Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin - Laird Hamilton

Episode Date: April 10, 2024

Laird Hamilton is an action water sports pioneer. The big wave surfing legend revolutionized the sport with his invention of tow-in surfing, stand-up paddling, and foilboard surfing. Laird is an inventor, author, occasional fashion and action-sports model, fitness and nutrition expert, husband and father. He is the co-founder and Chief Innovator of Laird Superfood, which makes plant-based, better-for-you food products. He and his wife, Gabby Reece, co-founded Extreme Performance Training (XPT), a fitness program integrating his underwater resistance workouts, performance-focused breathing, advanced recovery methods, and high-intensity and endurance training. ------ Thank you to the sponsors that fuel our podcast and our team: LMNT Electrolytes https://drinklmnt.com/tetra ------ Squarespace https://squarespace.com/tetra ------ House of Macadamias https://www.houseofmacadamias.com/tetra

Tetragrammaton. So today's pull workout was a drill called 15s. The premise is 15 jumps, ammo box, swim there back. So the, you know, carry the weight, swim and back. And the ammo box is still you hold the dumbbell at your chest. Yeah. And swim across the pool. That's right. Right. So you're free how heavy is a dumbbell? I mean, I'm doing it. I call it light right now

I'm using a 30 pound dumbbell. Okay, but if you were to stop swimming you would sink to the bottom Immediately you're kind of sinking if you don't vigorously swim. It's pulling you down I call it 15 because there's 15 jumps and then there's a their back ammo box Incorporated and so like the first set is 15 jumps ammo their back No breath and the jump it will be with like Same way one single third. Yeah, so it's so you sink to the bottom the Reese, you know the Reese a single arm So it's like the ammo box swim Yeah, but you're doing it vertically so you're jumping with the weight and then swimming reach the single arm so it's like the ammo box swim. Yeah, but you're doing it vertically

So you're jumping with the weight and then swimming with the free arm Yeah, you come up and get air and then you switch hands and you land much harder doing it with one weight than two Because when we used to do it with two weights You could use both arms evenly when you have free hand It's pretty nice like that's a lot of power that you get out of your out of your having have free hand, it's pretty nice. Like that's a lot of power that you get out of your having a free hand. So you alternate hands? Every jump, yeah. So when you jump, you stroke,

and the stroke hand comes down to where the weight is right by your belly button. So you hold the weight, you go down 14 feet, you jump, you can only jump maybe eight of those, and then you stroke with the free hand. Usually one big stroke, a big jump and a big stroke gets you there. And then you gulp in the air breath and then you sink again. And exhale before you hit the surface. So letting all the air out before you hit

the surface, so all you're doing is inhaling and then when you free fall on the way back down that's when you switch your hand and then you land, you squat and you have to jump. I mean if you don't jump hard enough, you can't make it. And then you end you squat and you have to jump. I mean if you don't jump hard enough Yeah, you're gonna make it you can't make it and then you end up stroking struggling which burns up oxygen Which makes it so you can't do very many very many reps So that's the basis of the drill the swim and the jump and then we break it up So I started but I started the drill with what I thought was six different combination So the first one is 15 jumps, swim in there and swim back. After the 15 jumps, you're pretty winded.

Before you hold the first ammo box, which is crazy. And then you breath hole the whole time, no breathing on the ammo. So you, so you swim there and back, no breathing, right? But it gets worse because, so it starts with 15 jumps, you swim there back, right, with a breath hold. That's the first set. The next set is you swim there, you do 15 jumps, you swim back. Again, always the swims are always breath hold.

And you're always carrying the 30. Always carrying the 30. And you're always holding your breath. And you're always holding your breath. The next one is there back, 15 jumps. And you're always carrying the 30. Always carrying the 30. And you're always holding your breath. And you're always holding your breath. The next one is, there back 15 jumps. So that's the first three. Then we go into five jumps, swim there,

10 jumps, swim back. Then we do 10 jumps, swim there, five jumps, swim back. And then we do a five jump, swim across, five jump, swim back, five jump, swim back. And then we do a five jump, swim across, five jump, swim back, five jump. So always 15. So I thought the six sets was all there was in that combination. And then my friend said,

well actually no, there's two more. And I'm like, well what two are those? And he goes, well there's the swim there, do 10, and then swim back and do five Starting on the other side before you come home Yeah, so then you swim over do the five or ten and then come back and do the five or ten Yeah, so that was two more that I didn't know and then all of a sudden we discovered two more What were those those were those were so we've gone from six

We thought it was six then it went to eight. We got there can't be any more combinations of five and ten and a swim back. The other one was Do five swim their back do ten Do ten swim their back and do five so there's so there ends up being ten. It's a ten combination So that's why I call it fifteens, but it's 10 different variations of 15, which is 15 jumps and a swim back. And that's the drill and that works. It sounds like that doesn't get easier over time.

It doesn't. And actually, even when you add weight, unless you add so much weight that you make it almost impossible, but even when you add weight, it ends up that the weight makes you fall faster and the lighter weight actually makes you fall faster. And the lighter weight actually makes you fall slower. So the downtime is longer with the lighter weight. So there's

a line there where kind of light isn't really easier because you think well, lighter would be easier. But because you fall slower, it's not easier because it extends the downtime. Do you ever lose track of count? Completely. You get completely lightheaded doing this stuff that means it's good like in my opinion I go if you lose track like we do like when it's really cold like this winter we were swimming in 52 degree water. We were doing breath hold swim their backs and we would lose count Every single time and all we did was 10 laps. Yeah, all we were doing was 10 laps You're like 10 their backs and no matter, at the end at seven or eight or nine, you're like, am I at six?

Am I at seven? Did I do eight? Was that nine? And so in a way- And is the rule always you take the lower number? Yeah. You always take the lower number so you have to do the extra one.

You do, because you don't want to fall short. You don't mind going one over. Going extra is okay, but missing one is impossible that's a no-go which you knew that already because he says seems oh you go for the low I know I've been I've seen how you work I know how you think but so you don't want to cut yourself so short but you do it's almost uncanny. And the 15s is more confusing because it's obviously there's 10 different variations. So at some point during 10 variations, you're going to forget either during one of them, like how many like today I at one point

I was there I'm like, was that nine? Or was that 10? Like, what was that? Seven like I just and I probably ended up doing 16 or 17 or 18 because I just lost track During it or lost track of what one is next I mean at a certain point we're almost writing those things down because you're and checking them because you just can't You also seem very wide awake and I remember when we used to do the pool workouts Not long after I would often get the feeling of needing to go to sleep. It wasn't sore. It wasn't beat up.

You felt good. Just like I need to sleep now. Well I think it's because the oxygen deprivation, I think when you're low in oxygen, when you're when oxygen deprived, when you and when you've done enough oxygen deprivation, I think that you just have to recover. I think it's like muscles, because you're taking the probably pulling oxygen out of your bones. I go yeah, any available oxygen when you're going to the wall is getting pulled from everywhere it can in the body. And so at some point it's like, okay, cool, that's you're done. Go sleep and recover. Tell me the history of pool training from the beginning. I mean, the original concept came from the rock running something surfers would do. I think rock running originally originated from diving from

fishermen, I see, and they would take stones out in the canoe. And when they would go to the bottom to dive, they would just ride a rock down, because then you would eliminate all the bottom to dive they would just ride a rock down because then you would eliminate all the energy it takes to swim down so then your downtime was increased all of a sudden you could be down and then the black coral divers on Maui in the early days of black coral diving they would ride stones down because they were going so deep and you just couldn't by the time you swam down there all of a sudden you had half the downtime and then the energy that you burned so they would ride

stones and then divers and surfers would run with stones in the summertime so that was like a a summer time to train to be able to do it yeah to. To stay down long. To stay down and be under oxygen deprivation and still work. We know the effects of the pressure of being underwater. Well, first of all, like if you get the bends, you go into a hyperbaric chamber to make up for the, to put pressure so that you can get the air out. I mean, we know that the pressurization

is like the ultimate compression wear. At a nice level. It is ultimate compression So it's protective in a way. Well circulation. It's huge circulation I I think and I don't know the science but I I've been led to believe that your Lymphatic system can get flushed out in like an hour of being in water that would normally take you 24 hours because the blood movement is like what compression were. I think they banned compression wear in professional cycling because it was such an advantage.

Like blood dope. Don't get tired. Guys, don't get tired. Then it kind of ruins the whole idea behind competition. If no one's getting tired, it's like when does it become interesting? So that's why people, when they're hung over, they tired it's like when you know when does it become interesting so that's why people when they're hung over they love to go swim and you come back and you feel kind of

refreshed so i think there's a bunch of benefits i mean other than just negative ion absorption and you know other things i think the pressurization now when you go really deep there's some crazy things with like the dive tables where you're only allowed to go down So, you know, they have these tables talking about how long you can be at certain depths for how long and how often and I knew Portuguese guy on Maui that Blew all of the dive table like the Navy came to meet the guy because he would go Every single day for eight hours a day And they said it was like technically they didn't believe it. They said it was impossible. You couldn't do that. And I think one of the side effects that he had was very severe arthritis

was one of the negative things. But I think we can endure a lot more of that pressure. But down deep is definitely something that that's a big part of the pressure. And I think that's the biggest thing that we can do. And I think that's the but I think we can endure a lot more of That pressure but down deep is definitely something that that's hard on us. I think once we go below a certain atmosphere I think there's benefits. It's like Piper Barrett chamber when you go in there you get all the benefits of that oxygenation But once you start getting below the third atmosphere the fourth and you get down there where stuff starts to get squeezed. I think that can be, I mean, that's why you have to go slow on the way up.

One of the things I remember interesting about having weights under water is you seem to have more control of the weight underwater. Well, it's lighter too. You lose like about 30%. I think of the, of the load when it's underwater, but you definitely the stabilization. I mean, that's why your body responds so nicely. Like when you take somebody, especially for if you've been hurt and you're, you're coming out of recovery and you got something wrong with your knee or your hip, you know, out of the water, your body doesn't want to go into certain positions. It's protective. When you get in the water,

the body feels comfortable because it's stabilized. So that water almost holds you up which allows you to be More comfortable which lets the body go into positions that you that's why it works So well for that like when you're coming off of a knee or a hip or something I also remember right in the beginning having to get past the feeling of Holding weights underwater your brain goes insane. Your brain says we're drowning. Yeah.

Now, I remember the feeling because I'm holding dumbbells, I'm underwater, I can put the dumbbells down any time I want, but the mind is saying, you're being held under, you have cement shoes on. Took a while to pass that feeling of DNA level, you don't want weight on you pulling you underwater. No, yeah. It is interesting that,

because you watch people go through that, especially when they've never experienced pool training, they come in there, you give them some weights, and they'll have the weights in their hand, and they're literally either trying to swim with weights in their hand, or just completely freak out. Like, pat it.

And then tell them, hey, all you have to do is just set them down. Even though they hear that and they know that, it's like you've attached it to them and they're stuck with it. It's like they have it in their, you'll see it in their face. They'll have the weight in their hand, and'll look and they'll look at you like,

I, what am I going to do? I can't, you in the headlights cannot let go. Like I can't, how do I, I'm being held, I'm being held against my will. And you're like, well, no, you just set them down on the ground. Like it's okay. And so, and I think that's where a lot of the transformation happens too, is once you start to be able to override that primal instinct and With conscious like hey, I have time I can set the weights on the ground

I'll be able to jump to the surface and get air once you start to get that part in your head You know, I always the word that comes up For me is submission Submitting like I and I see that throughout other aspects of life in general is just to submit like you gain time You gain something when you submit when you're able to just let go let go and be okay Take me do what you're gonna kind of that kind of mentality like do what you're gonna do with me. You gain an incredible Amount of time but nothing brings that out like the water does. I stub too.

Yeah, I always talk about primal fears that we have that are in our DNA that are that are affecting our kind of the primal part of our brain that has nothing to do. You can say all the things you want, but when you think about animals, you know, you being eaten, falling off of high things, being burned, drowning, frozen. I mean, this is stuff that, it seems like your unconscious isn't going to rely on your intelligence to make you make it. It's like, you know what? I don't trust that you can make a good enough decision. I'm going to put you into this mode of freak out so that you get

yourself out of the situation, whether it's jump out of of the side effects of being really scared is you get cold. And so like we'll be in a warm swimming pool, like a warm swimming pool. People are there and all of a sudden you see somebody's got the shivers. And they're like, they're shivering like they've been in an ice tub and you're like, well, it's not cold.

But the fear gets them into that. When you're in the ice, you're like, I'm gonna go to the ice, I'm gonna go to the ice. And you're like, I'm gonna go to the ice. And you're like, I'm gonna go to the ice. And you're like, they're shivering like they've been in an ice tub and you're like, well, it's not cold. But the fear gets them into that, which again, I don't know if it just gets, you know, gets them to get out. Ultimately, like get out of this environment. It's dangerous. It's probably a protective thing as well. Yeah. Besides telling you to get out, something good is probably happening in your body. And by the way, it seems like that's always the case. The way it reacts to anything that's,

anytime it's endangered, you get all great hormones and the body does all these great things whenever it's put in threat. You know, it's like, if I could think of another way to get these benefits, I would, but there really isn't. It's like rose bushes blossom when you prune them. They don't want to be pruned, but the way they flower is when you cut them.

And it's the same with us that when we're stressed, whatever that is, whether it's your oxygen or, I mean, what is working out? Working out is stressing the system. What is fasting? Stressing the system. These are all distresses that we benefit from. We recover stronger after stress.

Yeah, yeah. It started with the rocks at the bottom of the pool. It started with stone, the stone carrying, and then... Have you ever done that? Absolutely. At what point in your life did you do that? In my teens. I started in my teens. We didn't do it a lot because we didn't have a great environment for it,

to have clear water like we're on Kauai where I grew up. The rivers, it's usually murky, hard to see, not fun. It's not a great drill when you can't see. If you're in the Caribbean and it's crystal clear and you can get a stone and run along the bottom. Typically in places without waves probably. Yeah, yeah, because that's stirring up the bottom. And if there's waves, you're probably riding them.

But that was a summertime thing. That was usually summertime, the that's stirring up the bottom and that and if there's waves you're probably riding them But that was a summertime thing that was usually summertime the surfs down It's a way to prepare yourself for the winter and again diver, you know divers using it to improve Breath-hold length of breath-hold and so that's where it started pool training and then weight vest So then I built a pool thinking hey, i'm going to do some training and then weight vest. So then I built a pool thinking, Hey, I'm going to do some breath holds type stuff and weight vests were another, that was the original kind of concept, which was put a weight vest on and then see how long you can tread. Like as a weight is be better at staying at the surface. That had

its own kind of set of problem and fears well, because you couldn't take the great jacket off. So then you'd be right next to the edge. So you could just reach out and grab the side of the pool. When you missed it, you'd be scared. Yeah. And you sink down, but the psychology behind it and the vest put a lot of pressure on your breathing. Cause you were, it was Velcroed on. I mean, we still have new versions of that now

that are not so restrictive that have like a suspenders with these weight things. I tried the weight belt at one point, but I didn't like it as much as the ones that you could put down. Yeah. I mean, you're free with all your limbs because you're not holding them. That kind of was the basis. And I built the pool. And then it just was a process of elimination. I think I had an epiphany. One night. I had a vision about when you're a kid Because everything we were doing was swimming based Right. So everything was on the surface and I always call it horizontal Because everything in the pool when you're swimming is horizontal

So everything's on a flat plane one night and just something popped in my head and I thought about when you're a kid how much you love to go in a shallow pool and jump up and down and come out of the water and get a breath and then go back under and come up. And you could do that for hours. Like that was, and that's when I had a, I had a little light go off in my head, like, hey, what if we could jump? And then that's when the weight, the dumbbells came in.

And once we got a dumbbell in our hand or in the water, that kind of opened. I remember being around when that happened. And that's when the weight, the dumbbells came in. And once we got a dumbbell in our hand or in the water, that kind of opened. I remember being around when that happened. Because before that we were using heavy weights and swimming. That's right. And you said I had a dream.

We need lighter weights, heavy enough to pull us down, but light enough where we could jump to the top. And get in there and breathe and get into these rhythms, right? The horizontal stuff. I mean, it became like yoga. One breath per move. That's right.

