Podcast - SURF MASTERY

What if your best surfing is still ahead of you—even in your sixties?

Many surfers fear they’ll lose their edge with age, but Tony Roberts proves that it’s possible to surf better than ever through intentional lifestyle choices, foundational training, and a lifelong commitment to progression. In this episode, we explore how rethinking surfing as a sport, not just a pastime, can lead to lasting performance and deeper fulfillment.

• Learn why starting with longboarding could be the single best thing you do for your shortboard technique.

• Discover how the right mindset between sets—using mantras and mindfulness—can transform your in-wave performance.

• Get inspired by Tony’s radically focused lifestyle design, optimized entirely around surfing longevity and peak performance.

Hit play now to uncover how Tony Roberts has redefined aging through surfing—and how you can too.

Tony’s Website etc:
https://trsurftrips.com/home/
http://www.youtube.com/@RealSurfStories
https://www.instagram.com/trsurfing/?hl=en

Tony on Surf Splendor Podcast:
https://surfsplendorpodcast.com/025-tony-roberts/

Episode Music:
https://www.instagram.com/tuanizmusic/?hl=en

Key Points

• Tony Roberts views his relationship with the ocean as the focus of his life, aiming to maximize enjoyment and performance in surfing.

• Tony Roberts' passion for surfing began at age eight, learning to surf in beginner-friendly waves at Capitola, California, and progressing to more challenging waves.

• Tony Roberts' passion and skill in surfing were significantly shaped by learning to surf in beginner-friendly waves with proper technique at a young age.

• Tony Roberts' desire to be a better surfer was cultivated through skateboarding, where he could quantify his progression and was mentored by top skaters who were also great surfers.

• Tony Roberts sees surfing as a sport, influenced by his skateboarding background, despite the artistic elements it possesses, and focuses on performance and technique.

• Tony Roberts believes that learning traditional longboarding in his forties significantly improved his shortboarding by enhancing his foundational surfing skills.

• Tony Roberts advises beginners to approach surfing with self-respect, starting with a beginner board in beginner waves and mastering each step before progressing, to avoid surfing like a 'kook'.

• Tony Roberts attributes his longevity and performance in surfing to his 100% commitment to the sport, including lifestyle choices that support his surfing goals, and not compromising for other priorities.

• Tony Roberts' surf trips offer personalized packages to the best waves in Central America and the Caribbean, including filming, coaching, and creating trip movies for participants.

• Tony Roberts runs two YouTube channels, 'Real Surf Stories' and 'Real Skate Stories', to celebrate the legacies of great surfers and skateboarders and inspire others with their stories. 

Outline

Tony Roberts' Relationship with Surfing

• Tony Roberts' relationship with the ocean is the focus of their life, aiming to maximize enjoyment and performance in the ocean.

• Surfing has been a consistent focus throughout Tony's life, from filmmaking and photography centered around surfing and skateboarding to the act of surfing itself.

• Tony's passion for surfing started at the age of eight, growing up in Capitola, California, which provided ideal beginner spots for learning.

• Tony's progression in surfing was significantly influenced by skateboarding, particularly at Skatepark Soquel, where they were mentored by Kevin Reed.

• Tony's desire to surf faster and bigger waves was inspired by surf movies featuring surfers like Jerry Lopez and Reno Abellira.

• Tony approached surfing as a sport rather than an art, influenced by the skateboarding culture of the 70s.

• Tony's perspective on surfing as a sport has not changed, even though they appreciate the artistic aspects of traditional longboarding.

• Tony's foundation in surfing improved significantly when they started longboarding in their forties, enhancing their bottom turns, trim, and board speed.

• Tony emphasizes the importance of learning to surf on a longboard before transitioning to a shortboard, highlighting the benefits of core strength and proper technique.

• Tony advises beginners to approach surfing with self-respect, starting with a beginner board in beginner waves and mastering each step before progressing.

• Tony believes that skipping steps in the learning process leads to surfing like a 'kook' and emphasizes the importance of learning on a longer board for good style.

• Tony uses mantras like 'crisp takeoff' and 'form' to maintain performance and focus during surfing sessions.

Surfing as Art vs. Sport

• Tony Roberts views surfing primarily as a sport, influenced by their skateboarding background, focusing on performance and technique.

• Tony acknowledges the artistic elements in surfing, particularly in the way surfers approach waves and the fluidity of their movements.

• Michael Frampton sees surfing as bridging the gap between sport and art, emphasizing rhythm, timing, and technique.

• Tony agrees that surfing can be both an art and a sport, requiring a free-flowing and not mechanical approach to look good.

Training and Lifestyle for Surfing

• Tony Roberts emphasizes the importance of a holistic approach to training and lifestyle to improve surfing, including gym workouts, diet, spiritual development, and yoga.

• Tony believes that yoga is the best workout for surfers, balancing the body and compensating for the unbalanced workout surfing provides.

• Tony's commitment to surfing influences every decision in their life, including diet, relationships, and work, prioritizing surfing above all.

• Tony raised their daughter with a focus on surfing, providing an international and universal education that has made her an inspirational adult.

• Tony's lifestyle, centered around surfing, has led to a fulfilling relationship with the ocean and a strong bond with their daughter.

Surfing Techniques and Mindset

• Tony Roberts highlights the importance of a 'crisp takeoff' in surfing, defined as a perfect pop-up from hands to feet in a millisecond.

• Tony emphasizes the significance of timing in surfing, distinguishing between quick and fast movements.

• Tony advises maintaining focus and using techniques like concentrating on breath, returning to the present moment, and visualizing maneuvers to enhance performance.

• Tony uses mantras and visualization to stay focused and adaptable when surfing, inspired by Kelly Slater's approach to reading waves.

Tony Roberts' Surf Trips and YouTube Channels

• Tony Roberts offers surf trip packages through their website TRSurfTrips.com, providing personalized trips to the best waves in Central America and the Caribbean.

