. I've observed patterns for decades, and now I see the patterns, and the benefit for me is I know which wave to pick. I know where to beat. And by knowing that I've set up the ride and therefore I've sort of like predetermined this feeling that I'm after, which is, as I said, it's highly addicting. Surfing like you, you never satiated. Why is that? You always want another one. You always want more. Um. And but all through this process, the hunt, the enjoying, understanding the patterns, the chasing, the moment, the feeling. Um, there's a there's a tremendous sense of there's like a reward when all the elements have come together and you apply everything you've learned. It's a really cool feeling. I think you could say that about a lot of things in life, whatever your or your craft is.
Devon Howard: And for me, surfing isn't just like some waste of time thing, like that's part of it. That's a bonus to me. Like, hey, I'm not doing chores or I'm not at work. That's fantastic. I will take that. But it's also like a craft. It's like a, it's a, it's it's a way I express myself. Some people do that through building things out of wood in their garage or a number of other things. Um, so the style piece of it, it's just sort of come along with it. It never was like, I'm going to really think about this super duper hard. Um, and you just, you learn through time that they the style and the and the form, they sort of, like, are tied together, you know, and you kind of look at it this way, and then you go back and look at it the other way, and they really come together nicely. And if you fight them, you're surfing. You're not going to surf as well. If you're not surfing as well, you're not going to feel it as right. You won't feel that thing we just talked about. Um, and then consequently, not that not that that many people care, but you're surfing is going to be kind of ugly.
Michael Frampton: Thing is.
Michael Frampton: It'll.
Michael Frampton: Because when you are, when you're connected and you're efficient, it feels better. Simple as that. It feels better if you if you close your eyes and just imagine, like an image or a video section of someone who epitomizes style, are they? What are they feeling in the moment? Are they worried about what they look like? No, no. Are they are they are they scared? No. Are they putting in a ton of effort?
Devon Howard: I would say no.
Michael Frampton: It's in the.
Devon Howard: Moment. Yeah. There's probably a small number of people who. It's contrived, like you could go to Byron Bay. Sorry. Sorry. Byron Bay. They pick on you right now. You could go to Malibu. Um, pick your spot. Ah, maybe Montego Bay. I don't know, uh, way inside there. There's going to be places where there are folks that, for whatever reason, this. Well, like, who cares? There's no, like, laws or rules. Like, I'm not mad about this. It's just they're just observations. That's it. They're really controlled. It's just so contrived. They're sort of putting the form or I'm sorry, let me back up. They're putting the presentation ahead of the form. You know, they're worried about all the bells and whistles and the dressing, but, like, at the core of all the ingredients going into making this beautiful thing, they've got it all wrong, you know? And so, um, you.
Michael Frampton: Can always smell that though, I think.
Devon Howard: And it's a missed opportunity for them. Uh, does it change my life or your life or anybody listening? You do. You, man. Like, I'm very libertarian in that way. I don't really care. But, um, we're on a podcast called Surf Mastery, so we're we're we're nerding out. And if you're here to get better, don't get caught up in the presentation. Get caught up in the form. The presentation is going to come along. And yeah, it's just like this beautiful byproduct. You don't have to really. You shouldn't have to try to have good style. You should you should try to be good at surfing. And then once you have that confidence, you know, if you see a photo or catch a surf line, rewind. If you can see that far and you happen to notice that your your hands are bent at the wrist and going in instead of out, or you happen to notice that your fingers are wide apart, you could pull them in and it looks better, but it also centers and stacks you. You start feeling more stacked over your board, and once you start doing that, it starts improving. Your style just starts improving. And, um, it's interesting that tube riding, this is what we talked about with David the other day, I think. Or maybe we didn't, I can't remember, but he someone I was talking to you about. It's interesting that almost all good tube writing has good style. Most of it you You rarely see someone with really hideous style getting as sick barrel. Yeah.
Michael Frampton: So yeah, because the, the, the the wave will hit them in the butt with their post dance. They just don't they don't fit in their ugly.
Devon Howard: Yeah I think it's true. He's a lesson there that can be applied to other maneuvers like but but it's not always true. That good tube style now equates to this beautiful style of the face. You'll see what doesn't fall apart. Um. Why is that? I don't know exactly. Maybe the. I think one thing that could help with style, um, from a technique standpoint, is, um, don't rush your surfing. I've noticed, like, folks that, remember we were talking earlier about breaking trim, um, and seeing people that are trying to wiggle. They're sort of swaying. A lot of times it's the upper body that's swaying when that's not really helping them in any way. It's not benefiting the the ride. It's causing the board to lift out of the water and side to side motion, typically. And now you're breaking the trip. Now in a short board. A short board needs to be side to side, but it's also got to be pushed so that it's it's building momentum in a forward fashion. The people that are not very good are kind of not going anywhere, because they don't understand that. They're just sort of wiggling their arms and breaking the trim.
Devon Howard: Um, and I think if you just. Yeah, just like think about being a little bit more quiet, um, and, and being a little bit more quiet means you're not in a big hurry like you don't if you're not at a level where you need to try to get eight maneuvers in the wave, don't do it. Take take your time and get the two really nice maneuvers and those will feel really good. Be patient off the bottom when you're. Let's start from the beginning. You go and you paddle in. You go to do a bottom turn. Just be there in that moment with that bottom turn. Don't be thinking about the four moves you want to do down the line, because now it becomes this rut here. You're hurrying up the surfing, and now you're kind of like screwing up the pace of the ride. You're screwing up the pace of the wave. And when you do that, now you're out of sync. When you're out of sync, it doesn't feel or look good. So I think the best advice to like, how do I get good stop, start with the foreign and don't rush your surfing.
Devon Howard: Don't try to contrive it. Don't try to Like I'm gonna have. Make sure my hands are up here and I'll go like this. And I'm looking backwards and going, okay, that's go. You do you. But you know, that's not helping you surf better.
Michael Frampton: Yeah, yeah. You can you can be quick without being rushed.
Devon Howard: Exactly.
Michael Frampton: Like like a drummer that's drumming at 160 beats per minute. If they're ahead of the beat slightly. It sounds rushed, but if they're on the beat, it's in time. It's rhythm and they're nice and relaxed. They're still fast. They're just not rushed, utterly. And it's interesting you mentioned, like the hands curled and like this. If your hands are curled in like this, you will feel scared. Your physiology affects your emotions. That's a scared posture. That's a protective posture. So if you forcefully open up your hands, like Tony Robbins says, stand up tall and and straight and relaxed, you will feel better. But if you force yourself to smile, you will feel better inside. So I think that, you know, a bit of video analysis and analyzing your own style can actually and changing it can actually make surfing feel better as well. But, um, I love those tips. You just, um, said and it was a good summary and it's a great place to end. Devin, thank you so much.
Devon Howard: All right. I hope we, uh, made some sense there. It's fun to talk about it, because I've felt this stuff for a long time, but I don't really ever talk about it. And it's only just in recent times. And, um, I gotta thank Scott Hulett from The Surfer's Journal for getting the gears going in my mind of how to think about this stuff. Um, it's fun to share it, so I hope people get some value out of this conversation.
Michael Frampton: Yeah. Oh, definitely. Definitely. I mean, we can if you come up with more thoughts on it, let me know. We get you back on and we'll expand because it's an important topic.
Devon Howard: Well, we're, um, we're in the middle of some fin placement on a mid lane, so I got to get back down there. So I also got this, um, dust down here.
Michael Frampton: All right. Thanks, Devin. I'll let you write. You get back to it.
Devon Howard: All right. Thank you. Michael. See you.
Devon Howard On Surf Mastery Podcast
Devon Howard On Surf Mastery Podcast
99 Rod Perez - Holistic Health Practices for Surf Wellness
Jul 17, 2024
Welcome to Surf Mastery Podcast, where we explore the fascinating intersections of life, sports, and the pursuit of challenges. In this episode, our host Michael John Frampton sits down with Rod Perez, a professional coach and founder of Holistic Pro Health Performance, to delve into the intricacies of longevity in mind and body wellness for surfers.
Rod Perez, known for his work with top athletes globally, including surfers like Joel Parkinson, discusses his holistic approach to surf coaching and health. His new book, "The Art of Longevity: Your Practical Guide to Total Mind and Body Wellness," draws on his extensive experience and aims to help people live healthier lives.
Episode Highlights:
● Background and Coaching Career: Rod shares insights from his coaching journey, working with athletes from different backgrounds and skill levels, emphasizing the importance of mobility, strength, and endurance for surfers.
● Common Injuries Among Surfers: He discusses prevalent injuries among aging surfers, such as knee and back issues, and explains how tailored training programs can aid recovery and enhance performance.
● Training Philosophy: Rod emphasizes the need for surfers to focus on mobility beyond flexibility and to build capacity through targeted exercises, including endurance training.
● Case Study - Joe's Journey: Rod highlights the success story of Joe, a client who overcame significant injuries and regained competitive form through focused training and lifestyle adjustments.
● Insights on Surfing and Movement: Drawing parallels between surfing style and gym movements, Rod explains how enhancing body control and motor skills can translate into smoother, more efficient surfing techniques.
● Longevity Strategies: He shares practical tips from his book on enhancing longevity, including the integration of recovery techniques like ice baths and sauna sessions to support overall health.
Rod's approach underscores the holistic nature of surf training, combining technical skill development with comprehensive physical conditioning tailored to surfers' specific needs. His insights provide valuable guidance for surfers looking to improve their performance and maintain their health over the long term.
For more detailed insights and tips, check out Rod Perez's book, "The Art of Longevity: Your Practical Guide to Total Mind and Body Wellness," available now.
98 Matt Parker - Choosing Boards and Breaking Surfing Rules
Jul 05, 2024
Welcome to the Surf Mastery Podcast, where we delve into the fascinating intersections of life, sports, and the art of mastering the surf. In this episode, our host Michael John Frampton sits down with Matt Parker from Album Surf to discuss the intricacies of surfboard shaping, the evolution of surf culture, and the joys of riding different types of boards.
Matt Parker is a seasoned surfer and shaper from Southern California who started crafting surfboards in his garage in 2001. Now, Album Surf is one of the largest surfboard companies, known for its diverse range of high-quality boards. Matt’s philosophy on surfboard design emphasizes the harmonious blend of curves and how they interact with the water, aiming to make every board feel like an extension of the surfer’s feet and mind.
Episode Highlights:
The Origins of Album Surf: Matt shares how he started shaping surfboards in his garage in 2001 and grew Album Surf into a renowned company.
Philosophy of Surfboard Design: Discussing his unique approach to shaping, Matt explains the importance of creating boards that blend seamlessly with the water.
Surfing in Southern California vs. New Zealand: A comparison of surf conditions and the surfing culture in these two iconic locations.
The Evolution of Surfboard Variety: Exploring the trend of surfers, including professionals, moving away from high-performance shortboards to experimenting with various types of boards.
Educational Insights: Michael and Matt discuss the importance of riding different boards to improve surfing skills and the misconceptions many surfers have about the type of board they should use.
Personal Anecdotes and Experiences: Matt and Michael share personal stories about their favorite boards and memorable surfing experiences.
Key Quotes:
"The surfboard is a constant blending of curves and how they interact with the water, making those curves feel comfortable, like an extension of your feet and your mind." - Matt Parker
"Are you actually having fun? That’s what it should be about, not just projecting competency and coolness in the lineup." - Matt Parker
"It's the best time to be alive as a surfer because you really have more options nowadays than you ever have in the past." - Matt Parker
Don’t forget to visit our new website for a freePDF download outlining Michael’s top five insights from the show, and reach out if you know anyone at YouTube to help resolve access issues!
Enjoy the episode and happy surfing!
Full Show Transcript:
Matt Parker- Welcome back to the Surf Mastery podcast. I am your host, Michael Frampton. Today's guest is Matt Parker from album serf. But before we get into that, a couple of housekeeping items. Firstly, Serf Mastery has a new website, and included on that on the front page is a free PDF download outlining my top five insights from the show and the last eight years or so of focusing on improving my own surfing. Um, so go ahead and download that puppy. Also, does anyone know anyone on YouTube? I have been denied access to my YouTube account and have exhausted all other avenues and have had a dead end. So if anyone knows anyone at YouTube, please reach out. Mike at Serf mastery.com or you can DM me on Instagram as well. Onto the show. Today's guest, like I said, is Matt Parker from album surf. Matt is a surfer from Southern California, and he started shaping surfboards from his garage back in 2001. And now album surf is one of the largest, uh, surfboard companies around. Uh, they specialize in all types of boards. And let me read a little quote from Matt's website, which sort of summarizes the way he thinks about surfboards. This is a quote from Matt. The surfboard is a constant blending of curves and how they interact with the water, making those curves feel comfortable, like an extension of your feet. And your mind is so interesting. There shouldn't be any rules about what a surfboard looks like. I love that quote and you would have seen there's so many pros that when they aren't surfing on tour, they end up on these boards, including one of my favorite surfers of all time, Margo. Yes, one of the best free surfers around. Brendan Marginson is well worth a follow on Instagram as well. He started writing Matt's boards. Anyway, without further ado, I shall fade in my conversation with Matt Parker from album surf. Com two.
Matt Parker- How are things? Uh, how are things in New Zealand?
Michael Frampton - Are things going swimmingly?
Matt Parker- Always there. So you live in the prettiest place on Earth. How could it not?
Michael Frampton - Oh, yeah. You're not wrong. Although I have to admit, I do miss California.