That's right. The breath relationship to the to the movement. That's something that was is very controlled by the water because I don't care. It doesn't you don't have to implement it. The water implements it because you can't breathe under. You can only breathe at the top. So you're only breathing when you're getting yourself out, the water implements it, because you can't breathe under. You can only breathe at the top. So you're only breathing when you're getting yourself out of the water.

Also from that lymphatic massage standpoint, going down and coming up, pressurized, depressurized, pressurized over and over. I remember the first time doing it like trying to get to 10, and then getting to the point where we got to 100. Couldn't believe seeing these... Incremental improvements. Well, the dumbbell also, too, even before the jumping started, just allowed us...

I always just thought dumbbells is just a rock with a handle. You know, in a way, it's like rocks are so cumbersome, and you had to kind of hold them with both hands and move. Where with the dumbbell, you could just hold it in one hand, and that relationship between those two things when you think about the best way to describe it is weightlifting meets swimming. It's just a hybrid between the two you've taken swimming and

all the benefits that you have and then you you put them together. But you know the beginning when we were first doing it seemed like every week there were some new yeah new exercise or new I remember and I think you were there that day but the one move the single-armed one that you swim up I watched my daughter little Reese just struggle her way to the top and put the it was a little weight But it was like so she went down and picked it up and jumped and swam and I looked at that and I went wow That's a move. That's why we call it the reese you call it the reese because it was but yeah there was a lot of moves that came out of that but once we started going vertical and combined vertical and horizontal that I mean the

the jumping part is the was the part that really changed a lot of the stuff because the legs are used so much more oxygen yeah so you know you start jumping. I mean you look at most swimming unless it's a sprint. There's no legs involved because legs aren't efficient for swimming and the burn air but in our case we want to burn the air. We're looking for ways to burn air quickly and you can't beat the leg the leg movement. We don't get to jump as hard as we can in life. We don't.

That's not a normal, it feels too dangerous. Well, because landing. It's not the explosiveness going up, it's the landing coming down. And so when you, the water takes away that impact, which has negative, you know, it's good to have that impact for your body, but that allows you that explosiveness and the volume.

I mean, if you jump. And there's resistance, because you're pushing against the water when you're jumping. You're not just jumping your weight, you're jumping your weight against all of the water above you. No, it's true. It's true. Well, that's why the basketball guys go crazy.

And you think about, like, if you did 100 jumps on hard ground as hard as you could, the next day you'd be broken. You'd be hurt. Where you can go there and jump 100 times and be like, and the next day you'd be broken yeah you'd be hurt where you can go there and jump a Hundred times and be like and the next day not better than ever feel better than ever. Yeah. Yeah, so I think that Increased volume because you're not having the impact all that lymphatic even them even the water running up and down your body Is really doing that lymphatic system as well. So, you know, what do we always say the proofs in the pudding? It's hard to Sympathetic system as well. So you know, what do we always say the proofs in the pudding? It's hard to

Explain how what a feeling you get and then you add the others, you know You add the heat and the ice but in a way it's I mean the water is controlled breathing Rhythms controlled breathing patterns, you know in a way that you just can't be that precise I mean unless you're just watching a clock, then it's a whole different thing. You're not able to kind of be out of your, I mean, I had today, I, when I was jumping, I was doing, they were saying something about when your eyes are closed, like your brain's in a different pattern, like when you close your eyes.

And I was doing somewhere when it gets really hard, you close your eyes. That environment, it's a unique thing because it's like somehow you have to submit but then you have to aggress. But then you have to kind of relax at the same time. It's the weirdest thing. It's like. And you can drown and it feels like you're back in the womb.

It's a very nurturing. It is. Peaceful environment in the womb. It's a very nurturing. It is. Peaceful environment in the water. It is. Can't talk. It is, no. I told somebody one day, I remember just what you said, brought that to my mind.

Outer space is in your backyard. Wow. You know, cause when you think about outer space, there's no gravity, right? There's no air. Like it has some elements about it where you're in space Whatever you're in the space of water, but you're in space it you go there and I think that just being in there I mean we play music, you know

We have those and that that is an amazing thing when you're in especially when you're in Like under duress and then all of a sudden you're kind of have this distraction. I mean I call it task distraction. I call some of these drills are really set up to distract you from how difficult like if you had too much time to think about it you'd be like hey just stop already why would I do this but you're like okay I got to go here I gotta jump there gotta do they got to remember what the count is I got and then you have something playing in the background. And it feels good. Like something about accomplishing a task. Yeah. Our brains like connecting the dots.

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and stay salty with Element Electrolytes, LMNT. Element Electrolyte, LMNT. I heard a general give a speech to like the graduating class and he was talking about making your bed, you know, in the military. They go, oh we, you know, make your bed and he goes the reason why we have you make your bed is because it's task completion. You start by completing something that allows you to go to the next thing and complete it. So I think we are set up to be that. No two big music stars, both of whom even went in a hotel make their own bed every night. Guaranteed. It's not because you want the bed. It's just what it means.

And what it represents or something about, and it's a ritual, too. It's like that's part of brushing your teeth. I have my rituals, like putting the dishes away in the kitchen in the morning, like certain things that I do every single day. Every morning, take a shower. I always shower before I go to bed. I can shower an hour before, and then right before I go to sleep, I always go shower. Like it's just like a... Cold shower before sleep? No, hot shower. Yeah.

The reason why I think part of it is a cold shower jacks me up. I see. I get jacked up from the cold. The cold kind of wires me where the hot shower, if I take it in real hot, then I also kind of I'll go into like a, I'll get colder after. I see. Then the air is, everything's colder when you go out.

The bed's colder because that's my biggest sleeping thing is overheating. Do you sleep with a cold bed now or no? I have been, but it's, I think I broke them all. Like they don't, I overheat them now. So I gotta get, I gotta get a new one. But yeah, I have a cold pad and I had a cold blanket, but the blanket stopped has stopped working. Even though I like that weight. I get used to weighted blank. I do like that way. A cold weighted blanket, the problem with a weighted blanket, you get too hot. Yeah.

But if you have a cold weighted blanket, but that's it, that's the highest luxury I think you that way. A cold weighted blanket, the problem with a weighted blanket, you get too hot. But if you have a cold weighted blanket, but that's the highest luxury I think you can have. Cold weighted blanket to sleep with. Yeah. What's interesting about that one, that doesn't mimic nature, a weighted blanket. Maybe it really does. Maybe it's more like childhood being,

what is called swaddling. Well, think about big fur too. Think about big animal stuff on top of you like stuffing yourself under leaves or whatever like i mean we probably that's probably where we felt the most safe too because you had some kind of armor over you because we didn't have thin sheets i mean i think there was probably we were under animal skins and stuff like with some weight you got some big animal skin on you There's some load on that, you know, we didn't have nice down back then

And if you're in the tropics then you have the opposite right you have the opposite you have the Want to be cool trying to cool off. Yeah. Yeah Because we were we've been that way the longest right all those things that we without modern comforts. Yeah We were wild for the longest period. Yeah like that and you can't expect because we had for 200 years or one or two Generations we have DNA that you know holds information for 14 generations You know and you're talking about one or two 14 generations You know and you're talking about one or two The dominant part of it, you know is is all that other stuff

And like tune with nature exactly as you weren't in tune with nature. You would not survive So that forced everybody actually to have a certain relationship with it Yeah and it seems like as soon as we get a little bit away the further away we get the more issues we have and Then we go back to it and they're like Like oh you need to be outside, you know I had a neighbor nice lady walked by and she's like I really want to go the next level of my health and I Just was like I think we were loading a dumpster with a bunch of trees I've been cutting in my yard and she's like I really want to go the next level of my health

I go well, how you sleeping? How's your hydration? Like what kind of movement you got? Like, I mean, like everybody wants to go the next level. How about just deal with the foundation? Cause if you're not sleeping, you're not hydrating, you're not active, you're not doing these basic core things. There's nowhere to go. There's no supplement. There's no new exercise. And really there's none of that. Anyway, without there's no shortcuts. There's no shortcut

No, those could be like bonus bonus and maybe enhance the work that you're doing Yeah, you're gonna work harder and you're gonna enhance it by Using some hack or something like that But I mean even if you think about heat and ice all we're doing is simulating Environments that we were normally in and in some ways now We're turbo charging it whereas before you wouldn't get to experience hot and cold on a daily basis You'd have to go through seasons. It would take longer. Yeah, we can condense it. That's right Do you remember your first memory of?

riding a wave as a kid I Mean the truth is is that my first experience? You know shoreline, little tiny kid, probably could barely swim, if could swim, waves run up the beach on the sand and hit you and knock you and you roll in and you're kind of playing on the edge of land and sea. I could swim early.

My mom said I was literally crawl to the pool and Go in and swim which could have been attributed because the way I was born on my mom had that You know that hairdryer over the stomach that made room in the for me and when I was inside of her So they had like a reverse hairdryer that was pulling on the abdomen well created space for me to move I don't know if there's a relationship with that and I swam early but I swam or she said I swam she said it was Like kind of scary how early I swam but when I was Probably somewhere like three maybe two and a half or three years old They took me out on a surfboard on and there was little tiny waves on in Lahaina on Maui and

And there was little tiny waves on in Lahaina on Maui and they pushed me onto a wave and I fell off and it was on a bed of urchins and so I had both of my butt cheeks completely impaled with urchins as a little like I think I still might have the experience. Yeah, like I just remember it like somehow like I got impaled you know as a young little kid like I think that was the beginning of my I don't know just the relationship between the ocean and And the severity of it, you know, I had respect for it right away. Oh, yeah Urchin respect But yeah, so young and I mean I was around the ocean from a little kid, and my mom was a beach lover, beach goer. My real father was a surfer. My stepdad was a surfer. So, or I shouldn't say real.

I should say blood, blood father. But yeah, we were beach people, like, you know, Southern California. Then take me to Lahaina when I'm a little tiny kid. My mom's boyfriend surfed, was surfing every day. So I was just around surfers and surf Lahaina when I'm a little tiny kid. My mom's boyfriend surfed, was surfing every day. So I was just around surfers and surfing in the water.

How big was the surf culture globally at that time? Very small. There was people surfing in France and Australia, and you know, was it- You would have probably known the names of half of the people surfing? Well, let's just say all the best surfers in the world, there was only a handful, a couple handfuls of great surfers and everybody knew everybody. And surfing itself was, the competition aspect of it was almost non-existent.

And it was more of a rebel Group a group that was rebelling against vietnam. Yeah, like bikers or something. Yeah, that was the beginning But it was on the beginning of the first surf apparel companies and then surf competition Was it like dropping out of society to live a better life on the beach? Was that the idea? Absolutely. I mean my mom's's reason to take me to Hawaii as a child was escape the rat race. Was the 60s, it was Woodstock. It was like, you know, hey, you're going to get the car and get the job and do the thing or you're just going to rebel against the whole thing.

So it was like a cultural revolution. And surfing was definitely, at least my parents parents they were on the tip of the spear I mean there's people in the 50s and stuff too, but the realts kind of surge in in that culture in the surf culture Was that it was and in that when you were growing up was it people were riding longboards? It was long boards and then the 60s which was drug like acid and board design. I would describe it as just like a, it was an explosion in creativity. So it was a crazy, what can we ride? Fiberglass came out, foam came out, like all of a sudden. Do you remember pre-fiberglass?

Well, I can remember, you know, fiberglass was created way before that, but having foam and fiberglass in the surf industry and being able to start to play with board shapes and do all the stuff that they weren't able to do when they had wood and there was no fins. So it was the longboard where the first fiber kind of fiberglass boards with foam and then that allowed the shortboard revolution.

So first it was wood boards. I wasn't born yet. That's before your time. I came right when longboards and longboards made out of foam and resin to the shortboard revolution. When did the fin get added? Had probably 50s late 50s something like that I would think you know right right before I was born probably but but the fin was pretty Primitive like it was a bit was one big fin. It was just one big. How do you ever ridden a board without a fin? Yeah, what's that like?

Amazing. Yeah, I like boards without fins. They're amazingly fast So fins actually slow boards down, but they make them controllable. I see like boards without fins. They're amazingly fast. So fins actually slow boards down but they make them controllable I see so boards without fins. I mean, that's what all the ancient boards were like with no fit no fit Yeah, yeah, historically. Yeah, historically no fins and then fins came out and that that really changed the way Because then the boards were you could aim you could aim. Well, and actually you could stay higher in the wave. But the irony is, is that to ride a board, a finless board, you have to use the edge of the board, which changes the whole way you do it. And to really,

the ultimate is to have both where you're riding the edge with the fin. That's where we evolved to. But first we had fin and we were using fin. Then we went back to using edge. And then the relationship between edge and fin is what that's where we are. I mean, now we're at something else because we're, you know, we're leaving the water but or we're just writing fin. Now we're just writing fin and boards are just to have the fin something to connect to to stand on Yeah, could you imagine something other than a board being the thing that connects to the fin? Well, you know, I don't

Yeah, i'm just wondering it's a question. Yeah, it's like the reason the boards look like they do Is because of how they interact with the water. Yeah, So if their job stops being to interact with the water, do they need to look like what they look like? Yeah. They do look different now, but they still have it. They still do have an interaction with the water. So you still have that. Until you, like, for the first part.

Yeah. Yeah. And for during, too. Like, if you make a mistake or something, they have to touch and go. But it's a little bit like, if you think about the space shuttle and how much different that looks like than an airplane. Yeah, I mean it looks like an airplane Yeah, but it really doesn't look like an airplane like you're looking at that. You're like that doesn't look like an airplane

Well, they can't take off right they have to be launched and then they can fly once they're up to speed and they can land But they they're not great at taking off. So that's a little bit of what What happens when you? Don't need a board right and you're using a fin you you lose some of the things that you need You know, you still need to be able to land When did it go from longboard to shortboard? And what was the difference? There you know when I was real young young, there was still kind of a combination of guys riding big long boards that were great,

and then there was like a short board kind of revolution, and then there was everything between two, which was kind of like these hybrids that were like modern long boards. So they were kind of, they weren't like the old tankers. How would you describe the different people? Between the long boarders and the short boarders right when the short boards came out who did what and why? Well, you know, I would describe the the guys riding the old long boards

as more Traditional guys like they were just more like You know lawyers and school teachers and guys that surf but group that was pushing that were a little bit more like the long haired kind of hippie, like rebelling against society. I'm not going to live in a living to serve living to serve and more like experimental. And of course, there was, there's always exceptions to every rule. So you always have some guys that are but the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the in general the group that was a little more like on the creative side of it there was really I mean okay now there's longboarding and shortboarding this was traditional longboards you know the original ones before there were shortboards that group was still. And then you had the new kind of revolutionary design and, and the different kind of surfing and

a big piece of the reason why there was a need for the new equipment was the kind of waves, like the waves that they were trying to ride. These old big tankers just wouldn't work. So a big piece of it was out of necessity. Like, other than being experimental, a lot of it was based on a need to be able to ride, let's say, pipeline. So you have pipeline, which is, you know... Do you know the story of the first shortboard? Do you know who did it first?

I don't. Well, I bet it happened something like, guy broke the board, sanded the back end, Do you know who did it first? I don't feel I bet it happened something like Guy broke the board Sanded the back end foot a fin on it. Like it's gonna be something like that I don't think it's gonna be so obvious where Like then after somebody's gonna. Oh, yeah, we could do a short board and make it short But I think it's gonna happen more like by accident or maybe out of some young kid happen more like by accident or maybe out of some young kid doesn't have the money and there's a broken board

and he goes and gets a piece of it and you know, retros a fin on it and patches it and then uses it and it's like the most amazing thing he's ever used because you know, you reduced half the drag. So all of a sudden he was freed up and went twice as fast as everybody and they were like, what is that? So I think some of it's out of that.