• Tony's surf trips include transport, accommodation, filming of participants' waves, and optional coaching, culminating in a trip movie edit as a souvenir.

• Tony has two YouTube channels, 'Real Surf Stories' and 'Real Skate Stories', dedicated to celebrating the legacies of great surfers and skateboarders.

• Tony's YouTube channels allow them to utilize their filmmaking skills and share inspiring stories from the surfing and skateboarding communities.

Transcript:

Michael Frampton: All right. Well, welcome to the Surf Mastery Podcast. Stoked to have you on board. And I'll just do a quick intro and then we'll get into it. , Tony spent the first little chapter of his adult life as a pioneer in the filmmaking and photography surf industry. And then the second chapter of your life, let's call it, you, dedicated yourself to becoming a better surfer into you're now in your sixties now and surfing better than ever.

, You almost epitomized the ethos of this show. And my first question, Tony, is describe to me in the listener , your current relationship with the ocean, how it's evolved recently, and what has remained consistent.

Tony Roberts: My current relationship with the Ocean is. The focus of my life. [00:01:00] So that means everything that I do is in an effort to maximize my enjoyment and performance in the ocean. , What has remained consistent is that the ocean has been the focus, whether it was, as you said in the first chapter of my life, which was, or the first half of my life I should say, which was filmmaking and photography, which was centered around shooting, surfing and skateboarding, which is kind of the roots of that goes back to the ocean.

Then the last half of my life has been about actually the act of surfing. So all the land stuff I still skateboard. The [00:02:00] skateboarding, the training, the nutrition, the mental and physical flexibility is for the surfing.

Michael Frampton: Wow. So surfing in the ocean has remained consistent. Where, when did that passion start?

Tony Roberts: When I was eight years old, I was very fortunate that I was raised right on the sand in Capitola, California, which is on the very, very inside of the Monterey Bay. So it has all these perfect little grom spots. So it's the perfect place to learn how to surf. And then as you go up the coast north. You have point break after point break after point break that gets bigger and more exposed to swells.

So it was just the ideal learning ladder to climb. It went from capitola to trees to privates, to sharks cove to the hook [00:03:00] to pleasure point to the west side of Santa Cruz, steamer Lane, Stockton Avenue, and then up the coast, which is open ocean. So you have Wadel Creek, Scots Creek, and then started traveling to Hawaii, Australia, Indonesia, Peru, and the whole world.

Michael Frampton: . That's interesting. It's, it's a common thread with a lot of great surfers is they were exposed to good beginner waves very early on in life. Do, do you think that really did shape your surfing passion? That, that, uh, we'll call it a gentle, gentle, or appropriate introduction to surfing at the right age?

Tony Roberts: A hundred percent. Not only did it form my passion, because I saw all these people that were surfing and skateboarding, and this was the seventies, so it was right in the middle of the hippie era. So it was these free and free love. My parents were hippies, and so I, I saw the passion around me and was able [00:04:00] to really have that injected into my early persona.

But more than that, I think the technique of learning at a beginner spot, where ideally if you're gonna learn to surf, it's at a young age, and at any age it should be on a slow rolling wave with a big board. So you can learn the basics and the trim and the core strength before you have a short board.

And you're, I. Able to learn proper technique. So yes, growing up in a beginner friendly zone and being able to graduate up was crucial in my not only passion but skill.

Michael Frampton: . Once you'd sort of clicked onto surfing and were surrounded by better surfers and better waves, was the desire to, [00:05:00] to be one of the better surfers?

Was that, how did that form

Tony Roberts: Yes, absolutely that was really cultivated skateboarding because at Skate Park So Cal, which was close to my house, I was able to really quantify my progression. Whereas surfing, that's kind of hard to do, but a lot of the best skaters. Skate parks, So Cal were of course great surfers.

In particular, Kevin Reed, the guy who invented the aerial surfing was a pro surfer. Pro skateboarder, and he mentored me. So as a young kid, I was able to look at this amazing surfer, skateboarder and really quantify my progression. So I really wanted to be progressing and I wanted to be [00:06:00] the best guy for my age, and I wanted to win contests, surfing and skateboarding.

And I wanted to be able to surf the waves that I saw in the magazine. So that desire for progression was planted very early.

Michael Frampton: Was a big part of that. A desire to be able to surf faster and bigger waves.

Tony Roberts: Absolutely, we'd go to the surf movies and it was all about Jerry Lopez, Reno. Avalara getting goosebumps right now.

The, the big movie, you know, with the, with the soundtrack and, and the dramatic narration. It, it just got into your bones, it got into your blood. And I saw those waves and I wanted to surf 'em so bad. But also in the seventies, of course, it was the busting down the door era. And my friends were just all about [00:07:00] bk.

, James Jones. Uh, Rory Russell. But in reality, for me, it was all about Rabbit. Pt. Mp. I was really attracted to Australia, and as a very young kid, I knew. When I got the chance I was going to surf Kira Burley heads, and that was really my dream. So my entire youth surfing was working towards that.

Michael Frampton: More performance surfing rather than big wave surfing.

., Back then, particularly did you approach surfing as a sport or an art

Tony Roberts: as a sport, which didn't really exist yet? It was still very much [00:08:00] so. The, the flow and the hippie aspect of surfing, that's what was in the magazines. Hmm. And a surf photo it in the seventies was the wave. A surfer was a detail, but skateboarding was different. There was a lot of fisheye, close photos in the skateboard magazines where the action was the entire photo and the bowl or the ramp was a mere detail in the background.

And I was so influenced on the skateboarding end of things because I was 50 50 my whole life. And so I wanted to perform. I wanted those repetitions and so much so that surfing as a youth, if I didn't get a lot of waves, I would come in unsatisfied and go skate to be able [00:09:00] to fulfill that, that desire to be complete.