Matt Parker- Did you have spent time out here before you lived here or just.
Michael Frampton - Yeah, I lived in, uh, I lived in Point Dume Malibu for four years. Oh, cool. So I was obviously in a little bit of a bubble surfing Little doom every day, but, uh, you know, the weather, the weather alone in Southern California, I kind of felt like it was a bit monotonous. After four years there, I almost missed winter. But having come back to New Zealand and actually experiencing the four seasons, I take California any day.
Matt Parker- Yeah, it's big news. When it rains here. It's like, yeah.
Michael Frampton - Yeah, no one can drive in the rain in California.
Matt Parker- No. Definitely not, definitely not.
Michael Frampton - And then, of course you can't. Well, you're not supposed to go in the water either.
Matt Parker- Uh, so. So whereabouts in New Zealand? What part are you at? Like, where do you surf at and all that?
Michael Frampton - I'm in a place called Hawkes Bay, which is on the east coast of the North Island. There's nowhere really famous surf wise around here. The surf is pretty average around here, actually. We have a mass. Uh, continental shelf. So the swell comes in with a, uh, just with almost no energy left in it unless it's a certain period that seems to sneak through. Um, so, yeah, around here is not so good for surfing, to be honest. I came back here to, you know, raise the kids and I think, yeah, that sort of thing.
Matt Parker- But there's pretty drivable though, right? I mean, you can get. Oh yeah.
Michael Frampton - Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's you know if you're willing to drive um then yeah you can get waves, probably get good waves almost every day. Uh, in New Zealand actually, if you're willing to drive and put up with a little bit of weather.
Matt Parker- Mhm. Not afraid of a little wind. Right. Find the blowing the right way. Yeah.
Michael Frampton - Exactly. Well that's another big thing is I remember in Southern California so many days there's just no wind.
Matt Parker- Yeah.
Michael Frampton - Where you don't really get that in New Zealand maybe the first two hours of the day there's not much wind, but you'd never get a day where it's glassy until midday, like in Southern California. That's rare here.
Matt Parker- Yeah. That's like the prototypical dreamy Southern California fall day where it's kind of glass a little bit offshore in the morning and kind of glassy and nice and sunny and warm all day with fun combo swells. That's kind of the ideal. It's like that a lot. I'm down in San Clemente. It's pretty clean down here, too. We live like a little valley, kind of, uh, that kind of keeps the wind cleaner here. I don't know if it's just protected a little bit from some of the, you know, more beach break spots up in Huntington and Newport, all those spots. But, um.
Michael Frampton - Yeah. No, I, I've spent a little bit of time down your way as well. The Surf lowered and I got to interview Archie on my way down there and I spent some time, um, I love surfing Swami's and just that whole Encinitas area. Spent some time down there?
Matt Parker- Yeah.
Michael Frampton - And, uh, what opened? Part of what I wanted to talk about today was, obviously surfboards. But I remember we interviewed Devon Howard, and so I got to surf with Devon and I was surfing this like it was a Stu Jensen 94. And I would just paddle. I would just paddle right out the back as far as you can at Little Doom and surf it like Sarno, almost just catch the swell and just get long, big sweeping rides. And Devon's like, you should just be on a glider. And I was like, what's a glider? And then so I just, I just went out and bought an 11 foot Josh Hall, and that's pretty much all I surf all of the time.
Matt Parker- Even further out. You weren't even like another hundred yards out would catch it even out the back. Yeah. It's amazing.
Michael Frampton - Yeah. And then I'm always swapping around boards. But that 11 foot board just taught me so much about surfing. Just the sheer volume and weight and size of the board. Just you have to think about reading the waves so differently and about you know, your the space around you with other people so differently. And then when you finally do jump back on a board, a short board or whatever, I found it so much easier and more fun and easier to sort of be present after having learnt how to surf such a big surfboard. Yo. Have you experienced anything similar with playing around with lots of different boards?
Matt Parker- Yeah, I, um, I, obviously I make boards and so I'm always writing something different. You know, most of the time it's rare that I ride the same board two days in a row. Um, and so I'm very used to, like the initial paddle out where, um, I, I can't try too hard, you know what I mean? I kind of have to just. Feel what the board is going to do and just kind of be open to what it feels like once I'm dropping in and just kind of riding the wave. And so it makes me, um, yeah, it's just a good little lesson every time because you can't, you can't force it. And so, uh, you remain a little bit relaxed and not try to do too much, and then you kind of feel it out in every wave is kind of like a you're learning a little bit more about what the board wants to do and what line it wants to take, and trying to figure out where the gas pedal is. And, and, uh, so that's like the discovery part of surfing for me because I surf, I tend to surf the same place every day. And it's a point break down near, uh, lowers and it's kind of a similar wave, but it's kind of a sectional point break that offers some variety. But it's the same place. You know, I'm surfing in the same spot all the time. And so the variety of boards, um, just kind of changes up. Um, it kind of removes expectations sometimes. I think sometimes if you have a board, you've written a ton and you're kind of like, oh, this is the kind of surfing I want to go do. And these are the, you know, these are the turns I'm going to do or whatever. And when you're surfing a little bit more blind to what the board is going to allow you to do, it just kind of, um, keeps you from having expectations. And then you're kind of, uh, you just find fun in different ways and new experiences every time you surf.
Michael Frampton - So I think that really good top level surfers are doing that on a much more refined and accurate level because they're always so close to where the wave is breaking. There's so much in the source and they're feeling all those little bumps and nooks and obviously those sorts of boards at that speed are ridiculously sensitive. So if they're not tuned in to that, it's just not going to happen. Whereas you and I are surfing bigger boards a little further away from the power source, we kind of can get away with not being tuned in, but when we do, they're aware.
Matt Parker- Yeah, their awareness level is so next level, so high. I like the little nuances and they can feel a lot of they can and can't always communicate verbally, but they definitely know what they're feeling and experiencing in a different way than most regular people.
Michael Frampton - Yeah. You know, what I found that's really [00:10:00] interesting is, all of the pros, well, not all of them. A lot of the pros, when you see them out free surfing or when they take a break off tour, then they're not riding high performance shortboards. You know, Josh Kerr is a great example. Um, you know, even Steph Gilmore and Kelly Slater with fire waves just riding different boards as soon as there's not a camera and a judge looking at them, they're like, I'm on this board. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I go down to the local beach and it's waist high and onshore and it's 11 seconds and there's people out there on toothpicks pumping and getting angry. But the pro even the pros when they're surfing good waves, they're not on those high performance short boards. Are you seeing a similar trend overall in Southern California?
Matt Parker- Uh, yeah. I mean, well, specifically with everybody that all the, all the guys and gals I make boards for. But no, no one that rides for us really does contest surfing. Most everyone is just kind of free surfing. And so they're definitely on the track of surfing, whatever feels good and experiencing a lot of different things. But yeah, Josh is a perfect example. I don't think he's touched a thruster since his last heat up pipe, honestly, when he retired and that was probably five years ago or something like that. Even in good waves and every kind of wave, whether he's in Indo or wherever it is, he's always writing something different. And uh, I think obviously like high performance shortboards surf. Amazing. We all love to watch surfing. We love watching contests and, you know, the sport of it all. It's always exciting and entertaining and all that. But I think that type of board, um, directs you to one type of surfing. There's, you know, like everyone's trying to kind of surf the ideal way that that board kind of pushes you to. And the judging and the contest structure is kind of, um, positioned around that ideal as well. So I think, um, when you remove that, that box that you're trying to operate in and you don't have to do the same turns and all that, you know, you're just freed up to do whatever you want to do. That's always going to be a more fun option. And for me personally, I am someone who makes boards, it's true. That's my favorite thing, is to see, uh, people that can surf at a world class level, see them surf a lot of different boards and see the different places those boards can go when it's put under the feet of very, very talented people. Because, um, because for the most part, you know, the most, most of the surf media, the most surf contests, you see these very high level surfers riding very similar type of equipment. So.
Michael Frampton - Um, yeah, I've always had this analogy in terms of car racing, whereas the pros in a contest, they're in a finely tuned formula one that's customized for their style. Right. And then for some reason, we want to go race around the local racetrack, and we think we need to be in one of those cars. And yeah, sure, that when the average driver is in a high performance car, yes, you can drive it around the track, but man, it's going to be bumpy. It's going to be shaking if you're not constantly turning the car. It's just not going to be as fun as getting in a V8 supercar that's nowhere near as fast or fine tuned, but is a little more. It's got a little more given it still goes fast. So that's what I'm wondering. You see these pros, when they're surfing outside of the contest, they don't necessarily want to be in a finely tuned formula one. They just want to be in a V8 supercar and just have a little less pressure and a little more give. How does that analogy stack up for you? The car racing one?
Matt Parker- Well, I like to me surfing really is about the feeling, right? And like the tactile feeling of driving a car that's fast and that wants to go and that you're feeling it. And there's a little bit of like, uh, you know, you're not going to, you're not going to crash right away, you know, like a regular driver. If they went behind the F1 car, they're probably going to crash pretty quick because they just can't handle it. Right. It's too technical to drive all that kind of stuff. So you get into something that has a better feel. But it is about the feeling. And you know, ultimately that's what we're chasing every time we surf. That's why we want to get another wave, is because you want to get that feeling again. And uh, and so the same with the pros that can surf at the highest level. You know, they're chasing the feeling the contest is like the job side of it. You know, it's ticking the box I feel in to win and do all that. But if they're freed from that, they're chasing the feeling of going fast and finding a tube and not having to fit in as many turns as they as they need to just to get the score, but to actually do the turn where the wave is, allowing them to or not, or just ride the wave.
Michael Frampton - So that makes sense. Well, yeah, because I'm always dumbfounded when you see so many surfers spending so much time and money on taking these high performances. You know, they watch stab in the dark and they want to buy the latest version of the ten short boards that they already own. It really doesn't make much sense to me. And I think things are changing, but there certainly is still a large percentage of surfers that fit in that category. Uh, do you think it's trending the other way with companies like yourself and even, you know, Channel Islands are broadening their range of boards? Um, I.
Matt Parker- Think it's for me, it definitely is the best time to be alive, to be a surfer, because you really have more options nowadays than you ever have in the past, and you really can ride anything. When I was when I was young, as a teenager in the 90s, surfing, it really was you. Everyone kind of had the same board. I rode the same board, no matter the conditions. It was like a six, three, 18.5, two and a quarter rockered out shortboard no matter what. If it was one foot, if it was six foot, whatever. So nowadays you really do like I think everyone's kind of experienced like, oh yeah, I can have a little bit more of a diverse quiver and it's okay if I'm riding a fish one day or I'm riding like a little stretched out worm another day, or if I'm riding a shortboard one day or whatever, it's like there's a little bit more, um, versatility and variety and, um, so it's a it's a great time to be alive, to be a surfer in that way. I think, um, uh, I just think that, yeah, there's just less rules, less rules about it, more enjoyment.
Michael Frampton - Yeah. Yeah. I guess the question is, the impetus of the show is education and inspiration for better surfing, really. And I guess when I take on a client myself personally, um, one of the first things I say to them is like, why do you want to? Why are you on that board? Like, this isn't you're not surfing double overhead barrels. Like that's what their board's made for. Like just try.
Matt Parker- Yeah, I think I've said this before, but I think a lot of, um, uh, just the culture of surfing is a little bit like, no, everyone wants to look competent. Right. And so a lot, a lot of surfing culture is the perception that you put out there. Right? Like, I'm the cool guy. I got the right board, I got I'm not a kook, you know, I'm wearing the right trunk. So I've got the right wetsuit and I've got the right traction pad and whatever it is, I've got the cool label. This is what I'm, you know, because a lot of people are more concerned with what, how others perceive them in the lineup, because sometimes, you know, how you're perceived in the lineup, gives you status and gives you, you know, if you're competent, you can kind of you get more waves and you get a little bit more respect from people around you. And so there's a little bit of a game that people play in trying to, um, project competency and cool and a cool factor. And I'm not a kook. And so sometimes people put too much weight on that and they're more concerned with what they look like on the beach or in the car park than they actually are.
Matt Parker- And then the enjoyment they're actually getting out of it themselves, you know, like, are you actually having fun? If you mentioned like the guys that are flapping around and having a miserable time. There's always people out in the water that are having you kind of wonder sometimes. Do you actually like, what are you actually getting out of this? Do you actually enjoy what you're doing? And, uh, I don't know, every different stroke for different folks. People get different things out of it. And maybe that little social status thing is more important than the actual surfing. And I, I think that's obviously short term thinking because and it's like, that's a hollow chase that you're after because you're never going to be satisfied with that. And you shouldn't be. I don't think you should be spending too much time pursuing things for the approval of others. You know, surfing is kind of a solitary pursuit, right? You're you're the one that's doing it, and you're the one that's riding the wave, and you're the one that's having that moment and feeling it. If you're doing it for what other people think about you, I think you're missing. You're missing the point, you know?
Michael Frampton - So, yeah, well, I definitely fit it in that category for a while. Um, we all do.
Matt Parker- At some point, you know, in a little bit. We all do. You know everyone? No. Like I said, everybody who surfs wants to look competent. Kelly Slater doesn't want to be a kook. He wants to be the cool guy in the lineup. We all kind of have that feeling to a certain degree.
Michael Frampton - Um, and there's something to be said, you know, surfing that high performance shortboard in all types of conditions you will develop a very intimate relationship with that surfboard. And when the waves do turn on, you're going to be pretty used to it. And then, you know, you're probably going to have a better surf on that day. Um, but was there a point in your surfing [00:20:00] life where that changed, like where you started riding different boards, more volume, etc.?