I know, I mean, there's definitely guys that are knowledgeable about it. Who exactly did everything? I'm Sam George, for example, just knows every single, you know, he's like, well, so and so did a such and such a thing. You're like, OK, here we, you know, but yeah, so for me, I was around like all these guys, these men that were that were playing with it. And because as a young kid, I was at pipeline that wave, like there was a couple of guys that were playing with it and because as a young kid

I was at pipeline that wave like there was a couple guy there was like which fan artsdale who should have been a professional baseball player and like he was an Incredible lifeguard and but he would still ride his longboard at pipeline like he because the first guys that went out the pipeline rode Longboards. Yeah, but and he could do stuff and pull it off It wasn't the best equipment not even close, but it's what they were used to so they could use it in all different situations That's right. That's right. I need pull it off but when you had Jerry Lopez, you know get a pin tail single fin and Then all of a sudden start kind of playing and toying with the thing where other guys were on, you know, suicidal

Survival ride and then the other guys just relaxing arching and standing inside of the wave It was like, you know, that was the difference but it came out of a need to you know Solve a problem. Yeah, you know like hey, we got this issue the wave is Solve a problem. Yeah, you know like hey, we got this issue the wave is Steep and curved and round and you know and these other, you know The traditional places that for longboarding the long boards work were actually probably better for those places, right? And you look at some place like Waikiki. You can't take a shortboard out there He doesn't have enough power to push you where the longboard you could just ride forever right forever. Yeah. Yeah the longboard you could just... Ride forever.

Ride forever. Yeah. So much of today's life happens on the web. Squarespace is your home base for building your dream presence in an online world. Designing a website is easy, using one of Squarespace's best in class templates. With the built in style kit, you can change

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and customize a beautiful website. Visit squarespace.com slash tetra and get started. Squarespace makes it easy to create and customize a beautiful website. Visit squarespace.com slash tetra and get started today. Do you think the maneuvering of the shortboard was inspired by skateboarding or was skateboarding inspired by the maneuverability of the shortboard? skateboarding from my understanding which Was surfers without waves. They were like, there's no surf. It's flat, you know, can we what can we do? Yeah, what can we do like how do we you know? Oh, I got this land sport It's just gonna be just like surfing and so it came from that

I mean surfing was obviously around because it was hawaiians were doing it Like how do we, you know, oh, I got this land sport. It's just gonna be just like surfing. And so it came from that. I mean, surfing was obviously around because it was, Hawaiians were doing it. I mean, it's surfing, the art of riding a wave was there, but it was there, it was board surfers with no surf. You're in Southern California and it's flat for a month. And you're like, hey, you know, what do you wanna do? I got these roller skates.

Let's gloom to a piece of wood. And a lot of what they did early on in skateboarding was try to simulate surfing. They were trying to surf, you know, and then they started to realize, hey, we can do other stuff that you can't do in surfing. You know, it's interesting again, like I said, when you look at how surfing the long boards you use

are finless boards that you used your edge. And then we got fins and then we use the fins and then eventually evolved to using the fin and the edge and you look at snowboarding and like skiing and then how skiing influenced snowboarding because they had the technology of how to build a ski so then they built a snowboard but then through the development of snowboards they figured out this side cut that they put on skis. It's revolutionized skiing. It's all you know It's like this whole give give back thing and so skateboarding ended up giving back to surfing through the aerial and acrobatic part So then you had young guys that were good surfers

skating and they were learning all these tricks because first of all it's a little bit like the pool which is it's a great Environment it's because it's consistent like you can go there and is, it's a great environment. It's because it's consistent. Like you can go there and it's, it's a nice stable consistent thing that you can do things that you can't do out in the wild kind of thing. So you go to, go to a skateboard park, learn a trick and then like, Oh, okay, let me try it on a wave. Right. So it ends up giving back, you know, it's like you trade and you end up giving back. So skateboarding comes back in and gives back to surfing. First skateboarding came from surfing

and then it comes back later and gives back to surfing. So you see that a lot. After a short boards was the next revolution in surfing, windsurfing. Uh, well, wakeboarding too. For it was like water skiing, but on a board. That's right. Again, surfers. Yep. Summertime. Yep. Board them. A lot of board them involved. Get it behind a boat.

They're on a surfboard, they're behind the boat and then we're all riding on and then we're like, okay, well, this board's cool, but we don't need all this board. Let's try a little smaller board. And then pretty soon they're making boards specifically for being behind a boat because you have that power source. So then you don't need- And it works in lakes.

It works. That's right. Have you ever done it? Yeah. Fun? Yeah. I mean, it's, I always liked water skiing because of the speed and the power and the turning.

But that also speaks to my kind of choices in the discipline. Like in surfing, I like big wave riding. It's more like downhill skiing and like racing. It's like downhill. Do you think the main difference is the speed aspect of it? Is that what draws you or is it something else? In big wave riding? Yeah.

I mean, I think that the speed is a reflection of the intensity So I think that big waves and just the energy of the big waves, you know I think I think speed just a byproduct of liking that intensity and then also for me being raised around It was what I admired when I watched everything and if you know again if you look at the disciplines It was what I admired when I watched everything and if you know again if you look at the disciplines and you think about Acrobatics, you know anything about skiing and it's acrobatic. That's one discipline. It's more gymnastics. Yeah, usually going slower Yeah, you know, it's usually it's not like a downhill course where it's full wide open I mean if you crash doing acrobatics, it's severe too But it's just not quite not quite like flying into a fence at 80.

And so big wave riding, you have the smaller wave acrobatic aspect, and then you have big wave riding, which is more like full throttle, wide open. When you were a kid, how often was the opportunity for big wave riding, even just for you to see it as a kid? A lot. I saw guys like But butch fan artsdale and jose angel

and like warren harlow and I saw some of I think the the bull was already gone by then but I saw that generation those those big wave writers that were Still riding giant long boards the very first people to ever do it. Yeah Yeah, I mean maybe I was I I wasn't at the beginning of that, but I was definitely at the end. Like I saw that. You saw the end of that first phase. I did. Those guys for me, when I looked at them, they looked to represent what I thought was man.

Yeah, it was more inspirational. Like man, like man, like, I'm like, that's an aspirational. And the people below the first group of short porters, because of my age and my background, man like a man like like I'm like that's an aspirational and The people below the first group of short boarders Because of my age and where they were at they've seen more like older brothers I see so I looked at them like yeah But it wasn't the aspiration came from you see the older brothers and you're like, yeah, you know and and that next group

Was the ones that really capitalized on the board design and the smaller boards and being able to ride the smaller, more aggressive waves, like other guys would go out when it was just, you know, when they were calling for evacuation and stuff. And you'd see the guy going the other way. He'd be like, Oh, who's that? Well, that's Warren. He's gonna go swim the sunset. You're like, but did you try every new thing when it came out? Yeah, and I think part of it was because when I was young Well, first of all, they didn't even have boogie boards when I was a kid

Like when I was a kid, there was no such thing as a boogie board There were broken pieces of surfboards and as a body surfing Yeah and body surfing and maybe you'd steal some photographers Matt, you know those blow-up mats blow-up mats were so anything They I mean any object that you could just take your load They could float, you know And they barely needed to float because they could be on top of them We used to laugh about McDonald's lunch trays You know you go get these lunch trays and you could use those as a hand plane and catch a wave and you know

Ride along with it. So I was used to that kind of whatever we didn't have any yet trying everything trying everything I didn't start anything. Yeah, I didn't have like I mean I remember when my my dad Bill Hamilton built me a board for you know that I got that I was like When I was like six or something. I got a board that he made me I think it was short-lived because usually I went through he goes through stuff kind of fast, especially when you're, you know, when you're a destructor. And so it just be like break next one, get that. And that discourages him too, when they when you get the new president, you break it within five minutes. But my openness to be able to, to because of just also what was available, like I remember at one point, there was this guy, Bunker Spreckels sprinkles who he was impoverished used to sleep under the crib in our front yard

And then all of a sudden one day he was Clark Gables stepson and his speckles sugar air And he just all of a sudden went from not a dollar to like a hundred million dollars and that was 50 years ago So it was at that point he might as well been whoever right and so he just got into like Had guys building prototypes and so they were building the weirdest craziest stuff And then they would just be any rejects would be in the back of the shop and I could go take them So I would I rode the weirdest, you know air vented down rail weird thin just Crazy things because first of all, that was available, it was there.

So I got kind of introduced to all kinds of strange equipment. That also gives you an opportunity to understand what's possible. That's true. Because otherwise you think, oh, surfboard looks like this. I know what it is. But when you see people are making all these different things and you know what works about them or what doesn't work about them, even what doesn't work about him is really helpful to know very Very well because it inevitably there's always something that is that does work that just leaves you open for the next thing that comes along

So you're not you're not going hey, I'm not close-minded. You're not close-minded I mean listen I I can say I was riding one kind of board and then one day some guy showed up and I and I was already Been surfing for quite a while. I think I was maybe late teens shows up on the island and he has this board called a thruster, which is a board with three fins. And he goes, Oh, you want to try it? And I try it. And it's it'd be like all of a sudden you went from like a model t to you have yourself a new

Sports car like it literally was just and and and and he gave it to me he goes he said you can have it Why would three fins make such a difference? Well because of what it did was is that it reduced the drag, but it put fins on the sides, which allowed the boards and the way they were configured. It was kind of unweighting the board and then allowing the board to really be put on an edge where one fin would still stay in.

So when you got really, when you really got laid over and you were on a hard edge Two of the fins would be completely out of the water and normally that would just spin out normally you I said But one of the fins would stay in the water which allowed you to be a much more aggressive Like you could be so much more aggressive and it would just hold and so that just totally Revolutionized surfing act technically remember around when that was what year that was no Simon Anderson was the guy Simon Anderson an Australian guy came up with the concept of the and who knows if it was him and somebody Or but but he's credited with it

I think he did it was his brain child and I mean that would have had to been 30 something years ago Like probably that's how long it's been a little bit more changed everything Changed everything everything the whole thing the whole thing like every single guy. I mean right now we have a four fin revolution But it's just kind of a in a way It's an offset of the three fin and every professional surfer in the world Uses a thruster or a four fin like they're still today and like I said when I got on that board and what I was able To do and then the guy was so nice he goes hey you can have that board and that was it from then on it was like put every board

away that's the only board you were I did like you know and and you had some that you really liked too I had all single fins there Jerry Lopez was making a lot of them they were built for pipeline you know Bill Hamilton was building them for me I mean one thing that I did from early on because of the nature of my relationship with equipment was my loyalty to was to the best thing. So I wouldn't, just because I was riding, my dad was making me a board, I go,

if somebody else comes on with better board, that's what I'm riding. I'm never gonna let the equipment. There would never be a limitation. Never. I'm not gonna be compromised it because of my loyalty to a brand or loyalty to my dad.

I go, because that's the tool. So if the tool can allow you to do a better job or do it the way you need to do it or want to do it, that was it. If it was better, it was better. And so, and I think that allowed me to kind of bounce along to, and I always made it clear to whoever I was working

With like hey listen if something and I could come back to them and say hey This is what they made and they could make one Yeah, that looked like it and see if they can make a better one Yeah, but whoever made the best one was the this is the tool that I used to do this thing that I do I'm sorry. I'm using whatever one I can absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. When did wind become a factor? Well, the wind, so windsurfing was in created, uh, and then seventies this in the seventies. So windsurfing was created in the seventies, but what happened is they,

somebody took a windsurfer and stuck it on a surfboard, right? Windsurfing was influenced by surfing, but they didn't put it on a surfboard. They didn't put it on one that was like, they put it on like a little sailboat. That's right. Yeah. Well, there was a board, but it was more like, it was more like they put it on a board that looked like what the boards looked like in the fifties that they surfed on. It wasn't on surfboards that they were using in the eighties. And then sometime early eighties, they stuck one. And I think it was on Maui and at the time, in the fifties that they surfed on. It wasn't on surfboards that they were using in the eighties.

And then sometime early eighties, they stuck one. And I think it was on Maui. And I believe it had to do with Jerry Lopez, Mike Waltz, Matt Switzer, some of these guys. And Matt, who I know, Matt Switzer's dad was one of the co-inventors of windsurfing, the windsurfer itself. The original.

The original. The original windsurfing was more like sailing on a board. That's right. Even though guys got on waves and they were surfers, they were influenced by surfing. I mean, the sons of the guy like Matt Schweitzer and my friend Mike Walz and some of these guys, they took those boards and pulled the keels out and sailed them on the little tiny waves and probably had the epiphany of like, wow, we can interact with the surf. But when they took the sail off that thing and stuck it on a surfboard, which I think the original one was a Jerry Lopez

surfboard for pipeline, then you had yourself a new thing. And I was exposed to that at that point. I would say in 8584 something like that mid 80s. I was exposed to That and when I saw that and I saw these guys sailing out and hitting waves and flying I Was like that is something I want to do like that's a crazy thing. How many people in the world were doing it at that time. Oh No, there was companies ready because windsurfing itself had regattas and there was a ton of windsurfers out there But the core of the guys that were doing it in the surf in the waves Like it was all mostly I want to say I mean now and there's probably little satellite Groups around the world, but Maui was the focus

Yeah satellite groups around the world, but Maui was the focus. Yeah. Also because of the wind. The wind. Maui had the best wind. In the world. One of the best. I mean, okay, there's the Gorge and Aruba, but Maui was the, and the wind and the waves. Yeah. Right?

So you had that and you had those guys that were all, like I said, were great windsurfers. They were all- And still today, if you drove in Maui, you just find a bunch of windsurfers. But now kiting's and being influenced and now winging. Yeah, so they have we they have other wind disciplines But cut but windsurfing today you still have it So that's the beginning of that I get exposed to that

And I've been sailing for a year or two and some guy comes over from Maui You know, I don't know if he heard about me sailing or heard something, but he came over to meet me. I sailed with him and he said, Hey, you got to come move to Maui. I'll put you on a windsurf team, like a racing team because they were doing they're using windsurfers to break speed records too. So there's a multiple discipline. There's like slalom sailing and you have Robbie Nash, one of the greatest windsurfers of all time from Oahu, Kailua,

which is a great windsurfing place. Not quite Maui. I mean, he ended up moving to Maui just because Maui is a better spot. And so there's already been that aspect. You already have these disciplines of a lot of slalom was a big piece of it in the beginning, more like yachting. It was regatta, like go race around the course in the winter. And so then they had freestyle. So they had freestyle, which were they're doing tricks. And they were doing that all that stuff on those old, big, giant, I call them dogs.

And with no waves. And with no waves. Yeah, it was more like boating. Sailing. Yeah, it's sailing. And so then that whole wave riding thing comes along. And obviously, the guys from Hawaii have a little bit of a lead on it.

