24: Kai Lenny - To Play and Flirt with Giants
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Hello, this is Eric. I wanted to give a small note to say how today's episode fits into the general arc of the portal. As many of you know, I'm a critic about what is going on in academics and in science and in the economy with respect to innovation. I feel that we're experiencing some kind of a very broad malaise and slowdown.

On the other hand, whenever you allege that something is going generally environmentally wrong, it is incumbent upon you to check that you aren't, in fact, in the middle of a depressive or negative episode. One of the things that I like to do is to check and see where are the bright spots? What are the things that inspire me? Where do I see people actually pushing the envelope, making breakthroughs? If I can spot those, then I can realize that it's not me who's dead, but in fact, a memory of what is possible that is actually causing the frustration.

And in these circumstances, I sometimes look very far afield to see where people are actually innovating. And one of the places that I see a tremendous amount of innovation right now is surfing. At some point, out of the corner of my eye, one particular surfer caught my attention. His name was Kai Lenny, and it wasn't as clear as it is now that he was on to something really special.

As his skill has increased, he's been taking on larger and larger waves. And I don't know how to say this exactly, but playing with them. So before you watch today's episode, put in the name Kai Lenny, K-A-I-L-E-N-N-Y, and maybe words like Jaws or Nazare. And watch what he's doing, because it's unlike anything I've ever seen. Every time I look at it, it looks more like art than surfing.

He's effectively playing with some of the most frightening and dangerous waves in the world. And in some sense, it seems like a metaphor for where we are, that with many forces that are potentially incredibly threatening, a small number of us have the courage and strength and discipline to instead of fretting and becoming enervated, we start playing with what the possibilities might be. Kai is experimenting in every technological dimension, every athletic dimension, and I

His famous phrase is, I feel like we're just getting started. It's hard for me to believe that there's that much headroom given how close to the edge it seems that he's always playing. But even though I know that he's taking his life making these videos for us and experiencing these waves in the kind of perfect solitude that must accompany being inside a gigantic barrel or falling down the face of what can only be called a liquid cliff.

I know that Kai is actually serving something greater in the human spirit. And even though we can't necessarily be in the wave with him through the magic of helicopters or GoPro videos or any of the incredible technologies that we're now able to use to bring the experience closer to home, Kai is reacquainting ourselves with the sense of the possible, what might lie within us.

both as individuals and as a society. So I hope you'll see this in this light. I hope you'll take an interest in surfing, whether you live in a landlocked country or whether you're old and maybe even disabled. What he's doing is, in fact, to me, hugely inspiring and one of the places that I turn to when I start to feel extremely frustrated.

So I feel hugely honored to be able to bring you Kyle Lenny. Please take a look at his videos beforehand. And then once you understood what it is that we are all capable of through his efforts and antics, I think you'll find that this interview is much more enjoyable. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Thanks.

Hello, you found the portal. I'm your host, Eric Weinstein, and I am thrilled today because my guest is none other than Kai Lenny, who I've been stalking on the internet and recently in Maui, actually. Kai, welcome to the portal. Thanks for having me on the portal. Okay. Well, look, the aim of this program is to talk about breaking through to worlds that people can't even imagine exist.

And there is no one who better exemplifies this at the moment than you, because what I see you as doing before even people, a lot of people aren't even going to know who you are, is that you are right now in the process of expanding the vocabulary in a very unusual area of

so that I'm seeing things I've never seen before, even though I'm not expert in your area. Can we talk about big wave surfing and what you're doing to it? - Oh, my favorite thing in the world is to talk about big wave surfing because it's like the passion. I mean, just a quick background for everyone. You came and visited on Maui and you saw my boardroom and you saw all this equipment and stuff.

Where I grew up is just down the road from what I would call the Mount Everest of big waves. Jaws, Peahi in Hawaiian. Peahi means the beacon or to be called, which is a perfect name because when it starts to break, it almost sends this signal out to the rest of the world and people come from all corners of life to either surf or watch or film, photograph, take photos of these giant waves.

And so when you're born and raised with Mount Everest in your backyard, it's inevitable you're going to have to go try to climb it, right? And big wave surfing, it's inevitable you want to go surf it as a little kid because

Before, you know, comic books and comic book movies. Right. Mainly comic book movies were really big in the mainstream media. My superheroes were the guys that were riding these monster waves. Wasn't there a comic book hero called the Silver Surfer? The Silver Surfer, yeah, sure. I guess, but it was like... I guess like...

In Hawaii, we do live in a bubble. Yeah. Not arguing against that at all because we're not a part of the continental United States. We're middle of the ocean, 2,000 miles away, the most isolated landmass on the planet. And you...

everything that's going on around you in Hawaii is what's going around you. You know, there's not a lot of, there's influence from other places thanks to the internet and stuff, but it's such a scene over there. And Hawaii is a powerful place as well, like an energy. You can really feel that and it's almost unexplainable. There's a frequency that if you can match it will give you some of the most incredible moments of your life. And

I'll get into that more when I start talking about the art of actually riding big waves and being in tune with the ocean and the frequency. And I mean, why not just start talking about it now? Well, no offense. I'm going to start off by just contradicting you. You say that if you are out there, of course, you have to ride it.

You're too modest because I talk to people who are living out there who are surfers who love it. And when I ask them, do you go and surf this particular wave? The usual answer is, no, dude, I'm not crazy. I mean, this wave, when it breaks is really, it's a beast. It's a beast. But okay, so throw it back to when I was...

Gosh, I think one of my earliest memories as a child, you know, all of a sudden it's like you don't remember anything. And then maybe when you're four years old or even younger, like three years old, all of a sudden there's like a distinct memory. One of the most distinct memories I have as a kid is standing on the cliff watching Jaws break. So there was already a seed plants from an early age, highly, you know, curious kid and

um super my superheroes the guys the equivalent of the justice league and the um avengers were called the strapped crew and they were the ones that pioneered payahi aka jaws and jaws do you want to name check them huh yeah no absolutely so who who made up this strapped crew were guys that invented toe and surfing which was the first

The first or still probably the best way to ride big waves on a high performance level. Laird Hamilton, people have probably heard of him. Dave Kalama was another. Rush Randall, Derek Dorner, Pete Cabrinha, Robbie Nash, Mike Waltz.

Brett Lickle, those guys kind of comprised this strapped crew. And they were all different characters. A lot of them windsurfing champions. A lot of them from different parts of the island. Islands, you know, from Oahu as well as Maui, of course. But they kind of were on Maui

Jerry Lopez, who's like, I would say the equivalent of Yoda in surfing, you know, like he's the all wise, basically all knowing like master, the guru. He showed Laird this wave back in the day. Like this is in the he'd been watching it since the early 80s and very early 90s. They.

And Jerry's like, okay, like he noticed Laird was really taking interest in big wave surfing on Oahu, which at the time was considered the best big waves on the planet. He's like, I got something you might want to see. And they walk through the pineapple fields, they get to the edge of a cliff and all of a sudden Laird is shown, uh,

The golden goose, the best big wave on the planet. It's so perfect that if there's not someone on it for scale, it looks like a small wave. It's rare to find big waves that look six feet but are really 60 feet.

And so Jerry told me when I was a kid, and I always try to get him to repeat it, is a story of like in the 80s when a giant swell came in. They were surfing this other break, which is also known as one of the best waves on the planet. Not best big wave, but best wave. And it's very similar to how Jaws breaks, just on a smaller scale. It's called Honolua Bay. Beautiful, epic sunsets there. And...

He said one day after surfing, they went up to Jaws to go check it. And it was so big that where we surf now would have been whitewater and where the boats are would have been where the barrel was. So where the wave was breaking and creating a giant tube. He would he would approximate the waves were probably in the hundred foot range.

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There was other nicknames or other names. They called it before it was coined Jaws. Jaws sort of came when Laird landed on the cover of National Geographic with a giant wave and he was just in board shorts and it was like...

unbelievable shot, which I think he's still the only surfer to ever be on the cover of National Geographic. Well, there's so many ways that I want to get in underneath the story before I even get to like you and what it is. So, but I don't even know where to begin. So first of all, one, the only thing that connects us really is that we're both fascinated by waves. I'm fascinated in physics. You're fascinated by ocean waves. Yeah. And,

One of the things that I find fascinating is that these waves are sort of like intercontinental exploration that has only happened recently. Like we mapped all the land masses, but somehow they're still relatively recently, only relatively recently have there been certain discoveries of these really important surfable waves. Like Mavericks in Half Moon Bay has not been explored for that long.

And then, you know, you're saying with Jaws and Piaget, the thing that I find fascinating about this is that there was also this taboo

around toe in surfing because of the purity of surfing culture and the ethos of it. Like you're talking about it both as a sport and the beauty of the wave and the sunsets. Like it is this sort of kind of complete picture and world. And there was something transgressive about toeing in. Is that right? Yeah.

I think before anybody started kind of pinning toe and surfing as being unnatural or not soulful or whatever other kind of term they use,

People were just blown away by the fact that you could ride away that big and so it didn't even matter at that point now fast forward to present day people are paddling in and toe and surfing is widely regarded within core surfers as cheating but I think they forget that

It would be the equivalent of going and climbing the mountain and skiing down versus taking the helicopter up and doing it 50 times. Well, isn't there an issue about how fast the wave is moving? And if it's moving too quickly, it's almost impossible to paddle in? Or has that changed? I think it's changed a lot. I mean, I think what people thought was impossible to paddle into is possible. It's just the best way I can describe it is when you're trying to paddle into a really big wave,

just imagine there's a platform or like a launching pad that you can go from, but the bigger the wave gets, the smaller that launching pad gets. - Got it. - Where you can take off and make it. - Yeah. - Because it's all about positioning. It's triangulating yourself with the land around you. So looking at shore and finding two trees or two points that you line up with, okay, this is where I am on part of the reef.

and then looking to your left and finding another point and lining up with the point. And so you kind of triangulate yourself in, and that's where you, by, by checking where the waves are breaking, that's how you figure out that you're going to be in the right spot to get on that launching pad. Because if you're too much on the shoulder, which is kind of away from the critical part of the way, you're not going to catch it. If you're too deep, you're going to become part of the wave and go over the falls. So it's, that's paddling. Give,

Given that this is a non-surfing program, can we say that over the falls means getting swept up over the crest and being just shoved down into the... Yeah, I guess over the falls would be the equivalent of jumping into the water and going over Niagara. Right. Like, it's the same thing. Like, oh, so you become the lip, the wave picks you up, and what we call it is the ride after the ride. Okay. So...

What I don't really want to object in any way to toe in, I don't have these issues. So the main issue for me is innovation, right? Like the reason that I find this so fascinating is that I wasn't around and conscious like in 68, I was three years old when Dick Fosbury came up with the Fosbury flop and changed high jumping.