And so I think that it was very much a sport. For me personally in the age of it being an art.

Michael Frampton: Interesting. And has that changed? Do you still, do you see it as more of an art now?

Tony Roberts: No, not at all. It hasn't changed. Um, what has changed is that I love to ride traditional longboards. I love to ride single fins. I love to do a style of surfing that's very artistic, but it's in a process of becoming a more complete surfer. And I feel that those styles of surfing are incredibly technical in a different way.

But having done airs [00:10:00] surfing my entire life, starting when I was pre-teen and getting to a stage to where in my forties, wanting to learn traditional longboarding for the first time, I. And so I'm more driven to be a complete surfer and be as good of a surfer as I can be. It gets more intense as the years go on.

Michael Frampton: , Interesting. How did, you mentioned, uh, when you started, you started longboarding in your forties. How did that change or influence your shortboarding?

Tony Roberts: Wow. I, I have to say it was probably the most important thing I've ever done. , As my foundation became so much [00:11:00] better, my bottom turns trim, board speed, and I was very fortunate in that I was living in Costa Rica at the time. And a friend of mine, Chris Klo, started bringing down the best traditional longboarders in the world who were young guys, Alex Nost, Jared, Mel, Tyler Warren.

And when I saw those guys surf, I had a revelation and said, wow, I really want to learn to do this. And, uh, so I got to hang out with these guys, buy boards from them, learn to longboard surfing with them, and actively ask them, what am I doing wrong? How can I improve? And so they very transparently told me what I was doing wrong, what I was doing good.

[00:12:00] And that clinic of foundational surfing helped my shortboarding. By leaps and bounds.

Michael Frampton: . Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I agree. I've interviewed Bud Freis probably six or seven years ago, and that was one of his tips is to get a big old log and learn how to longboard best thing you can do for your short putting. I took his advice and yeah, it just, it makes you, it forces you to read the wave differently.

It slows you down. You've gotta predict your lines differently. You gotta be slow, slower, and more accurate with your movements. Lots of stuff. Footwork, lots of stuff.

Tony Roberts: Yes. Yeah.

Michael Frampton: , What aspects of longboarding do you think contributed to your, to, to what you just mentioned? Can you break it down a little bit for us?

Tony Roberts: Absolutely. [00:13:00] First and foremost, it is, I. When the waves aren't good for shortboarding, you're out there using a part of your brain that is very ambitious in trying to perform, not just enjoying nature and cruising and going through the motions. No really getting intense and trying to do something amazing.

And that is a day that if you're trying to shortboard, you're pretty much kidding yourself. And so a day that's maximum longboard, traditional longboarding is minimum at best shortboarding. So that's first and foremost. Secondly, the core strength required to properly trim and turn a longboard is the only way to do it [00:14:00] properly.

If you're doing it with your ankles or you're using your arms or any of that stuff, you're completely blowing it. It's a very core internal technique that not only moves the board but looks good, and so you wanna be bending with a straight back. You don't want to be hunching over and, and all of that traditional longboarding technique.

When you get on a, a short board and I ride boards that, that are all different sizes, including little boards that are basically like a standup bodyboard. And so when you're getting on these tiny little boards that just wanna squirrel around, but you have that core strength technique, all of a sudden you're like hugging the wave and carving these little [00:15:00] boards.

In a way that is really proper technique. And then when you get on your normal shortboard, you're able to really draw out your turns and hold your turns because it's, in my opinion, it's a method that you have to ride all different sizes of boards to, to come to. And I think there's a few surfers in the world, they just naturally kind of have that, that technique.

You know, like Bud Friis is one. He was born with an amazing style. Um, Joel Parkinson. You know, you've got these guys that no matter what they do on a surfboard, it looks amazing. But I think for a normal surfer to be able to cultivate that, that full rail core strength, um, never a double hitch in a bottom turn.

Never a flapping of the upper [00:16:00] body. Just everything you do is, is proper. That riding all boards is gonna enable you to do that on your shortboard.

Michael Frampton: Yeah, no, I love that. They say the same thing is true in golf, right? You don't change your swing, you change your club. Same rule applies I reckon percent.

Tony Roberts: And when I learned golf, I got lessons from a PGA pro.

I was so, so focused on learning all the etiquette. 'cause golf is a gentleman's sport and you don't walk behind someone in their back swing or talk or step on someone's line. And the way that people approach surfing with so much disrespect and disregard for proper etiquette, which infuriates us lifelong surfers.

When I approached the sport of golf, I was very, [00:17:00] very adamant about learning it the proper way and not skipping clubs and not using woods until I could hit the irons and really approaching it in the most respectful way as possible, using the proper shoes, not going out there in a t-shirt and sandals, but really respecting the sanctity of this incredible sport.

Michael Frampton: , Yeah, I love that. And you're right, a lot nowadays, people certainly do not approach surfing anywhere near with that, , amount of thought. On that note, if there are any beginners listening at the moment, what advice would you have to them in that regards?

Tony Roberts: Yes. Well, I think that if you approach surfing with a lot of respect, then that would be.

Before even talking about the social [00:18:00] aspect is self-respect, and that is writing a beginner board in beginner waves until you have that board and those waves mastered. And do not try to graduate and skip steps on the ladder because that's not being respectful to yourself and to the expert surfers in the water.

They can see that a mile away that's not being respectful to them. So you have no reason using anything but a 10 foot soft top in one foot, slow rolling waves until you have that mastered. And then when you have that mastered, you go to the next step, then the next step, then the next step. And you shouldn't be riding a shortboard in advanced waves for years.

Michael Frampton: Yeah, no, I agree. And that's a great way to think of it actually in terms of self-respect, because that is, that, uh, short process you just [00:19:00] described is the best way to learn surfing, because surfing is a long-term sport. It truly is. It's, there's no, there's no shortcuts in, in surfing. It's just one of those things.