Matt Parker- Um, yeah. Like I said, I grew up in the like, I started surfing in the late 80s, early, and then through the 90s, I was a teenager and then in the early 90s and, uh, back then it was really about just being competent enough and you just riding what everybody else wrote. And that was really all that was available was just kind of your standard shortboards for, um, I guess for, for me as, like a general public, you know, not in, you know, I didn't have any my dad surfed a little bit when he was young, but I didn't I didn't come from like a long line of family surfing and all that kind of stuff. And so probably I, I started getting curious, more curious about surfboards. Um, and that's kind of what led me into shaping a little bit is that I was interested. I, you know, you get back then this is pre-internet really, you know, but you would get little. To see different little videos. You'd see different things that were just like, oh, you know, like, that looks fun. That looks like more fun. I was surfing Newport Beach. It's two foot closeouts most of the time it's not good. It's, you know, it's hard. Like surfing is hard out there and you're riding equipment that's bad.
Matt Parker- So you just have a lot of frustrating sessions and you just like, just gotta, you know, just you would see videos, you'd see guys in good waves. And so that was always like I was interested in, um, trying different boards to get a different experience. You know, I was competent enough, but I was by no means pro or anything like that. I was good enough out in the lineup to get waves and to surf and fine, but it was not. But I always felt like those boards held me back, too, you know, just the normal boards, because they kind of, you know, they you just have like, it can't be this frustrating all the time. So the interest in different boards. So I would go to different shops and I would want to get a board that was different and I could never really find one. You know, it can never really find what I was looking for. And then, um, even when I would order custom boards, you know, from local shapers, you would try to explain what I had in my brain, what I was like trying to go for. And it was never it never like it was probably my fault for not communicating that clearly what I was really after, but it never was it.
Matt Parker- And so I was, uh, in design school and art school and taking all these like, sculpture and drawing and painting classes and stuff. And so it was just kind of a natural extension to get a blank and some tools and kind of experiment and just try to make something without any restrictions of what it had to look like, because I was just fooling around, you know. So that was probably the, the, the interest. And that was probably at the time when, like, um, things were coming more online and you had more access to just different things other people were doing. And so you could kind of see, uh, you know, your world was kind of opened up as far as, like, oh, there's like other shapers and all these places making different things. And there are a lot of cool things out there that I just hadn't really experienced and I didn't have. I had never tried or felt or seen in person, but like, it just kind of expanded what was possible. And, the interest level and surfing really grew. And my fun level expanded too, because it was like everything was opened up more.
Michael Frampton - Um, and then it sounds like the developer or the birth of album surfboards was quite organic. You saw essentially a gap in the market, right?
Matt Parker- Yeah. Why? Initially, for years I was shaping boards with no, no intention of it being a thing, being a business or anything. It was more I just wanted to try different things. And, um, the creation, the creation part of it was really fun, like just designing and trying something and the tactile thing of making something with your hands and then seeing it finished and then going and writing it was very addicting. It was very, um, yeah, just kind of opened my mind a lot. And it was just it's just it made, um, the exploration process of trying different boards, satisfying even if the surf was bad. So in the old days, you know, as a kid when I was a teenager and you're trying to just, like, do all the moves you see in the videos and you're having frustrating sessions because the waves aren't good most of the time, and you're writing boards that aren't good. You just surfing wasn't as fun. And so when I was, when I was making boards and exploring and trying these different types of shapes, just going out and seeing that it worked and making it like get down the line and get the feeling of speed that I was kind of envisioning with it was satisfying.
Matt Parker- So the waves didn't have to be good, and my surfing didn't have to be amazing. And I was still, like, very satisfied and validated and surf stoked. I was inspired to go make another board and surf more because I wanted to try out these things that I was, um, that I was playing around with, but. I did that for years. Hundreds, probably a couple thousand boards before it was even, like a real, um, business I was doing. I was a designer by trade, and so I was doing like graphic design work, and that was kind of what my, uh, employment or job focus was, and was making boards was like this side, this just kind of creative art project on the side that I could just have fun with and I could usually like, um, sell, sell one to pay for another one and, you know, find it, you know, put it up like in the used rack at a shop and sell it on consignment. Just turn it over enough to learn the craft without any pressure of having to be a professional at doing it.
Michael Frampton - Yeah. So. So did your entrepreneurial journey begin with the album agency?
Matt Parker- Yeah, exactly. So that was I was running my own business and just doing client work, client design work that way. And um, the building the surfboards and kind of treating it like my own little micro brand was kind of also an extension of the graphic design side. So I was able to kind of like, you know, you're doing you're doing work on for clients in industries that you're not really interested in, you know, and I was like, here's, here's a chance for me to play around with design and create it and kind of like make this a fun little, like. You know, brand for fun without any, you know, strings attached. Yeah. That's pretty.
Michael Frampton - And what inspired you to make the leap? To turn the surfboards into the main business?
Matt Parker- Uh, there was just, uh. Well, I was doing it at night, so I would be working, like, in the day, like client work and, um, uh, designing and and, uh, getting projects done. And then I'd go home and have dinner with the family and then put the little kids to bed and go in my garage or go in my backyard and shape at night. And I was doing this a lot. So I was working a lot. I was working a full time plus job and then shaping on the side and demanding just kind of like, you know, we're just kind of we would get out, you know, I was making boards that were probably interesting and that resonated with other people that they hadn't seen either. And there was something unique about what we were doing. And so, um, the age of when we are, you know, in this last 15 years where things are just more accessible and people can find you easier, you know, it just kind of the awareness of what I was doing got out there probably faster than if it was 30 years ago. No, the people in my little community would have known. But then. So then people would just want to order a board, and then that just kind of gets to this, uh, point where, uh, the demand kind of exceeds like the time on the other side. And so just kind of realized like, oh, there's, uh, I think and by that point, too, I had made enough boards and had enough awareness of, like, just the surf industry and kind of where things, where things were that you could kind of see opportunities, uh, or openings in the market. And like, here we have something different to say, and there's people that are interested in what we're doing. So yeah, let's make a little run at it.
Michael Frampton - Yeah. Well you mentioned supply and demand. I mean that is why business exists. So obviously the culture is changing. You know, people are more interested in, uh, you know, different shapes. And, uh, I would say a higher level of longevity. You get a much more longevity out of a surfboard like yours as opposed to a pop out, um, white shortboard for sure.
Matt Parker- I think the other thing, too, was I made boards. I made some boards for some good surfers, some pros and things like that, and they worked really well. And so there was kind of like this validation of like, oh, okay. Like, I mean, I knew like I was like I said, I was competent enough to know that they worked for my level of surfing, and I was having an amazing time at having fun. And my friends were. But then, um, when you when I made some boards for guys that could surf really well, and then they had more fun on that too. It was kind of like, oh, you know, maybe there really is something a little different that we're doing that does work and makes sense of like we should kind of should follow that path because there's, there's something there that hasn't been tapped into yet, and it resonates with guys that can surf at the highest level. So we should kind of pursue that.
Michael Frampton - Um, that leads me into a question I have about let's get into your designs a little bit. So. I remember I first got into surfing fish surfboards. I had a Christiansen fish that I used to surf a lot. And then I remember one day the waves turned [00:30:00] on, um, and rising swell. And next thing, next thing you know, I'm surfing almost double overhead waves. And I find man to to be able to surf that fish in those real good solid waves, I would have to move my feet closer to the inside rail to do a bottom turn, and then I go up to do a top turn. It would just slide outside. This is not the right surfboard, but at the same time, I don't want to be surfing a high performance shortboard. And then you look at someone like Josh Kerr surfing the twins men or the, um, insanity. I think it is in the mentor wise in double overhead waves getting barreled and doing airs on what is, I guess, hybrid or alternative high performance shape. Now, is that the kind of board that only he can ride in those waves? Or is it designed so that anyone can have a good time in those overseas waves?
Matt Parker- Well, I think there's a misnomer to me, there was always a misnomer in the marketplace that high performance shortboards are for like real surfing and alternative boards are just, you know, for fun or whatever. And, um, I think if you look at the trajectory of surf of surfboards from, you know, longboards logs up into the early 60s, mid 60s to how quickly it progressed and revolutionized, like what people were riding in such a short window of time. There's so many, um, like, design steps along the way and different types of boards along the way that, like, didn't get their full, uh, fleshing out. Right. So there's a lot of ideas in that time and I, I mean, Twin Fins is a perfect example of that. Like where twin fins were really at like their height from, you know, 78 to 81 or something like that, or, you know, 77, like, what is it, 3 or 4 years or something like that, where twin fins were like the, you know, high performance little hot dog board that people were riding and that was with kind of like, I mean, nowadays, like that window of time is a is a blink, you know, three years. It's like most of us have boards that we've surfed for five, six, eight years. You know what I mean? So three years is nothing. And so, you know, you just see like, oh, the fins they were writing, they didn't have enough time to develop the right fins for them, and they didn't have enough time to think about fin placement and, and designing the rail shape and bottom contour to fit like where that goes and like what type of wave that needs to be surfed in and what blanks were available and different glassing, you know, layups and all that.
Matt Parker- It was just like it was just too fast. And so, um, I've always felt like, um, alternative boards, twin fins are not, um, like a, a cop out of, like, I'm just I'm just going to screw around. Like, it's like any sort of design, any, any, any place. I'm going to take a surfboard. There's like an intended, uh, performance or design intention for that concept. And so the concept is meant to perform at a high level. It's just a different way of doing it. And um, and so like with Josh, those boards, like he has more fun and more freedom, more speed, they're easier to turn on a twin fin, you know, and so if you can make them and design it to be able to handle any type of wave, there's there's certainly obviously capable and validated by him and others in those types of waves. And so it's it's just a matter of, um, uh, backing it, backing the concept and then proving the concept and then iterating the idea and the concept enough to prove it out and refine it and get it right so that it actually does work in those types of ways.
Matt Parker- But I think sometimes when, uh, like, uh, you know, shapers or whatever, if, if they're focused on one thing, if they're focused on high performance shortboards, their version of a twin fin or a fish is like a is not the main design intention. It's almost like a little, it's like a spin off of their shortboard idea. And it's like they take their shortboard idea and they kind of fatten it a little bit and just put two fins in it instead of three and, you know, maybe make it a swallowtail. We'll call it the alternative board. And to me, I'm more focused on the concept of a high performance swim fin that maybe surfs better or is more of an advantage than a shortboard would be in those waves. And so it's like, how would I design it? Where do the fins go? What does that mean for the bottom contour? Like what dimensions are we talking about. You know, and so there's so like the funnest thing about surfing is there's so many variables in the, in the types of waves in the swell and the wind conditions and the interval and the where you're surfing, the type of surfing you want to do. And so there's kind of like these endless rabbit holes of design and conceptual thinking. You can go down and create whatever. And it's so fun too, because I mean, I think surfers should be, should be very grateful and realize how fortunate that we all are.
Michael Frampton - That we we we.
Matt Parker- Um, participate in this pursuit where we can make all sorts of different things all the time. I mean, if you're like, if you're driving or you're, uh, skiing or whatever it is, it's much more difficult to you're not going you're not going to go make a, a ten different concepts of skis that you're going to go try out every time, every different time you go surfing. But with the surfboards you can make, you know, I can go surf today, have a session out there, get the pros and cons of the Board of Writing. I come back to design something based on that idea, shape it that day, gloss it, and be surfing something next week.
Michael Frampton - Mm.
Matt Parker- Something that I was intending to design for. That's just like a, it's just a cool thing that we're, we all kind of. And surfing small enough surf industry is small enough that if you're, uh, uh, motivated like you can have access to any of that, it's relatively, you know, for what that is for the for the, uh, access to that kind of R&D and design like options for different types of boards. It's relatively expensive, not super cost prohibitive. You know, if you're if you're into it, if you're committed to it, it's affordable enough. You can, you know.
Michael Frampton - Mhm. Yeah I think the importance of a quiver is. Yeah I mean I don't know whether that's why you chose the name album. But you know it makes me think of a good album like Pearl jam ten which is ten really good songs, all with different moods but still the same album. You know, you can sit, you can sit down and listen to the album, or you can sit down and listen to one song and I almost see a. A surfboard quiver is like that. It's, you know, has ten surfboards that are for you, but for the different types of moods and the waves that you're surfing. But it does make me think, because there's also that Swiss Army knife surfboard that kind of does pretty good in most waves and tends to excel in sort of head high. Good waves, for sure. What's that? What's that surfboard for you within your quiver? What would that Swiss army knife board be?
Matt Parker- Well, that would probably be like a board I would travel with. Right. Because you're something that you would have that you'd want to have, um, versatility for. And that would probably be like Victor's model. Like a banana. Bunches like a quad, asymmetrical quad. It's kind of a hybrid. It's definitely a performance board, but it definitely is easier to go fast. And it paddles a little bit better. And it turns out to be super easy. And it's versatile in a lot of kinds of ways. Um, it's probably something like that. Um, honestly, uh, if you have the right mindset, though, almost any board in your quiver should be able to fill that slot, I think.
Michael Frampton - Yeah, that's a good point.