And if you think back to like table tennis, this guy from Japan, I think his name is like Hiroshi Sato, put rubber on a hard bat paddle and change the game of table tennis forever. What I see you is doing is.

And I could be wrong about this. I've been looking at you for several years, not knowing because I'm not a surfing guy. Why am I caring about this one guy? And it wasn't quite so evident earlier than it is. It is now that suddenly I'm seeing things that I just can't even believe I'm watching. And essentially what I think I'm seeing is that you're taking some of the world's largest waves and

And instead of just like showing that they can be written, like actually just playing and doing tricks and pushing every available corner of performance to eke out things that nobody knew was were possible. So you're really inventing your own vocabulary of surfing to me. And then the thing that you said that just, you know, tore at my soul was,

I was watching you on some kind of unbelievable wave doing some trick and

And you said, you know, the thing that blows my mind is I feel like we're just getting started. And I thought we were already at the limits of what is doable. And your point of view was, I can see how much headroom I have and it's enormous. Yeah. I mean, it's crazy. I think there's more room for growth and high performance, big wave riding than there is in any part of surfing, maybe even any part of action sports, because, you know, I'm

I'm just starting now to do 360s on big waves and do it confidently. But there's really no reason why I shouldn't be doing a triple cork, something that Sean White can do, you know, in a half pipe, you know, something like that. So your feet aren't.

- They aren't tethered to your board, are they? - On tow and surfing it is. I mean, it's really the only way to do it in big waves, tow and surfing, 'cause of the speeds you're reaching, the amount of winds. Even on a glassy day when there's no winds on the face of the wave, waves are moving fast enough they're producing their own local winds at the top. So, you know, probably 20 knot winds, 25 mile an hour winds on the top of these breaking waves.

And so you, and the boards are heavy to go through all that chop because I'm probably hitting 55 miles an hour at times and even faster potentially in certain waves, riding my tow and surfboard. Got it. So what I want to sort of just induce people to do is to Google and search for some of the epic rides that you've taken and

that also alerted the world to the fact that something crazy was going on. So, you know, with Laird Hamilton, a very famous alert that went out to the planet was this photograph of him in Tahiti, which must have... The millennium wave. You want to talk about how that affected you? I mean, Laird was a superhero to me, even up to that point. And this is 2005.

Laird was known is known as riding and kind of like pushing the limits of big wave riding where people didn't think it could go part I think that's why I'm kind of inspired to follow in those footsteps like and it might be a little different approach but for Laird when he rode that wave in 2000 he just kind of like blew the door open on what was possible

So what wave was it? This is Tahiti? Yeah, so this is in Tahiti, French Polynesia. Most beautiful day ever. There's this wave called Teahupo. People call it Chopu. People call it Chopes. And it's this wave that breaks in six feet of water on a shallow reef, comes from the depths of the ocean. It's really deep on the other side. And what makes this wave so unique is it can displace the entire ocean. And instead of being...

instead of standing up vertically, it just folds over. So it's almost like it's the closest thing to a rideable tsunami there is because there's no back to the wave. It's just the whole ocean behind it. It is the most beautifully perfect wave I've ever seen. And there are two waves that have captivated me just visually. And they're the exact opposite of each other. So this, how should I say it? Should I not say chopu?

Well, you can say it however you want. What does it mean? Can you translate? It's got a good name. Oh, yeah. This is great. So Teahupo, Chopu, translates to broken skulls. Yeah. And it's not because of the wave, but that area is culturally significant. They call it the end of the road. It's where the road ends. And that's where that wave is right at the end. But back in the day, there used to be really big battles in Tahiti. I see. And...

people's skulls were put on stakes and they would be stuck in the sand there and it just kind of fit perfect that one of the gnarliest waves that could stick you on a stake is just maybe 200 300 yards offshore a fairly shallow reef so shallow so sharp razors just imagine razor blades on the bottom you touch it barely it's just you're you get ripped apart and a classic tahitian tradition is

you lime them after to kill any bacteria because the reefs are so alive there that it's really easy to get staph infection. Yikes. And so instead of using anything that's like by modern medicine standards or less painful, they lime you. And it is – it's like putting acid in your wounds. It hurts so bad because, you know, the acidic –

The nature of limes are pretty acidic. And so it just feels it's killing everything in there, but it's also stinging horribly bad. And there's nothing worse when you get cut. You try to hide it from like all your friends and the local Tahitians because they seem like lime and people. It's hilarious. Find so much pleasure in seeing you just like squirm as they like lime your back. And it's good because it kills. Yeah. Any staff that could possibly take you. But yeah.

At the very same time, it's miserable. You already go through a horrible experience and then you have to do it again. Okay, well, this wave is not the tallest, but it's one of the heaviest waves in the world in terms of the mass of water. Yeah, I mean, it kind of defies like belief when people first see it, especially in person. It's not that the wave necessarily, it's not like the wave gets displaced as it comes in and hits the reef. And typically what happens is water is shot vertically and that's what creates a tall wave. There's a back,

to the wave. It's usually half the size of the front of the wave, but because there's all that mass pushing behind it, but at Chopu,

the way it hits the reef, it just shoots the lip forward and the whole ocean's behind it. And it draws all the water off the reef back into the ocean. And so you're surfing at below sea level. If you're riding a 30 foot wave there, you're 30 feet below sea level. You're in like a pit and you can see the water going back up the reef in front of you. It almost doesn't make sense. Yeah, no, it's just, it's a freak of nature and certain waves do that, but this one's the king of it. It's the best

I like to call it the most perfect closeout on the planet because in all the photos you see of it, it looks like this perfect wave and it is for a little bit. But as you're riding, there's a right-hander that's coming at you. So there's a wave that's

equal in size that's going to close out the optimization. Is that what blows out all that mist right at the end? So that's called spit. You know, when you see a breaking wave as it barrels, it'll shoot like a cannon and all that water. It's the compression of water. These big waves, waves in general, are like cannons or like guns. So when you're riding in the tube, you can feel air. It's a vortex. Right. It's a vortex. And so it's sucking air in like a jet engine, like...

And then the wave, there's so much water moving, the air can't escape. So it goes the least resistance, which is back out the tube. And it explodes and it shoots chunks of water that can knock you off your board. Probably hundreds of pounds of like water that are like shooting you and

It hurts really bad. Like it feels certain waves. It feels so good. Like getting just, it's the only time it feels good to be spat on. Well, you said this thing to me about barrels that I never thought of. And maybe it's a commonplace in surfing, but I'd never heard it, which is that a barrel is a unique experience because of.

You said something about the only time that... Yeah, well, riding inside a tube, a barrel, a wave, basically the hollow part of the wave as it pitches over, it's unique because it's the only way we can breathe underwater without any other breathing apparatus. So that was amazing. And you feel like a fish for a second, you know? And there's something about waves that break and the negative ions they produce that, you know...

make you feel so good. So you can imagine being in this kind of capsule or this vortex. You're so focused on making it. It's all that's on the front of your mind that, um,

There's a moment when nothing else exists and time slows down. It's like you really are almost, I don't know if accessing more parts of your brain or what it is, but what feels like tense, what is four seconds feels like a minute. That's amazing. And you're just in there and I'm watching water droplets move by me at like matrix speed. Everything looks like the matrix and everything.

If you're really calm and you're really comfortable, you can look, you have time to like look around and absorb all this information. And then all of a sudden as it spits and you come out of the tube, it's like life just starts going back to normal speed. And you realize how life, fast life moves. Because in there, it's like you have all the time in the world it feels like. And it's probably the pinnacle of what you could do surfing. Yeah.

Better than any maneuver, any aerial acrobatic trick being in the tube. The portal is proud to welcome back returning sponsor Wine Access, but I think we're going to throw away the script because they recently invited me for a wine tasting event built around a bottle of wine that is incredibly important in my family and Wine Access knows nothing about it. So let's just give it a shot.

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So that tube, I geek out on it because it's such an incredibly unbelievable... I can't even imagine that something that beautiful and perfect exists. The other version of beauty that I'm drawn to is this other totally different wave, which I think you said you may be headed towards, which is the Shipstern's Bluff in Tasmania, which is the gnarliest, ugliest...

It's waves within waves. And, you know, quantum field theory is this concept beyond quantum mechanics. It's waves upon waves. And so this waves within waves concept, even though it's all obviously classical, is really evocative to me. And there's this thing inside of this crazy Tasmanian thing, which people, which forms like a ledge. And I've watched people fall off of it a bunch. Yeah. You want to use it as a jump. Oh,

Oh, absolutely. Well, you know what's interesting? There's not that many crazy big waves in the world. They're big waves, but then there's waves that are in the league of their own. You could say Chopu's in a league of its own, Jaws, Nazare, Mavericks, which is here in California, and Shipsterns is one of them as well. And they all have different personalities, and the art of riding these big waves is finding their personality and kind of matching them.

you're the best of you with them. But what makes ship turns exciting, and the reason why they call it ship turns is because the way the cliff is situated, it looks like the front of a massive ship, maybe the Titanic or something. - You've been there? - No, but I know all about that wave, you know? 'Cause I've been studying it, kinda getting ready to go, and I've had opportunities to go and it hasn't worked out. I mean, big wave surfing, you could be halfway across the world on your way and the forecast can switch

in a flash and you turn around and go home because it's not gonna even breaking or the winds are going to be bad. And Tasmania is very susceptible to bad weather just because it's,

really as close to antarctica as you get and all those massive storms that produces big waves oftentimes slam that island um and but what makes that wave so raw and so heavy is well it is really cold water but it's the the the bathymetry the bottom the the what we would call the reef which is really just rocks there has a bunch of it's an uneven surface and so i've seen it mapped uh

- No, but I just know from experience. And I mean, you can look into videos about, they basically talk a lot about all these other big waves in the world. - Because I think in Chopu, I saw

underwater photography of the wave breaking from below. And it's one of the most confusing and gorgeous things I've ever seen. It's pretty, I mean, there's always like hidden features to reefs or to the bottom contours that you don't necessarily realize. But for the most part, if you've been surfing a long time and especially in big waves, you're

Certain things equal other things. So you can infer what the bottom must look like from the gnarly aspect of that face. Yeah, just by seeing those ledges in the ledges within the face. So this wave, the way it breaks is it's like a right-hander chopu, but maybe not quite as displacing of the ocean, but it has all these like steps, they call them, in the face of the wave. So miniature waves within the wave. You could have like four miniature waves in the face, but

And that is like if you go to a river and you look at a river and you see a little standing wave right before you'll see some turbulence right before. That's because there's slightly uneven rocks right before it. And so underwater...