And so I ended up moving to Maui because of wind. And saw some girl doing it at a beach where I surf, and I'm like, oh, let me try that thing. I went out and, you know, windsurfing is actually not that easy. And so I call it the thousand fall syndrome. You have to go out and you have to fall a thousand times no matter who you are. You fall, you fall, you fall, you fall, you fall,

you fall, you fall, you fall, you fall, you fall, you fall, you fall, you fall, you fall, you fall, you fall, you fall, you fall, you fall, you fall, you fall, you fall, to fall a thousand times, no matter who you are. You fall, you fall, you fall, you fall, you fall. And all of a sudden one day you get it in your, and then you, and then after that- Did you like that about it? The fact that it was hard to do? Did you like the thousand fall? Let's just say I wasn't discouraged by that. Like that didn't discourage me. I was like,

yeah, no problem. First of all, and I probably shouldn't be this way, but I see these people doing it. I go, well, in fact I can do it and that person can do it and they can do it I know I can do it. I can do it. Yeah, like I like it no matter what Yeah, I could suck but I know if they can I can kind of and it's again it's back to I've come to learn That's true about everything that if somebody can do it Somebody else can do it. Yeah, like and no matter cuz week sometimes we go old so and so Do the but you but listen we only have two arms and two legs Yeah, and two eyes and one brain and like at the end of the day

We're not so different that we're gonna be able to do something that no one else can do now You maybe you can do it first and maybe you can do it in a way that's different than anybody does it like music But you're not the only person who can play a piano and you're not going to be the only person that can play a flute or guitar or whatever. Cause sometimes we have a tendency to think, well, you know, we're going to be the only ones that can do this now. If we're not, if we can, they can. That's how, so that's my mentality. Welcome to the house of macadamias. Macadamias are a delicious superfood, sustainably sourced

directly from farmers. Macadamias, a rare source of omega-7, linked to collagen regeneration, enhanced weight management, and better fat metabolism. Macadamias. Art-healthy and brain-boosting fats. Macadamias. Paleo-friendly. Keto and plant-based. Macadamias. No wheat, no dairy, no gluten, no GMOs. No preservatives, no palm oil, no added sugar. House of Macadamias. I roasted with Namibian sea salt, cracked black pepper, and chocolate dips. Snack bars come in chocolate, coconut white chocolate, and blueberry white chocolate. Visit houseofmacadamias.com slash tetra. I learned from you, first time I came to your gym. I couldn't do one push-up and you said don't say you can't do it

So you haven't done it yet and with your help I worked up to doing 100 push-ups in a row you can train to do anything just because you can now doesn't mean you can't That's true. No, that's true. When I think but that just speaks to our bear that we create the barriers, right? Yeah, like if you really want to if you'd be surprised how much different than it then oh I wouldn't mind being able to do that if you go in with that like I wouldn't mind being able to do that Chances are you're probably not gonna do it very well if you're coming in blowing like hey, man I just all I want to do is that that's the greatest thing. How do I do that? If you have the passion, yeah, you'd be surprised what comes, you know, in a way, windsurfing came out of nowhere, brought

me to a place and taught me a bunch of things that actually was the basis for all this other stuff that I ended up doing after, right? The in surfing. So it ended up back to what I was saying before, how you do the one thing. You don't think that that has anything to do with this, but all of a sudden that comes back and you gives you to the thing that you're the other thing that you would be an example of something that came from windsurfing that benefited you later. Well, first of all, dealing with the speed, like when I got on a big wave, when I finally went the fastest I had ever been on a big wave that was the fastest I'd ever been when I spent some years windsurfing and speed sailing all of a sudden then it was another animal then I was all of a sudden I was used to going 35 40 knots across the roughest water you've ever seen so my, my, my speed acclimation was another animal. I was another animal then footstraps. All of a sudden, now I'm used to being in footstraps. I mean, I got a couple of broken ankles to show for it,

but I was used to footstraps. Like wind surfing made me footstrap friendly. So when I put footstraps on my big wave tow board and I got towed in and I'm descending on waves bigger than I'd ever imagined, I could ride all of a sudden. Now I'm the speed. I'm good with the speed cause I'm used to the speed. I'm good with being attached to my board. I know how to use the footstrap and be in the footstrap. So that was just the first other than like the influence of equipment that the stuff that went, because what happens is when, with with windsurfing when you really go fast you really find

Out if your fins work or not all of a sudden you're like, huh? These fins suck things fail fail Yeah quickly and so, you know, and then all of a sudden all that information that you learned about Materials about shapes about all this stuff that made you go fast in a windsurf or all of a sudden you put that into the big Waveboard it's a different board. The whole thing's a different animal. So things like that, right? Things like technique.

What about the idea of towing? Like in a way, the sail is the motor. Well, that's what, that was the original influence for towing, right? Because we were windsurfing, we're out at sea. We sail onto a giant swell, which on a surfboard, you would never even look at that because that would be a mile out from you. And you wouldn't be able to catch it because it's not breaking. So you,

it wouldn't even be in your brain. Not possible. Not possible. Physically not possible physically impossible. Not even remotely possible. It doesn't matter who and when and what's never going to be possible, but you're on a wind surfer. You're like, wow, it'd be amazing to be on this way without this sail because this sail is Restrictive it's cumbersome. It's big. It's it's affected by the wind I can only go certain ways and do certain things I'd love to just be here right now and just throw that sail away and be on my board. So when we started Towing when we figured out that you could the very first time you ever toed

Started towing when we figured out of that you could the very first time you ever toed First time we ever toed was summer day North Shore of Oahu place called V land So we were outside V land which is on the North Shore and it was and we were freeboarding we were behind a boat behind the zodiac towing around summertime board, but there was a little swell and Let go being towed and I either was driving the boat and I towed Buzzy or Derek on a wave or a Buzzy was driving and he told me on I think I let go, being towed, and I either was driving the boat and I towed Buzzy or Derek on a wave, or Buzzy was driving and he towed me on, I think I let go, and I went, oh, I can catch a wave. So no one had done this yet?

This was a new thing? Not that we know it. No, of course. Yeah, but people, because later on after- You weren't copying it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no. At the time you did it, you weren't copying it. No, no, never seen it, At the time you did it, you weren't copying it.

No, no, no. Never seen it, didn't, never thought of it even as a, as a concept. And if it wasn't for the sail experience, you might not have thought it. No, because I wouldn't, we wouldn't have the desire to go try to get ourselves early on those because we had been on them. We've been going out in stormy giant surf on the North Shore on our windsurfers and getting on these swells and just being like, man, it would be awesome to just not have this sail and just be able

to ride this wave in. And so that in the back of your head, you're thinking, oh man, it'd be great to not have to need that. But how do we get on the wave without that sail? And then we can throw the sail away and then try to go back and get it. Like that's not going to happen. How long was it between the windsurfing and towing? Couple winners like like short couple short like well couple winners of windsurfing big waves then the summer coming yeah where we've got towed on by the zodiac and we thought huh let's try that and then a suit because we tried it that summer so that very first swell of the winner implemented the towing and it worked

Unbelievable very first time let go fly on the wave and then after that it was just like that was just like a light went Off and that was just it from then on we were just like don't even talk to us No, it was either some time in that first window We had been invited to a big wave event, which is was the premier big wave wave event at, uh, why may I Bay the Eddie I cow Derek donor and myself were both invitees. They hadn't had the event in seven years because the storms just hadn't been right. The conditions and those were the winners that we had been windsurfing in giant surf out at sea. And so we had been riding huge surf, but they just, the event could never happen.

We go out, we're towing. The guys came on the jet skis from Waimea and said, hey, the event's on, you guys gotta be down in Waimea. And Derek and I looked at each other and we just said, well, we're not going anywhere. And please put, Derek yells, hey, make sure you put the Hawaiians, you know, put Hawaiians in.

I'm like, yeah, put some people put the Hawaiians, you know, put Hawaiians in. I'm like, yeah, put some people from Hawaii into that event to take our space. And then that was, we never looked back. So they drove away and we were by ourselves like two miles out, just going round and round and round. For the seven years leading up to that, you were hoping maybe they'll do it this year.

Hoping. And then when it comes, we got something better going on ourselves. We're good. We're doing our own thing. We're good. It's amazing. We're good.

It's an amazing story. We're good. Wouldn't it have felt like going backwards? Couldn't. Couldn't even look, couldn't, couldn't. I was not even like, what? No, there's no way. Not interesting at all.

At all. Not even close. What we were doing, that would be like, what? No, I- Not interesting at all. At all. Not even close. What we were doing, that would be like, there's no way. Like that was his life completely. Like I had been doing some other stuff. So I was a little bored. And for him, it was no decision.

For me, it was not even, I'm like, did you see what we're doing right now? Because, you know, I don't know if you, did you, have you watched? Because- That's a funny story. I don't know if you remember this story, but I have a story. You were out surfing at the bowl one day

and it wasn't like a particularly big day or anything. And you were working on some different tricks and stuff and you did something unusual and you said to someone in the water, did you just see that? She thought, like, look at what I did. And you were looking looking my understanding is you wanted to Verify that it happened

Yes, because yes, you couldn't believe it happened. Yes, so if someone else could say yeah it happened. Yeah, then you know what happened Absolutely. That's half the reason why you want a friend with you because you're something's wrong with you This isn't what you think it is that you didn't do that or that wasn't what you thought it was and so in a way you're just looking for that that's all the thing never is it like oh did you see what I did like come on like that you just want verification verification verification yeah did I actually do what I think I do because it felt like that but I didn't get to see it because I was doing it so I was like I didn't I didn't get to see it because I was doing it. So I was like, I didn't, I didn't, you know, I mean, listen, when we were kids, we were younger, that's why we

were so enthralled by getting a picture or having something film. It was a may because it was, you never got to really proof of concept. You never, otherwise you didn't know you were like, what did I just do? Was it that? How does it feel? Was it as big as I thought? Was it was I doing what I thought I was doing? Because it felt like I did this and that.

Yeah. But I don't know. So I'd like to see it. And so that's how, for us, we started. Like that's why it was such a great like, oh my gosh, a guy had a eight millimeter camera. And I mean, it took three months for him to get the film back. And you know what?

Some of it was overexposed. And you're like, oh, cool. Oh, yeah, well, that wasn't my idea. Either you were disappointed because you thought it was great, or maybe your mind made it up to be bigger than it actually was. That's what we used. That's a really interesting idea that we can't really trust our own understanding of idea that we can't really trust our own

Understanding of things that that we experience who knows so we but we do get better at it And I think when you've done it multiple times Yeah, then you start to go if you've done it ten times Yeah, ten different things that you had ten different thing and you get confirmed ten different times about the 11th one You're kind of like, you know what? I don't have verification, but I know that that felt exactly like those last 10 that I did get verified. Yeah, and it's the same with like,

if you film yourself doing it and you watch the film all the time and you get better based on that, you can make corrections. That's true, that's true. I remember at one point, my friend said I was doing something with my arms when I was a kid and I was probably Early teens or something like that and I'm like no no and he made a comment like hey, you know You're helicoptering it looks and I'm like, uh, and then the guy some guy actually filmed us

And I saw the thing and I go, oh my I'm I'm doing the thing Yeah, but you wouldn't know you wouldn't know cuz it's automatic automatic, right? And you're not and you don't get to observe it I told people I go when we were young we we were doing it and then we captured it now What you're doing is capturing it. Yeah like when we were young to have a photo a Nice photograph or a film when you were kids. It was amazing now It's a GoPro and everybody's filming every single move and actually that's what you're doing

You're doing is filming then it was like you might get to see the thing in two months when they you know If everything goes well, and you know the guy didn't blow in terms of getting better. Yeah great Yeah in terms of having that feedback. Yeah, you want to get good at something. Yeah, you know measure it. Yeah Yeah, no, it's true. I do believe that there is some value about not knowing too. And the mystery, that the mystery of it, the mystery might make you less observant. Like you, into you, you knowing how you look to be like, I'm going to do this because it will feel it more.

It's a more of an internal experience, which may actually help the overall evolution. Like maybe because, because I think that, well, that seems more biological. That seems more like how we actually did do it. Okay. You had people observe it and say, Hey, but you weren't observing it yourself. Yeah. Like when did we get a mirror, you know, and then when do we get a GoPro and we film every single thing we do and we see all the stuff. Because some of it I go, huh, okay, but there is something to the mystery, right? To the mystery of it. Like you're, you're going off of how it feels to do it when you do it the best. That like what are what I say how it feels the best lead to you actually doing it the best. Yeah. Like what I say, how it feels the best may lead to you actually doing it the best way. What may fall within the sphere of tetragrammaton? Counterculture? Tetragrammaton.

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Muscle cars. Tetragrammaton. Ancient wisdom for a new age. Upon entering, experience the artwork of the day. Take a breath and see where you are drawn. Did you get to see a lot of surf movies growing up? I did. First of all, that was all there was other than, you know, you go, go to the beach and watch surfing. But that, and that was the majority of the kind of the focus around the industry. Like that was, that was, there was no, there was no world tour.

There was no, I mean, there was surfer surfers, there was surfers that were going to the beach and they were going to the beach and they were going to the beach and they were going to the beach. the majority of the kind of the focus around the industry like that was that was there was no there was no world tour there was no i mean there was surfer surfing but those were magazines and they were cool but surf movies were like that was that was the industry of surf that's right my mom was friends with some of the kind of the better surf film makers. So and then the new generation, I mean, obviously, you have Bruce Brown and then the summer, you know,

then you had you had a group of Jim Freeman and McGilvery and Freeman films who those two guys, Freeman passed away in a helicopter crash and then McGilvery became the most successful IMAX guy after that because he never wanted to make sure films because he lost his partner. But those guys were like in my belief those guys really made some of the best what were some of theirs like saltwater wine Pacific vibrations. I just know

the ones that really impacted me like 5 summer stories. You know they had honk playing in And I mean, as a kid, you go to the theater and big screen and just the whole. What is it about surf movies though? It's like, you can watch them forever. They're so beautiful. Well, the majesty of the ocean. You know, it's like, I've been blessed with a backdrop

of what I do is a giant wave. I mean, if you didn't have anybody there, you could go down and just watch a giant wave for ever. It's like a fire. It's something about that movement and water and just the, the life of it. I mean, it just something that's meditative, mesmerizing, entertaining, you know, scary and beautiful. I mean, just has all these emotional things that, you know, I mean, people go down to the beach and just watch waves break. It's pretty. I mean, just has all these emotional things that, I mean, people go down to the beach

and just watch waves break. It's pretty, I mean, if they're big and they're beautiful, like where's there to go? And for me, I feel like that was the thing that initially drew me to it to the beginning, was just the majesty of it. And then you start participating in it. And then all of a sudden you get to be in the painting,

not only observing it, now you get to be, you get to see it and then all of a sudden you get to be in the painting not only observing it now you get to be you get to see it up close in and see angles and see things that you don't get to see unless you're there. So it's the beauty of it's what drew you in absolutely and the terror. Yeah, the terror like that how important do you think experiencing beauty is for us. I mean I think that it's like you know what it what is a beautiful woman do to a man Like everything we do is based around that right, you know, why do we try to achieve is you know to attract beauty to

Do it beautifully to like I mean look at nature. Look at a sunrise. Look at a sunset. Look at Creation look at all the animals look at nature look at a sunrise look at a sunset look at creation Look at all the animals look at the flowers look I mean it's just and being in these beautiful places You know you live in beautiful places beautiful places by no accident very inspiring Again, I think away from our biology I think we're meant to be part of it is is that when you're in a beautiful place and you're looking at something When you're looking at beauty you when you're looking at beauty, you leave yourself behind and you find

you don't need anything and you don't want anything and nothing else is important. You're just an observer. It's not about you, it's about what you're observing. So in a way it seems like that's the whole idea behind what meditation and being a monk and all these things is about, right? It's about you separating from you and just becoming part of. I mean, listen, a desert is beautiful. A rock mountain is beautiful.

The truth is, is that man makes beautiful things. But when he doesn't try to make beautiful things, then there there is no beauty. But nature, you're you cannot compete with nature. Nothing that man creates beautiful as Paris and the Louvre and St. Peter, different competition. I mean, we're going to Yosemite. I mean, it's all good. Like, and why is it beautiful to us? Like, that's another question.

Why are these things? Why is it desert? Beautiful to us? Why is a mountain beautiful to us? Like that's another question. Do why are these things, why is a desert beautiful to us? Why is a mountain beautiful to us? Like that's a bigger question because- It contains some mystery because that why is like, it is mysterious.

That's right. Why did the rocks in Monument Valley have the effect that they do when you see them? I believe that that has to do with, because it's a physical representation of God. Yeah. It makes sense. Because it's a physical reputation of the grand master,

of the creator, of grand knowledge, of grand information, of the all-knowing, all, you know, like, that's what it is. So when you look at it, you're like, oh, because you say, oh, you can't see it. I go, you can see it. Have you looked? It's a reminder. It's a reminder that there's something, there's some intelligence. There's some superior design that in a way takes us out of our position of importance. I mean, when I'm in the ocean, and I'm in some giant surf, I'm not thinking about myself.

ocean and I'm in in some giant surf I'm not thinking about myself except maybe when I'm in front of one and it's going to break up my head I'm like wow I might die right now but I'm not I'm not ever and when I'm in it and in that thing in a way I'm not I'm not thinking about yesterday I'm not thinking about tomorrow I'm not thinking about my you know like what I did or didn't do I'm just right where I am and and I might be thinking about what I need to do to maybe survive, you know? But it's pretty immediate. It's pretty present and immediate. Interesting you spent so much of your life waiting for big waves.

And I remember one morning in the gym, and you were leaving the next day to go to Chopu. And you were pensive. For someone who's been waiting for something to happen, it wasn't like party time. Here we go. You're just waiting for something to happen. and you were leaving the next day to go to Chopu, and you were pensive. For someone who's been waiting for something to happen, it wasn't like party time, here we go, it's happening. You were very serious, very quiet,

and I asked you what's gonna happen when you get there, and you said, I'm gonna go out in a little boat, and I'm gonna sit with my friend, and we're gonna watch the wave, and we're gonna watch the wave for about a half hour, because a half hour is the shortest amount I can watch it and know what I have to do. And then I jump in the water and I go.