It's so dynamic, so complex beyond your ability to realize when you're young and it's, every surf is like a compound. It's quite compound interest, isn't it? It just takes so long to gather up. It's not like tennis where you can go and smash a bunch of balls in the same place with the same ball machine or the same coach and get pretty good in six months.

That's not surfing. It's, that's great advice. Yeah. It is a certain level of self-respect because if you are going out there and you're getting frustrated 'cause people are dropping in on you or treating you like shit, well it's probably because you've skipped some of those steps and uh, they're just reflecting back to you your own attitude really.

Tony Roberts: 100%. [00:20:00] And furthermore, if you don't do that, you'll always surf like a kook. If you learn on a shortboard, you'll always surf like a kook. Every single person out there who just jumps on a, on a shortboard and didn't go through the learning process, they didn't learn how to turn the board with, with core strength, and they start turning it with their ankles and compensating with their upper body.

That's why a lot of in third world countries, nobody has a good style because nobody knows this and they all learn on short boards. So if you wanna have a good style, it helps. If you are doing this when you're a little kid and you're learning on a longer board, but if you're an adult and you're learning on a shortboard, you'll definitely be a kook your entire life.

Michael Frampton: Mm. Yeah. No, I, I love that. Makes me think of, , Julian Wilson, someone who has not only great style, but pitch a [00:21:00] perfect technique. He has a longboarding background. Yeah.

Tony Roberts: Perfect example.

Michael Frampton: Yeah. I, I wanna go back to the, we segued a little bit, but I want to go back to the, the art versus sport subject. I.

I, I'm fascinated in your answer. I, I kind of expected you to say art because I, I, 'cause I would argue that even when you treat surfing like a sport, I-E-A-W-S-L competition, the surfers that win those competitions when they're actually surfing the wave, I feel like their surfing is very artistic. And there's the, the, of course you've got, uh, tactics and technique to get the right waves and all that sporting stuff, but once they're actually surfing the wave, it's, they're approaching it as an art form

Tony Roberts: perhaps. But in my opinion, I see art [00:22:00] in the aspect that you're talking about, in the way that an amazing NBA player dribbles up the court or in the way that a, a Street League skateboarder puts together their run. But. In my opinion is just artistic sport. The sport is the act of riding the wave. And if you are sitting out there and you're just enjoying nature and you're just having a, a spiritual moment, that's artistic.

But I don't look at surfing like that. , And it's because of my skateboarding background. I want the opportunity to try something. And in between sets, I might take in the view and acknowledge the fact that it's a magical moment in nature, but in reality, I'm saying [00:23:00] mantras to myself before the next wave comes, so that I will perform as, as well as I can in that short given.

Opportunity that I get that's between, you know, 20 and 90 seconds, depending on the spot you're surfing. And I also have somebody filming me. I want to get a good clip. And so some of my mantras, for example, are I'm sitting there between sets waiting for the wave to come and I'll say to myself, crisp takeoff.

Crisp takeoff. And I'll say it over and over to myself in my mind, just so that I don't get ahead of myself. I'm not thinking like, oh, I wanna do an air on this wave, or I wanna combo up. No, no, no. Because if I can get a crisp takeoff, which is hard enough, after 52 years of surfing, I still sometimes don't get a [00:24:00] crisp takeoff and I blow the entire wave.

But if I do get a crisp takeoff. Almost always magic unfolds down the wave because we have all the instinct, we have all the ability. It's, it's logged into our mind. We have all the practice, but we get in, we get in our own way with having too much crap in our mind when we're paddling into the wave. So if I can get a crisp takeoff, chances are I'm gonna do magic on the wave.

And another mantra that I use is simply, and this is usually after I'm, I kick out from a wave and I'm paddling back out and I'm, I'm playing back that wave in my mind, what I did good, what I did bad, and maybe I did something funky, like a spray check or something where if you do a spray check, your board stops because the nose of your, your board is gonna follow your head, right?

And if your head is looking where you want the board to go, and your head's following [00:25:00] through and holding the carve all the way to the bottom of the wave. You're gonna do this amazing carve, but sometimes we do this stupid little thing where we like look at our spray and the board just stops and you fucked up the whole wave.

And so paddling back out. Sometimes I'll acknowledge that I did that. And then my mantra, no matter what, between the next sets is going to be form. I'm just gonna say to myself over and over, form form. Sometimes I'll compound it with crisp takeoff form and that's all I'm thinking. And then I get into that wave and I'm thinking form, and I know that I'm gonna have my head going the right direction.

You know? I don't know if you saw that video that Ger did with AKI recently where Ger had all these backside snaps of aki, like ready to show him. And he said, AKI, he goes, you know why [00:26:00] your backside snap is the best of all time. Aki iss like, no man, I never really thought about it. And he said, it's where your eyes are.

He goes, look at this snap. And it's that classic Billabong Jbe ad where he is just like all rail and just perfect form. And he goes, look at your head. He goes, you're looking down the line where you want the board to go. So you're completing your snap, but you're already looking at the next section. So that's able, while you're able to hold the rail, come out into a full bottom turn, keep it on rail and into the next snap.

That whole process was on rail. There was no hitch, there was nothing because a's eyes are always on the prize, so I'll say mantras to myself between waves and that is really how I keep the, the performance at its peak. And so that's why on all [00:27:00] aspects, for me, it's always a sport. Never an art.

Michael Frampton: Okay. What about music? Do you see any, uh, similarities between surfing and music?

Tony Roberts: I see music almost like a tool for the sport, and I'm a musician and I love to play music and I'm always trying to get better at music. Also. I mean, I enjoy the artistic aspect, but it's a process, you know, I'm trying to improve.

And it is not a sport, obviously, it is an art music, however, it's a performance art. And I think that in sports, if it's a performance art, it's a sport.

Hmm.