There's these rocks that come up that kind of ever so slightly displace the wave in such a way that it makes these mini waves in between. But everyone, the way people typically ride it is they kind of, those are speed bumps and they try to get through that as quick as they can to get into the barrel. And I'd say my vision for it, and it's a scary one, anything you try new in big waves is horrifying because it's like the consequences are severe beat downs and, you know, possibly drowning. But

is hitting these small little waves and doing aerial maneuvers off of them. And then as soon as you land, have the whole wave break over you and you're in the tube and then come out. It's really like being a drug addict and you just need a harder drug or something because you can ride big waves all the time. You can surf in general all the time. But for me, I feel like I need to constantly be upping it because for

it's not as satisfying as the last time I did it. And also, I'm all about progression as well. Like, I love getting the feeling of getting better and maybe that coincides with it. Right. Never done drugs in my life, but I can imagine what it might be like. Yes, you have. Yeah, I guess it is a drug, but a natural one. Right. Well, this is the thing when I look at, I mean, and again, I don't view you within surfing. I view you as like,

Rodney Mullen or Eddie Van Halen or Alex Honnold. Like they're just these people who,

are meant to change what we know about each of these sports. Now, they're all within a context. You have a lot of colleagues who you're learning from and you're teaching. But I do see you as... What do you see as differentiating your approach that, you know, if everybody's got kind of a secret signature and you were talking about your own expression relative to the wave, what would you say is defining the difference? What am I picking up? And I don't know anything about surfing at all. Well, I think...

from my own personal perspective, I'm just kind of, and I think a lot of other people that do really cool things, like I think I've heard Alex Honnold talk about this as well. It's like, you don't really know any better. It's just kind of who you are and it kind of sort of happens. And it's, and in my perspective, it is sort of,

the environment that you spent the most time in or that experience that led to this point and so when I go out on the water it's not like I'm going out there with the intention to change things or try to recreate the landscape it's more like oh son I got this idea and that sounds really fun and I think I could do it you know it's like it starts with a little whisper in your head like maybe this is possible then you do it and then all of a sudden you look around and people appreciate it and

Without people appreciating it, I don't think I would know if it was significant or not. You need the feedback, Luke. I think Rodney Mullen was basically having a conversation with himself. Yeah. Well, I know what I want to do, but sometimes when you're surfing a big wave...

You don't know how big the wave is behind you, for example. If I never saw a photo or if no one told me if it was an Arleigh, I might get so used to it. Yeah. So comfortable. I was talking to my brother about this the other day about being starting to get desensitized by certain size waves now. I mean, I spent...

out of the last two weeks. It's a little terrifying. Yeah, it is. But you get comfortable, you know? You spend so much time in it. I spent the last eight days surfing big waves out of two weeks. And I was in Nazare and then I went to Jaws. So Nazare is this Portuguese wave that comes out of an underwater canyon where all of the energy is being focused. It may be the tallest...

close to the tallest surfable wave in the world? Yeah, that is, that's probably the most consistent big wave. And I think we should, that's an in-depth conversation that plays. But real quick, I'm just to kind of finish off this. Oh, sorry, you mean to? No, no, no. But to finish off sort of this kind of thought on becoming desensitized a little bit and talking about like how you kind of need feedback. There was this one particular wave. I'm not meaning to toot my horn at all, but there was this one particular wave that

I got interesting feedback from my brother afterwards where the way I was approaching it and you might have seen it on my social media on my Instagram it was that really big barrel I was wearing an orange vest and

And I rode it for a long time and I ended up getting spit out. It was probably one of my best big wave barrels ever. But the interesting thing about that is I was so focused on reading the curve of the wave. And when you're taking off on a wave at Jaws, the whole thing is a horseshoe. It bends around you. And taking in certain aspects of it, I could read what it's going to do. It's like predicting the future. Like if it hits the reef just in this way, the wave's going to barrel really hard. I'm going to be standing in a cave or standing in like a huge tunnel or

And without thinking twice or how big it was, I just bottom turned. I did what we call a check turn. So it's a turn mid-phase to burn my speed off the tow board. And then I just stood there and I lived inside this tube for a couple seconds. But afterwards, I was talking to my brother and he was like, he's like, how was that barrel earlier? You know, he jumped off the cliff and I picked him up on the jet ski and I was getting him some waves. And he was like, he's like, how do you stall for that and like do that? And I'm like, honestly, no.

Like, I don't know, was it big? Like, it didn't feel that big. He's like, that was the biggest wave of the day so far. And I was like, that's really kind of weird. I think I'm like getting a little desensitized by what I'm seeing because it's becoming such an often occurrence that it's becoming my normal all of a sudden. And yeah, it's still terrifying. Surfing big waves at all is terrifying. So you took like a huge drop on, I think it was on Jaws that like the world was buzzing about. Yeah, yeah. That was like last year.

And can you talk about that? And is that an example of something where you didn't realize just how gnarly it was until you looked at the footage? Yeah, absolutely. So I had been riding there. We had a big wave competition and it got too big for paddle and surfing. So the waves were in the 60 to 70, 80 foot range.

And I decided to go towing surfing because... So they called this off? Yeah, so we're in the middle of this contest and the waves just got too big. And the problem with it getting too big was also the wind factor. It got really windy. And the wind was blowing up the face...

making it almost really difficult to catch the wave because it was just trying to blow you at the back. And if your surfboard turns into an airfoil, it becomes a wing. Yeah. And you start flying through the air and to do that in competition. I mean, it's just really dangerous. I mean, that morning, the heat before they canceled it, um,

guys were passing out underwater, hitting the water so hard, having concussions, they were blacking out. People were coming up spitting blood out of their lungs. Maybe one person in the final heat made a wave and that's when the decision came, okay, it's like too gnarly, like,

We're all for big wave surfing and big wave competition. But in a contest, it's never worth losing someone's life over anything. You know, it's not like big wave surfers get paid that much either to compete. Right. And so they ended up canceling it. It was a group decision from most of the surfers that they didn't want to continue because for fear of someone not coming home to their family.

But on the other hand, a total moron might think, cool, there's no one in the water. I'm going to go for it. I guess I'm that moron. That's what I'm talking about. Tell me about what happens next. I mean, I just saw this stuff and I flipped out. The footage is insane. Well, so I couldn't paddle anymore. And...

with toe and surfing which is when and to explain to people who don't know what tone surfing is it's a jet ski with a wakeboard rope on the back of it and you use it to get towed into these massive waves so you eliminate paddling altogether and it's just a slingshot into these giant waves and you're riding a board that's much smaller versus a 10 foot board right you're on a six foot board and and so i just ended up having the best session of my life at

up to that point because there was no one around everyone didn't want to surf because they didn't want to injure get injured because the contest was going to run the next day the waves would be smaller and

But for me, big wave surfing was never about competing. It was always a spiritual aspect. That's where I found my kind of, it was almost became my religion because when you look at a big wave, it's like looking in a mirror in that moment. This is the most transcendent thing. I think this goes under the name. You can find it on Kai show, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there's, they made videos and they called it the Kai show because I was the only one out. I'm just saying that it's, you can, you can search on it from that. Yeah. And,

What I got out of it was transcendence. Like there's this one man in this very vulnerable position. You don't need to know much about surfing to know what kind of risks you're taking out there. Yeah. Well, so it stems from passion first, and then it stems from a lot of hard work and focus and determination and

not overcoming fear, but being kind of in line with it. As soon as you eliminate fear, it's when you get injured, especially in big waves, because you make brash decisions. So you are, in essence, to me, a risk manager. You wouldn't be here to be having this conversation if you weren't

playing the same role that like, if you were running a hedge fund, you have to figure out what can I afford to take? What can I afford to take? It's a calculation. It's a calculation. And so like we all look at this stuff. I mean, and it's also, there's like a very weird aspect of the psychology. I mean, I don't know it in surfing, but I know it in other places. On the one hand, it's like a very alpha male dominant sort of activity looking. But on the other side of that, you have to submit something.

to the wave like it is never going to win it is an active submission right and acceptance and acceptance because once you've committed to that thing

your choices disappear to an extent. You have a limited amount that you can't say, too big for me once you've already committed, you're in. Oh, yeah. No, like, I mean, what I love most about big wave surfing and the draw is you look at a big wave and it's a mirror and you realize who, like, there's no hiding. There's no lying to yourself. Who you are in that moment in your life is right in front of you.

and you know it clear as day, and you can either work on it or you can be stoked of who you are in that moment because you're facing death straight in the face, and fear has never been more powerful

relevant or more powerful in that moment and there's something so satisfying and scary though of acceptance of fear. It's like a release. It's like relief. You kick out of a big wave and you were just on the edge of your life and if you fell, you were just worried you may never come back up or you might get absolutely destroyed and the fear just washes off of you like dirt in a shower.

And you just stand there and it's just, you feel pure, you know, it's like all your sins are forgiven or something. And, and, and I do, that's, I, that's what I love so much about big wave surfing is it just makes me feel most alive. And the more I do it, I, I, I think it's given me, it's making everyday normal life harder, like to, to cope with. So we, I've talked about this recently with a pornographic actress who,

that there's an issue about what happens when you do something that hyper stimulates you and you have a trouble getting back to a normal baseline because there is this sort of hedonic shift in what your normal is. Sure. And in large measure, what I see is that,

How do you have a normal day after your day at the office being playing on the sides of temporary cliffs? Oh, it's... I mean, if I'm being at all honest, it's a normal average day is torture. Torture for you. It's like, because you don't have that same stimulation. You're not...

I guess things start to lose purpose because when you're riding a big wave, there's a purpose of living. Right. You know, and the purpose of like living in as you're not, you don't want to die, but you're also experiencing something so pure and profound. It feels bigger than yourself.

You know, like the act of riding a big wave feels, there's almost like that, the egotistical kind of feeling godly for one moment, you know? So this is the thing. Flying too close to the sun, like Icarus, you know? Exactly. Waiting for your wings to melt. Hubris in front of the gods. You see, that's the first element of Greek tragedy. And what I see is that I'm used to watching big waves where there's some different dot on every wave. And I watched the dot, which is this human being,

Just hang on for the ride. And if they can just do that, that was what I was used to. And then I see the dot jump and do a 360 on the way. It's playing. And it feels...

like mythically wrong, like wait, that wave is huge, but I'm gonna play with it rather than just submit and accept it. - Well so kind of like, you've watched Christopher Nolan's Inception, right? You know how they go from a dream into another dream? - Yeah. - The way I look at riding a big wave is you have the baseline, which is just the act of riding it, going straight, surviving it, kicking out. You have that 30 second experience.