Matt Parker- Yep. It's all I mean, there's a to me there's there's, um, you know, there's sometimes there's people sometimes we all do it where we're no matter what board you're surfing, people try to surf the same way. Right. They have like they're the way I bought them turned. This is my turn. I do, and this is my little re-entry idea. And you'll watch them out there. And it doesn't matter if they're riding their fish or mid length or short board or whatever it is, they kind of surf the same. And uh, that's fine. That's totally fine. But I, I think it's good to, um, be a little bit more open to what the board wants to do and the type of surfing that board is going to allow you to do and, and how it might open up the kind of surfing you do and the enjoyment you get out of that kind of surfing so that it makes you a little bit more versatile in what your approach is like. Victor Bernardo, who writes for us, is like is a really good example of that because I think a lot of times people when they're like when they're building a quiver, they are a little bit too narrow in scope or what like range, they're they're going for like I it happens all the time where I'll have people that they kind of they want their fish and their short board and a twin fin and everything to kind of be all within, like a little volume range, like, here's my leader, here's the leader I [00:40:00] ride, and my boards need to be within 30 to 30 1.5l.
Matt Parker- And they try to fit like all their boards. And it's like, I think you're missing out if you're thinking about it in that way. So Victor is this perfect example because he's a young man, 26, 27 years old, the highest level professional surfer can surf as well as anybody in the world. Um. Competed on the show, did all that stuff right. But if you look at his quiver, it is like. From five 0 to 8 zero and everything in between. I mean, obviously he has access to a lot of boards, which helps. It makes it easy to ride a lot of stuff. But still his mindset is like his, if you were just talking about what volume he writes, he writes from 29l to 42l, you know what I mean? So his range is like this and these are all. Different types of what I would call performance sports. So even yesterday or this week we were in Hawaii.
Matt Parker- He's still there right now. But we were on the North Shore this past week and he was riding A68 bungee roundtail, which is normal. His normal version is like a five 8 or 5 nine, and he was riding the six eight roundtail version that was plus volume. It was actually one of Brendan Morrison's boards that Margo left there in Hawaii. When Margo went back to Australia, Victor took it out and got a couple amazing waves of pipe, you know, on that on that board. And so it's just I and definitely not limiting his performance, actually enhancing his performance because it was something that unique that he wouldn't have maybe taken out normally, but it just kind of opened up his surfing. And I think if you remain a little bit more, um, open, open to what the board wants to do and what the waves are asking you to do, you will just have more fun. Yeah. Surfing gets to, like you were saying, just like it started right when you're riding the glider and then you go jump onto your shore board, your surfing is better because you're kind of your fundamentals are better. Your timing is a little different. You know, your mindset is a little different.
Michael Frampton - So yeah, I think every board you ride opens up. You have to read the waves a little differently and look for different lines. And like you said, your timing has to be better. Or maybe it can be more lax or you're looking for a different type of wave or whatever. So I think it really just helps you to read the ocean better. I think that's the main reason why different surfboards, uh, can improve your surfing when you jump back on your favorite board because you just read the wave with more detail. Writing that glider changed my realization of how big and how fast of a section I can actually make because those boards go ridiculously fast. Um, yeah. And I surprised myself many times with what I could, what section I could get around and that literally translated to surfing other boards. I'm going to try and make that section. I'm going to get a bit lower and stay on the whitewash a bit longer. And lo and behold, surfing that big crazy board just had me making different types of waves and changing my whole perspective on reading the ocean. Um, it sounds like I agree with that. It sounds like Victor Victor needs to go longer as well.
Matt Parker- He does. He rides bigger. But I think the point of a querer is to make you surf as much as possible. So no matter what the waves are, you have the right board to have fun that day. And that's really the, to me, the thing that improves you as a surfer the most is water time. So if you're surfing a lot, if you're surfing more days than you're not, you're going to get better. You read the ocean better your time, your timing is better, your strength, your paddle strength is better. All that stuff kind of comes into play the more you surf. And so if you have a quiver that motivates you to want to surf and makes you kind of no matter what the waves are, you're like, oh, I'm stoked to go out today because I have the right board and I'm going to have more fun. And you see those guys struggling and you're having fun and they're miserable. It's like, oh yeah, you made the right choice, and you have the right board to just get out in the water a lot.
Michael Frampton - Yeah, I think you nailed it that that's that is the point of a quiver. So it's as simple as that. And you're right. I mean, the best thing that ultimately that you can do for your surfing is not only to surf more, but to surf more waves. And if you're on the right surfboard for the condition, you are going to catch more waves when it's knee high. Here at my local point break and there's no one out, I'm I'm literally giddy because I have an 11 foot Josh Hall and no one can compete with that because no one.
Matt Parker- How did you ship that thing to New Zealand? How did you get that point there? That's what I want to know.
Michael Frampton - Yeah, I know, it.
Matt Parker- Just.
Michael Frampton -I, I filled a container with all of my stuff. So I've got, I've got my weight, I got my weighing rich nine eight and everything. Everything here. So how. How would you if I just asked you an open question? What is a surfboard?
Matt Parker- Uh, well, there's the, you know, it's foam and fiberglass and resin and all that. Right. Uh, but I think it's just it's a tool to allow you to go ride the waves. So whatever that is, it, um, comes in, comes in many forms, that's for sure. Yeah. Uh, I think it's, uh, depending on, you know, the a surfboard for pipeline, like we were where we were at last week is not a surfboard for Upper Trestles, where I surf most every other day. Very, very different tools for those different, different types of waves. And so I think it's a tool that gets you to, to catch a wave and ride a wave. Yeah.
Michael Frampton - Simple. How would you describe your current relationship with surfing in the ocean, and how has it evolved over the years?
Matt Parker- Um, I surf a lot. To me, it's the most important thing in my job as a designer and shaper and surfboard manufacturer is being in the water as much as I can. So I, I surf 5 or 6 days a week. And, uh, it's kind of a like daily ritual getting out there. And so I surf a lot. Um, I, I'm 47 now, so I'm definitely past my peak of, uh, I've my, my better my best days are behind me as far as, like strength and ability level and all that kind of stuff. But I definitely have more fun surfing now than I ever have in my life. And, uh, I get more enjoyment out of it and I have a better perspective on it. And so, um, you just appreciate different things about sessions that you, you skipped and you missed when you're young and immature. And so, you know, with age comes wisdom. And so I definitely yeah, I appreciate it. Every session I go out I just have a better mindset for, uh, just appreciating the opportunity to go out and surf. I live in a place where I have things like surf boards to ride and just waves most every day that are rideable. It's a real blessing. So I think that my mindset makes me appreciate it more now than ever. So. Mhm.
Michael Frampton - Yeah I like that. What's I'm going to go back to. So we talked about the Swiss army, the single board. What if you could take what if you could choose three boards to travel with or just to have what those three boards be.
Matt Parker- It's, you know it's funny we were because we're talking about quivers. Right. And I'm actually like, I, I don't have a great quiver because I don't have boards. I hold on to that long. The problem for me is that I'm always, uh, I'm always doing R&D and and working on new models and new boards. And so it's, it's ever changing. So my answer would probably be that if you asked me next month, it would probably be different than it would be a month ago. So it changes all the time. But if I was going to like where we live, going down to Mexico, go down there all the time and surf the points, I would for sure take some form of a fish. I've been riding, um, a version of Asher Pacey's Sunstone with a little hip, and I've been riding it as a quad a bunch lately, and I've been riding it with, um, twin fin like upright twin fins in the lead boxes and little small trailers and the quad trailer boxes, and been having a good old time on that, so I would definitely bring one of those. I'd probably bring a, uh, like a bigger board, like, uh, like one of Margot's models in Vesper or a Delma, which is like a stretched out, kind of like a slot channel. Concave bonds or little bottom quad. I definitely bring one of those. I can hang in good surf, too. And they're really nimble, easy to turn for a big board. I'll ride those six, 8 to 7, 2 to 7, four, seven, six. I have an 80I take out on that all the time. Um, definitely take that. And then I'd probably take something asymmetrical, some sort of a disorder model, which is like my high performance kind of like foolish rails outlines shifted and [00:50:00] or a bungee. Like I was saying, it's probably something to at least like to cover the bases. Yep.
Michael Frampton - Okay, cool. I'm taking a whale shark, a Vespa and an insanity.
Matt Parker- Oh that's good. That's a good call to the, uh, yeah. The whale shark would tick that glider box for you for sure. Uh, so I.
Michael Frampton - Want one so bad just by reading the description. That's it. Yeah.
Matt Parker- Uh.
Matt Parker- When you're talking about that build up of that section and you're just in so early and you have fun for me, the fun of those boards is that kinetic energy of like, the speed building, like you build the speed and maintain the speed and build the speed some more. And it's just a very satisfying feeling. It's just me and I. We make longboards and I enjoy longboarding. But I prefer it if I'm riding a big bull like a big board. I prefer a glider for a big twin, like a whale shark. I have a little bit more fun just because I. I probably surf more off the back foot than I do in a walking and walking the nose and all that kind of stuff.
Michael Frampton - So yeah. Same. Yeah. It's amazing if you, if you got your if you're used to it and you get your timing right, you can step back on an 11 foot board and do a cutback. And like it's so satisfying in the and you're right, it's the main reason the maintenance of the momentum of one of those big boards is such an incredible feeling. And it's amazing what sections you can make. And I've had some of the longest rides ever. Oh, I bet in and on what most people would seem as unmakeable waves just by taking that high line and trusting it. It's uh. Yeah, it's an incredible feeling.
Matt Parker- Riding gliders is like it's own form of riding a foil board. It's like you're almost ride those boards. You ride those waves that, um, you know, no one else can really get into depth. Length of ride is insane on those. Yeah.
Michael Frampton - And it's, um, Joel Tudor says it's the ultimate goal, right? Is Skip Frye.
Matt Parker- Oh, yeah, for sure.
Michael Frampton - It's the end game.
Michael Frampton -Uh, but it's, uh, I mean, I've, I've surfed that board in. I was a few years ago. We had it in Malibu. There's a little doom. There's an outer reef that breaks when you get those, those 18 second northwest swells. I took my glider out there and it was double overhead barreling, and I was like, wow, maybe I shouldn't have bought this. But I managed to get such a high line and set the rail so early that I could just avoid the barrel and still have and still catch the waves and have such a rad time. So there's such versatile boards if you know how to surf them.
Matt Parker- And you're doing your own step offs.
Michael Frampton - Basically.
Matt Parker- Oh it is towed in out the back. Yeah. It's just like being able to paddle that fast. It's amazing.
Michael Frampton - Oh yeah. And that's the thing. You can pedal around so much. That's what I like about them so much too if you can see a section over there. You can just paddle over to it.
Matt Parker- And that board's going to last you forever. 20 years from now, you'll still be searching roughly. You'll have that. You'll have that thing forever. Yeah. Which is special.
Michael Frampton - Yeah. Was that so? Obviously it sounds like you've experienced writing. Was that the inspiration for the whale shark writing? Gliders.
Matt Parker- Yeah. Just write just just because like I was saying, I'm not like I'm not a longboarder. That's walking on the nose. And you know, I'm more into just trim and glide and that feeling. And obviously you want to have a board that you can ride for us on those longboard days when it's really small and it's just soft and just little open faces. And so that was my preference was to ride that style of board. And so it was. It's just for me it's like an extension of the fish. Obviously it's taking A56 fish and making it ten six and so on. So the same kind of principle is a little bit for me. It's just putting it with a really long rail and with a different, you know, sort of rocker to fit that wave face.
Michael Frampton - Yeah. Yeah. Just a side note for listeners, if you haven't written a longboard or a log, don't go out and buy a glider. It's, it's get used to a long board first because there are a lot of surfboards. And you're if you don't know how to ride them, you're just going to hurt someone.
Matt Parker- You're nine. Four was a perfect little entry point.
Michael Frampton - Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Now soft tops. I wanted to ask you about soft tips. You guys are making soft tops. I haven't seen or touched or ridden one of your soft tops, but they look quite different to the Cosco or the int style ones. What's your point of difference with soft tops?
Matt Parker- We make them in a few different places. We have uh, some that we make that are like injected foam. And so it's where we actually took my shape to board and we made a mold, I shaped a few boards and we made molds off of these finished shaped boards. And that allows you to really put in design detail into that mold. And so like one of them has a little channel bottom, you can put real thin boxes in them. Um, they're obviously not high performance because they're phonies, you know what I mean? But there's a different mindset. There's the right day for that. Even if you surf well, obviously for beginners, they're great because you can surf them into the sand and they just float easy to catch waves. They're kind of a little bit um, they're a little bit slower. So the pacing of them kind of matches the wave when you're just kind of learning to like, ride the trim and ride the like the speed of the wave. So for people, learning is great, but for people that know how to surf, it's like those days when it's closing out and it's on the sand, or you just want to go out and have fun and fool around.
Matt Parker- It's something different. So, um, so those ones we do and those are made in the US and there's just like injection foam molded soft tops. And then we also make some in Peru that are, uh, by the surfers in Peru, which are pretty sick. They're kind of more, they've got, um, a foam core and they have stringers and they're kind of like a slick bottom, like, uh, like some of the soft tops, you see. But they actually have like, real shape and they have a better flex to them. And there's real thin boxes. And those are kind of like, uh, a kind of a cool in-between where if you're like a kid or you're someone who's like kind of progressing, it's a great board to kind of progress on because you can actually turn them and you can surf them pretty decently and they're less, you know, less expensive and all that. They're made in a surf country by surfers, which is pretty cool.
Michael Frampton - Yeah. Cool. Yeah. I've got a 96 INT that I absolutely love. Um and I've always huh.
Matt Parker- Ah It is got really good.
Michael Frampton - Yeah. Yeah.