Tony Roberts: A creative sport, an artistic sport, a [00:28:00] beautiful sport, but a sport nonetheless.

Michael Frampton: So dancing.

Tony Roberts: Dancing. And I also absolutely love to dance. I'm always trying to get better. I'm always trying to learn new dances. I want, like for example, I've lived in Latin America more than half of my life, and certain dances like cumbia and meringue, they're really easy. You can get really good if you have natural rhythm salsa's, incredibly technical.

It's incredibly difficult and I've got 30 plus years, 40 plus years learning to dance salsa and have taken lessons, and it is, salsa is borderline a sport. Hmm. And there's salsa dance competitions, and [00:29:00] I often use the comparison of surfing and dancing salsa because for example, right now the big controversy is should Kelly Slater get the wild card at Trestles?

And people are saying, oh, he is older and he doesn't have the, the board speed he used to have. And I have to remind people that surfing is a sport is a lot closer to a salsa dance contest than it is an MMA fight. So board speed and physical strength in an MMA fight is everything but in a salsa dance contest, experience and transitions.

Mm-hmm.

Tony Roberts: Are gonna win the contest. And it's very rare that some young couple is gonna be able to [00:30:00] step up and take out what is experience. So I feel like dancing is an art, but there are contests and it is judged and there are winners. But just like surfing, you're gonna have one judge who thinks couple B is better than couple A, and that has to do with their background and their biases and maybe even what country they're from.

So there's a lot of similarities in sense salsa dance contests and the WSL.

Michael Frampton: I think surfing almost bridges the gap between sport and art.

I think we're, I like to think of it as an art often because when I think of sport, I think of competitive [00:31:00] sports. But when I think of art, I think of music and being in rhythm and having good timing and technique. So for me personally, at this stage of my life, having good rhythm, timing and technique and just keeping things smooth and appropriate for the wave and the board, I give it more of an art label rather than in, in my twenties I was out there, I wanted to, you know, three to the beach, do the biggest turn.

I can sort of pretend I was being judged, I think. So that's where the definition, but I agree. I think they are surfing is both.

Tony Roberts: Yeah, absolutely. Like everything that you described that makes it a art for you. I want that in my. My ride and on that video clip and in my next video, it's not just to do it for the expression, the artistic expression.

No, it's uh, [00:32:00] it's a concrete thing that I'm trying to accomplish.

But surfing, as you said, bridges the gap because for it to look good, it has to look free flowing and not mechanical and artistic as it were.

Michael Frampton: . I think if I was as surfers, if we were to snap our fingers and all of a sudden we are standing on our surfboards feet in the right part of the board.

Surfboard in the right part of the wave. From that moment on, surfing's actually pretty simple and easy. And that the hardest part of surfing is what happens in between when the surfboard is under your arms and under your feet.

How, if

Tony Roberts: you have the ability Absolutely.

Michael Frampton: Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For experienced surfers or any, anyone really. I mean the, the surfer, the, the ratio is what? One minute of [00:33:00] surfing to every hour, if you're lucky in the water. Um, so what we do in between when the surfboard is under our arms and under our feet.

What advice would you have to people to manage that part of surfing?

Tony Roberts: Oh, man. That's everything because surfing are these fleeting moments and anything in the world. You do in an effort to improve your surfing is gonna pay off huge. And that goes from

going to the gym, improving your diet, um, spiritual development, whatever religious faith you might [00:34:00] be., Anything that you do off of the board that is consciously to improve your surfing is gonna pay off huge. And especially in training. And I've heard people say that the best training for surfing is surfing.

Bullshit. Surfing will destroy your shoulders. It will destroy your ears. It will destroy all these different parts of your body that the human body wasn't made for this out of balance activity that will destroy you. So yoga is the complete mind body strength, flexibility, discipline, workout that was invented thousands of years ago and perfected [00:35:00] thousands of years ago.

And if you adapt that to surfing, it's the best thing you can possibly do for your surfing tomorrow and for your surfing longevity. And that will compensate and balance out your entire body so that your shoulders and these other parts of your body that are getting this unbalanced workout. It puts it all back in balance.

Michael Frampton: . Those moments when you are standing on a surfboard and dancing with the ocean, do they inspire you and drive you to, to, to, to practice yoga and eat healthy and get to bed on time, et cetera?

Tony Roberts: 100%. Everything. It, it influences every single decision I make in my life and has, since I was a young child.

When I was a young [00:36:00] child, I said, how am I gonna be able to surf as good as I can my entire life? And that's been my lifelong mission. And I stopped eating animal products as a child, for example, and started studying Buddhism. Yoga as a child, and that has been a hundred percent for surfing and going through life and relationships.

If you're gonna be a good husband or boyfriend, you have to sacrifice surf time. And for me, I figured out pretty long ago that that doesn't work with my lifestyle and my goals. I'm not going to sacrifice and I'm not going to compromise my surfing for a [00:37:00] woman,

period. So that means that my relationships only go to a point to where it's not going to interfere with my surfing. And the same goes with my decisions with work, my decisions. With lifestyle, my decisions with diet, my decis decisions with exercise. And the reason why you don't see surfers, I don't see surfers my age doing themselves justice because they've compromised for work, for relationships, and that's fine.

That's their priority, but they're not at their full level because of it, none of them. And if you really want to be at your full level, then you need to be a hundred percent committed. There's no [00:38:00] half-assing it. And if you put 20% of that effort into your relationship or you're, you're still drinking and you're still eating hamburgers and smoking cigars and all that kind of stuff, you're not gonna be at your peak level.

Which is fine, that's your personal choice, but if you are gonna be at your peak level, it takes a hundred percent commitment.

Michael Frampton: . Yeah. And it is, I mentioned the word compound interest. It's interesting to see you improve as you age despite what society tells us should happen as we age. And that your consistency and dedication and commitment to surfing has just seen your relationship to surfing.