And I said, well, why wouldn't you watch the wave for an hour? And he said, if I watched the wave for an hour, I would never get out of the boat. Oh yeah, anxiety. I don't wanna watch. I don't wanna watch. I wanna watch long enough to know what's happening.

To know what to do. Yeah. I want to watch. But anything beyond that and you would get to what could go wrong? Absolutely. You know why? Because I can't do anything about it. I think that's the part. I'm not participating. And then that just was like a self-destructive position. I just get there and grind myself apart and don't. I never have been able to, I'd rather not see it. I'll turn my head and go, like, don't show me. Don't let me sit there and watch it.

I'll overthink it. There's nothing good that comes out of that. Other than just the initial assessment, okay, let's understand what the day is. So you're not like, oh, my goodness, I didn't realize that every 10 minutes, a giant wave comes from that place and not that place. So... The least amount you can know to know what you need to know. I didn't realize that every 10 minutes a giant wave comes, you know, like from that place not that place like so

The least amount you can know to know what you need to know. That's right and then take action. That's right. That's right Yeah, especially going into environments and situations that you don't have high volumes of experience Like when you're going to a spot you've written a thousand times and the consequences are low and all those things Then it's just you don't even it's not even something to think about but as you get into these situations that that you have less Exposure to less volume and and the consequences are higher Yeah, and ultimately you're gonna you're gonna assess as you're in it, too. I mean we always did that at Especially in the early days when we were at Jaws on Maui at Piyahi, we would always work our way in. You know, we had a few sayings. We called ourselves the

shoulder soldiers, right? With the shoulder of the wave is the safest spot. So we would start off and just catch one on the edge and just be like, okay, let's feel the water. Let's see the thing like no ego, no like, hey, watch what I could do. And just, you know,, let's feel the water. Let's see the thing like no ego No, like hey watch what I could do and just you know walk over and get yourself crushed like we had no No problem being like and I could see guys go in and just do stuff and I'd be like wow That's an interesting way to approach it I would never I could never approach it that way Yeah, but that was something we would go about certain things that we did that we tell me the story of first seeing jaws. I Heard it from far away and we had been talking you heard the crash

I could hear the crash from miles away like pia. He the word pia He which is the Hawaiian name for jaws means the beacon to be called So it calls you you hear When then you're you're either drawn to it or you run like a sound is different than other waves sound. It's a deep like sounds like mortar fire in the distance sounds like a war like sounds like like low tone Big power you can just you you know, like boulders are moving kind of thing. Far away. Far away. Miles away.

But the fact that it's miles away and you can hear it tells you something about it. Something large, something severe. So we had, you know, and it had a reputation on Maui when I moved there for windsurfing. And I had moved to Maui being a surfer needing to surf and then coming to a windy place that the surf was usually pretty messed up, but there was another really good wave on the other side of the Island. That was a really good way, but it was just very infrequent Honolulu Bay, which I would go to and surf to kind of fulfill. If I didn't fly to Oahu and try to surf pipeline Maui is a big Island to get surf. You have to drive a lot at a lot of wind, mostly the wind,

a lot of the spots are completely, you know, destroyed. So you're there to wind surf and you're there to surf. You have to drive a lot at a lot of wind, mostly the wind. A lot of the spots are completely destroyed. So you're there to wind surf and, and then you, you hear about this wave. It's not like you can, it's on the road. You just drive down. It's like, you know, five, six miles into a pineapple field. You got to know which roads to go on and which places to get to to even be able to get to a spot where you can actually see it. So my friend, uh, Jerry Lopez, who built a lot of my boards,

who was the king of pipeline, you know, the master of that wave and built my boards. I've known him since I was a child. He used to, you know, let me stay at his house. He was a mentor? Mentor, yeah. Like an older brother. Yeah.

Like an older brother, but definitely, definitely crazy good. Crazy good. Yeah. Crazy, beautiful, like make boards for me. Let me stay at his house. Like very supportive of me my entire life since I was a little kid, right? You know, his house was at pipeline. So, and he lived on Maui as well, which was kind of ironic.

So, and he was involved with the windsurfers with the first boards and he windsurfed. And so. I didn't know he was into windsurfing. Into windsurfing. Yeah. Yeah. So he tells us about that wave and he says, yeah, they call it that.

They called it domes because there was a dome house, but then that burned down so they couldn't call it domes anymore. So then they called it the atom blaster. But he said that it gets giant and some people may have paddled out or somebody but no one surfs it. It's a way that just it's there and it's giant and it's pretty. It's so rugged, giant cliff. You have to hike down. Not surfable. Come by boat. Yeah. Not a surf spot. Yeah. Not a surf spot. Like maybe you could go and surf it, but it's not a surf spot. Like it's not a place people surf. Whether they surfed it or not is beside the point. It's a little

bit like towing. Did they tow or not tow? We don't know but we went there. No one was surfing it. We didn't see anybody surfing it. We saw it big Were your first thoughts how perfect like doable or not automatically? Not doable not not automatic doable What a giant perfect wave I see don't know if we can be ridden right and I think we saw it, and I don't know if we already were towing, but there was like a correlation between we'd already been towing and we saw it. Had you never seen a wave ridden that looked like that? No. And nowhere in the world? Not even close. I mean, there was giant waves that were ridden.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Maybe in cartoons. But not like this. Maybe. Only in those surf movies when I was a kid. Yes. Because they were so big. Yeah.

And I think that's the biggest thing. in the world. Not even close. I mean, there was giant waves that were ridden. Yeah, yeah. Maybe in cartoons. But not like this. Only in those surf movies when I was a kid. Yes. Because they had cartoons in the surf movies with little tiny guys riding giant waves. It was like that. Like that.

OK, cartoon wave. Cartoon. Yeah. Full cartoon. And that was cartoon wave from two miles away on a cliff. Never mind throw somebody out there and see that they look like they look more like a mosquito Then they do like somebody to ride the wave like beyond like this not not in the game of what people you do

Yes, I mean why may as giant it's a beautiful wave Sunset Beach. Okay, you know, Greg Noll World, Makaha 1969 But this is a different thing. This is just a different creature You can just see the way, the speed of the wave, the shape of the wave. Different magnitude different? More than the next step. More than the next step. Not a big day at a good spot.

No. Just a whole different animal. This is the speed and just the whole setup on a cliff, where it is, how it is. It's like everything about it makes it look like, that's not exactly an imitation. There's not like a sand beach in front where you can go down there it makes it look like, that's not exactly an invitation. There's not like a sand beach in front where you can go down there and stand and go like,

hey, maybe I'll paddle out. There's no sand anywhere in sight for miles. And sand is like Boulder Beach. That's all the sand there is. Boulder Beach on a cliff in front of a thing. So if you're lucky enough to make it back to land. You might not make it back up the cliff. Right.

And definitely not with everything intact. Yes. You'll be broken board, whatever. So we see it. And I'm living with, I have a friend Mike Waltz, whose best friend's dad invented windsurfing. He's a phenomenal windsurfer. And it's just a stud of a guy I did work with.

He's just a great friend and he'd been windsurfing and we had all kind of heard about the same time. And I'm not sure exactly the time frame, but sometime in that same winter or within the winters, they windsurfed up from Huquipa, which was about six miles away. So they tacked their way up to the spot and they either got on a wave or got a couple waves or something like that. And then they went back home and, and then that was like, okay, wow, we could go there and do that. But you had to just tack six miles. And if you've something breaks, you're done. Cause you're it's all cliff all the way back. And there's nothing about it that made it like something that you'd be reoccurring. And so I was able to, on a small day,

because now I was interested. Now we were like, hey, we're interested. Let's see it. Let's go look. Every time the surf's big, we'll go down there and see what the swell's doing. We're starting to become interested in just observing the spot.

Conditions are beautiful. On one day, small, I took my board, walked down the cliff, paddled out, caught a couple waves, small waves. But just to kind of... observing the spot conditions are beautiful on one day small I took my board walk down the cliff paddled out caught a couple waves small waves but I just did just to kind of experience the whole thing yeah proceed slowly observe step by step take your time things been here a long time probably going to be here after we're gone so you know go do that and then uh catch a couple waves and then and I don't I think that was even before toeing or toeing just happened right within that same time But we're doing toeing on a wahoo

We're not even on the island And we don't have the equipment there We don't but we do toe in and then we're like and we've been doing toe in for a little while in wahoo We're like, oh, yeah Okay Now we got to go bring this toe in to go to this spot because then we come by boat. Yeah. And initially toe in it was pre jet ski. Yeah, we didn't have that. I think there was one model of jet ski out. We didn't have them. We use Zodiacs, which were a lot more cumbersome. So that that was

the initial thing that we were using, which means that you had to be ready to drive a Zodiac with an outboard motor in front of a giant wave try to pick your friend up without running him over Try not to flip over when you go over the top I mean we just had a bunch of things that zodiacs were not the ideal machine not close No, but closer than nothing. Yes much. Yes Yes closer than nothing, but not ideal And then we bring the boat there. And then I think I get approached by, because we're starting to tow, and they hear,

and I get approached by Bruce Brown, Endless Summer. And he's doing Endless Summer 2. Wow. And he says, I heard you're doing this thing called tow-in, dah, dah, dah, what's the thing? I go, well, my fee is a brand new jet ski. Perfect. They go, great.

So here's our first machine. So we get our very first machine. So, and we have that at Jaws after the test run. Do you ever go on smaller days before bigger days? I mean, I think we go there early and it's big on a day where we're I think we go there early and it's big on a day where we're going there and we're scared. We're scared. We don't know if we're going to die. There's no salvation. When you're going there, is there any version of you going there and deciding not to do it?

Could that happen? Absolutely. Yeah. In fact, we're going there with the, we're not sure if we can do it. Yeah, we're not sure. You're going there with sure if we can do it. We're not sure. You're going there with a question. That's right. We want to answer the question.

Answer the question. We definitely aren't going there. We're gonna, we're not, because we don't know what we're gonna do. And we have no idea what, how our equipment is gonna work. I mean, we have no flotations and we don't know what's gonna happen on that way.

We don't know if our boards are gonna work. We don't know if the things are gonna, we don't know if the things are gonna we don't know any of it. We're just completely coming in, you know, like explorers like we're coming in like Okay, like, you know, I'm gonna fall off the edge of the world like am I gonna just disappear and then Into the abyss and never come up like I'm like what how many people in the crew? Well, the original crew was Buzzy and Derek and I. That was the three of us.

We were the three on the north shore of Oahu. But once I came to Maui, I had my boys over, or the group of guys, like I had Mike Waltz, who was the windsurf. But on the day that you went, there were three of you in the water? I think the very first time, I think we went with one boat

and there was probably three of us. I don't know if it was Derek and Buzzy and I, or if it was Buzzy and, and then we started pulling guys in. We, we got guys, you know, we had Brett, Lickle, we had, you know, we had Dave Kalama. We, we, we started, and I don't know, I don't know. You still only had one ski. Yeah. Yeah. But we had a Zodiac too. And you would go out with both. Yeah. Yeah. I see. Yeah. Well, cause we had the mama ship that we would run with as well. And,

and the one thing about the one little caveat that we had at that place is that that's also on the windiest place in the world. So we're on the wind factory. So now we have wind as a big element that we never had on the North shore of Oahu because the wind is just not the same there So you come there and now we have the wind element. Yeah, because this is a wind factory Combined with the giant wave. Yeah, which makes it a whole different another animal when you're going fast on the board for someone who hasn't Done it. What are the things that you wouldn't expect?

Well, first of all how much you feel the surface if there's any bump or anything like how you're going to fly out of the water. And the fact is it's a storm. Yeah. You're in a storm, essentially. And the faster you go, the bigger a small bump is. So if you're going slow, bumps aren't even an issue. But when you go fast, little bumps become big bumps. Right.

So speed increases the roughness and then also how difficult it is to turn when you're going fast. And then where do you turn? Like you have a giant wave and it's like, where do you turn? Like if you go to the bottom of the wave, you're going to be destroyed. So you have to turn on the face of the wave. So there's some things happening that are like they do on little ways. It's just, everything's big, magnified. All those things are exaggerated, but definitely the bumpy part's interesting.

Cause I think of a wave being so smooth, you know, like sliding down a slide. It's not, it's beautiful, but when it does it like that. No. In fact, it's like sliding down a slide with a bunch of rocks on it. I see. So now you go to a Chopu like in Tahiti. that. No. In fact, it's like sliding down. It slide with a bunch of rocks on it. I see. So now you go to Chopu like in Tahiti and that thing is, it stretches the bumps out. Right. So you have a diff, a different animal,

but Piahi, you know, Nazare Mavericks. I mean, these other bigger bumpy, bumpy, even when they're smooth. So like at certain days, they're smoother because speed also makes smooth rough. Yeah. The faster you go, the it's like, if you go slow down a bumpy road, you're always, you, you follow the terrain. You go fast on a bumpy road. Pretty soon you're getting air. You're flying. You know, I always use the analogy of downhill skiing. When you see guys that, that if you go slow down and downhill course, you never leave the ground. You come down on the downhill course at 60 or 80. You get a know all of a sudden you're in the air flying. And so that's a big piece of it too, is being able to control that as you're going and then set a turn and do a whole thing that there's like a whole art to that. That's that probably becomes one of the biggest challenges in riding a wave is dealing with the texture of the face.

That's why we have arrived with foils because you're not affected by that, that texture. It has its other own its issues, but you now you're not completely at the mercy of the texture. Okay. So now you've gone to draws a few times. Yep. And then what's the first time where it's like ridiculously big?

Probably that first season. Yeah. I mean, it got ridiculously big quick because it was already ridiculous big when it was small. Like, so it was already ridiculously big when it was small. Before it was ridiculously big, would it have been the biggest waves you had ridden Yes Yeah, it was already bigger than anything you rode and it hadn't but I had towed in on the north shore of Oahu

So I had ridden some big waves there. Yeah, and I had also ridden something not as big as this and not with wind Exactly and not this kind of velocity just the speed of this wave and the way the wave Broke it broke like a very aggressive little wave but now it's big because a lot of the bigger waves get in deeper water and they just move slower they just have a different I mean they always move faster the bigger they are but a lot of the ones that break in deeper water just have a different movement to them this was acting like a small aggressive wave, but it was giant. So then you had that combination

that really made it a lot more challenging. How much do waves change over time? What changes is the generation of the swell, where the swell angles are coming from, which makes the wave completely different. So if you now, like if your predominance swell direction was Northwest, and then all of a sudden you just, you don't have Northwest, you have North, all of a sudden it's a different way, completely different way, or you have completely straight West, completely different way.

So we have all those angles. And when we go through season, sometimes you'll see that the predominant storm production angle completely changes. And normally where they'd be coming out of the Northwest, all of a sudden they're super West or they're more to out of the North. And that makes the wave completely different. angle completely changes and normally where they be coming out of the northwest all of a sudden their super west or their more to out of the north and that makes the wave completely different the bottom topography

and that stuff doesn't change at all unless a place like pipeline where the sand moves in comes in and fills in and does stuff do it happen a pipeline the same moves a lot there I see so once the sand all goes away and it's back to the reef, then the reef is exactly the same. That bottom's not changing. That bottom's gonna be like that for another hundreds,

thousands, no, thousands of years. But swell angles and where the storms are being generated because of the way the weather patterns are, that's what changes all the time. And there are certain predominant angles that have evolved. Like where that most of the storms. Predominant angles have shifted over time? It seems that way.

Wow, that's interesting. It seems that way that we, That's interesting. Because I imagine that they're always shifting. But I do believe that- For the amount of time that we've been watching it. Yeah. It's shifting.