Michael Frampton - And it lasted quite a while actually. It's still going. I actually surfed it every day when I was doing lessons for a long time and then would just end up catching loads of waves on it. I love them so much because it's a boat, right? The nine six int, it's a thick, big surfboard, but because it I think because it flexes so much, it's you can ride it in lots of different types of waves and actually have it actually really turn it much easier than the same amount of surfboard if it was a stiff sort of a is that why? And then you watch Jamie O'Brien surf them and pipe like.
Matt Parker- Well, it's just funny.
Matt Parker- It’s sometimes it looks like he has the right board for them which is insane. He's obviously a.
Matt Parker- Freak but that's.
Matt Parker- But to me the point of it is, it's like it's a mindset thing. When you're riding those boards, you're kind of like, you're not you're definitely not trying to win a contest. When you're riding one of those, you're definitely going out there to have fun and kind of goof around, which is really good. This is a good reset for surfing, I think, as you kind of, you know. You can't try too hard. We just.
Matt Parker- Got out there and.
Matt Parker- It's much easier to kind of give, give a wave away to someone else. You're not you're not going to be back paddling people to get waves when you're on those. And so you're it's just it's a good mindset to reset and have fun on them. And that's why it's amazing how many sessions you have on those where you have a lot of fun, because your mindset is in a good place and you're not you're not overdoing it, you're not overcooking it, and you're better. Perspective.
Michael Frampton - Yeah, yeah, I guess you're not too worried about it cracking. If you miss time, something close to the sand or the board hits you a little bit, it's not as bad. Yeah, I've always enjoyed it. I've always enjoyed the novelty of riding a soft top. And it's stoked to see you guys making some, some, some more refined looking ones.
Matt Parker- Yeah. I mean, the idea is obviously still there. The point is that they're soft tops. But if we can kind of come at it from a different angle, there's no need for us to go to the same factory that Wave storm or Cat surf makes and then just put different graphics on a soft top. Those already exist, right? Like we don't need to just have our that's just another commodity. We don't, we don't need to make another one of those. But if we can like if we can make something that's a little unique or that offers something different from everything else that's out there, and it gives a different feeling and we explore different things, then cool. We'll try it out and we'll give it a go. So.
Michael Frampton - Um, cool. Well, Matt, thank you so much for your time. I got one more question I want to leave you with before we sign off, which is what's your best and worst surf advice? That you ever received?
Matt Parker- Yeah, I would see. I would say me too. But the worst would be.
Matt Parker- I mean, the.
Matt Parker- Best would definitely be like we've been talking about is like, uh, I've said this and I've said this before, this is kind of like my running theme a little bit as far as, like, choose the board, you know, when you're going to decide what you're going to ride. Like, think about if there was no one else on the beach and no one else is out in the water like you're talking about that day when you're happy and you're the only one out. Like, what would you actually ride? What do you actually really have the most fun surfing on? And that could be a short board. It could be a high performance short board. You could be. That's the day you take it out because you're not, you know, you're kind of kooky on it, but you want to get good and that's what you want to get out of it. But to me it's like I pick the board that if I don't do it to for the approval of others, you know, like choose what you really want to ride and what you really want to experience and just go do that and go have fun and I think you'll have the most fun. Um, I'm trying to think, like what? Uh, maybe that, um, you need to have an epoxy board for a wave pool. That's the worst.
Matt Parker- That's that. That's it. I don't know how applicable that is, but.
Michael Frampton - I think it's going to be more and more applicable very soon.
Matt Parker- Well, I think and maybe that goes in line with what I think there are in surfing. There shouldn't be hard and fast rules. You know, sometimes there's like these perceptions and there's hard and fast rules like this is what you got to do and this is the way you gotta do it. And I don't like surfing. Doesn't have to like who says who don't have to do.
Matt Parker- It's that way.
Michael Frampton - Yeah. There's a famous surfer I can't remember. Is it Kelly Slater? I think he surfs a door.
Michael Frampton - Yeah, you can. You can surf anything. Even an old door.
Matt Parker- Exactly, exactly. I know a table. I think he surfs a table, like upside down.
Michael Frampton - Yeah, I think so. Yeah. And isn't there a video with Taj Burrow and Chris Ward all surfing, all sorts of objects. Yeah. So yeah, there's no rules, right?
Matt Parker- Like, why are we doing this? What are we doing this for? We want to have fun. Just be out in the ocean. So.
Michael Frampton - Yeah. Exactly. Uh, well, Matt, thank you so much for your time, man. Appreciate it.
Matt Parker- Yeah.
Matt Parker- Great to chat with you. Cool.
Michael Frampton - All right. Simple as that. Thanks, man.
Matt Parker- Yeah. Good to meet you.
Michael Frampton - You too.
Matt Parker on the Surf Mastery Podcast
97 Guy Kawasaki - Tech Guru Discovers Surfing at 60
Jun 25, 2024
Welcome to Surf Mastery Podcast, where we explore the fascinating intersections of life, sports, and the pursuit of challenges. In this episode, our host Michael John Frampton sits down with Guy Kawasaki to discuss the joys and trials of picking up surfing at 60, his unique philosophy on parenting and life, and the profound lessons learned along the way.
He is well-known for his influential role as Apple's Chief Evangelist in the 1980s and his significant contributions to Canva. Beyond his professional achievements, his passion for surfing, which he took up in his 60s is a profound metaphor for life's lessons.
Episode Highlights:
Surfing at Sixty: Guy shares his inspiring journey of starting to surf at the age of 60, motivated by his children's passions. Unlike many parents who impose their hobbies on their children, Guy believes in embracing what his children love, leading him to take up surfing and hockey later in life.
Parenting Philosophy: Guy discusses his approach to parenting, emphasizing the importance of supporting and engaging in his children's interests rather than directing them.
Life Lessons from Surfing: Surfing has not just been a sport for Guy but a source of life lessons. He talks about the complexities and unpredictability of surfing, drawing parallels between managing waves and life's challenges.
Humorous Anecdotes: From confusing directions underwater to humorous interactions in the surf community, Guy brings a light-hearted perspective to the challenges of learning to surf.
Persistence and Adaptability: Guy reflects on the broader implications of persistence in surfing, comparing it to career and personal life, where adaptability and resilience are crucial.
Insights on Book Writing: Discussing his concise approach to writing, Guy emphasizes the importance of distilling vast amounts of information into accessible insights, mirroring his practical approach to life.
Key Quotes:
"Rather than me forcing them to take up what I love, I let them determine what I should take up based on what they love."
"The first time I actually caught a wave and stood up, it was magic. Where else can you get this feeling?"
"You can sit out there in the water looking for that perfect wave all day and never turn and paddle. The same thing applies to life."
Michael Frampton: Welcome back to the Surf Mastery podcast. I am your host, Michael Frampton, and today's guest is Guy Kawasaki. You may have heard that name. He's very famous in Silicon Valley, especially for his early role and involvement with Apple. He's gone on to do a lot of projects since then. Too many to mention in this short intro, but one of his most recent projects is a very successful 200-plus episode podcast called 'Remarkable People', and he recently released a new book called 'Think Remarkable'. Based on those interviews, and the main reason that I wanted to get him on the show is because he started surfing at 60. Yes, six zero. Started surfing at 60. So yes, Guy has a very unique perspective on beginning surfing, and I was very excited when he accepted the invite to come on the show, and he did not disappoint. So without further ado, I will fade in my conversation with Guy Kawasaki. Hello, Guy, how are you?
Guy Kawasaki: I'm good. I can hear you now. Yes.
Michael Frampton: Excellent. And I've got you. Right. And it's recording. It looks like all the technical stuff is out of the way.
Guy Kawasaki: Don't get overconfident. The day is young.
Michael Frampton: It sure is. Well, and your lust for surfing. That's also quite young. Starting at 60. My gosh, that is. That's very late in life to start surfing. What inspired you to start?
Guy Kawasaki: What inspired me was that my daughter in particular became an avid and competitive surfer. And I kind of have a different parenting perspective and philosophy. I think many parents, what they do is they inadvertently or advertently force their kids to take up what they're interested in. So if you're a golfer, your kid's golf, you're a surfer, your kid's surf. If you are a, I don't know, physicist, your kids take up physics or violin or whatever. Yeah, in my family it worked differently. So rather than forcing the kids to take up what I loved, they would force me to take up what I said that wrong rather than I take up what I could speak English. English is my first language rather than me forcing them to take up what I love. I let they determine what I should take up based on what they love. And so they loved surfing and they loved hockey. So I took up hockey at 44, and I took up surfing at 60 because that's what my kids are into.
Michael Frampton: Oh, I love that, you're a good dad and that's an awesome philosophy and I actually have the same philosophy my kids got into football when they were quite young, and I just started playing with them, even though I never grew up playing it. I never liked the game, but now I actually love the game and have a strong appreciation for it.
Guy Kawasaki: So when you say football, you mean American oblong football or European-like round waffle? Oh okay. Okay. Soccer.
Michael Frampton: Yeah.
Guy Kawasaki: Because if you took up American football at a late age, it's hard to get 20, 21 other guys out there with helmets killing each other so.
Michael Frampton: Oh yeah. It's a rough sport. I mean, I grew up playing rugby, so I'm no stranger to that sort of world. But, it's not something you do when you're a or certainly not something you take up when you're older. It's a brutal sport.
Guy Kawasaki: So I think.
Michael Frampton: That thing can be pretty brutal, too. I mean, I'm sure you've had some gnarly wipeouts in your learning curve.
Guy Kawasaki: Well, listen, my sweet spot is maybe 3 to 4 at the most. Okay? Like, I am perfectly happy at 1 to 2ft. My daughter surfs at Mavericks and stuff, but that's not me, but I will tell you that, there have been times where in, like, a one-foot wave, I fall down and I lose perspective and reference and I'm like paddling, trying to get back up to the surface and I hit my head on the bottom because I was going the wrong way. I've done some very kooky things, I assure you.
Michael Frampton: So I'm interested to know, like, you're a smart guy. I'm sure when you decided to start surfing, what was your first entry point like? Did you get a lesson with someone? Did you just buy a board and jump in? How did you go about it?
Guy Kawasaki: Listen, when you start surfing at 60, well, one would hope that in 60 years you've acquired some kind of street smartness. So you figure out that, you're just not going to go to Costco and buy $150 board and then go out to Mavericks and decide to surf and, you know, with your goggles and your GoPro and your helmet and your zinc on your face. So the first thing I did was I took lessons. I took lessons in Hawaii, I took lessons in India, I took lessons in Santa Cruz. I took lessons at Cowell's and at Jacks. I kind of figured out that, when you start that late, you've got to accelerate the pace. And the way to accelerate the pace is to get instruction. Not by hanging out with Groms all day, trying to surf during the summer.
Michael Frampton: Yeah. So you sort many different opinions on instructions as well. That's a great strategy. Was there one particular lesson that stood out to you?
Guy Kawasaki: Every lesson was difficult. I started paddle surfing. I don't know why I started paddle surfing, but anyway, so I started with paddle boards and then a surf instructor here in Santa Cruz was just who was coaching my daughter at the time. He definitely established the, should I say, pecking order in surfing, and let's just say that paddle boarding is beneath prone surfing. And so it was a constant humiliation. So at one point I just got tired of being humiliated. And I said, all right, so throw away the paddle, give me a narrow board, and off I go. He for months, was pushing me into waves, because I don't know, to this day, I think the hardest thing in surfing is knowing where to sit and when to turn. It's just like I barely understand it, and when I'm out there and I'm with experienced surfers and they turn and they catch a wave that I don't even see the wave. I'm like, what are they turning for? And then not only that, they turn and they catch a wave that I barely can see. And they only paddle twice and I'm paddling like freaking 50, 60 times trying to get up there, it's a different world.
Michael Frampton: Oh, it sure is. And you nailed it. I mean, no matter what level of surfer you are, getting into the wave or choosing the right wave and getting into it in the right spot, that's always the hardest part. Because once you're standing up, once you're standing up on the right part of the wave, surfing is really simple and quite easy.
Guy Kawasaki: Yeah, yeah. Well, it's a mystery to me. With surfing, there are so many variables, right? I mean, there's the wave. Well, even the wave, there's the height, there's the direction, there's the speed, Are you at the peak, are you on the shoulder. That's just the wave. And then you're going to think of the wind and you got to think of the other kooks in the water and then you got to worry about, we have a ten-inch fin and it's, it's negative one tide and all the kelp is sticking out. So that's not going to work. Well I mean there's so many variables. It's such a cerebral sport.
Michael Frampton: Oh yeah. Now has and if so how has surfing made your life better?
Guy Kawasaki: Oh absolutely. I mean, I surf every day. In fact, today I might surf twice. And here's like a Guy Kawasaki typical kind of story. So I have Méniere's disease. Méniere's disease has three symptoms, which is, sporadic attacks of vertigo, tinnitus, which is the ringing in your ear and hearing loss and so basically, my ears are all messed up, and it's not surfer ears or anything like that because I have only been surfing ten years, so it's not from surfing. This is a pre-existing condition. So if you said to somebody if you have middle ear issues and vertigo and deafness and tinnitus and all that kind of stuff, why don't you take up ice hockey and surfing? That's the perfect sports for you. The two sports that require balance the most I took up with the bad ears, huh?
Michael Frampton: Wow. So you like when someone tells you you can't do something that you see as a challenge?