And with the ocean, just the depth of it increases. And, uh, [00:39:00] yeah, you're still obviously inspired by it greatly, and yeah, it's, is it, is it your most successful long-term relationship? Surfing

Tony Roberts: Without a doubt. Also with my daughter who's 19 years old, um, which hasn't been as long as my relationship with surfing, but is I feel like it's a hundred points also.

And I was very fortunate in that her mother broke up with me when she was pregnant and was a third world country girl in the middle of nowhere. And I said, well, if you're not gonna be with me, then I'm gonna take the kid, but you're still gonna be the mother. We're gonna drop in and visit you once in a while, but I'm taking the kid.

And she signed off on it. So I raised my daughter myself and my concept when she was [00:40:00] an infant was, okay, I'm gonna try to continue living my ideal lifestyle and raise her. And once it's not working out, then I'll compromise. For my daughter, but as it turned out, I never had to compromise and going on my vagabond, following swells, being in different countries at my favorite surf spots during the peak time of the year and focusing everything around that worked out amazing.

And my daughter had this incredible international universal education and now is an unbelievably, um, inspirational adult that is now teaching me.

So

Tony Roberts: [00:41:00] yes, I think that surfing has been my most, my longest relationship and it gets stronger and stronger with age because. I learn as the years go on, how to eliminate the other things in my life that interfere with it.

And you mentioned society like this does not work with society at all. And I listen to my friends and other people talk about their relationships and, and what they think is normal. And it does not, it's not conducive to a, a lifestyle where you're committed to surfing if you're in cold water or you're dealing with traffic or you're surfing waves that you don't wanna surf, that are crowded or not surfing because you're at work or any of those things.

At one, if, if surfing was your number one priority at one stage of the game, [00:42:00] you wouldn't have sacrificed and you would've made surfing work. And to do that to the fullest. You wanna be in the tropics, you wanna be at a good wave that, that you can continually progress. And if you sacrifice that for work, again, good on you, that's your prerogative.

You can live however you want, but you didn't do yourself justice in, in the surfing end of things. And that's what society dictates. And I really don't see any, I've never met anybody who, like myself, is going to go a hundred percent committed to surfing performance in your, in every aspect of your life, in all of your relationships.

And guess what? People are gonna respect you more women are gonna want you more when they can't get you. [00:43:00] And your child is gonna have a much more fulfilling education. When you are homeschooling her, you are teaching her on the road and linking her up with professional professors, getting her specialized education, and it goes so many miles beyond what society has dictated for us.

And as a surfer, if you're first prior priority is surfing and your own surfing performance, and that is your priority, that leads itself to the best diet, the best religion, the best ethics, the best morals, the best person that you can be contributing to this entire planet because that's what surfing dictates.

Michael Frampton: , I love that. I love that. I think it's also to add to that [00:44:00] your daughter's growing up with a parent. Who is modeling what can happen when you do narrow things down and don't try and do everything and focus on something, how good you can get and how you can develop a relationship with something like surfing over time.

And it's, I I think that's missing in a lot of, a lot of adults.

Tony Roberts: A hundred percent. And it goes back to the word you said, society, you know, and people that they, I can't believe it. I can't believe that they just fall for it. You know, all my friends, we were all the same when we were 13, 14, 15. We all wanted to be in the tropics.

Those things that we drew on our notepad, the perfect point break with the hammock, with the dark skinned girls and bikinis running around. I. The, [00:45:00] the cement ramp on the beach, like the doodles. That's life, man. That's freaking life.

Michael Frampton: Yeah. There'll be people listening who are thinking, oh my God, how dare you not prioritize your daughter's education?

And yet their teenage child is in their bedroom on their smartphone while they're having a glass of wine and watching Netflix.

Tony Roberts: Yeah. And my daughter's education, she's 19 years old, and now she's already incredibly successful. Yeah. I mean, I wish I earned the money that she earns and, uh, it's, it's incredible.

Very cool. And as

Tony Roberts: you said, it was from, she saw an example of somebody who had a focused goal, but that focused goal. There's so many aspects that are integral to go into that diet, [00:46:00] nutrition, lack of stress, spiritual strength, mental and physical flexibility training regimen. That's all she's ever known.

And now she's taking it to the way next level.

Michael Frampton: Mm. Yeah. No, I like that. That's, I mean, 'cause we we're talking about things that we do anyway. Everyone eats, everyone goes to bed at a certain time. It's just, are you eating for mouth pleasure or are you eating to fuel a better surfing journey?

Tony Roberts: That's it, bro. You nailed it.

Michael Frampton: , I wanna go back to the time between when the surfboard is under your arm and under your feet when you're sitting out the back, paddling around waiting for waves. I. How do you manage your focus and everything above, you know, above eye level, your head? How do you manage that?[00:47:00]

Tony Roberts: Yeah, I try to stay away from people. I don't look at people rides unless it's somebody that is on a high level, because if I see somebody cook it, it can get into my subconscious because the flow I have in my mind is very, very

next level. It's built on mindfulness meditation practice. It's built on shalin, um, tai chi techniques. , So much has gone into that mindset between waves. I can't let any of this peripheral stuff interfere with that. And it's also very [00:48:00] important to be cordial and say hi to people. , But maintain focus, as you said, that's, that's the key word right there.

And how I do it is concentrating on my breath, returning to the present moment using mantras, and really visualizing

what I'm going to do on the wave in the aspect of keeping an open mind when I drop in. Reading the wave and giving the wave what the wave calls for, like getting in crisp takeoff and then looking down the line and not having anything in my [00:49:00] mind and reacting to those changes of the waves. I got to work a lot with Kelly Slater and filmed him all over the world, and he's the best I've ever seen at reading waves.

It's incredible how he can react to what the wave is going to do, and sometimes he'll be out there the whole session and doesn't do any errors and people are like, oh, look at him. He, he can't do errors anymore, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then the best ramp of the day comes in and he does the craziest error that anyone's done in months, and it was the only one he, he tried because.