Well, like for example, this last season, we had a very uncharacteristic swell pattern that came through for like three weeks. That was that that was a severe West swell angle. And the last time we saw anything remotely like that was in the eighties, like where we had West winds for weeks on end with this severe West angle. We haven't had that kind of condition since the 80s like not said somebody else said, oh, yeah I haven't seen that since the 80s and I was like, yeah, that's true because we had the years Exactly. Yeah, we don't know those patterns because those patterns for us are those things are like that could be one a week ago Okay, that was a week ago and it changed but we're thinking wow, that's been my lifetime But you know, we were fortunate when we were riding piaj at the beginning Drying jaws for that first like 10 to 12 years I'm saying that the amount of big surf that happened,

we haven't seen that since then. Like in the last 20 something years, we have not even remotely seen that kind of volume of big surf that's been going on for a long time. And I think that's the biggest thing that we've ever seen in the last 20 something years. And I think that's the biggest thing that we've ever seen in the last 20 something years.

And I think that's the biggest thing that we've. Like in the last 20-something years, we have not even remotely seen that kind of volume of Big Surf per winner. Wow. Like now we're seeing a couple of swells. Oh, there was like every week, every other week, like it was literally like a machine. So you know, those kind of things happen. We don't know what, I mean, temperature.

Yeah. You know, there's just so many variables, the jet stream, there's all these things. But so all of that stuff is kind of a mystery. Yeah. I mean, I think that's temperature. Yeah, you know, there's just so many variables the jet stream there's all these things but so all of that stuff is kind of a mystery. I mean, I think that's part of the Fascination also too, but that's also Affects the waiting affects the anticipation the disappointment like this season for example, they were forecasting a Powerful El Nino for us that. We know very little. If that, you know, especially when it comes to the that stuff, like when it comes to the behavior of the arc, I mean, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you

know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's part of the allure that's part when you get what you when you get something special. You never get it again like that with something like draws you have that experience finally you get to write it when it's crazy big you get to do it a lot. But you get to do it a lot.

And that's the thing about it. I think it's a lot of fun. I think it's a lot of fun. I think it's a lot of fun. I think it's a lot of fun. I think it's a lot of fun. I think it's a lot of fun. I think it's a lot of fun. I think it's a lot of fun. I think it's a lot of fun. I think it's a lot of fun. you get something special, you'll never get it again like that. With something like jaws, you have that experience. Finally,

you get to write it when it's crazy big. You get to do it a lot. Is there a time when it's like, okay, I've done that. That happened once the settlers came or should I say once the people came and started putting pressure on the spot. I got distracted from it and started being concerned about what people were doing and, you know, endangering themselves, endangering other people. Have you understood how dangerous it was?

Yeah. And people saw you do it and then think, oh, if he could do it, I'll do it. Yep, which is true. Yeah, but it wasn't always true. Yeah, yeah. And it didn't necessarily have to be true for you. No.

You know, who knows? We don't know. We don't know. Yeah. When it stops being fun, like what is it that made it stop being fun? And like it's a, well, everybody coming, that could be part of it.

Maybe I couldn't get any more out of it that I was trying to get out of it with the consequences. There could be some point of like, I did this a bunch of times. Well, the only thing I didn't do was really do something stoop. I point of like, yeah, yeah. I did this. Well, the only thing I didn't do is really do something stoop. I mean, I shouldn't say that I did a lot of stupid things. I've done more than one, but I, but I can say, but part of it's that too.

Like maybe the only thing you hadn't done is just have, you know, more bad shit happen. The truth is what happened was, well, first of all, the, we were filming everything we were doing by the end and that happened was, well, first of all, we were filming everything we were doing by the end. And that stopped being fun. It became, every time there was a giant swell. Do you feel like work or something?

Because I was distracted. Do we have the boat guys? Do we have the thing? Do you get the camera man in? Do the camera man got the thing? Okay, we got the boat. Like all of that stuff and all I wanna do is surf. But then I'm like trying to organize myself.

And then everything you're doing is being documented and it's part of, okay, it's for your work, it's for this, it's the whole thing. So then I say, and again, be careful, my mom used to say, be careful what you ask for, the way God punishes you, is he give you what he asks for. But I said, you know what?

It'd be nice to have a special day undocumented, right? Lead to an unforecasted swell, storm generation, uncharacteristically close to the island chain, in a position that normally they don't go. So the forecasts are inefficient because they're used to forecasting from a spot and tell you the whole thing. So they don't really have a forecast for it. little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a off of the airport down by Spreckelsville as good as it could ever be. So we go there. And to this day, I still I don't think we've ever ridden or seen anything bigger to this day.

No cameras. Yeah. Couple miles offshore. Yeah. Giant shore break. Yeah. IFR, which means no helicopter because we were had a helicopter friend, my friend Don not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie.

I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie.

I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. drove off a cliff on purpose, but convince them to come out with me. And it was as big as we've ever seen ever anything. My friend Brett was injured to the point where I had to turn a kid his leg with my wetsuit and put give his float station swim naked, get the jet ski, get him called an ambulance

crash land on the beach naked in front of a bunch of people, put him in an ambulance and then I went back out again, but, and that's when I realized, but the truth is I realized that on that day, at that point, that there was a limitation to our boards, that the boards themselves, we're not going to allow the technique of being towed in with a board. Once it got to this next, next thing, which we might not see in my lifetime, we may or may not, you couldn't descend. You got past the point of where the equipment

could hold up under the conditions. Yes, and that changed my life forever. Like at that point I was like, this thing over there is bullshit. I mean, I don't mean bullshit, but I mean, like, I'm over... You had an epiphany. There's some new thing to do. Well, and also, I realized that I'm not gonna... If it really does do some thing that I'm waiting my whole life to do

as this guy's pursuing tried-and-you-write giant serve, I'm not gonna be able to do it with these things. So I need to figure out what it is. Which we had already been playing with the foils. What was your first time you ever saw anything on a boat? Well, the first time, probably planted the seed, I rode on a giant hydrofoil boat, inner island in Hawaii called Sea Flight.

And it was a boat that had big turbines on it, and it lifted up on hydrofoils and flew across the water, and I rode on it as a child. It was called sea flight. So as a child, fly on this thing. The thing somewhere back deep in my brain was this seed. And then cut to, again, summertime boredom. My friend Brett goes, hey, there's a thing. This guy's got this hydrofoil device in his garage up in Pukulani on Maui. And it's a hydro this my this guy's got this hydrofoil Device in his garage up in Pukulani on Maui and you know, it's a seed or something

I go well, can you get it? He goes? Yeah, let me see any the guy goes sure so he let us borrow it so we took it and Did have a chair or something chair you sit down and you sure I thought it was for handicap Yeah, I thought it was a handicap device. I go to it's's for handicap, but it wasn't. It was the way the thing was set up. You strapped yourself to a seat and I called it the scare chair. And then you just get pummeled, right? You'd fly along and we'd smash our face. I'm like, we're surfers. So the very first-

Would you get towed? Toed behind the boat, behind our skid. So it'd be like water skiing, except you're sitting in a chair and you're floating above the water. Yeah. On a stilt. On a stilt. Yep. On a foil. Yeah. On a foil. On a stilt. You're sitting on and and the guys who can do it do it well. They can do backflips and they ride along behind the boat and do a set of water skis that somebody had designed that had had a foil on it from the 50s or 40s or because hydrofoils have been around militarily and also in the water world for a long time.

And so got that that first day I'm like, well, we don't sit down. We sat down three times, smashed our face. And then we started trying to stand on it so we got us undid ourselves off the chair and then Stuck our feet in the thing and stood behind the chair and got up and went like ten feet standing and we're like We can stand on this thing guaranteed. So So so if we so we just I know would you think there were thousands of air chairs in the world? So we asked just so I know would you think there were thousands of air chairs in the world? Millions hundreds, maybe yeah, I don't know how many he's made. He made at that time Yeah, like there weren't that it was one guy who had an idea and made a hobby thing But yeah, but he was selling them Yeah, he was selling him to people and convincing him that yeah people to ride him and people are riding him

Yeah, and at that point I don't know how many he had sold but there weren't tons of it And this one was sitting in a garage that had spider webs on it. Like the guy had bought it and didn't, wrote it once and never used it. And so we were like, get that thing. I said, ask this guy if we can borrow it and we won't hurt it, but we're gonna try to modify it. So the guy said, okay, cool, but you know, you can't hurt it.

So we're like, okay. So we took the foil out of it and... Did it unscrew? How did it? It had an insert, so it came up in the chair. So the top of the foil shoved up into the seat and had a screw underneath it, like between the seat and the top,

screwed it down to hold the thing in a slot. So we undid the screw, we popped the thing out, and I'm like, okay, now we have to figure out how to make a board that we can make a slot. So we undid the screw, we popped the thing out, and I'm like, okay, now we have to figure out how to make a board that we can make a slot. So we took a wakeboard and we made a plywood pyramid, multiple layers of plywood that we made a slot out of, and we shoved the thing up there and screwed the thing into it,

and then we mounted snowboard boots, stiff snowboard boots in the front and back, because we figured the chair offered leverage against the foil. So we needed leverage and the only way we could do that is take our ankles out of it. Cause our ankles were too supple. We had snowboard boots in binding. Again, back to you go snowboarding. You think it doesn't have anything to do. Then it comes, you brings you back. We boot in,

we clip on and we can stand on it and we can fly behind the boat. We're jamming around, standing on a foil. And as soon as you stand up and you feel it, you're like, oh, okay, this sensation is beyond amazing. How long ago was this? How long ago was that? Probably right around that same time,

80, late 80s, early 90s, early 90s. A long time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, early 90s. I didn't realize you've been messing around with foils that long. That long, yeah. Early 90s, I would say a long time.

Like we've been playing with foils more than 20 years. Yeah, yeah. So did that, rode it, we're having fun, it was cool, flat water, and then we went and we were tired of driving to the other side of the island where the water was. And then we went and we were tired of driving to the other side of the island where the water was flat. So we went and we went to where there was surf. And so we started towing around and then like towing,

all of a sudden let go and fly along and all of a sudden riding the waves energy with the foil. And we realized that you could tap into the energy of the wave with the foil. Which you'd have no way of knowing that you could tap into the energy of the wave with the foil. Which you'd have no way of knowing because up until now you've always been on the surface. Always. The relationship between the board on the surface.

Gravity. Yeah. So your board's not touching the water. You can't surf. That's right. You just don't know how would the thing underwater cutting along, how would the fin underwater be able to be pulled by the waves energy? Like how would that even, how would you know? You wouldn't know, but we knew quick as soon as you let go and you went like that, we went, Oh my, we can ride a wave with it. And then once we did that, you know, we had, like I said, Dave Kalama, Mike Waltz, Rand, Rush Randall, Mark Angulo,

I had a good group of guys that were excited. Because we had a little core group and you get excited. It's like a band. You're like, oh man, that's all, yeah, okay. And then we get hyped up and we meet each other at the beach. And I remember at one point we were all learning how to do front flips on windsurfers. Like somebody said, we heard about some guy

did one by accident or something. And then we're like, oh, you can do a front flip. So we went down. I think my record was like eight boards in a day, broke eight boards in half in a day. I think our other buddy broke eight and six. I mean, we were breaking board, but we had that kind of thing going with each other.

Everybody got hyped up, started buying the foils from the chair guy. First of all, I called the chair guy up and I go, hey, listen, we're standing on these things. They're amazing. He goes, if you are, we're going to sue you. He goes, liability, somebody's going to break their neck. I go, okay, whatever. Like, so we just would, we had people go online and buy the parts and stuff. And then we would make,

and then, you know, and then we started making, have building boards specifically to hold the foils. We started chopping the tops off and welding plates on and making all these prototypes. I mean, everything was a prototype. One of the big breakthroughs we have is Calama's uncle, or somebody had a naval engineer, and he created this one wing out of G10

that we could bolt to our existing fuselages. And that changed the way our rigs rode. You know, we could handle the speed. How different is getting towed versus riding a wave? When you're being towed, the water is neutral. Yeah. 99% of the time, even if there's a little wind blowing or whatever, so you're flying through neutral environment.

When you're riding a wave, you're harnessing the energy of a wave, which is energy going through the water. So the amount of pressure that's on the wings and the foil and how it's affecting the thing is much greater. Like you can get away with stuff on flat water towing that you can't. And there's other things too. You need you need things like you need to be able to slow down without stalling. So you need like a lower stall speed where like behind a boat, you can keep the boats going 24. OK, go 24. Stay at 24. to be able to slow down without stalling. So you need like a lower stall speed where like behind a boat you can keep the boats going 24 okay go 24 stay at 24 where you're going to be on a wave and

you're going to go 35 and you're going to go 15 and so you need this bigger range of what what is the equipment that you need to be able to do that to control the stall speed. You need better shapes, better shaped foils, better wings, wings that fly that have better lift ratios, like better, you know, like an airplane. You need like certain airplanes, if they get below a certain, if the wing isn't big enough and the shape isn't right, they get below 150 knots, and others are gonna fall out of the sky.

So you've tried a bunch of different shapes? Yeah, yeah, we kept trying a bunch of shapes and trying things that we like and trying sizes, sizes, shapes. Any surprises along the way, like where something works that you didn't think would work or would find something, what were some of the breakthroughs along the way?

I mean, the height of the strut. So the height of the strut was a big, that was a big factor because that increased the sweet spot, right it'd be like a higher is better or worse higher is better really even though it's even though you get to a point of diminishing return i see which is it becomes too much leverage yeah so then you get too much leverage which isn't great yeah but it's like a big tennis racket where you have a bigger sweet spot so imagine if your board doesn't touch and the foil doesn't come out of the water That's great, right? But if you have a short Strut which is the piece between the two then the board can touch soon or the foil will come out and neither either one of those

Are a disaster. So technically I describe it like travel in a vehicle It has bigger travel like when you go to the Baja 1000 the guys have like 48 inches of travel It means you can drive through a 48 inch pothole and not bottom out Yeah, yeah So it's the same kind of thing where when you have that bigger mass you can go and especially when you're going down bigger surf And you're going fast So we started to play with all of that position foil shape was anyone else in the world doing this No, yeah, and I imagine if anyone saw what you were doing. They would just think they did

They're crazy and all the top of it. We were crazy because we're booted in we had snowboard boots on so you imagine And that was another thing that affected my pool training and stuff too because I had a situation where I got I I was with a friend and we were way offshore by ourselves and a giant wave hit me and drove me with my rig, and my foil rig was heavied way down into the darkness. And I was attached to a sea anchor with boots on, for real. Like, you know that old cement boots? Yeah. This was the real cement boot.

Yeah. And I was at the bottom of the ocean, connected to the board with my boots on in the darkness, and I old cement boots yeah this was the real cement boot yeah and I was at the bottom of the ocean connected to the board with my boots on in the darkness and I was thinking this is a problem but this is a real like this is it yeah this could be it and so I reached down and got the I had quick releases so we weren't completely yeah flying by the seat of our pants and I got released but I still had boots on yeah and I still had to get to the top and you don't swim well with boots.

So what I did was I didn't use my legs at all because the boots don't work and I just used my arms but through that process I learned that you use a lot less oxygen with your arms and so my breath hold time expanded so I had more. Because you foiling started to foil kind of lost the interest at going to Piaj because it was getting so much attention and had so much draw to it. And then after that I just completely focused every single winner. I was just so excited to win. I was just so excited to win. I was just so excited to win.

I was just so excited to win. I was just so excited to win. I was so excited to win. I was so excited to win. I was so excited to win. And then after that, I just completely focused every single winter foiling in, in all the biggest surf we could like our whole thing. And we didn't even think about small waves. We were only towing in giant surf foiling. That was our whole use of it. Foiling through the exposure of stuff that we're doing all of a sudden starts to get some traction. And I had done this early on when we foiled, which is I,

because I was involved in camping, I was involved in the camping, I was which is I, because I was involved in kiting, because I was involved in windsurfing. We were amongst the first five or 10 guys in the world to kite. So I was in a core group of guys. And kite surfing is where you're on the board and there's a sail up in the air? With a string. And there's a kite in the distance.