Guy Kawasaki: I didn't listen. I mean, people have told me that I cannot do a lot of things, and quite frankly, they were right. So it's not a matter of proving them wrong. I will just say that, like the first time I played ice hockey, and the first time I actually caught a wave and stood up, it was magic. It was like Holy shit, this is like, where else can you get this feeling? It's like magical to be standing on a wave and somehow, like, you don't have to do anything like nature is pushing you forward. In my case 12 to 15 miles an hour. I mean and you don't need a hill to do that, like skateboarding when you fall on the pavement, it's a lot different than falling in the water. So, surfing is just magic. It's the most fun I think you can have legally.
Michael Frampton: I agree, and so do all of our listeners. But it's also one of the it's also one of the most challenging things that you can. I mean have you is that's a good question. Is surfing the most challenging thing you've that you do?
Guy Kawasaki: It is by far the most challenging thing I have ever tried to learn to do by far because there are so many variables. There's so many external variables and then there's your internal, there's like your body weight and your body type and your hip flexibility and, it's a very complex cerebral sport and I don't think people who don't surf, they don't appreciate how difficult it is because like basketball, you run and you jump in the normal course of life, right? I mean, ice hockey is like that, too. You don't skate naturally. I mean, that's something you have to learn the fundamentals. You have to learn. So I think part of the attraction for me, for surfing is that it is so hard. If I became immediately good at it, the thrill would be gone but it's taken ten years. I like my dream. Everybody has to have a dream. Right. So my dream is to be able to take four steps and hang ten on the nose. Okay? In ten years, I'm now able to sometimes take two steps. So it's taking me five years per step. So I need another ten years to get the total of four steps. I hope I make it.
Michael Frampton: Yeah. Well, Jerry Lopez says that the first 20 years of surfing is just to test if you're really interested.
Guy Kawasaki: I interviewed Jerry Lopez for my podcast, I know. I listened.
Michael Frampton: Yeah. Great. You did a great job.
Guy Kawasaki: Yeah, it's a funny story. You'll appreciate this surfing story. So this weekend we went to a surf meet in Huntington Beach. And on the sidewalk at Huntington Beach, there's, like, the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It's only the surfing Walk of Fame. And there's these, I think, brass plaques for these famous surfers. Right. So I saw Sean Tompson's, I saw Layne Beachley, and I saw Jerry Lopez, and I happen to know all three people because of my podcast. I sent them all messages and they all responded, yeah. Sean Tompson's response was, oh, they spelled my name right.
Michael Frampton: Oh, cool. I interviewed Sean a while ago for the podcast and actually see quite a couple of similarities between the book he wrote in the book you wrote is in. You chose not to make it a three-page behemoth full of fluff. And it's such a good book. It's so succinct. And it's the kind of book I'd rather spend 12 hours reading a good book three times, then 12 hours reading a long book once.
Guy Kawasaki: Yeah, I hear you and one of the things I think about many nonfiction books is they take 200 to 300 pages to explain one idea. Right? So like you should you should make a prototype very quick with the minimum features and get it out there and then if it doesn't succeed, bring it back and change it fast. Well, I just explained a 300-page book about minimum viable product and pivoting. Right? I mean, what else do you need to know about that concept besides what I just explained in 10s?
Michael Frampton: No, I really enjoyed your book. It's definitely one I'm going to go back and reread because it's so succinct.
Guy Kawasaki: I want you to know that I am a much better writer than a surfer, just FYI.
Michael Frampton: Has surfing taught you anything about other aspects of your life?
Guy Kawasaki: Ah, listen, I could. I can interpret almost all of life with using a surfing metaphor. Right? So, one obvious one is you can sit out there in the water looking for that perfect wave all day and never turn and paddle and if you do that, I guarantee you will not catch any waves. Same thing applies to life, right? You can be waiting for that perfect company, that perfect product, that perfect service, that perfect co-founder, that perfect VC and you could, you know, try to make this perfect thing and then that means you will never do anything. Same thing as surfing. Another analogy I would say is that, yes, you try to pick the perfect wave and you turn it the perfect time at the perfect angle and all the perfect stuff. But I think one of the things I learned about surfing is that at some point you turn and burn and then you just need to make that decision, right? Even if it's wrong. Right? You just gotta compensate. You would like to be in the barrel on the face of the wave, but guess what? You're an idiot. You're in the white water, so make the best of it right. And that's another metaphor for life, is that, you got to make decisions, right?
Michael Frampton: Yeah, you just kind of describe that in the book by saying, just plant many, many seeds because you're not you don't know which one will eventually eventuate and you catch lots of waves. that's the thing a lot. I've said before on this podcast is that when you watch, a surfing movie, you've got to realize that might only be ten minutes worth of surfing that you're watching but it took a surfer a year worth five hours a day of surfing to get those ten minutes worth of surfing.
Guy Kawasaki: Yea. You can apply that to almost everything in YouTube, right? So on the YouTube when they show this is a guy hitting half court shots, they shot him for five hours to get him making a half court shot twice. Right. He just goes out and does everyone like that? Yeah.
Michael Frampton: Yeah.
Michael Frampton: And surfing is a lot about sort of being in the right place at the right time and when you look at your career, I wonder how much of that's true. in your career?
Guy Kawasaki: Oh, my career is more about being in the right place at the right time than it is about being in the right place because of my decision. Okay? I guarantee you that, I call this guys Golden touch, which is not whatever I touch turns to gold guys. Golden touch is whatever is gold guy touches.
Michael Frampton: I like that.
Guy Kawasaki: So, this is the equivalent of that in a surfing metaphor is sometimes and it's happened to me. Sometimes you just expect to get clobbered, right? And so you turn your back to the wave and you lean back because you're about to get clobbered. And somehow the wave catches you and you get a ride without even trying to get the ride. Yeah, I'm telling you, a lot of people join companies that they had no freaking idea what it was going to do, and they turned out to be millionaires. Like, I don't know, what's this company Google do? I don't know, they needed a facilities manager and I didn't have a job, so I went to work for Google. I was the first Google facilities manager and now come to find out, my stock is worth $50 million. Yeah. I'm so smart now. There have been waves I guarantee you, Michael. There have been waves that I caught that I didn't intend to catch.
Michael Frampton: Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
Michael Frampton: That happens all the time. And then you sort of, you turn up to the beach and without even knowing it's going to be good and it happens to be good. There's, there's luck involved in everything.
Guy Kawasaki: Yeah.
Michael Frampton: How do you define luck?
Guy Kawasaki: I think luck is, getting back to seeds. Luck is planting a lot of seeds, right? I mean, you don't get lucky by staying on the sand. You get lucky by being in the water. You got to plant a lot of seeds and then, even if you're lucky, you have to take advantage of that luck. So you can't be a dumbass. You can't be a lazy schmuck and luck comes upon you and everything just is automatic. Even being lucky, you need to work hard. You need to be prepared. You need to be ready. If your board is not waxed and you're not sitting in the water. Yeah, you could be the most lucky guy in the world. You're still not going to catch the wave
Michael Frampton: Yeah. And you have to be sort of looking for those opportunities as well, don't you?
Michael Frampton: Yeah, I remember reading a book about luck and they did a test where they left a $20 bill sort of in the corner next to a sidewalk. And 95% of people just walk straight past. But then the person that noticed it considered themselves lucky, but really they were sort of open to or just being observant and looking for those opportunities.
Guy Kawasaki: So you're saying those people saw it and didn't pick it up or they didn't see it at all?
Michael Frampton: They didn't notice it? Yeah.
Guy Kawasaki: Wow.
Michael Frampton: That wasn't directly in the middle of the sidewalk. Obviously, everyone would see it. But, the corner of it's just sticking out and if you consider yourself a lucky person, then your peripheral vision is actually more likely to pick up on little things like that.
Guy Kawasaki: I hate to tell you, but this is, it's a related story, not necessarily the same story, but I'll tell you something to this day. If I were walking down the street and I saw a penny on the ground, I would pick up the penny, I really would. I think that a penny doesn't make a lot of difference to anybody, but. Okay. But it's just the principle that you should never leave money.
Michael Frampton: Yeah. No, I like that. That's a good metaphor, too. Like, if you're surfing in a crowd and a wave comes your way and it's. You probably should just take it rather than wait for the next one.
Guy Kawasaki: Well, I have to say that, being deaf, I have a cochlear implant that's like, we can do this interview, but you can't wear a cochlear implant in the water. So being deaf in the water, there are some advantages to that. So like number one, Jerry Lopez says you should never be talking in the lineup. You should always be focused on surfing. Well, I hardly talk in the lineup because I cannot hear. So there's no sense talking, so that helps. And then let's just say that like every other kook in Santa Cruz, I drop in on people, okay? And then when they yell at me, I cannot hear. It doesn't bother me at all. They can yell all they want. I don't even hear.
Michael Frampton: Interesting. I wonder, do you think that there could be an advantage? Because then, you know it is an advantage.
Guy Kawasaki: Yeah. Because like, if I heard the person yelling at me and telling me to go f myself, then it would get in my head and I'd be pissed off and there'd be an argument. And who knows where that would lead? But now I just like, I'm deaf. I literally people have been like, jabbering at me and I said I'm deaf. I don't know what you're saying. I just paddle away. So if anybody's listening to this from Santa Cruz and you yell at me and I ignore you, that's what's happening.
Michael Frampton: Do you sometimes purposely take it out, when you're doing other things to increase your focus?
Guy Kawasaki: Oh, my implant?
Michael Frampton: Yeah.
Guy Kawasaki: No, i am blessed with a form of OCD that when I get focused on something, whether it's writing or editing or, anything like that. I can be anywhere. I can be in the middle seat of Southwest Airlines in row 35, and I can concentrate. It's not a matter of what I hear, so I never have to do that. Ijust lose touch with reality. It's the same thing when I speak, I have gone on stage with a migraine headache. I've gone on stage feeling sick but it just takes over me. And I'm just, like, in a zone. Deshaun Thompson zone.
Michael Frampton: Have you always been like that or is that something that you've had to work on and foster?
Guy Kawasaki: I can't remember. I think it just comes with repetition. I don't think I was born like that. I don't think anybody is born like that, but I certainly have it now.
Michael Frampton: Is there a bigger picture behind that though? Like, is there a driving force that sort of allows you, to keep trudging forward?
Guy Kawasaki: Well, for a while, I have four kids, so for the longest time my motivation was four tuitions. Now, as of next week, only one tuition will be in play, so that has reduced the pressure. But I guess I am just driven. I have a high need for achievement. Like this podcast, I do 52 episodes a year with no revenue,
Guy Kawasaki: On paper you'd have to say, Guy, why do you do that? Why do you kill yourself doing a podcast? And I'm just driven. It's just driven by achievement. And in a sense, the same thing applies for surfing. For me, I do a lot of dry land training and stuff because I'm 60. I got to catch up, right? So I can't just get out there and automatically assume everything's going to work. So, the secret to my success in life, surfing, or to the extent that I am successful in surfing, the secret to my life is grit. I am willing to outwork anybody.
Michael Frampton: There's also if you're doing dry land training, then there's a lot of podcasts as well. There's a lot of preparation that goes into that.
Guy Kawasaki: Yep. Nobody can out-prep me.
Michael Frampton: Oh, okay.
Michael Frampton: I'm interested to know what does your dryland training for surfing look like?
Guy Kawasaki: Oh, okay. I could do even more, but, I practiced pop-ups. I'm trying to constantly increase flexibility. I do more than anybody I know, but I know I could do so much more. It's just that in the last year or so, this book has just taken over my life, too. But, I'm telling you, I am going to hang ten. I'm going to hang ten and then I'm going to drop dead right after that and everything will be fine.
Michael Frampton: Oh, funny.
Guy Kawasaki: They're just going to get, I've seen them take dead bodies off the beach at Jax and the fire department comes and they put you in a little one of those. Is it a sleigh? What do they call it? One of those baskets. They bring the dead body up from the cliff in a basket, that's all. They're going to take me out of Jax, okay?
Michael Frampton: You're die-happy then?
Michael Frampton: Death on the nose. Yeah.
Guy Kawasaki: He was so shocked. He hung ten. He had a stroke and died.
Michael Frampton: Yeah, well.
Michael Frampton: You get the right wave, get the right board. You'll get there for sure. It's a good goal.
Guy Kawasaki: I have to tell you, though, it's much more likely that I, apparently hit my head on the ground and drowned then I hang ten on my last ride.
Michael Frampton: Oh, I've got a feeling that you'll get there.
Guy Kawasaki: Well, yeah, I hope so.
Michael Frampton: So out of all you've done so many podcast episodes, like over 200, is there any is there any commonalities between all of these guests?
Michael Frampton: Oh yeah.
Guy Kawasaki: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, in a sense, the commonality with 250 episodes reduced to. Yeah, that's 5000 pages of transcripts, so that 5000 pages of transcripts has come down to 170 pages in a book. There's a lot of commonality and the lessons of the book reflect the commonality and at the highest level, the commonality is that to be remarkable, you need to have a growth mindset. You need to be willing to pay the price and be greedy and finally, you need to be gracious to be remarkable and that just happens over and over again with those 250 guests.
Michael Frampton: How do you how do you define grit?
Guy Kawasaki: Grit is the ability to do something when you are not necessarily getting positive results and nor do you necessarily enjoy it, but you just are willing to pay the price.
Michael Frampton: So, is there an element of faith or hope that goes with that? or delusion?
Michael Frampton: In my case, it's a delusion with surfing.
Guy Kawasaki: But you know what? One thing I figured out is it doesn't matter why you're gritty. It's just that you're gritty. You could be stubborn. You could be OCD, you could be delusional. You could be whatever. But as long as you just keep putting it out, that's all that matters.