And then you can, and then there's, and, and, and there, that takes a certain amount of focus. And for me doing maneuvers on big waves, all of a sudden it's, it's, it's like putting that one scary experience and putting it to the side. And as I'm rotating through a maneuver or a trick, like a 360 down the wave, I have to, I'm looking at the water. I'm focused on what's going on with myself and,

And then it's like when I land, I pop back into a different part of reality. And then when I kick out, I'm back to like normal reality, my baseline. So you're aware of several different Kai Lenny's living between the same set of ears that trade off on an individual wave? 100%. Yeah. So and I could go like, I feel like the most I've been able to go is maybe three levels deep.

um or maybe four four when you go four levels deep it's when you're riding a wave and all of a sudden you don't you're not you're on such the edge you don't know that you don't know what you're doing to make it work and when you kick out you start questioning what you did and then you actually forget how you did it you're like what just happened and it's kind of like me sitting here in the heart of los angeles

I almost feel like that other Kailani that does it, I sometimes question like, gosh, well, I've done it. Like, let's say I did it a hundred times, but I question if I can ever do it again. Like, I don't know if I have the confidence to say that I can do it again. Because it's like a different person. In this conversation, you're just some cool dude that I met in Maui. And there's nothing that suggests that the person that I've seen on these –

myriad different videos is that guy. In other words, you're talking about this, but there's no aspect of the person who does those incredible things. You're just now just saying, well, here's what I remember about that. And so when you meet somebody, like, you know, if you're talking to Albert Einstein and you were going to McDonald's with him and you were just ordering a hamburger, there would be nothing Albert Einstein-ish about his act of ordering a hamburger.

And so like, it's a very weird thing the way the mundane and the transcendent collide. And sometimes the person who has this transcendent ability, when they're in their mundane head, they can't even imagine that that's who they are. Do you ever have that? - Oh yeah, no, I totally have that. It's kind of like the fear will I ever get to that level again sort of thing. But there's a moment where I'm starting to identify when the switch happens.

And it usually happens because to get to big waves, you usually round a corner, whether it's on a boat or a car or whatever, or walking down the beach, you come around a corner and all of a sudden the wave is revealed. It's like the reveal of a movie. Like all of a sudden you see the monster or you see the building or you see whatever it is that you're- You still feel that with Piaget? Oh my God, every time. So you turn the corner and you see plumes of spray going hundreds of feet in the air.

And in the distance, maybe a mile away, you see this monster breaking and your heart starts to skip a little bit and you're like, oh my gosh, like here we go. And I could start feeling the switch kind of starting to move. And then all of a sudden I pull up and I see the canvas that is the wave breaking and the perfection. And

Any fear that I had the night before. Because it's not like I don't live in fear at all. The night before, I'm scratching my head. I'm like, what have I gotten myself into? What am I doing? I have this whole crew coming. Bruce Banner is going to have to fight. And he's not the Hulk yet. And so he has to approach the fight. And before he becomes the Hulk at some level, it's terrifying because you're signing up to do something that you're not capable of doing until you make the transformation. It's a great analogy. Definitely. Because...

I'll pull up on the jet ski and all of a sudden see a wave just spit and it's a 60 foot wave and it's terrifying and, and, and, you know, everything about it is like, you want to avoid being caught in there, you know, like how can a human body live through something like that? But then all of a sudden I get all this energy and I, and I'm like, let's go, let's go. And I'm, whoever I'm with, I'm trying to rush them off the jet ski or I'm trying to grab my board to paddle out or I'm getting them to drive me. And I'm like, let's go. And I'll find myself sitting out on the water and,

Doing like I have kind of this breathing exercise I do where it's like breathe in for two seconds out for two seconds It's just really mellow and it's just really to get a lot of oxygen in my lungs but it's also to like have like sharpness of mind and and then Sometimes four waves and a set will come in so it's not like just one big wave comes in and breaks there could be four stacked in the horizon we call those a set and and

And it's like it's always a bit of chess to try to figure out which one's going to be the best wave. Because I've had millions of waves where I've kicked out. Not millions, but lots of waves where I've kicked out and you see the perfect big wave behind it. And you're like, oh, my God, why did I go on the first one? And you're kicking yourself. But so so I'm usually I'm usually really like I would say reserved players.

In the fact when like I hate asking people for to go out of their way for something like, hey, you know, is it okay? Like even if I'm staying at someone's house, like it's okay if I get some water, you know, it's just who I am. I would say on like a base level. But all of a sudden, I think my...

commander inside me or kind of like the general sort of comes out where it's like my driver, I'm telling him exactly what he's doing. I'm like, number two, which is the second wave. No, no, no, no. Faster, faster. Let's go. And all of a sudden I'm yelling and I love this person and later on I feel guilty and I sometimes apologize, but they understand that I'm out there with a purpose and trying to catch a wave. And it's like,

Yeah, you do have a- I'm trying to command a situation. You do have some kind of a split personality because like when we came out and visited you, you could not have been more hospitable to some, like, I mean, the funny part is, if I understand correctly, you first found out about me because you were a Joe Rogan watcher. Yeah, exactly. And I said, hey, are you watching what's going on in surfing? That's where innovation is happening now. And I shouted out your name. Then I see on Instagram, hey, this dude shouted out my name or something. I'm thinking like-

How does that guy even know that I exist? You know what? It's the same way. How does someone like you know I exist? Oh, no. It's funny. I just feel like, you know...

In my world, I'm trying to break out of my own personal bubble. And it's not a bubble in terms of like get seen by other people more. But it's like I think we all find ourselves in our own world. And if I've learned anything from big wave writing is trying to be uncomfortable more often. Like every day if I can be a little uncomfortable, it's probably positive because –

It means that I'm experiencing something that I'm not used to whatsoever. Let's talk about some of the technology that's changing what it is that you do. If you think about like you're a painter, you talk about canvas. All right, well, now you've got more brushes and paints to paint with. So what I see, and correct me if I'm not getting it from outside, is that this foil, the hydrofoil underneath the

The boards is making it possible to be like effectively Aladdin on a magic carpet where you're surfing above the water. Then there's this kite thing going on where you're really accessing the wind to jump at levels that just seem absolutely insane and

There's safety equipment, which is weirdly like only recently available to decrease the probability that you're going to get held down. I think what all those things have in common, and this is what's really cool about water sports is.

Um, and the, the real connection is things are invented out of necessity, just like everything in life. But really it's, it's in created in the name of fun. Like, how can I have more fun? What can we do to make it more fun? Oh, this is the solution. And like big wave surfing, it's fun until you drown. So that inflation vest you're talking about, it's a similar concept is the one that's under your seat when you fly on an airplane, CO2 canister, an airbag in a wetsuit.

Pull a cord, the thing inflates and you become a buoy. And it's in the name of fun because now all of a sudden it's given people like me the opportunity to ride these big waves and focus less on trying to not drown, but more on what can we do on these big waves? Like what kind of experiences can I have on them? And that's where I say that the limit is still yet to be totally tapped into so

especially with toe and surfing, paddle and surfing, people are constantly pushing the edge because it's an act of, it's really like going hunting with, you know,

It's like going hunting with a knife versus going out with all the technology in the world. And it's just different. It's a different approach. And some might say it's not pure or whatever. Well, those people don't actually surf big waves, so who cares? But for me, I love technology. And I love when they merge with the passion. What's the craziest thing you're thinking about with technology?

Well, I'm constantly trying to figure out how to do something better, you know? And I think what blows people's minds away the most is the hydrofoil and what those capabilities are. It's like an underwater airplane attached to a large fin, attached to a board and lets you glide like you're a seagull and gives you an illusion of flight. And I think...

almost everybody has a dream of wanting to just soar through the air, you know, like be a bird and you can't see what's lifting you up out of the water when you're riding these things. All you can, all you feel, see is the board around you and the water moving and

When I first did it, I started when I was nine years old, but when I kind of... How old are you now? I'm 27. Okay. But there was... 2016 was kind of the year of reinvention of it, kind of the rebirth of it. Originally, it was adopted from the air chair, which was what you would ride behind a water ski boat. And those guys would sit down on. They do incredible maneuvers. But they had the rope and, you know, you had to be towed around a lake and...

Then Laird Hamilton, Rush Randall, Dave Coloma, Derek Dorner, all these guys, strapped crew, took it, put snowboard boots on it, and their goal was to ride the biggest waves ever ridden. Another problem with riding big waves, and this is what led them to the hydrofoil, was the chops going up the face of the wave get so big that on normal board you can't go fast enough. Hydrofoil is a giant fin. It cuts right through it like a hot knife through butter.

And so they were pushing it in the big wave realm. And then come 2016, I had a vision of instead of trying to ride the biggest waves in the world on this, why don't we try to ride the smallest waves in the world on this? And that opened the door, the floodgates for...

making terrible surf anywhere in the world feel like it's the best waves on the planet. - So cool. - Because you don't need a perfect wave to feel like you're on one because you can glide on parts of the wave that are far away from where a traditional surfboard has its limit

And it also opened the door for crossing large bodies of water. Now, for fun, what we do in Hawaii and we do races now is we cross between each island riding a board that's at times no wider than four feet.

And you're hovering and you feel like a bird and you go from one island to another. You can go from like Molokai to Oahu? Yeah, like Molokai to Oahu. Every island you can go between. It's just how long do you want to be out in the ocean for? Right, okay. What's your time? And Molokai to Oahu is a 32-mile channel crossing. And I could do it just above 200.

Two hours. Two hour mark is right there, which is exciting. But the coolest thing is, is like if there's a, when I first did it, there was this, there was this euphoric feeling. So you're doing this by pumping? Well, so pumping is kind of like the flapping of a bird, you know, like that's how they create more lift when they need it. But if you play your cards right and you, the best way to read the open ocean swells is imagine you're, you're playing a game of chess or if you were playing kind of like, um,

you know, what's that game like in an arcade where the ball bounces around and you get a bunch of different points and you try to get it into that one, like a thousand point hole. Gosh, what is it called again? Not Pachinko, not the Japanese one or pinball. Pinball. Okay. Okay. You're trying to pinball between swells. Ting, ting, ting. And if you, you go from one swell to the next, to the next, to the next, you're, you're, you're gaining the energy and the lift underwater, the vortex that's coming up these little waves and creating lifts. You don't have to pump. So in a perfect situation,

and a perfect line, you're just turning and you're snowboarding. It feels like you're going downhill the whole time. And you might pump to get to the next swell if you have to, if it's spread out far enough. And it's so, I would say more even, it's physically taxing. You use every fiber of your body because you're using your arms to create energy to help your legs pump this board to go faster because it's always about going quicker.

And then your mind has to focus on reading the ocean. And if you mistime it or you misread it, you stop, you come to a dead stop. And so if you, if you're really on it, it's like reading. I've, I feel like it's when I read a really like dense book, lots of heavy words that I don't understand and have to really think about it. That is like doing a channel crossing because every single wave you see isn't the same. It's all slightly different and you're trying to navigate it.