He's only gonna do an error if it's a perfect ramp. So he's a great example in having an open mind when you drop in. I don't think he ever thinks I'm gonna do this or I'm gonna do that when he is paddling into the [00:50:00] wave.

Michael Frampton: Yeah. I mean, reading the wave is the hardest, the hardest part of surfing and, but all great surfers do it.

Well that's something that's, that no matter what style of surfing you want it or you do reading the wave is the foundation of it. Right. And that actually starts before you stand up too. Right. You've gotta choose the right wave. You've gotta sit in the right spot. You've gotta paddle in at the right angle.

You gotta time your takeoff. And when you say crisp takeoff, what? What do you mean by crisp?

Tony Roberts: A good popup. Good popup. You know, from the hands straight to the feet. In a millisecond crisp, you know, and sometimes that means doing a plank, you know, like hands on the rails, feet on the deck, and letting the wave build and [00:51:00] going down the first sixth of the wave in plank position, and then, then right at the right moment snapping to your feet.

It doesn't always mean like getting in early and getting up quick. No. Crisp means that popup, it's perfect. There's no like stumbling to the feet. There's no like need grazing the, the, the deck as as you're standing up. It's just that those hands to the feet in like a millisecond,

Michael Frampton: but Correct. But timing's everything,

Tony Roberts: the timing, as you said.

Michael Frampton: Yeah. 'cause there's, there's a difference between quick and fast.. Yeah. You wanna time it well. So would you say that as you're paddling into, and maybe you're in a plank and you're waiting for the right moment, that whole time you're already surfing the wave, like surfing starts before you stand up?[00:52:00]

Tony Roberts: Well, that depends on your definition of surfing

Michael Frampton: in terms of your, you're not trying to get the perfect popup in exactly the right spot per se, because maybe you misread the wave a little bit so you're remaining adaptable and just changing the timing of your popup. Maybe you hold back, you know, you're always sort of reading the wave one once it's sort of got you and you're almost in it, you're already kind of setting your line.

You're, you're surfing the wave, at least visually. Before you even pop up. So a popup is still a maneuver in surfing. So people often say the bottom turn is the first maneuver. My argument would be, it's actually the popups the first.

Tony Roberts: I agree with you.

Michael Frampton: So crisp, crisp takeoff. I like that.

Yeah. Hmm. [00:53:00] Tell us about your surf trips,

Tony Roberts: my personal surf trips or my business?

Michael Frampton: Your business. Yes.

Tony Roberts: Yes., I do a surf trip package where people can come surf and shoot with me. Um, usually they don't get to surf with me very much because I'm shooting the whole time and have a second photographer or filmer shooting as well. But I have a website, tr surf trips.com, where I offer trips to the best waves at the best time of the year that are my favorite spots in the region of Central America and the Caribbean.

After being down here for, [00:54:00] you know, 40 plus years, full-time, I've got completely dialed. Where's good when it's good. And I know all the locals everywhere, and I know the best places to stay. So depending on the size of the group, um, the surfers interest their level. I make these trips for them that include all transport, accommodation, and I film all of their waves.

We analyze their waves. If they want coaching, I give them coaching. And at the end of the trip I make a trip movie edit for them as a souvenir, which includes not only their waves, but scenics and on the road experiences. And this has been a way for me to use a [00:55:00] lifetime of filmmaking, professional photography as senior staff photographer for Surfing Magazine, official photographer of the Quicksilver Crossing.

I was on the Indie Trader for three years on the boat filming all the best surfers in the world. And that project was, they wanted the culture and the surfing, photography and cinematography, which was why I was the perfect fit for that project because I've been in these cultures immersed, bilingual for so many decades that I was able to capture all that for their project.

And so now I'm able to utilize all that experience and give that experience. To any surfer on any level and their friends or [00:56:00] family. And it's incredibly gratifying for me because if I get Kelly Slater's best video clip of the year, he doesn't really care. Quicksilver doesn't really care. They're like, oh, great.

Good job. You know, they expect it. But if I get the average surfer's best clip of his life, the look on his face, and it, it is just so gratifying for me. And it's the true essence of being able to give back after a lifetime of being blessed with this incredible lifestyle of traveling the entire planet at all the best waves in the world with all the best surfers and.

To now continue to utilize that skillset for everyday surfers is incredible. [00:57:00]

Michael Frampton: Oh, very cool. Very cool. And gosh, just the whole, just the experience of knowing when and where to surf from home, whatever home base you've chosen, that's worth, I mean, that's just invaluable for any, any surf trip I've ever been on.

The better, the better and more experienced. The, the guide, the surf guiding where, where we're going today, what time we're surfing due to the tides and the swell. I mean that makes or breaks a trip really. And then plus it's all on film and you can get coaching if you want. I mean, that sounds amazing. And where people that wanna find out more in book, where do they go?

Tony Roberts: TR surf trips.com. So it's my initials, Tony.

Michael Frampton: Okay, great. I'll make sure there's links to that in the show notes. And you also have a YouTube channel. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Tony Roberts: Yes. I have two YouTube channels, real [00:58:00] surf stories and real skate stories. And these are a way to cement legacies of the greats of our sports surfing and skateboarding.

That

gives an opportunity to do a deep dive into their surfing life and what has made them great and using what they've accomplished to inspire us because each surfer has led these incredible lives that have inspired us in so many ways, and sometimes I. You'll hear the person's name, but you don't really know much about that person.

And so I'm always looking for those surfers and those stories that really give you a, a better [00:59:00] perspective of them. And also, as I said, to celebrate their legacy so they don't slide through the cracks. Like one example is I'd heard about this guy, Butch van Dale, and I even knew that he was known as Mr.