Michael Frampton: Okay, and then grace, how do you define grace?
Guy Kawasaki: Grace is when you come to this realization that you are successful in life, and you are fortunate because there are teachers and coaches and mentors and bosses. There are people who opened the door for you and because somebody opened the door for you, you should open the door for somebody else. So it's a sense of moral obligation to the world to pay back society.
Michael Frampton: Okay, how would you define grace in the surfing world?
Guy Kawasaki: I could. Okay, I yeah. I could tell you some really great stories here. So at 38, there are some surfers who are really quite good. I would love to be as good as them. And they are so good that they can catch a wave and they can surf the whole face. They can catch it in front of Jack's house, and they could go all the way to like Purves or to like practically the hook, right? They can take the face the whole way, and some of them do and you know what? When you're at Jack's and there's a lot of beginners and novices, there are lots of people who are going to catch the wave and get in your way on the face and that's just the way it is at Jax. Jax is for kooks and beginners, right and so these really good surfers, they can take the whole face and they get really pissed off with people and they yell at people and they scream and they push people off and all that, and I just don't understand that and believe me, I've been one of those people who've been pushed and yelled at and what I don't understand is like, okay, if you are so freaking good, go to first or second or go to the hook, but you're just trying to be a big dog in this little shit pond.
Guy Kawasaki: So like, what is your problem? and like, everybody's out there, they're just trying to have a good time, learn how to surf, catch a few waves. So like what? Why are you being such an asshole? Then it's like, Guess what? There's nobody from the WSL sitting up on the East cliff looking for people for the WSL. So I hate to tell you, I can drop in on your face and I'm not going to affect your professional surfing career, so just shut up and go to second or first. That's my attitude. They completely lack grace and I have a theory that the better you are, the more gracious you are. It's the middle ground, right? So when you're really a beginner and lousy, you don't know what the hell you're doing. When you get kind of good, that's when you figure, I'm the big dog. I can get the face, I can hang ten, I can do cutbacks and all that. But then when you get really, really good, you say, I want to help other people enjoy surfing. And I'm going to help them and coach them and encourage them. You don't yell at them. The really good surfers don't yell at you.
Michael Frampton: Yeah, I love that definition and I totally agree. Yep. Joel Tudor is famous for saying that the ultimate goal is Skip Frye.
Guy Kawasaki: Skip Frye was like that?
Michael Frampton: He still is.
Michael Frampton: He's still out there surfing every day. He's in his 80s and he just glides gracefully along on his.
Guy Kawasaki: But does he yell at somebody if a kook dropped in on him? No.
Michael Frampton: No, of course not.
Michael Frampton: He's been surfing so long that you just wouldn't. I think sometimes surfers also, I think a graceful surfer has the sort of demeanor about them that just you would feel bad dropping in on them because they're so graceful and they're not taking every wave. Does that sort of make? Yeah.
Michael Frampton: But if you're out there trying to take every wave and yelling at people, you're actually more likely to get dropped in on again and again and again. So thank you. Thank you CCTV.
Guy Kawasaki: Oh, God.
Michael Frampton: I think part of this is a lot of those people, they surfed, 20, 30 years ago when there just was one-tenth of the amount of people in the water, and they kind of expect it to be like that still, even though you're right, you're right. They can go for it. They can drive half an hour and go somewhere else where it's more difficult and where there are less people.
Guy Kawasaki: Half an hour, they could paddle 500 yards to the right and they could be someplace else like that, but I think a lot of those people, they realize that, at Jax, they stand out, but if they went to first or second, they would be at the bottom of the pile again. Right? And they would be yelled at not doing the yelling and they cannot adjust to that.
Michael Frampton: So yeah, that doesn't feed their ego.
Guy Kawasaki: Yeah. The second peak is my Mavericks.
Michael Frampton: That's. yup, Okay.
Michael Frampton: So that's Grace, and well, I quite like how you've defined compassion as a combination of empathy and grit. I really liked that definition. Can you speak a bit more on that?
Guy Kawasaki: Well, the empathy part is easy, right? I mean, when you think of compassionate people, they can empathize. They can feel what you're feeling. They can understand, they can relate right, but the difference between empathy and compassion, I think, is that you want to go from empathy to compassion, which is the higher level. It means that you not only feel for the other person, you're actually do something. So a compassionate person does something and an empathetic person just feels something and that's the difference.
Michael Frampton: Yeah. That's. So it comes back to doing again.
Guy Kawasaki: Yep.
Michael Frampton: Yeah.
Guy Kawasaki: That's a recurrent theme in my books.
Michael Frampton: Yeah. And I also really liked your Ikigai. You sort of, I like how you reframed that.
Michael Frampton: Sort of do what you love, right?
Michael Frampton: And then be willing to improve to go push through the shit sandwich to improve, but also to not expect to get paid for it.
Guy Kawasaki: Well, see, I think that, now listen. I am Japanese American, but I don't want to give you the impression that I spent 20 years studying with Buddhist monks, and I truly understand Japanese and all that because I'm just as American as Donald Trump Jr. But I'll tell you something that lots of people define Ikigai as you draw three circles, which is what you love to do, what you're good at doing, and what you can get paid at, and in the middle of those three is what your ikigai should be, because you can get paid, you like it, and you're good at it. I disagree with that definition. My definition is that Ikigai means that you are not good at it. You cannot get paid at it, and you may hate it because you're not good and not getting paid at it, but you still do it, and that for me is surfing, right? I'm not good at it. I love doing it. Sometimes I hate it and I'm never going to get paid for it. So if you're under those conditions, if you still surf every day, you could probably bet that it's your Ikigai or something you truly, truly love, because it's not because it's the money. It's not because it's easy. It's only because you love it.
Michael Frampton: Yeah I really like that it's a good twist on, because I was very aware of Ikigai. I think everyone is nowadays. It's become quite part of pop culture, but it was a really good reframing. I really liked that. Allan Langer.
Guy Kawasaki: The psychologist.
Michael Frampton: Yes. How did she change your perspective on things?
Guy Kawasaki: Okay, so Ellen Langer. She made a brilliant observation to me that we spend so much time trying to make the right decision, but what we should do is make our decisions right, and going back to that surfing analogy. So, yeah, spend your whole life or the whole session in the water trying to make the right decision, but what you should really do is turn and burn and make that decision right, which means that you can compensate by turning the board or paddling harder or softer or, popping up, fading and then going right, or who knows, right? But Ellen Langer is all about, yes, take your best shot but then make your decision, right, and I think that is a very good prescription for how to lead a remarkable life. You've got to make your decisions right.
Michael Frampton: Do you mean by that, as in, once you've made a decision to accept it and sort of trust that, it is right?
Guy Kawasaki: Well, I don't know about trust, but, I think the reality is that you never can make the exact perfect decision because the future is unknowable and there's so many variables. So I'm not saying that if you got married to somebody and that person is physically abusive? I'm not saying stick in the marriage and make the decision right? Okay. There are some things. There are limits to these things right, but to think that the grass is always greener and to think that, perfection lies in the next wave, not this one. I think that's suboptimal. At some point, you just got to make it right.
Michael Frampton: Yeah, so it's kind of about being present really.
Guy Kawasaki: Yes. Yes. Michael Frampton: Yeah, interesting. Is meditation part of your life? Guy Kawasaki: No, no. Like, Marc Benioff in his interview talked about meditation and all that. I don't have time for meditation, right? I'm a doer. I'm not a meditator. What can I say? Hmm. Maybe I should meditate more. Maybe I could hang ten.
Michael Frampton: I would argue that you said yourself, earlier that even in the middle seat, in cattle class on an airplane, you have the ability to focus on something.
Michael Frampton: Yes, Most people meditate in order to get more of that, I think.
Guy Kawasaki: Well, then I was born with it.
Michael Frampton: Yeah. You're lucky. I see the statue in the background and is Buddhism part of your life?
Guy Kawasaki: No, it's just I am in a closet that I've made into a sound studio, and I wanted to have an interesting background. So, I have tried dozens of things I like. I have this lamp, I have this fake flower. I have fake flowers. I have the lamp, I have bamboo, I have vases, I've tried all kinds of stuff. Yeah, I'm constantly experimenting to get, like, you have that surfboard back there, but I don't have space for a surfboard.
Michael Frampton: So you're a little bit of an interior designer.
Guy Kawasaki: You know what? I don't want to tell you how many hours I have spent trying to make a good background, putting all this soundproof foam, getting this stuff here, like, it would probably be measured in days, in days.
Michael Frampton: Oh, no. It's a good thing. I think it looks good and, your voice is coming across with no echo. So, well done.
Guy Kawasaki: Well, I once spent a few weeks trying to make sure that the video and audio were perfectly synced because I was getting a case where the audio was about two frames behind the video, and the way you test that is you do something like you clap and you see when your hands hit, and then you look and you see if there's a spike of the clap matching that exact moment right, and it wasn't. It was two frames off, and that just freaking drove me crazy, and then finally I found something that you can add frames of delay for the video or, I don't know, vice versa, whatever it was. Yeah, I'm a little nuts that way.
Michael Frampton: Oh, you got to get that sort of stuff right though I think it does matter. Is that sort of a bit of a perfectionism that you speak about there?
Guy Kawasaki: A bit. I'd say there's a freaking wheelbarrow full.
Michael Frampton: If there was one message that you hoped someone got out of your most recent book. What is that?
Guy Kawasaki: I hope people realize that it's not about deciding you want to be remarkable. The way it works is you make a difference. You make the world a better place. And if you make the world a better place, then people will believe you are remarkable. So it's not a which came first. It's just an order. You make the world a better place. People will think you're remarkable. So the focus not on being remarkable as much as making a difference.
Michael Frampton: I love that. Guy. Thank you so much. Congratulations on.
Guy Kawasaki: I might go surfing a second session.
Michael Frampton: Awesome.
Guy Kawasaki: Thank you.
Michael Frampton: I'll have links to all of, everything of Guy in the show notes. Uh, thanks for tuning in, everyone.
Guy Kawasaki: All right. Thank you very much for having me. All the best to you.
Michael Frampton: All right. Thank you. Guy. Awesome. Really appreciate your time. Thank you. Bye bye.
Guy Kawasaki on the Surf Mastery Podcast
96 Nic Laidlaw - From Hawaii to Home: How the Ocean Connected Me to My True Self
Jun 25, 2024
Nic Laidlaw is a holistic exercise and lifestyle coach, a ridiculously good surfer, a father, and a man full of wisdom. We discuss health and wellness, Paul Chek, leadership, parenting, connecting with nature, injury recovery, health retreats, mentors, masculinity, big wave surfing as an initiation to manhood. Plus much more.
Key Points: * Drawing parallels between surfing and life challenges * Embracing imperfection and overcoming personal struggles just as one tackles waves * Appreciating the complexity of surfing and the importance of nuanced thinking * Finding balance in life, similar to striving for balance on a surfboard * Modeling positive behavior on and off the surfboard for children * Practicing patience in surfing and allowing oneself and children to explore the waves at their own pace * Instilling a love for nature in kids through surfing experiences Quotes: * "Navigating the waves of life is like riding the waves of the ocean" * "Just like every wave is different, every challenge in life is unique" * "The surfboard is not just a tool for riding waves; it's a metaphor for balancing life's highs and lows" Takeaways: * Embrace the unpredictable nature of surfing and life * Strive for balance in the face of challenges, both on and off the board * Serve as a positive role model for children, showing them how to navigate the highs and lows * Foster a deep connection to nature through the exhilarating experience of surfing.
Nic Laidlaw Surf Mastery Podcast
95 Oscar Hetherington - Award Winning Surf Photographer
Apr 11, 2024
The Journey from Passionate Amateur to Award-Winning Surf Photographer, Oscar Hetherington.
Coming from a family that enjoyed beach holidays, he was instantly hooked on catching waves. In addition to surfing, he also took up photography to document sessions with friends. He began honing his skills by shooting local competitions and events featuring the surfing community.
For years, he worked to steadily build his portfolio and improve through shooting. All of his hard work finally paid off when he won an award from the prestigious Follow the Light Foundation for his surf photography. This major accomplishment opened new doors, like assisting professional surfers on international shoots.
Kassia Meador shares insights from her experiance as a pro surfer and recreational surfer. What surfing means to her and how she continues to evolve in and out of the water. Kassia embodies education and inspiration for surfers through her brand, courses, and retreats. From chatting about challenging waves to overcoming head traumas, this episode gets real about the highs and lows of surfing life. We even get into alternative therapies like sound baths.
In just over a year Andrew was surfing Pipeline. Andrew discusses his transition from skateboarding to surfing, sharing insights from trips to El Salvador and Hawaii. They delve into the dangers of surfing, emphasizing the importance of taking it slow and respecting the waves.
The conversation covers personal well-being, worst surfing advice, and the unique dynamics of Andrew's Brooklyn skate park. The hosts also explore the pros and cons of using a carver skateboard and share humorous anecdotes about challenging surf conditions.
The podcast concludes with reflections on the changing skate industry and the need for affordable skate parks. Throughout, the hosts infuse the discussion with camaraderie, providing an entertaining blend of nostalgia, insight, and humor.