And it's playing chess. You know, you, if you make one mistake, all of a sudden you're, you're, you're down. That's interesting. I mean, I have to say, I've seen you do this and it doesn't have the same visual appeal. If you're not part of this world, I've also seen the motorized version of this, which definitely looks like a magic carpet for sure. And it is, it is bizarre just to, I mean, the physics almost don't feel like they make sense to see the board that far out of the water and

It's funny because it's all physics. Yeah, it's all physics. Everything that I'm doing now, I mean, obviously, is...

is all physics. And I never, as a kid, I never thought I'd be into physics, but the only way physics, I understand physics, it's through kind of these devices or kind of these approaches. It's almost my version of math. It's like, well, if you take a board here and you do this and with the wind and you rotate that way, it's like- But let's talk about this in a weird context. So there's that, now there are these engineered waves. Oh yeah, yeah.

And people are actually saying, look, if you want a regular experience, we can design a wave in a wave pool and make it as pretty and regular as you want. I don't know that we've gotten to the point where you can dial your own irregularities into it, but maybe that's coming up.

Yeah, I think what makes surfing so fun is when you're on the wave, it's the unpredictability. You can kind of read what the wave's doing and you can make the most informed and best decisions on it. But you get on these mechanical waves like at the surf ranch or... This is Kelly Slater's pool. Kelly Slater's pool. And it's almost like too perfect. You get on it and it's like you're all of a sudden having to...

figure out your own runs, right? You're like, okay, I can do two turns here and I can get barreled and I can do this. And you can sort of do that in the ocean, but

I mean, the wave pool is insane if you want to get better because you get the wave of the day every single time you stand up. And a lot of times you never get the wave of the day when you're surfing in the ocean. I think there's something about being in saltwater. And I think there's something about kind of that natural element and being in line with nature in one of her most dynamic moments. Right. That is, that is, it makes you feel good, like really, really good. Yeah.

But that being said, as a professional athlete, the more time I could spend in a wave pool, the better because it just means that I'm able to focus on things that I couldn't. I may only get one chance to try. That's why surfing is so hard. It's the hardest sport in the world because...

You go out there with the intention to learn a new trick. You may never get the opportunity one or you may get one opportunity and you may blow it because you're trying to learn how to do it. Or you need a high end and the only way to get high end is in a pool like that or to live, you know. Or travel. You end up traveling a ton. And for most people, they can't travel a ton. For me, I'm lucky that it's in my job description to do it.

Now think about this with big wave surfing. Big wave surfing is so rare. The times when I most want to go out there and do something and the most motivated, the most physically fit, it just doesn't exist. Nowhere in the world. There's moments like right now, there's nowhere on earth that is breaking the way I would want it to break or big enough. And so it's like, right?

You know, you're looking at the forecast and you're jumping on flights. Two days before the swell hits, you arrive the day before, jet lagged from Hawaii all the way to Europe. You said surfers – you said to me surfers are some of the world's best meteorologists. Yeah. No, surfers without a doubt are probably some of the best meteorologists because there's more at stake than just a huge storm destroying something. What's at stake is your enjoyment and it's personal. It's really personal. So –

The people I talk to that are surfers that know how to read the ocean, read the information that comes out of NOAA or any of these other buoys that are scattered across the planet, satellites,

they can tell you to basically the minute when a certain wave is gonna come in. And that's what's really cool is like, without you knowing it, you're a meteorologist because you're like, okay, this tide mixed with this swell direction mixed with these winds is gonna make it this way. And the really good guys, girls, they can call it like,

Okay, at 7 a.m., the waves are going to be pumping. It's going to turn on. And then you show up, 6 a.m., it's not really that good. 7 a.m., boom, it hits. So it's really almost predicting the future. So another question I had is about physics is –

Um, there's this question about what is possible. And I remember a description back in the early skateboarding days of like a dog town. Yeah. Um, there was this question about nobody knew what happened, what would happen if you went over the lip of a swimming pool. Like,

I think they couldn't calculate the actual physical consequences. What do you mean the lip of a swimming pool? Well, you had this drought in the early 70s in California. Oh, right, right, right, right. Okay, gotcha. For some reason, I was thinking something different. But with skating, go above it, right? Yeah. And I think Tony Alva, if I recall correctly, was the first guy who said like,

I'm going to try it and we'll find out whether... Like, they didn't know what would happen physically or something. And it turned out that it worked. And then it was like, oh, okay, that is possible. Now look at them. And now look at them. Oh, my God. And I wonder, like, are there things where you're pretty sure it's possible, but you, like...

You don't know whether it's physically possible. Usually you get, I feel like I get about three quarters of the way there and any, you can't go any further and you have to just try it at a certain point. It's like, it's like, I think I could do that. And you've wrapped, you've kind of played it all out in your head. Like I got this equipment, this equipment is going to allow me to do that. Okay. I need this type of way because it's going to allow me to do this. What are you thinking about? What's up next that might be possible that you don't know that it's possible?

You know what? It's so funny because a lot of the things just sort of hit you like an epiphany. It's like a baseball bat to the head. All of a sudden, you're just like, what? And I can't tell you what's next because... Because you'd have to kill me. Well, no, no. I don't know. It's what's crazy. This is how it happens. I'll literally be sitting out in the water and it's like all the stars all like...

the five brain cells I have kind of go, tink, tink, tink, they all line up and all of a sudden it's like, oh, oh my God, that was right in front of me the whole time. It's like staring me in the face but you don't see it. - Give me an example of one of those in the past that actually worked. - Well, the epiphany was the hydrofoil for one

because everyone was riding big waves and I was doing a lot of channel crossings on stand up paddle boards or prone paddle boards or on a canoe. And that's where your board is, the wetted surface. - So you were the guy who thought to put the hydrofoil into channel crossings? - Yeah. - I didn't know that. - Yeah, so that was kind of like,

I guess my sort of contribution to the sport. And it was, it came from necessity to want to go faster. So I, I basically pushed my physical limits and I could probably be faster now as I'm older and I'm better trained, blah, blah, blah, equipment's better. But on my standup paddleboard, for example, it was like, gosh, I just want to go fast. All my other sports were,

are, I'm going fast all the time. And here I'm limited to maybe maximum 14 miles an hour downwind at peak speed, average, let's say nine miles an hour, 10 miles an hour. And, and so the, it was like, gosh, like all of a sudden I put like two and two together. I'm like hydrofoil. And then I've put downwinder and they sort of cross. And it's like,

Well, yeah, obviously that should work. I just need a bigger wing. They were just using two smaller wings. That's why you couldn't, you need more lift. You get a bigger wing. And the first time I tried it in a wave, I was like, this is going to work. Oh my God, this is going to work. And then I went and did it. And I ended up paddling like three miles in the middle of the ocean and

And got up for a hundred yards maybe because the equipment wasn't quite there yet. Right. Right. But I got up and it was just enough to go, oh my God. And it just hit me like in the head because I had been foiling since I was nine years old, like on a tow board with the jet ski and how you would do it in bigger waves. Yeah.

And then with this, it was like, God, I've been doing it since I was nine and it took me until now, I think I was like, what, 24 or something? No, 25, 2016. And for it to click and I'm like, oh, God, it was right there in front of me the whole time. I don't know if you've ever heard about this guy, Freeman Dyson, who was at the Institute for Advanced Study. And he was a great physicist, also a mathematician, did not have a PhD in either subject.

He wrote an article, which I think might be called missed opportunities. And he talks about Freeman Dyson. The physicist needed a result of Freeman Dyson, the mathematician and Freeman Dyson, the human being who is both of these people was not having that conversation. So the only person who had the result was Freeman Dyson, the mathematician, but the physicist who was himself could not figure out how to ask the question to make the connection. And so there is this feeling that like,

The feeling of discovery is often a feeling of stupidity. Like, oh my God, I could have done that at any time and I just didn't. Well, you just don't see it. It doesn't, it's invisible. And then all of a sudden it's just there. That's the whole portal. And it's clear as day. And you're just like. It's like, how do you find your way out of your, how do you find these epiphanies? Yeah. And like, then you go back and you say to yourself, well, what was it on that particular day that caused me to,

to look at a wall and really see that there was probably a door in it, you know, or something like that. And it's about being kind of open-minded to anything. And that's, I think, permeable. Well, going back to being uncomfortable all the time, if you're willing to be uncomfortable all the time, you're willing to see things from very different perspectives. And oftentimes you're going to surprise yourself. I always find myself talking a lot and

And then I'm like, but I, everything I'm saying, I already know. I gotta, okay. You gotta listen. You're listening to yourself talking. If you don't do that. I mean, how shocking. This is something I don't know how to convey to people. How shocking is our own voice? Like if you go into a room where there is nobody else and you actually start talking and you realize that you're only talking for yourself,

It is a terrifying feeling realizing that the listener and the speaker are not the same person. I know. No, it's split personalities for sure. I loved your inception comment along those lines. It's layers and layers. There's just layers and layers. And I think some people don't ever go beyond layer one because they don't want to. Or they don't know that it exists. But here's the question. Once you've seen that there are layers and layers...

Do you start looking for that everywhere in your life? Oh, for sure. Okay. So give me some, are there any other transferable examples where the same kind of breakthrough takes place that you can talk about? I mean, I think nothing, well, there's a lot of things, but there's little wins, I call them, you know, when you have like minor epiphanies or little things that sort of just become apparent and, and,

and obvious and I think it happens with everyone whether we know it or not where you're doing something and you've been trying it for a really long time like a trick on a wave. You're trying it for a really, really long time and then all of a sudden you decide to change one little thing and a really good saying for surfing is letting go and it's not letting go in the fact that you relax completely or it's relaxing but it's different. It's not like

Letting go, it's like letting go of your problems. You know what I mean? It's like letting go in the sense that you have any control and you just kind of like feel. You let your physical being kind of... You go into a flow state. The flow state, but you also let someone else take the driving wheel. You know what I mean? Like in surfing, it's such a connection between...

And this comes to these moments where I feel like I'm in a movie sometimes and I'm in the passenger seat and everything's happening around me, but I don't feel like I'm doing it. I feel like there's someone else doing it for me and I'm in the movie. I'm seeing it through someone else's eyes. So this is a weird case. Before we're talking about surrendering to the wave, there's also this question about surrendering to the parts of yourself that you don't yourself control.

Exactly. Well, so it's like all of a sudden I'm in a wave and it's survival and my, what I call it, you know, survival mode comes on and I'm seeing everything, but my body is moving to make it all happen to work because it wants to make it out. And it's like, it's fully in control and I'm just visualizing and seeing it. And then I get back to the shore and I get back on the beach and all of a sudden it's like the switch flips back over and all of a sudden I'm just going like,

how did I do that? Like, I don't, I couldn't tell you really. I can imagine. I can try to recall, but like, I don't really know what happened. Like, like, like I'm scared. I'll never be able to repeat that again. Well, because, well, first of all, each it's really weird that you have things that are highly regular and things like a bowling alley that those pins are always more or less the same and the wave it's always different.