And it's like, and I mean, we were early on, like this stuff we were doing. First we did it on land, then we did it on land, then we did it on land. And then we like and i mean we were we were early on like this stuff we were doing first we did it on land and i ended up getting pulled up into some high tension wires and fell from the sky broke my ankle so i'm like yeah we can't do this on land we got to do this on the ocean and then we would do stuff like you'd be on your board in the water with your board and we and the boards that really helped us launch that whole thing it changed into wakeboarding were our big wave boards And then he'd launch it. And in literally it would be like, there's a rope on a bull and they open the gate and you're holding onto the rope

on the bowl. And you just, if you let go, the bull runs away. Or if you crash, you're going to be in the water. And you're going to be in the water. And you're going to be in the water. And you're going to be in the water. And you're going to be in the water. And you're going to be in the water. And you're going to be in the water. And you're going to be in the water. And you're holding onto the rope on the bowl and you just if you let go The bowl runs away or if you crash you're done And so that was that was and we would go down the coast on Maui from the Hukipa and just do like a death run And then end up like the airport if you didn't crash somewhere along the way out at sea

Hopefully not because you'd be way off shore and that's never fun and the kites didn't relaunch They able to get out of the water. You're going to have to go somewhere along the way out at sea. Hopefully not. Cause you'd be way off shore and that's never fun. And the kites didn't relaunch. They were literally if they hit the water, there was over. So you had to keep the kite in the air, not crash and just hold on for your life. So that was early kiting, like in the initial stages of it. And in that, as we started to kite, we were foiling too.

So I went, we were kite foiling. They were air rams initially. Which, which are the ones that guys jump off the mountain with that the air goes in and makes The shape yeah, they weren't relaunchable yet we had heard about a guy in France who had built the relaunchable ones the blow up one and I knew a French guy and I said hey when you go there bring those kites back because I was making them for like some blow Up catamaran or some crap. I'm like relaunchable kite get that thing So I I married the foiling with the kite initially and I kite for and I go

You know what? This is gonna be a discipline. Yeah, no doubt, but I'm not that interested in it. I want to ride waves Yeah, I'm a surfer. Yeah, that's my front but it's gonna be its own thing. Yeah come to we're riding all winter Towing in every time there's a big swell working on, you know riding Giants waves with foils come to foilings birth in kiting explodes. So the guys are kiting, foiling, all of a sudden breaking world records, stuff like that. But foiling all starts in kiting. And then that's when the first foil companies where they have money for R&D and they're paying guys

because they're selling production stuff and they're doing the whole thing, right? They're running the business, they have money for R&D and they're paying guys because they're selling production stuff and they're doing the whole thing. They're running the business, they have clients. So that starts that part of the industry, of the foil industry, which ends up influencing small wave foiling. Normally what happens is you start in the small waves and you go small, medium, large, you get the big waves.

We were in the big waves, so in a way, we went, we ended up. The only reason you were on the foil was to manage the giant wave, because the regular surfboard couldn't do it anymore. Yes, and the irony is that it can ride a wave that you couldn't even surf it so small. Wow.

That's the irony. In the pursuit of the, the fastest, you know, roughest, biggest that you could do is that the result is that same instrument is the one that can ride the wave that doesn't even break. Then you could ride wind swells and you could ride little tiny waves that don't break for miles. I mean, you just, it just expanded. So all of a sudden this whole universe just expands and you have companies starting from kiting that move into you know now you have winging which is kiting without strings so now you're just holding the kite right next to you on a foil board right and so then that's because the foils are so efficient

yeah what's that like what yeah i mean it's coming from windsurfing and kiting it's it's a little and i i mean i've seen some, I saw the world champion in Chicama, because we go to Peru for one of the longest waves in the world. That's our summertime kind of routine, and he was down there. And I mean, what he was doing was amazing, but as somebody who is a wave rider,

wind always seems so restrictive, even though it allows you to do these other things, you're not free. You're being led a little bit. You have to hold onto it and it's behind you and you have a motor. Yeah. Yeah. And in so being, yeah, there's a bunch of things you can do, but there is something restrictive. It's like having a dog on a leash. Like when you have a dog on a leash, you have to kind of like, you can't just run that way and you can't go any direction you want and do anything you want. And there's something freedom about having nothing in your hands that surfing is right.

So so that leads us to that now that's the expansion of what foils are. That's the frontier right is all of these places. When did this happen? It's happened over the last 10 years. And that obviously has, you know, there's nobody that wants to do that really. I mean, there's not a business. There's not a, you're not making these for like the group, the amount of people. It's kind of like big wave riding. The amount of participants doesn't justify any kind of company or anything. So you have the kiting aspect, then wing dinging, which is the wing, like the kite without strings that you're holding onto that's a blow up.

That's just easier to deal with. You just pump it up. You just pump it up. You just pump it up. And then wing dinging, which is the wing, like the kite without strings that you're holding onto that can blow up. That's just easier to deal with. You just pump it up, you grab it, you have your foil board. Electric. So electric becomes it, which made sense, that there was going to be some electric device,

because it's just so totally suited for that. The guy who built that was in engineering school. He saw one of our videos that had foiling in it. The guy who built that was in engineering school. He saw one of our videos that had foiling in it and changed his whole thing into learning how to design that and started a company called lift, which builds the one of the better electric. He's the first electric foil builder and one of the better ones, which I use to train as well, really good for flat water, good for your legs, and you can go really fast on them. So it's really good for reactive time. Is it strapped in or no? For the speed, no.

I could use some foot straps. I just don't put them on. Tell me about when did the foot straps go away and why, and what's the difference? OK, well, so the foot strap, the boot went away. Once the foils became less sensitive and more efficient, as the design increased, the foot straps were Once the foils became less sensitive and more efficient, as the design increased and the shapes got to a point

where they were highly efficient, that allowed. The board could be stable without you being strapped in. Yeah. Whereas before you had to be strapped in. You had to be booted in to deal with the leverage. Yeah. Just with the leverage and that had to do with the way the foil was lifting and what it was doing.

Because as the wings evolve and the shapes evolve, they become more efficient, which makes them less reactive and less leverage and everything about them, they can become more stable. And it's a little bit like whenever you come into a sport after the equipment evolves, it's always easier to learn. Like if you tried to learn how to snowboard with the very first snowboard that they learned,

no one would do it. Nearly impossible. Nearly impossible. You try to learn with the first skateboard, yeah, the three best surfers in the whole thing could do it and no one else. Like it's not skateboarding until they built the tire. You know, you get a urethane tire, a nice truck,

that changes everything. So same thing with the foils. As the foils, all of a sudden, we are able to get rid of our boot. And actually, a guy came to visit me, because my nephew put a foil on a stand-up board initially. And I looked at it like, oh, that looks cool. But I was kind of like, OK, I'm focused on the big wave. Might be good.

And then a guy came to visit me who had one of the foil companies. And he brought a stand-up paddle, foil board. And I went and took it out. I rode one wave. I said, well, I'm going to go to from you or you can sell it to you know, you can sell it to me, but it's not leaving my It's not leaving my house. Like I'm not letting this go. And he's like, well, it's only when I got I go. Yeah, but you built this one. So you can build another one. You're professional. So then now all of a sudden, foils are the shapes, the sizes, the

size of the foils. And then you can sell it to me. And I'm like, well, I's only one I got. And I go, yeah, but you built this one, so you can build another one. You're a professional. So then now all of a sudden foils are the shapes, the sizes, the materials, everything's evolving. And so we move into where we are right now, which is we have a enormous spectrum of disciplines and environments that we can do it. Like some of the fastest sails in the world. I And so that's the kind of thing that we're doing. And so that's the kind of thing that we're doing.

And so that's the kind of thing that we're doing. And so that's the kind of thing that we're doing. And so that's the kind of thing that we're doing. And so that's the kind of thing that we're doing. And so that's the kind of thing that we're doing. And so that's the kind of thing that we're doing. And so that's the kind of thing that we're doing. And so that's the kind of thing that we're doing.

And so that's the kind of thing that we're doing. And so that's the kind of thing that we're doing. And so that's the kind. And then also distance, right? So distance, there becomes some other things, speed, distance, size. Like I like those things. Those things are, and usually there's some relationship, but you can ride very small waves. You can ride wind swell. You have electric, you have multiple wind powered ones. You have stand up paddling ones. You have prone paddling ones for surfing. So little lay down ones or stand up ones. So we have like six or seven disciplines within foiling, all different kinds of foils, sizes, shapes and companies.

And so those all the areas where surf is expanding the most foils now without a doubt. Can't even compare. Now it's expanded places because we're normally the saturation of surfers and locations is we're pretty tapped out with the waves we only have so many waves and we have a lot more surfers and so you know you go to a spot there's a hundred people out at every spot that's any good now all of a sudden a spot that isn't even a surf spot is a foil spot and it wouldn't be a spot unless there was foiling. So it opens up our universe, which we need.

Yeah. We need more options, especially as I have more people participating. But it also opens up things that we haven't done, which is really, that's something that's more interesting even for me, is being able to do things in an environment and in locations that you've never experienced.

You know, now we're, we're riding, you know, we're going to places and riding waves for six or seven minutes, eight minutes. And the average surfing wave is 10 seconds, maybe 20 at a long one. So now you're compounding the amount of riding time you're getting So now on one surf trip Foiling trip. Yeah, you could spend more time Going fast on your vehicle on your board Yeah

Then if you were to combine all of the rides of your life before this Yes, if I did if we weren't doing it, I wouldn't believe it was possible Imagine how much better you get with all that time. And you're also in a way you're expanding your, your view to your ability, because now we're able to, we're now we're looking at wave energy differently. Cause I always describe surfers as wave readers. Yeah. Like great. You can stand up and you can rip, but, but more impressive is you can look at a wave and know what it's a great way to get to know the people that are going to be there. And I think it's a great way to get to know the people that are going to be there. And I think it's a great way to get to know the people

that are going to be there. And I think it's a great way to get to know the people that are going to be there. And I think it's a great way to get to know the people that are going to be there. And I think it's a great way to get to know the people that are going to be there. And I think it's a great way to get to know the people

that are going to be there. And I think it's a great way to get to know the people that are going to be there. And I think it's a great way to get to know the people that are going to get donuts. And she goes, and then he goes down 10 feet and gets hit by the wave. And she's like, how do you know that? And I go, well, I could just tell by his movement, his speed, what the wave was doing, that it was going to break on his head.

Or you know somebody's going to make it. I mean, and there's always a surprise. You're like, I thought that guy was going to make it, but it pulled it off. But that's where it takes the time. And now we're looking at waves. We're watching waves earlier that we wouldn't even have considered, because we're looking at ways we're watching waves earlier that we wouldn't even have considered

because we're seeing them before they break because that's when we're riding them, you know, and they're doing a lot of downwind stuff too where they're getting on the foil and they're able to just fly from one wave to the next, to the next, to the next, and just fly and connect the dots and put those pieces together, which again,

takes that reading and that judgment, which is really probably the enticing thing of it, right? It's like hearing music and knowing how following it can go where it can go. Yeah. Yeah. It's an enticing thing that keeps you inspired, right? So, cause what are we trying to do is just stay inspired and how do you stay inspired? If, you know, if you have one day in your lifetime that you'll never going to get another one like, unless you have one day in your lifetime that you're never going to get another one like Unless you have another day in your lifetime that you're never getting another one like over the course of your life of surfing

Where are you in the excitement of what you're about to do? the sureness of the experience Like I know i'm gonna what what I'm going to do, and I'm going to get to do it. And the guarantee of that has never been any higher.

Because normally, there's just too many variables, and the moments are too short and too few to have that kind of thing. So I know coming into it, I know that no matter what's going to happen, I'm going to get to, I'm going to have a hard time walking. Because you'll be doing it so much. My legs are going to be sore. I'm going to blow out before there stops being anything to do. I'm going to blow up. And over the course of your life,

how often has that been the case? I mean, not a lot. I work. I mean, I work. That's what you work toward. You seek that. There could be years and years in a row where you don't have that.

You have to be careful how you say it. But in a way, it's like there is a reward. Or there is a blessing for dedication. Yes. But you have to stay dedicated and you have to, but it has to also why too. You have to have the right. I just honestly believe if your intentions are genuine and you stayed that you're going to be blessed, like you're, it's going to, that you're going to be, the universe is going to provide you with the thing you you're going to be able to do it. But I do believe that if you're genuine, you're going to be blessed. You're going to be blessed.

The universe is going to provide you with the thing you need as long as you stay true to your... Your intention is pure. Pure. I still get it because I have a group of friends that I'm able to do it with. So I get it through that. But I made a joke the other day. I talking about you know Just if a tree falls in the forest and no one sees it does it actually fall and I'm like, yes it does

I can tell you what it falls You don't need anybody to see it and and I speak to on my side like I don't need anybody to know I don't need anybody to see I know what I'm gonna do. I do enjoy the camaraderie Yeah, because I want wanna share in it. It'd be like if you had the most delicious meal ever and you were by yourself, it would be great, but I'd rather sit with my four friends talking about how great it is and enjoying it.

So I think there's that to it. And sometimes you doubt it. You doubt that that's true. You can doubt that there is a reward, but, but it seems to happen every time you don't even know it's happening. And all of a sudden you're like, Oh, look, what's going on. Look, what's happening. Look, what's the, look, what we're getting to do. Look, it's like because we're so caught up in always trying to do, do, do, do get,

get, get, get, and then all of a sudden, but you don't realize sometimes it just comes right around the corner. And then it's just like, dink, you know, it's like, it's working. How did you, it's working. How did you meet Don Wildman? Somebody invited me on a helicopter snowboarding trip to Canada.

And it was with Jerry Lopez. It was a friend of his, a guy named Tom Fl named Tom Flager and he said hey you want to come helicopter snowboarding with us we go to this great place called Mike Wigley's and it's like the premier Austrian guy that started a helicopter best food best air you know I so we went there and I was sitting at dinner. We had just had finished a great day of riding and somebody said see that guy over there at that table?

And it was Don sitting at the table with his gray, just his Don-ness. And he was sitting there, and they're like, you really need to meet that guy. So I walked over, and I said, hello. And I think somebody told me his name, Mr. Wilde. I go, hi, Mr. Wildman or hey Don I'm Larry nice to meet you and hey, how's it going?

you know, he was and he had a big smile and I was like you could feel his energy and it was like, okay great to meet you nice to me and then and then I left and didn't see him and No, no word and then like three years later I'm with Gabby. We're in Malibu. I walk into a restaurant in Malibu and Don sitting at the restaurant. And I said, Hey, what are you doing? He goes, I live right down the road.

And I go, I just moved right down the road. And then that was it. That was like the, you know, come over and, you know, taught me how to bike and I taught him how to foil and. How much older was he then you? Dawn was what he was. 30 years old. Yeah, yeah.

30. Yeah. 30 years older. He'd be like, would he be like 90 something right now? I think he'd be like 92. he be like 90 something right now? I think. He'd be like 92. So something like that, 32, 30. How would you describe him?

Well, he's a bare-knuckle fighter. Like, I mean, when you look at, first of all, when you look at Don, you're like, this is a bare-knuckle fighter. Like, this guy would fight bare-knuckles, like, any time, any place, no problem. That's your feeling you get. Like, you just feel like a bear, like this is a bear.

And it just beyond enthusiastic, beyond open, beyond interested. You seem to love life more than anybody. Love it. Love it. Love living. And enjoy it. Enjoy. Professional.

Professional enjoyer. I mean, listen, I always use this story. He'd come over to my house. We'd make a mistake. He'd be eating and he'd say, this is the best steak I've ever had. Four days later, I'd invite him over to my house. I'd make a steak. He's like, this is the best steak I've ever had. It was always the best steak I ever had. And he would,

he was open in a way like to music I Would I always laugh because I'd like you couldn't invite him on on Anything that he wouldn't go on unless he just had some other thing tied up. Hey, Don, I'm gonna go You know jump out of a plane without a parachute Sounds fun. Let's go like it didn't matter what you said didn't know what you said, which one you want to I mean one time We're at Chopu. Yeah, he's in, Chopu, and Don doesn't really surf. I mean, he surfs a little bit. He doesn't surf.

He's sitting in the boat. He doesn't Chopu surf. No, and not even remotely near Chopu surf. He, after about 40 minutes or an hour of me towing, I come over by the boat, he waves me, he comes over, he goes, I think I'm ready for one. I look at him, I go, hey Don, I love you. You are not ready for one.