This episode of "The Surf Mastery Podcast," hosts Rob Case. Rob and Michael reconnect after a hiatus and delve into their personal struggles, the well-being of their children, and their profound love for surfing. They explore a range of surfing-related topics, including the importance of mastering techniques like the pop-up and strategic wave-catching. They discuss surf trip challenges, their vision for professional surfing, their frustrations with the World Surf League (WSL), and the significance of surf culture and etiquette. The conversation also touches on family-friendly surf trips, wave pools, and diverse surfboard choices, concluding with their shared enthusiasm for surfing and aspirations to collaborate on surfing education.
The episode offers a deep dive into the world of surfing, teaching, and the broader surf culture, covering everything from fundamental skills to the future of professional surfing and the importance of the surfing community.
ManTalks founder Connor Beaton - podcaster, author, coach, father and husband. Connor brings a relational and common sense approach to the "manosphere". His podcast has been paramount in my journey of self-discovery and relationship education. We discuss masculinity, icons, men’s issues & more.
Rambo Estrada is a surf photographer from New Zealand, best known for his iconic shots of uncrowded perfect waves. We talk about how to be in the right place at the right time, how to score perfect waves. In the second half of the interview we discuss gear, photography techniques, and lots of tips to help you take better surfing photos.
Sir John Kirwan - Former All Black and international rugby coach, life-long surfer, mental health advocate & spokesperson, author, businessman, father and husband. John shares his wide-ranging wisdom gained from the highs and lows of a very full and succesfull life. Links to everything John Kirwan:
Experienced surf coach and surf guide Andrew Goodman and I discuss surf tips for all levels. Board choice, wave reading, culture and etiquette, surf travel + much more.
Devon Howard and I discuss twin fins, in particular the Channel Islands Mid Twin. The types of waves and style of surfing best suited for mid length twin fins, tips and techniques for surfing them, different fins, board design elements. We compare the mid twin to single fins and 2 + 1 set ups. Devon also addresses the most common questions he gets asked about mid lengths.
To see the board and view the video of it being surfed:
85 Shane Beschen - The Fun of Getting Better
Mar 16, 2023
Surf Coach Shane Beschen shares some of his surfing knowledge. Shane finished 2nd on the pro tour in 1996 and has been in the surfing industry for over 30 years as a pro athlete, coach, writer and much more.
Follow Shane on Instagram for loads of surfing tips:
84 Jack Jensen - Channelling your MiSFiT Energy
Mar 09, 2023
Jack Jensen is the CEO of MSFT Productions, and mental health advocate. He shares his powerful mission, message and story. His brand, business and mental health initiative - #sparkthatchat, all encompass Jack's genuine mission and passion to do good in this world
Jack is a true inspiration for all, but especially young men.
83 Dr. Michael Gervais - High Performance Psychologist
Feb 21, 2023
Stay in the surf and stay in the room: How surfing and psychotherapy can improve your relationships and your athletic performance
In this episode we discuss:
The similarities and differences between sports psychology and psychotherapy, who should, and when to use sports psychology or therapy. What is a good coach, the importance of quality relationships.The holistic effects of therapy, 3 things all high performers have in common, Jordan Peterson and much more.
81 Eddie Ifft - Comedian Podcaster Surfer
Nov 21, 2022
Eddie Ifft is a Stand-up comedian, podcaster and surfer. (WARNING: This episode contains dark comedy, shock comedy and satire.) Eddie shares some surfing stories, his hilarious takes on the surfing culture, how MacDonalds improved his health and much more.
Linton Fafie coaches at Surfing Australia's High Performance Centre and in Byron Bay NSW - "High Performance Surf Coaching for the everyday surfer".
In this episode we discuss strategies for the intermediate surfers' plateaus, ideal beginner pathways, wave reading fundametals, pop-up mistakes, DNS and much more.
79 Matt Scorringe - Olympic Surf Coach
Sep 21, 2022
We talk about Matt's time as coach of the New Zealand Olympic surfing team and the experiance of the event. What the role of a surf coach is at the Olympics and how his role as surf coach to the average surfer has evolved and adpated post Covid + much more.
Anyone that joins the November cohort put SURFMASTERY in the comments box during checkout and they will be emailed their 100% off code for 1 year of the academy.
77 Shaun Tomson - The Evolution of Stoke
Aug 17, 2022
1977 Surfing World champ and best selling author Shaun Tomson.
Shaun talks about how lessons learnt from surfing can be applied to any of life's situations. Shaun's tenacious optimism and wisdom is infectious and profound.
We also discuss his ever evolving relationship to the ocean and surfing, the depth and power of the word Stoke, what great surfers all have in common, plus much more.
76 Donald Brink - Fascinated with Surfing
Aug 01, 2022
SoCal surfboard shaper & fellow podcaster Donald Brink and I discuss; the resonant frequency of surfboards, comparisons of surfing to music, the evolution of surf coaching, life, one’s relationship to the ocean + much more.
Holly Beck is a former pro surfer turned holistic surf coach and surf therapist. This is an in depth discussion about how surfing affects our psychology and vica versa.
Find out more about working with me as a life coach / Therapist:
https://surfmastery.com/mens-life-coaching
74 Jonathan Wayne Freeman
May 11, 2022
Surfer and comedian Jon Wayne Freeman entertains & teaches us about surfing and the surf culture at large. He also shares his inpirational story of breaking free from the 9-5 work week - making his dreams a reality, and the important part sobriety has been on that journey.
A short episode featuring my favorite tip from Tom Carroll - Look for the detail on the wave. Pay close attention to the finer details of the wave, the wind chops, the secondary swell, the backwash, every bump, nook, and cranny. Look at the way the light reflects off of every small ripple, look to see where and how water is moving and where it is moving most so you can generate speed.
70 DEVON HOWARD - Mid Length Crash Course
Mar 21, 2022
Devon Howard explains mid length surfboards, appropriate conditions for use, correct technique, the right size for you, their limitations, the history of, how to duck-dive them and much more.
Devon breaks down noseriding & cross stepping, we discuss dry-land and balance training. We talk appropriate traditional longboarding equipment and style. We also get into surfing etiquette, line-up politics and the current state of surfing.
032: MATT GRIGGS - Busting Through Terminal Mediocrity
May 29, 2018
Elite performance coach Matt Griggs teaches us how to break through performance plateaus.
https://thenatureofsuccess.com.au
In episode 31 - Taylor Knox we touched on the feeling of surfing, in this episode we dive at lot deeper into the 'feeling' of surfing, and how Kelee Meditation can enhance the feeling of surfing, and the quality of your life.
Bud Freitas grew up surfing in Santa Cruz county and has a vast amount of local knowledge in the Santa Cruz area to facilitate your santa cruz surf lessons from Surf School Santa Cruz. Bud spent every waking hour of his young life surfing and exploring the coast of Santa Cruz, and has 20+ years experience in the water surfing his butt off. His credentials on the WQS and other contests speak for itself, and if you want to watch Bud Freitas in action watch the video on the right side of this page, or check out the Photo Gallery and watch Bud ripping with your own eyes! Learn more about Bud Freitas the surfer and teacher
021: BEN MACARTNEY - Chief Surf Forecaster at Coastalwatch
Apr 06, 2017
Ben has been the Head forecaster at Coastalwatch for ten years. In this episode, he explains how waves are made, what he looks for when making surf predictions, dispels some common misbeliefs about reading synoptic charts, describes some of the nuances of swells and most importantly educates us on how to find the best waves. We also talk about how secondary and tertiary swells affect the primary swell and your local break. If you have never looked at a synoptic chart, isobar map, satellite image etc, then this episode may be a little confusing (unless you are in front of google & can look up the referenced images). Below are some links to some introductory tutorials that will get you up to speed pretty quickly. Most of the references are based on Australian, and Indonesian surf.
020: MICHAEL GERVAIS - High Performance Psychologist
Mar 21, 2017
Michael talks about how your mind affects your surfing, as well as surfing's effect on our minds.
Mindfulness, flow state, being present, living in the now, awareness, in the zone, in the pocket, focus on 'now', meditation, mind-set, surfing philosophy. It's all in here, and it's all relative to surfing.
Show Notes
http://findingmastery.net/
019: KARL ATTKINS - Big Wave Surfer
Dec 21, 2016
Karl Attkins grew up surfing and competing on Sydney's Northern Beaches, since finishing his competitive career Karl has been chasing big waves.
Karl talks about the importance of being prepared before committing to a big wave surf. Preparation of body, mind, and equipment is essential before you step outside your comfort zone, and stepping outside your comfort zone is the key to progression.
Karl also helps us to identify some of the subtleties around fear, intuition, and instinct, and how awareness of them can help you to face your fears, and avoid injury. How Breath Enhancement Training (B.E.T.) with Nam Baldwin has helped his surfing, both big wave and competitive.
Show Notes:
http://www.bettraining.com/
http://www.aidosurfboards.com/
018: RU HILL - Surf Coach and Founder of 'Surf Simply'
Dec 13, 2016
Ru Hill is originally from the U.K. where he worked teaching both conventional, entry-level surf lessons and also video coaching with young competitors. Ru’s vision was to create a scientifically informed coaching methodology which bridges the gap between the two extremes of beginner and competitor. In 2007 Ru moved to Nosara in Costa Rica, where he set up Surf Simply out of the back of his car. Ten years on Surf Simply has become a high-end coaching resort which books out a year in advance. As well as running the resort, Ru is now a keen water photographer and co-hosts the Surf Simply podcast with Surf Simply's coaching director, Harry Knight.
Ru is a very experienced surf coach and has a unique way of breaking things down. In this interview, Ru gives out plenty of original advice as well as a new perspective on some classic surf coaching tips. Great tips on; how to overcome fear, how to surf more critically, what 'flow' is, plus loads more, enjoy.
017: Dr. JOHN DEMARTINI - Performance and Behavior Specialist
Nov 10, 2016
Dr. John Demartini - Performance and Behavior Specialist. Dedicated to Maximizing Your Potential & Helping You to Love Your Life!
John discusses the differences between good surfers and great surfers - those surfers who are truly on the path to surf mastery. What the greats do differently, how they get into flow states (the zone) more consistently and deeply than most surfers. How your emotions can affect your surfing, how to maximize your presence and awareness in the water. How to overcome performance anxiety and much much more.
If you are serious about mastering surfing then John's educational material is essential for maximizing your potential.
John is also a best-selling author, I recommend every surfer reads 'The Values Factor'
There are so many valuable tips in this interview. Enjoy.
016: JARRED HANCOX - New Zealand National Champ (35+) 2016
Aug 30, 2016
Pic: Daniel Valaperta
Jarred Hancox - Sponsored surfer from Taranaki New Zealand talks about how surf coaching, nutrition, training, and equipment refinement helped him go from a good surfer in his twenties to NZ (35+) National champ in his thirties.
Results: New Zealand National Champion Over 28s in 2010 & 2011; New Zealand National Champion Over 35s in 2016; Taranaki Surfing Champs Winner 2012; 4 x Opunake Classic winner, 8 x New Plymouth Club Champs winner; 3 x Growcott Memorial Winner; plus many other wins in local events and events around New Zealand. As well as scoring the cover shot on NZ Surf Mag.
015: NAM BALDWIN - Director of Breath Enhancement Training.
Aug 01, 2016
Nam educates us on how the way we breathe affects our nervous system and stress response - therefore our performance in the water. We also discuss breathing in relation to big wave surfing and hold-downs.
012: ROB CASE - Surfing Paddling Coach
Jul 01, 2016
Rob breaks down efficient paddling technique so you can paddle faster, for longer and keep your shoulders healthy. We talk about yawing, hydrodynamics, hand placement & entry, and much more, enjoy.
Here is a side by side paddling analysis viewing World Champion Kelly Slater's paddling technique next to an up and coming talented surfer, Taylor Clark Learn to Surf - Surfing Paddling Technique - How to Catch More Waves with Less Effort: http://www.surfingpaddling.com Learn to surf step number 1: Paddling correctly.An analysis of the Kelly Slater and Bede Durbidge paddle battle at the Quiksilver Pro Gold Coast - the top three paddling techniques Kelly uses for more Surfing Paddling Technique tips and videos, visit http://www.surfingpaddling.com In the following video, I break down the paddle battle that took place in Round 4 of the Quiksilver Pro Gold Coast between Kelly Slater and Bede Durbidge.
011: CRIS MILLS - Surf Strength Coach
Jun 22, 2016
Cris and I talk about surfing, strength training for surfing, surf fitness, surfing injuries and rehab, health, nutrition, & diet. We also discuss how lifestyle choices like EMF exposure, water quality, sleep, blue light exposure & meditation all effect human health - therefore your surfing capacity, longevity & performance.
010: TOM CARROLL - Big Wave Surfing & Surfers Ear
Jun 08, 2016
Big wave charger Tom Carroll talks about the do's and don'ts of big wave surfing, sharing his knowledge and experience so we can make it as safe as possible. We also talk about surfers ear (exostosis), its causes and how to prevent it.
009: MARTIN DUNN - Surf Coach - Former Head Coach Team Australia ('09-'13)
May 18, 2016
Martin has 30 years experience as a surf coach, from beginners to WSL athletes. In this podcast Martin discusses the fundamentals of performance surfing and provides loads of tips for you to take your surfing to the next level.
Hedgy talks about surfing Bells Beach, surf longevity and performance surfing. Hedgy is one of the best backhand surfers to surf bells beach and talks about some of the nuances on how challenging it is surf. The speed of the wave and its many different moods, sections and conditions it works in. Rip curl pro bells beach happens every April.
Nathan also explains how he got to such a high level, and how he has maintained his level into his thirties. Also tells us how he bet Kelly Slater in a heat.
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