Well, so I struggled for a while. It's not like I started big wave surfing and it was like, I want to be a big wave surfer for this. It was like being a kid, standing on the cliff, going, figuring out the wave from that perspective. Got it. Feeling like I knew it like the back of my head better than guys that were riding it. All of a sudden, I blinked. I'm down in the water and I'm going, oh my gosh, how did this happen so fast? I thought I had so much more time. And then...

blink again and it's all of a sudden it's like how did I get myself into this mess you know like how did I get myself into the point where I feel like I'm gonna die all the time you feel that regularly well I used to when I first started it was like going oh my god and then you have like

And then you have like boats and you have safety team and your people are on payroll. It's expensive to surf big waves is what I'm saying. Well, am I right that you got yourself into trouble at some point when there was a helicopter that had been hired and you wanted to perform for the helicopter and you took on risks that you shouldn't have? Yeah. And that's just, that is a natural sort of thing.

that's just natural to big wave surfing in general. Like you're going to have to go through, everyone goes through those types of situations if they're willing to go to the level that they want or the highest level, the degree in which would be like a black belt or a, like you have to go through that at one point. There's just,

it's like someone telling you what to do and they have all this wealth of knowledge, but until you go through the experience on your own, you don't truly learn it for yourself. You don't go like, it doesn't have the weight necessarily. You can be told all you want, but you almost have to experience it on your own accord. Well, am I right that this is so unpredictable that like, you can't say I've got this because anything can happen in a big wave. Absolutely. And if I understand correctly, your foot,

at some point had the surfboard come right at it and cleave it in two? Oh yeah. No, that was like a classic example of like kind of going into what you were saying is it was probably my third full season surfing big waves and

The waves were giant and we hired a helicopter. We were filming and it was like, I really want to get a shot for this movie that I'm working on. I really want to like have it blow people's minds. You know, there's that ego part. Ego is just...

the worst in big waves. It's the best and the worst in a way because you kind of need an ego to like make yourself kind of prop yourself up to match power with power. But, um, am I right that you, this is something I talk about and pisses people off like you wouldn't believe, um,

the necessity of being both incredibly humble and an egomaniac and having the two of those selves fight each other constantly. Yeah. I think it's, it's your ego or you have to undergo ego death. And I'm thinking, no, you don't. You have to actually make sure that, well, that's the thing. It's like when people talk about he's fearless, he's,

No, everything we have has been an evolution in nature and there's a necessity towards it. Ego is, okay, there's certain situations it's awesome and it's more pleasurable for everyone around you not to have an ego. But there's other situations like in survival situations where you want to think of yourself as the best there ever was. Because it kind of, as a male, and this is the only way I know it because I'm a male, is...

It's that alpha inside you. And it's like going against...

It's the tribal instinct of protecting your tribe, protecting what is yours, your family. But in this case, it's the experiences in big ways where it's like, you got to, David and Goliath, you got to match yourself with the impossible, the undefeatable. I also met your mom and your mom is a total badass. Like you got a situation where if you're gonna make mom proud, you have to go above and beyond. No, exactly. And it's,

You know, I've definitely... One thing that I remember when I was a really little kid being told all the time was like, no one likes a big head. No one likes this. And it was kind of beat into my head so much from my mentors and certain people around me that...

it made me really shine reserved and felt like it felt, I always felt like I could handle anything, but I, I don't think anyone else could like, like if I said something that was maybe the truth, or if I said somebody that was like something that was hard or very critical, it would, um, it would be damaging to someone. And I never wanted to hurt anyone. That's like the last thing I'd ever want to do. And so it was actually, it's been a long process trying to overcome kind of that, um,

um that habit of of like giving your power away giving the power away when in certain it's okay to be like i think the the most powerful the best right the the best athletes that have ever met yeah the the true alphas they know how to switch it on and off like they um

They're able to be so humble and kind and they don't feel like they need to exert some, but when the time comes for whatever it is that they do, they can turn it on. All of a sudden, they're just these beasts, these monsters that are able to... You also have to accept what it is that you are. I mean, let's be honest. When I...

when I called you out, there isn't another surfer on the planet that I was dying to meet because this, this is not, I mean, I'm aware of who Laird Hamilton is. I'm aware of Kelly Slater. There are tons of people like this guy, Philip Toledo. I'm watching all of these guys. You were the only one from outside that I absolutely had to meet because of the level of innovation. And then when I met you, it was so disarming that,

you clearly know that you're doing something very different. You can't actually deny it. You can't fully embrace it either. And so I think that one of the puzzles here is that we have to sort of pass power back and forth, which is that you give your power away to some extent. And then the community kind of with love just says, you know, no, you really need to take this on because people are looking towards you. And it's a very weird thing to sort of

have to balance these things. I think we do a terrible disservice when we tell people to get rid of their egos because that'll never work. You have to make sure that the thing is like a Mexican standoff. It has to be in check. You have to, anything, you have to face everything. Like if it's, I was telling my friend, I had like a certain situation that I was kind of going through, like maybe end of last year.

And it's like I told myself for this situation when I was a young kid, like because I was pretty aware about like my the people around me and the mistakes they had made and how I was like, I was I always when I was really young and when my ego is definitely very strong, I'm

Inside I was like, I want to do everything perfect and I want to do it the best anyone's ever done it. I want to be the best ever because as a kid, you don't have to confront it yet, but you can imagine, you can believe, you can do all these things, but you don't actually have to go through it yet because you're still a little kid.

Anyway, so I told myself this one particular thing like, I'm gonna avoid this and I'm gonna make sure I never end up in this situation. And inevitably, the one thing that you try to avoid is the one thing that'll eventually come for you. You know, you'll eventually meet it.

And I learned that at the end of the year. Are you a fan of Kung Fu Panda? Great. Yeah. I love that movie. Yeah. So remember, one often meets one's destiny on the road one takes to avoid it or something. Oogway. Yeah, Oogway. Exactly. I know. That movie was so smart for, and it was a kid's movie or whatever. It was not a kid's movie, dude. That was a really profound movie. Yeah, right. Exactly. Yeah. It's true, though. No, it's...

I know that quote exactly what you're saying. And it's like, it truly. And in that movie, sorry, I don't mean to cut you off, but Oogway is weirdly putting Shifu on the road to his destiny as he tries to avoid his destiny. So like there's this extra layer of, is Oogway actually. Great filmmaking. Great storytelling. Great storytelling. But at least it's telling, it's,

whether you don't know it when the first time you watch it or you figure it out later, it's helping you along in your life. There's lessons. And that's what stories were all about. It was meant to pass on lessons, right? What happens when you bite off more than you can chew in a situation where you think you can handle something and then you look up at this thing and you're saying, I don't really know that I can handle this, but I got no choice now. I'm past the Rubicon.

- Well. - Has this happened to you recently or more from before? - More from before. I mean, it's still, I mean, no matter how comfortable I've gotten in big waves. - Yeah. - It's impossible to totally be comfortable because it's just terrifying, you know? It's just, it's huge monsters, but.

The thing is, many times you pop up, this is a perfect example actually. You're standing out there paddling, you paddle over a giant wave and then there's mist in the air. It's so much spray that's coming off, it's hundreds of feet, it's torrential downpour. It's sunny but it's downpour. And in the distance you see this black face, this black kind of wall coming in and your heart just instantly drops and you're sprinting for your life.

And all of a sudden you're trying to escape the feeling or the situation by looking at little things and focusing on that. Like look at the water just rolling off there. Like look at the sticker on my board. Just like you're trying to find any escape. But you realize that there's no escape. There's no hiding. Did you see Interstellar? Yeah. I love that movie. I love it.

Do you remember when they end up on the water planet and the wave starts to form? It looks just like that. And if I ever get to meet Christopher Nolan, I'm going to tell him that that was the biggest surprise I've ever seen in a movie because as a big wave surfer, I was like, that's so rideable. And look, you can do a step up. Is that what you really thought? 100%. Oh, man. Who's any big wave surfer? I don't know if any, but I mean...

Think about, okay, so in the movie, the waves are created by gravitational forces, right? And that's a lot, like the moon helps pull our tides, right? But in the film, here I'm seeing a thousand foot wave that's never breaking and it's continuous for around the entire world. And I'm like, that seems like sick. You could ride a thousand foot wave, biggest playground ever. Endless summer. And if you fall, if you fall...

You just kind of go over the back. And then there's another one. And I mean, the person, the character dies because I can imagine if you're going over a thousand foot wave, you get really high in the wave and it flicks you into the air and you fall a thousand feet and you die, right? Or 200 feet, whatever it is, because...

I'm just trying to, I was always trying to imagine how the person died in that film because I had to leave them behind or whatever. And I'm like, well, the solution would have been right as you get to the top, you just duck under the water and you stay, the water kind of conceals you and you come back down the backside of it. And then you can stick your head back up and get air. Or in that case, you're all wearing spacesuits. Perfect. You don't even have to like hold your breath underwater. That's one, one problem taken care of. And, um,

And they're pressurized, so you can just go through it. But anyway, I was just like, that is like, that would be, that's one. And it made me actually start thinking, I'm like, gosh, I wonder if in my lifetime, if space travel is really going to be a thing. And maybe someone goes to Titan or Europa, like, because they're supposedly water or something. Are you obsessed with Titan? Mm-hmm.

I mean, I'm obsessed with the idea of surfing waves outside the world. Yeah, sure. Like if you have the right suit on, I mean, in any element, you could probably go in unless it's like lava maybe or I don't know. I'm not that smart. But what I do know is that just think of all the waves in the universe that is just firing right now and no one out. And if we maybe we have the best waves in the universe, but

There has to be better ways. I often look back in time at just how... Do you think there are great undiscovered waves? 100%. Where? Wait, on Earth? On Earth? Do you think we've mapped all the great waves? No. Well, okay. A great example is this wave Nazare. This is a great lead into Nazare. Nazare was discovered nine years ago. Nine years ago. By Scott McNamara? By Garrett McNamara. Garrett McNamara. Sorry, Garrett McNamara. But okay, this is just... It's so crazy. It's so crazy.

Portugal, part of European Union, like the middle, the heart of Portugal, like there's this wave, Nazare, biggest wave possibly in the world, tallest, most consistent big wave, that's for sure. All right. And, you know, it's 2011 or whatever, 2012, 2011, and it's discovered.