He goes, I'm not. I go, you're not. He goes, okay, good. So, you know, there was a lot of those. There was a lot of those, but him and I had a crazy, you know, there was a lot of those. There was a lot of those. But him and I had a crazy, beautiful relationship. And I had a lot of incredible trips with Don. A lot of helly-

Tell me about the race across America. Oh, God, yeah. Well, first of all, Don was a professional sufferer. Like he could suffer, like, professionally. Better than anybody. Very few in the world I've ever seen that could suffer like better than anybody. Very few in the world I've ever seen that could suffer so well actually after being uncomfortable for a long time he would actually get better like he would get he would start to do better he didn't do worse it was like a suffered for 2

days is going to he would start to excel but his endurance things started. With the iron man right so he sold his company and turned into an Ironman guy. I guess he made, bragged about he was gonna start doing triathlons or something like that. And then his boys said, well, they just said in Forbes or something, you're gonna do triathlons. And so you're gonna be a real jerk if you don't start.

And so he just started doing Ironman. So I think he started when he was 50. And he did an Ironman like every year for 10 years or 12 years in a row and never missed I got he got second and then finally won his age division or something always second or or winning or second So he obviously loves endurance stuff. So he suckered me into Into I suckered him in this we would always sucker each other into certain things But this was a suffering he suckered me into and I was like I didn't want to do it because it was Part of my reason why I didn't want to do it. I don't like the formality of it. I don't like event like yes

Yeah, I just don't like the thing. I don't mind doing something brutal Yeah, and I don't mind going with other people and trying to beat people in brutal things I just didn't want to participate in like a structured thing and he goes, you know, we'll do this There's just a call the race across America and I've done it once before and I think we could do really well. I got a team of us. I think you're good. I got this other guy, Timmy C, who's the base player for rage.

And I got this other friend, this other guy, Jason, who's an ex football quarterback. And I go, I think we could just really, you know, we could hammer. This is a bike race where the other racers in it are all professional bike racers. That's right. Yeah. These are professional bike racers. And, but Dawn has it in his mind. He understands he goes, Oh, your VO two max, your guys ability to suffer. We're in, I go, okay, I'll do it. But my contingent is that we have to paddle to the start, which is a 24 hour paddle. But my contingent is that we have to paddle to the start,

which is a 24 hour paddle, and it's from Malibu to Oceanside. So Malibu to Oceanside, but we're gonna relay it. Like we're gonna do the bike race. So it's not gonna be completely bad. It's just, you're not gonna paddle consecutively, but we're gonna relay all the way down there. To get to the race. To get to the race.

Yeah. Which I don't think the racers appreciated that, but we weren't, it wasn't about them. It was about us. We went and- That's what made it fun for you. Yeah, yeah. I'm like, okay, I'll do it, but I wanna paddle for,

I wanna do it, because I was doing these things called paddle and pedals. And so I had gotten Don to do one with me in Hawaii. I took Don on this one where we did, we biked across every island and paddled across every channel in Hawaii in five days We went 500 miles and he said it was worse than any I he said was worse than ten Ironmans But that was I think he's making me feel good. So you either biked if it was land

Yeah, or paddled if it was water Yeah Across the entire chain of Hawaii from the southernmost point to the northernmost point. Every island, every channel. And so we had like the first bike was 125 miles. Then we paddled for 35. The longest paddle was 22 and a half hours. But we did those contiguous. So anyway, before or after, I'm not sure. But he's like, perfect. Here we go. Race across America. And so him and I were on a team. And then Timmy C and Jason were on the other team. And we would when we were really going we would be Like 30 minutes everybody would go I'd go 30 minutes as hard as I could then he'd go 30 for instance Then he was the race. Tell me what the race is for the race is from Oceanside to Delaware

Oceanside, California to Delaware. Yes across the entire country. Yeah bike only bike only and how long does it take? the entire country, bike only. Bike only. And how long does it take? Three or four days. No, four or five days. It's 24 hours a day. 24 hours a day. Somebody usually dies along the thing.

You run over by a truck or something like that. And Don had done it before. He thought we had a really good chance to win. Don was in his 70s at this time. Yeah, late 70s. Late 70s. You're a surfer. Yeah. We got a guy in Rage Against the Machine. Yep. And we have an injured football player. Yeah, an ex-college football

guy but who's got a big VO too, Max. Going against professional bikers. Yeah. We start and there is a, I mean obviously you have to go, There's a lot of hills. I think we climbed something crazy within the first two days we climbed. I wanna say, I mean, we were alternating, but we climbed more than 75,000 feet, right, of elevation between the four of us, which was a lot, a lot of elevation. And you're going day and night, so you're not sleeping.

And you're riding in a trailer, and then you're getting in the night, so you're not sleeping. And you're riding in a trailer, and then you're getting in the bike, and you're just doing like that, and you can't eat, and you just feel terrible. And Don just loves that. So he thought it was great. He thought that was like a fun thing. And so we were leading the race

when we got off the mountains. And technically the mountains would have been our weakness. It was the hardest part. Well, it would have been our weakness, because we were bigger guys. Yeah. And I remember at one point, there was another team that caught up to us.

And we had some weird stuff going on. Don hired a manager to help us manage the times and the whole thing, somebody that had done it before. And he was undermining us the whole time. So he was actually trying to break us and he kept saying, you know, this is Ram and da da da and like the whole thing. And, and I, and I kind of caught onto it. I was kind of, I'm like, Dawn, this guy's sabotaging us.

Like he's making us go in paces and doing things to break us. I go, this guy is, and then let like take lead us down the wrong road. Like the navigation like off and you know I mean it was like there was some stuff going on and once Don finally realized that the guy was doing that yeah then he's like okay he fired the guy but there was like he the guy was doing stuff like you know when you you'd have to do a change and so the guy would be on the bike ready to go and then he'd start riding. And then once you passed his back tire,

then he'd pull over and get in the van and go. But the van would be waiting. So you'd be just grinding away, feeling nauseous, not sleeping, can't eat. And you'd see the van. You'd think, here it comes. And the guy would be just poising there, and then he'd just drive off, and you'd

have a big hill climb after. So he would make you think. Psychological things. He was doing some weird stuff, right? So I'm like, Don, this guy's messing with us. The guy was waiting at the bottom of the hill. And I remember coming down a hill, and the guy was sitting in the car.

And I knew it was the guy. I knew what he was doing. And so as I went by, I just put my elbow out and hit the side mirror on the van. And it slapped on the front window. And the guy like jumped out of his seat It was right when Don then it right after that Don fired him They had to they sent him away

But we were leading the race and we now we were in the flats Which means that we were really gonna roll and we all started feeling better. Yeah, I mean you're listening you're at Europe in Tallest New Mexico at you know, whatever how many thousand like, I'm gonna go to the top of the mountain, and I'm gonna ride my bike, and I'm gonna ride my bike, and I'm gonna ride my bike, and I'm gonna ride my bike, and I'm gonna ride my bike, and I'm gonna ride my bike,

and I'm gonna ride my bike, and I'm gonna ride my bike, and I'm gonna ride my bike, and I'm gonna ride my bike, and I'm gonna ride my bike, and I'm gonna ride my bike, and I'm gonna ride my bike, and I'm gonna ride my bike,

and I'm gonna ride my bike, and I'm gonna ride my bike, and I'm gonna ride my bike, and I'm gonna ride my bike, and I'm gonna ride my bike, and I'm gonna ride my bike, and I'm gonna ride my bike, and I'm gonna ride my bike,

and I'm gonna ride my bike, and I'm gonna ride my bike, and I'm gonna ride my bike, and I'm gonna ride my bike, and I'm gonna ride my bike, and I'm gonna ride my bike, and I'm gonna ride my bike, and the guy says something like, this is what we do, or whatever, like, hey, surfer boy, or something like that, which was probably not the thing to tell me at that particular time. And so I just left him and Horizon dropped the guy, and then trains with Jason, and then Jason was going, and then

we were going to start rolling. We were feeling good. That guy's escort vehicle passed us, went up, and ran over Jason, hit him with the car, and broke his leg. It's unbelievable. Broke his leg in Herman, Missouri. And I was behind in our van. And the guy passed us and just went right and literally ran.

And I saw Jason go down. I thought Jason got run over. I thought he was dead. I thought he was killed. And I was with cameraman, officer sweet. And I the three of us who are we're observers, we watched him hit the guy went over there, Jason was on the ground but only broken leg. Then that was it because he was doing without we couldn't do it. I mean, we could have gone three guys, but Don was it was all about winning. He didn't know Don Don didn't care about the day.

So it was all about. And we were on track to break the record at that point. And everybody felt good. And we were rolling. And now we're in the flats. We're in Herman, Missouri. Like everything from then on was just we were going to be in the big spoke, big gear,

just grinding away. And then the race officials called it a mutual collision. Because a bicycle and a car crash, a truck? Crashed. A minivan. And the guy you can see, because what happens is people are driving 24 hours a day. And we were changing all the time.

People get delirious. But the guy ran over our guy. And we were in headbed. And I could see by the way his that team ended up winning. Yep. Yeah. It was amazing. Yeah.

It was amazing. Yeah. So for them to catch us. It turns out in these competitions, people cheat. Beyond. Which maybe that's my thing because I go back to the thing because why does that, why have I always been turned off by that stuff?

Because it's like I'd just seen it my whole life. I just go, I I mean and the winners win But sometimes they don't win when they should but they win when they when they need like that when they do what's odd to me About a surf competition is every wave is different. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's hard enough when you're dealing with like lines and Baskets and like it's hard enough when you're dealing with all these fixed things you get weird stuff that goes on You're like that was a weird call. Let's set that that changed that whole game. Never mind how ambiguous, you know art music

Food. Yeah, I don't think it's a good motivator. I think it's it brings out the worst in people completely Well, it brings up the worst in me. Yeah, that's of that energy. I'm like, how do I nurture that? And but also, how do I productively use that? Yeah. You know, how do I productively? Well, you know, I do well. Put me in these heavy situations. Yeah.

Then I feel useful, worthy. I can actually have conversations with people. I can actually have conversations with people. I can actually have conversations with people. I can actually have conversations with people. I can actually have conversations with people. I can actually have conversations with people. use that. Yeah, you know, how do I productively you know, I do well, put me in these heavy situations. Yeah, then I feel useful worthy, I can actually have camaraderie with with my guys. And if they do well, and I do well, or we can work together to achieve this thing, that feels amazing. I'm like,

that feels like that feels like the human condition that really made us successful. Yeah, like with we navigate, surviving in nature with giant animals that could eat us successful. Yeah. Like, when we had to navigate surviving in nature with giant animals that could eat us that were a lot smarter and faster, or maybe not smarter, maybe smarter. Maybe smarter. Maybe. You know, that feels like the attitude that would make us successful, not this us against each other.

That seems to never make us successful. That only makes us less successful. But so Don, so he got run got run over Jason which ended up being a blessing because he ended up marrying my nanny and having a beautiful family so the end of the thing maybe was for that like we don't realize it. I mean we were we were bummed about it, but then we went to New York we paddled around the Statue of Liberty because that was part of our paddle and

pedal piece of it, but we were just too because Jason leg was broken. We the three of us could have done it Yeah, but it defeated the purpose exactly. Yeah, so that Don lost the interest But he was feeling like I just remember how strong he was and how well He did under that kind of pressure like I mean and I think Obviously Korea the war the things that he had been through, like in his business, he always used to, I guess he said to me, he always told people, he goes, this isn't life or death.

Like, I know what life or death is. This is not life or death. Like, even though he definitely wouldn't, you know, stand down to anybody, like not even close. I remember the time he was on he got on testosterone. His woman at the time was having some acne problems. And then she was like, that's weird. I never had that issue. And then she realized it was because he was using some kind of cream for testosterone that was getting on her and giving her acne. So then they're like, okay,

we got to stop using that cream and he's 70 something. So you know, a little testosterone probably not gonna be bad for him. So then he's like, okay, we got to stop using that cream and he's 70 something. So a little testosterone probably not going to be bad for him. So then he's like, okay, let me talk to somebody who I know. So he talks to our one friend and our one friend is a lot of experience and he goes here I'll set you up. And he sets them up with the thing, a kit and whatever. And then all of a sudden, like two weeks in, he's like trying to get in a fight in the parking lot and then he's going to Vegas.

He goes to Vegas with his, with his girl and they don't leave the room for three days and you know, she's like, honey, you know, maybe we should just check your levels and just see what they're like, what they are. He goes, oh, sure, okay. He's almost 80 at this point. Yeah, I feel good though. He goes, I'm good.

Yeah. She goes, well, let's just check them. Yeah. Let's just check the levels. Yeah. And so the story is she's at home and the fax machine goes off because he still has a fax machine. Gets the thing and all he said, she just started laughing. He's like, what is it, honey? She's like, I got the results

back. He's like, what are they? She goes, well! Oh! Oh! Oh! They call our buddy, and they say, hey, the things are $1,800. He goes, don't worry. Mine are $2,000. Anyway, he toned it back a little bit. I think that helped, because he was literally, like, wanting to get in a fight. And you know, like, she looked a little tired.

Didn't you once go mountain climbing with him? Yeah. Tell me about that. Oh, we've been in avalanche. Don and I were in an avalanche. I was in an avalanche with Don. We've had a few things. I mean, I just, he got hit in the face with the board.

He had the punctured lung the time he had the punctured lung. Like, he had the time he crushed his tibia plateau and then had to be, I mean, he was like Humpty Dumpty. Literally break, glue back together. One time he fell on his bicycle at his house in Utah on black ice and then broke his femur. And he was like laying on the black ice and the guys couldn't get to him

because it was so slippery they couldn't even. But he gets home, he's got one of his legs is incap is obviously can't work. So it's on the side and he literally is doing cardio. One legged bicycling with the chain on the back. And he's pedaling, and he's pedaling. And he's pedaling, and he's pedaling. And he's pedaling, and he's pedaling. And he's pedaling, and he's pedaling. And he's pedaling, and he's pedaling.

And he's pedaling, and he's pedaling. So it's on the side and he literally is doing cardio one-legged Bicycling with the court the cane on the other side Yeah crutch on one pedal crutch on one pedal with arms leg on the other side like that Oh, I got to do my cardio like beyond obsessed. Yeah beyond upset He would say if you didn't train you wouldn't eat. Yeah, that's right. Tell me about the mountain climbing. So no, he goes, hey, I want to go do Everest. And I said, OK. Like, I'm the guy he sucks in.

Like, I'll go, and then maybe I'm there. You know, he can help me, I can help him, whatever. So he's like, hey, I want to do Everest. And I go, well, how about before you do Everest, let's just do a little hill, like Rainier, which is the longest endurance climb in North America after McKinley. But McK just do a little hill. Like Rainier, which is the longest endurance climb in North America after McKinley. But McKinley takes three weeks. Like Rainier, you can go up there, you can hike up halfway, sleep the night, and then hike to the top and hike all

the way back down. So we go, okay, let's go to Rainier. So we go down and his knees are hurting him. I think this is before he's got the double knee surgery and we're going and Somehow they feed us burritos they feed us bean and chicken burritos and We're in a tent the two of us And I would say it's a gassy night, but it's beyond It was beyond the point where it was that we didn't even care. We were like on the top of the glacier, like let's just. So we wake up early in the morning, we hike.

We're going. I think Don's son, John, his youngest son's with us. I'm behind John. At one point, John's headlamp falls into a crack and John tries to get it. I'm like, John, you can't get it. You're not going to get it. And the guy in the front goes, Hey,

stay away from that crack. That's where 10 or 12 people fell and they never found them. And I'm like, exactly. Keep going. So we go, we do the top, we come back down and we're part way down. And, and when you are down climbing, the weight is seven times your body weight on your leg, the down pressure when you're so down climbing is a lot harder. Everybody thinks it's about going up. It has nothing to do with going up. It's about coming down. That's why people have so much problem is they think the summit is the

achievement. No, making it to the bottom is the parking lot. It's called it Rainier paradise. There's a reason. It's called paradise is because when you get back, you're glad that you're back. Anyway, we hike, we down climb and then we're about part way through we're a little ways through. And somehow our other friend has talked the guide into carrying his pack. Dawn says to the guide, I will not only give you all of the hiking gear that I bought that's brand new. I will pay you double of what this guy's I'm with you. Music you