How? I don't know. It was just hiding in plain sight. It doesn't make any sense. It's the things. It's okay. We go back to that point where it's like the things that are the most obvious aren't always recognized right away. You know what I mean? See, I never got the history of it. It's always photographed. I mean, the most dramatic shot of it is somebody gets a picture of the observation deck that

looking at the wave. So, yeah, I mean... And that observation deck looks like it wasn't built recently.

No, it's a lighthouse, but it's so old it looks like a castle. Right. And so Nazare was first surfed, whatever, eight or nine years ago, less than a decade in a modern era. Is Garrett Hawaiian? Garrett is from Hawaii. Yeah, he's from Oahu. And he's always been on the search for the best big waves. And it took someone who was always seeking it out that long to find something because

With big waves, if they're not breaking, you don't know they exist. You know, they're dormant. We could literally go down to a coastline we haven't been to, somewhere in Africa, that's exposed to a great part of the Atlantic Ocean, and look at a point and be like, whoa, that could be a wave one day. But you don't realize that it's a sleeping giant, and when it wakes up, it's the biggest wave on the planet. Like, that may exist. That totally could exist. Okay, but if you were mapping the seabed,

Portugal should stick out like a sore thumb, no? Well, okay. The bathymetry is a freak of nature. Wait, say that word again because I don't know it. Bathymetry. Okay. Which is kind of the bottom contour. You know, it's what...

I'm going to start dropping that into lots of sentences from now on. It makes you sound smarter than, well, it makes me sound smarter than I am. Okay. But so what's unique about Nazare is it's the largest trench in all of Europe. And I believe it's an ancient, it was once a glacier that carved out a huge valley. And when all the ice caps melted, it filled in the ocean and it covered that trench, another

Now the trench allows the swell, this raw energy from the Atlantic to come in. It gets sucked into that deep water. It focuses it and it comes in. And then this is where the wave comes in. They call it prior day Norte, which is, you know, no, the North beach, North point. Um,

And that's where the wave breaks in Nazare. And so what happens is all this swell comes in and then it all of a sudden gets accelerated onto shallow water. So there's a point with a ledge and it's all sand. It's a giant beach. And it comes in and then it focuses. And what makes Nazare so big is two peaks, two waves. And this is the concept of a rogue wave.

You know, you can have a really big ocean of big waves and then it's one, two big waves come together. It's the super position. It's the super position. Yeah. One, the swell comes in this way and it matches with another one and the, the energy combines and it doubles in height. So it, it jacks up twice as high and it's just the perfect bottom for that perfect situation. And it, um, it produces the tallest waves in the world, um, consistently. Uh, and, uh,

Yeah, that's Nazare. Nazare is a trip. You go there and it feels biblical. I mean, the word Nazare already sounds like it's from, you know, the Old Testament. And then add to this, there's a guy there named Jesus.

stands up on the lighthouse and calls out sets if you're toe surfing it's like okay second set get out there you know or like get the second one and his name is Jesus from Nazareth Jesus from Nazareth that's great and it's just it's hilarious it's kind of a hilarious situation like so when you're out there all of a sudden you're seeing this massive cliff 200 foot cliff and you're seeing waves that are like half

the size of it and on really big days the same size as the cliff because it gets that big we haven't seen it in the time that we've surfed out there though you see this sort of castle lighthouse on the point spray in the air and you're like where am I right now I feel like I got thrown back in time and this just doesn't feel real and you're looking at these towering mountains of water that look like

Interstellar looks the same. It's just walls popping up everywhere and and it's not like there's one breaking wave There's six breaking waves at once and there's no channel which is the channel is with a safe zone It's where the deep water is and where it doesn't break. It's kind of breaking everywhere. It's a beach break It's the world's biggest beach break

it's maybe one of the world's most terrifying big waves to challenge in that there is no safe zone. When you're committed, you're committed. I've seen some disastrous rescue attempts on this thing. Oh, it's great. And every time I go there, we lose a jet ski at least once. Is that right? Luckily, there's sand, so it pushes back up. But imagine like everything...

around you was built bigger and all of a sudden you felt like your scale just went really down that's what it feels like there because the waves are so big all of a sudden you feel like really small the beach the beach is really steep and massive and large and you feel smaller on the beach the way the waves move up and down it'll travel 50 to 60 yards up the sand before it returns back to the ocean and you feel like this is what it feels like to be the size of a chihuahua

Do you get off on your own insignificance? Like your significance coming from your insignificance? There's no place on earth like that place, that wave, to make me realize how small a human being is. Yes, I've definitely gotten used to feeling like insignificant and my place in this whole crazy world is not as important necessarily as I might want to think, you know? Like, because you look at these waves and they're just power, this power and

and you're trying to find kind of like symmetry with it. You're trying to be one with it for just a brief moment.

And you just realize like, it's this way to been here forever for a long time. And, uh, you know, I guess if I can be just in line with something that's bigger than myself, that's what I, that was me. That's what makes me feel really good. The best feeling I get from riding big waves is the drive home. Cause you've just went through this whole crazy experience and,

You're relieved you just went through that and you tapped into something bigger than yourself, physically bigger than yourself too. Well, I'm used to seeing you on some of these monster waves alone. And then recently I saw you get a ride, it looked like at Jaws with a friend of yours. Yeah, Nathan Florence. And I thought, what is it like to actually ride a wave like that

with somebody that you know and care about does it feel totally different uh you know what it just there's camaraderie yeah involved um you still feel kind of alone because it's you on the board it's you on the board and it's your decisions that make the outcome and sometimes it's not even your decision that makes the outcome it's the the waves that make the outcome you know like you could choose a wave and all of a sudden it

it does something completely unforeseen and different riding that wave with Nathan. We ended up getting a really big barrel out of jaws together. And to, for both of us to be in the barrel at the same time was amazing. It's your shit. It's finally, you're sharing the experience with somebody. And I think that's why there's a real brotherhood sisterhood out in big wave surfing, because you're, you're sharing an experience. It's so extreme that, um,

You know, it's like you can tell everyone all about it, but you know, you still feel like they don't understand. How do you translate the feeling? You can translate the emotions, the ideas, like the, through like words, but that physical feeling. Like I wish I could just plug my head into your head. Yeah. And you could just feel it for a second. Oh, I know. I'm pretty sure that.

- Dude, I've gotten off by character. I wish I could do the same thing for you with mathematics in part. That's one of the things we're trying. - See, I'm terrible with math, but I want to be good at math. - You don't know that you are. Well, you brought up an interesting question about the brothers and sisters. Now we just had, I follow this other woman whose name I don't wanna mangle, who's just the first woman

a year or two ago to be invited into this Eddie Invitational. Say it and I'll help you. Keala? Keala, yeah. Yeah, she's amazing. She's amazing. She's amazing. I was just surfing with her at Jaws like two days ago.

Wow. Yeah. Okay. So like... She's a hammer. But clearly she's going to pioneer something where other women are going to say, okay, yeah, I totally see what she's done. I'm there too. And it's changing the nature of the sport. Do you think that that's going to be a big effect coming up? Yeah, there's a massive shift in women's big wave surfing. And there was...

There wasn't a whole lot of progression until recently. And now there's major strides. The girls are... It's amazing how people like Keala has inspired the next generation enough to all of a sudden step into that realm. Because for the longest time, there were women that were riding big waves, but not enough... It wasn't inspiring. Maybe... And I don't want to take anything away from them, but...

it wasn't inspiring the next, the youth or the next generation. And along with Keala and Paige Alms, Bianca Valente, they, these are like three of the top big wave female surfers. Yeah. They've, and Maya Gabiera, who's always out at Nazare as well. They've inspired the next generation of big wave girls to also step into the realm. And I've always felt that it's, it's, big waves, it's,

Sports in general die when there's not the next generation to take it to the next level. Like they cease to become relevant or even of interest. And this is my own personal perspective. Sure. Because I feel like sports, like action sports in particular, surfing, always needs to be constantly being pushed. And so...

I do see these young girls inspiring actually the older girls to continue pushing the envelope. And when their time is up or they decide no longer to do it, that they've had their fill, that the next generation of girls take it to another level. And I've always felt the same way with me. You know, like I saw where Laird and all these legends took it.

And I wanted to take it from where they took it to somewhere else. And I don't know where I'm going to take it, but I hope in the future. It's a relay race. You got to hand it off to somebody else. I hope in the future that I have the privilege of mentoring and helping that next generation take it to a place that, that,

that I couldn't anymore because I got it to one position. I just ran out of time. Well, I think that there's, there's an interesting thing about breaking new ground versus what keeps us something relevant to the world. So for example, in jazz, there was a period where the innovators were doing innovations that were appreciated by the listenership. And at some point things get so technical that unless you're actually a performer,

well, juggling is a good example. The most technical jugglers in the world will point to one of their kind and say, oh my God, did you see what that guy did? And to me- - You can't even see it. - I can't see it because it's already so many balls, so many rings.

True. It's like the whole thing is so mind-blowing. I can't slow it down enough to understand what the innovation was, whereas at an earlier point, and this is one of the reasons why I think you're kind of a very romantic figure in this story, it's because I can see those innovations. It's not like so technical. Very often with some of the skateboarding stuff, I have to slow it down a million times to even understand what the trick was. Yeah, and I think...

That is really, really true. And it touches on the point that we're still only scratching the surface of big wave riding. It's such an act on its own, but then adding sort of next level maneuvers and

positions that one could ride at least what's nice about big waves is and i always say this is you have all you've all the time you need on a big wave small waves happen really quick yeah things are like bam bam bam you have to be on it really quick and it's like it's really fast and big waves i'm always there's a saying by a big wave legend from kawaii on hawaii his name was titus kinimaka and it was of laird and he's like he has the the quote goes like this

He has the ability to slow himself down when everyone else wants to run like hell. And it's not slowing down in terms of the speed of your board. It's slowing down your mind. It's like, and I work on this every single day I ride big waves. It's like, I have way more time than I think on this wave. Because when I watched the footage, I realized, well, I could have been this position and I could have waited longer or I could have done this. Like when I go to do a 360, don't rush the 360. Right?

Let it move the way that the speed. You have to match the wave. Your mind has to match the wave. Or you just got to know, I guess, the time you have. And a lot of people think, a lot of people feel like they don't have the time. So their mind starts racing. And then all of a sudden the wave itself feels like it's going really fast and everything is moving. And it's how can you compute? You know, how can you keep everything like in line? And then all of a sudden when you try to slow yourself down a little bit, just like,

It's like just... I would say it's like when I sometimes ride a really big wave, I'll almost just relax for a second and go...

Okay, let's continue. That's so cool. And then all of a sudden I see things and I'm like, oh, I'm going to hit that. Okay, here we come. All right. Perfect. All right, here comes a barrel position. All right, I'm in the tube. And you calm yourself down and it's like manipulating time for a second. You're just like, I'm going to let this wave go over. And you're not talking to yourself through it. You're just kind of like breathing through it. And my biggest wave I ever rode in my life, still out at Jaws,

It was my whole focus on the right. Cause I knew it was a big one was just breathing. Was that the one that was photographed that I saw at your place? Yeah. So that one, I was just, as I was dropping in, I was just going, wow. Wow.

And I was just, and what I was trying to do is I was just trying to slow everything down, slow it down, slow it down. The wave was like behind me. And I just remember going, okay, slow down. So the breathing is the only way that you can talk to your own autonomic nervous system effectively. That's the one thing that's under conscious control that you can try to do to, to talk to the part of you that isn't under conscious. Yeah. And I just try to like, I just doing that little breathing now, I feel way more calm, but, uh,

When I'm on the wave, it's like, okay, breathe in for two, out for two. Breathe in for three, out for three. Now, I'm not going to push you to talk about something. Push me. No, no, no. It's a question about being respectful. When I was out at your place, I saw some crazy stuff you were working on, but I don't know whether that's under wraps. And I don't want you to talk about it if it's not ready to be talked about. Well, it can be talked about, but it's not quite ready yet.

Should we hold off on it? Let's hold off and then I'll come back and talk all about it. I'm totally jazzed to do that. Let me ask you another question. When you're out in these waves, surfers are one life form, but you're not the only ones out there. Yeah. Can you talk about the man in the gray suit and how he affects or she affects your thinking as you realize that you're part of an ecosystem? Yeah.

I think I've been a part of the ecosystem so much. I kind of know my place and it's not when you see one, it's, it's, it's a treat that you, when you see a shark or even any animal for that standard, like the last time I surfed out jaws is one of the most beautiful days. And it's, it's, it's funny because when you surf out a place so beautiful, it's kind of like, um, you forget how beautiful

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

you know, you're in their domain because that's where they live. So that would be a tiger shark? Tiger shark could be any type of shark. We kind of have them all in Hawaii. Is that right? Tiger sharks are, I would say, I would give tiger sharks sort of the crown as kind of the landlords of that area. We do get great whites, but they typically come to Hawaii and chill. Like they're there and they're,

they're taking a rest between their crossing of the Pacific from Australia to the US or even if they come out here. It's like vacation. Honestly, great whites come to Hawaii for vacation. We still don't know a whole lot about them, but what we do know is when they're out here, they're always full. They definitely look full and they're kind of like in this migration sort of pattern where they're just cruising.

While tiger sharks are kind of the garbage men of the trash person of the sea, they

because they just eat everything. You'll see, they'll bite tires that are floating out at sea. They'll chew anything. But they, you know what's awesome about them? They clean up kind of the death out there. Like dying fish, the week gets cold. It's just nature and that's how it is. So when you confront or you're given the opportunity to be around one in the water, showing confidence and fear, they smell it. They know it. If you're showing like smugness

signs of weakness, that's an opportunity. All right. So you feel that by projecting confidence...

they have enough acuity to pick up they're way smarter than you think yeah yeah and we all think they are i've looked in when you look into this one of their big black eyes yeah when you look in there there's a soul living in there it's not just a hollow i believe i believe people who have like rescued sharks find that the shark becomes friendly with them like it's much our picture of how much is going on with these animals is

changed quite a bit i mean albert einstein's quote and i'm probably gonna butcher it but it was like don't judge a fish because he can't climb a tree oh yeah yeah you know like just he's a fish and so but if you don't understand like we don't we can't speak their language we don't understand them on the the same level i understand you

So we think of things that we don't understand as being stupid or lesser than. And I mean, they have fins, so they can't make technological advancements necessarily. But who knows? Maybe they have a whole thing. Opposable fins could be a real big problem. It could be a pretty big problem. But I have a huge amount of respect for them. I've had so many encounters my entire life. And I've never once, and knock on wood, because you never know, ever felt like I was in mortal danger.

But I always felt like they were just these, they were the landlords. They're coming by to check you out. And if you showed like confidence and respect. All right. Then they kind of would be like, they'd kind of, it's like that, that they'd give you a little nod. Professional courtesy. It's like, see you. All right. Well, then what, so there's this island that I've been dreaming about.

off of Africa called Reunion that used to be a pretty decent surf spot. What happened to our relationship? Well, now different sharks in different places, you know, it's like traveling in different cultures, right? Same thing with the animals of the sea. Hawaii, it's one way. It's, I would say really respect based, but like Reunion Island, and this is from a lot of my friends who were born and raised there and surfed there is

the biggest, what they think is the biggest problem was when it became a nature reserve. The moment Reunion became a nature reserve, the sharks that would once, the bull sharks that would migrate from Madagascar to Reunion all of a sudden decide to stay because here's an abundant amount of fish. Well, let's just stay. And so people forget that we are in a step part of the- We altered our agreement. Well, the agreement all of a sudden-

It's just like giving the keys to the apartment, but you're only a visitor. And people forget, I think people think we're not a part of the natural cycle of

we think of ourselves too highly that we're not like a part of, we become a part of the ecosystem by getting a certain amount of fish. And of course I believe we should never overfish or do that. But this is from, this is like a real life experiment from people that I know that grew up there. That's like, it used to be one of the premier surf destination, especially for French surfers. They'd go there all the time because the French, you know, territory, whatever it is.

All of a sudden, as soon as it became a nature reserve, the bull sharks came. The bull sharks became territorial, very territorial. All of a sudden realized it's really easy to bite and attack and feed on humans because we're pretty slow in the water compared to most of their prey. And they became the dominant force in the water. And then there's this big argument now. It's like, well, don't kill the sharks. And yeah, of course, don't kill the sharks. But we got to also like...

It's also asserting our dominance and where we rank. We're the top of the food chain too. And sharks learn from one another as well. I'm terrified that we have this weird agreement with the orcas that we don't understand. That orcas basically essentially never attack humans in the wild. I think orcas are so smart they realize...

Maybe the ramifications of if they did. I swear to God, I think it's one of the greatest puzzles ever. And I do have the sense that they're like, we should not mess with these people. It's like, this is the one species. We can take anybody in the water, even the great whites, leave these guys alone.

And of course, you have local culture with orcopods where they have entirely different styles of hunting and they pass information in ways that we have no idea about. And so I think the fear, too, is that these bull sharks can eventually pass this information to other sharks and their offspring. It becomes part of their DNA that's like, oh, humans are on the menu. Yeah.

And so I think... Or if not their DNA, their cultural memes or whatever. Some means of transmission. Yeah, yeah. And it's, I think...

It's controversial, but I mean, we at a certain point have to assert our own dominance in certain ways if we want to. Take back reunion, damn it. Exactly. Or not. Leave it. Okay. But there's no middle ground here. You know what I mean? It's like kids are getting eaten there all the time because they just want to go surfing. Yeah.

And I think that we get into this thing where we get into a reverential state about nature without realizing that we're part of it. And we've also break broken that you bought it. It's a much more complicated relationship that we need.

And I think it's important not to turn. And it's different everywhere. It's not the same everywhere, you know? It's not the same, like, what happens here in California is not the same as in Reunion. You know, I think we're not gods as well. So it's like trying to, like, understand things is really difficult. But I want to say leave it up to the people. Yeah. And leave it up to, or leave it up to the people in those places. And I don't think there should be any kind of,

sort of driving from somewhere else because it's a different part of the world. It's a different ocean. It's a different culture. It's a different everything. And let the tribes deal with those tribe things. Like,

We're not like everyone always argues like we don't want to police world. Well, this is exactly a situation. Yeah. We all have our own opinions on how it should be dealt with. Right. No one has a better opinion than the people who live there and understand certain things, you know, like aren't just that's that's my perspective on it. I think however they see fit to take care of the situation is up to them. And for me, I live thousands and thousands of miles away. It's not my decision. Yeah.

So I have three destination questions to finish this off with. I am obsessed with three islands in the middle of the Atlantic, and I have no idea whether they have an importance in surf culture.

All right. So we have this island, Ascension, St. Helena, and Tristan da Cunha. Do you know about these? Where are those? Dude, you can't tell me you don't know these islands. Where are they? They're right in the middle between Africa and South America. So Napoleon. Oh my gosh. I know. Wait, they're really South, aren't they? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I was looking at those. One of them's off Namibia. Yeah. No, no. It's.

those islands, I believe that they're like, there's like, it's a nature reserve as well. So you have Edinburgh of the seven seas, which is like a settlement with 300 or so people on Tristan de Kuna, which was evacuated as a volcano. It's like, there's a book called rock hopper copper about the only policemen on the island. It's totally obscure. They claim it's the most remote island in the world.

St. Helena is above that and it's, oh man, this is a gorgeous island. They just got flights.

And it was so isolated that you could only visit it by ship for a long time. - My friend of mine sent me a picture and in my quest to try to find the biggest waves in the world and find waves that I haven't been able to surf yet, we were looking at a place like that and going like, gosh, it's in such a perfect place. - Well, this is the thing, I track this island. I'm obsessed with this island.

And you get to know the individuals on the aisle and the shops because it's a tiny place. After this, you got to write down the names. Yeah, St. Helena is actually...

kind of a an outpost of civilization it's big enough that can have like tiny little towns and culture and roads and stuff and then the other one is ascension which is above that i guess it's closer to like the azores and things and i think that all three of these are british overseas territories and we dude we gotta go you know when you said this thing to me it was very funny it's like

you said thanks for the shout out. You said we have to go surf. And I was like, I don't serve. He's like, don't worry, I'll teach you. I'm thinking maybe, but maybe it's too much. We should go to St. Helena, check it out and get Red Bull to do one of their rampages or a film with pioneering the stuff out there. Yeah, no, I mean, as much as we think we've kind of discovered everything out there, there's

I have this gut feeling there's some massive waves out there that are so good. No one's even tapped into, and it's just waiting to be ridden discovered. Well, so we have to get, get through the portal to get to these three islands. We'll put the hive mind on it. Yeah. And, uh, Kai, come back and visit when you can talk about the thing that we were

check it out but i don't want you to do it prematurely i want you to wait until it's ripe yeah no for sure let's uh i think come come here soon it'll be uh there's a lot there's been a lot to talk about and it's exciting every day is really exciting

Guys, you've been through the portal with Kai Lenny, who's been a real dream for me to meet. Please go to your web browsers to YouTube and just put his name in. Am I right? Kai means wave? Kai means ocean in Hawaiian. Ocean in Hawaiian. Okay.

You'll be treated to some of the most amazing footage you've ever seen. And with any luck, he'll keep at it and stay safe. I hope so. Remember to check us out on YouTube by subscribing and clicking the bell to make sure that you're notified when we drop new videos. And please subscribe to us wherever you listen to podcasts. Kai, thanks very much and peace out. We'll see everybody real soon. Shaka Zulu.

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