Pipeline, but I realized I didn't know much about this guy. So I started doing some research and holy crap, what an incredible person and story and character. And I mean for anyone who ever knew that guy, he was the most larger than life figure they'd ever met and ever knew. Yet here we are. Decades later and barely even know who the guy is.

So to be able to do a story on that guy and then having his family reach out to me [01:00:00] and so graciously say, wow, thank you so much. Like, this is so important to us that that people know Butch's story. And I just did one with a PT where I was able to sit down with him and wrap out for like three hours.

Michael Frampton: Oh wow.

Tony Roberts: And the amount of influence and impact that he's had in so many different aspects of surfing. People don't realize that they know PT for one thing or another, but if you put the entire package together, PTs, in my opinion, the most influential impact surfer in the history of our sport. Yeah, the Duke is more impactful in in getting it started.

Kelly Slater's more impactful in competition. You have these other people that are more impactful in certain categories, but the amount of categories [01:01:00] and the amount of impact that PT had in all those categories. So my YouTube channel celebrates all these incredible stories and again, gives me an opportunity to utilize a lifetime of filmmaking 'cause that has been my career my entire life.

I was director of video at O'Neill. I made the O'Neill Ozone in 1988. In my filmmaking career, I was the first person to use hip hop and rap music, and skate videos and surf videos. I invented the follow footage angle and street skateboarding. I invented the skate style water shot angle, and surfing. So my entire career has been, I.

Trying to do something that's never been done before doing it and moving on to the next thing. And now I'm able to utilize all that in my own channel, which is like me having my own movie theater, my own TV station. [01:02:00] I've been a musician my whole life, a dj. I make beats, I make music, I rap, I sing. Now it's like I have my own radio station.

I absolutely love the technology more than anything, you know, and it's, it's far reaching and, and every direction worldwide. So it's incredibly inspiring and gratifying.

Michael Frampton: Wow. Yeah. , Gosh. Okay, listener. Well, if you're inspired to. Go on a surf trip with Tony and, , have some of this rub off and surf some great waves.

Get some great footage. Then you can go to tr surf trips and there'll be a link to that in the show notes. And if you wanna learn and explore Tony's, , YouTube channels, there'll be links to those in the show notes as well. Those who wanna learn more about Tony's, , backstory in history, which he just touched on a few points there.

I will put a [01:03:00] link to the interview that David Lee Scales did with you, , back in 2014 in the show notes as well. , Tony Roberts, thank you so much for your time., You are an inspiration, especially to us, , older surfers and what's possible in surfing, longevity and performance. So thank you so much for your time.

I really appreciate it.

Tony Roberts: Thank you so much, Michael. Absolute pleasure.

120 Still Ripping at 60: Tony Roberts on Surfing Performance and Longevity

For the passionate surfer—whether you're a weekend warrior, a surf dad, or an older surfer—this podcast is all about better surfing and deeper stoke. With expert surf coaching, surf training, and surfing tips, we’ll help you catch more waves, refine your paddling technique, and perfect your pop up on a surfboard. From surf workouts to handling wipeouts, chasing bigger waves, and mastering surf technique, we’re here to make sure you not only improve but truly enjoy surfing more—so you can get more out of every session and become a wiser surfer. Go from Beginner or intermediate Surfer to advanced.

Do you walk away from surf sessions frustrated—even when the waves were decent?

In this episode, we dive into a powerful mindset shift that helps surfers of all levels enjoy every session—no matter the conditions. Whether you're chasing the dream swell or just trying to improve, managing your expectations could be the key to unlocking more joy and better performance in the water.

• Learn how unmet expectations quietly sabotage your surfing experience

• Discover the surprising benefits of aiming for "just one wave"

• Hear real-world examples of how this mindset frees surfers and boosts performance

Hit play now to learn how a small mindset shift can help you catch more waves, feel more stoke, and surf with more ease.

Key Points

• Introduction of the podcast discussing the importance of managing expectations in surfing.

• Discussion on the emotional impact of unmet expectations when surfing, emphasizing the role of expectations in creating disappointment or elation.

• Suggestion to lower expectations, particularly around surf conditions, and adopt a mindset of aiming to catch just one wave as a strategy to enhance enjoyment and reduce frustration.

• Personal anecdote illustrating the effectiveness of managing expectations by aiming to catch just one wave, even in challenging conditions.

• Observation that setting low expectations, such as catching one wave, leads to greater enjoyment and improved performance in surfing.

• Encouragement for listeners to try setting their expectation to catch just one wave during their next surf session to experience the benefits of managing expectations. 

Outline

Managing Expectations in Surfing

• Michael Frampton, the host of the Surf Mastery Podcast, discusses the importance of managing expectations in surfing.

• Michael shares personal experiences of arriving at the beach with high expectations based on forecasts, only to find the conditions different than expected.

• The emotional swings experienced by surfers are often due to unmet expectations rather than the surf conditions themselves.

• Michael suggests setting low expectations, such as aiming to catch just one wave, to enhance the surfing experience.

• By lowering expectations, surfers can focus more on the enjoyment of being in the ocean rather than the number of waves caught.

• Michael recounts a recent surf where, despite challenging conditions, catching just one wave made the experience rewarding.

• Michael has shared this 'one wave' approach with clients, who have reported increased enjoyment and improved performance in the water.

• The approach encourages surfers to appreciate the waves they catch more, regardless of the conditions.

• Michael challenges listeners to try setting their expectation to catch just one wave on their next surf.

• For those interested in exploring this philosophy further, Michael recommends visiting surfmastery.com to download the e-book, The Philosophy of Surfing.

Transcription:

Welcome back or welcome to the Surf Mastery Podcast. The show that helps passionate, lifelong surfers to catch more waves, surf with more speed, style, and grace, building wisdom and confidence in the water. I am your host, Michael Frampton, and today's episode is all about managing expectations in surfing. Now, we've all had the experience of turning up to the beach and expecting it to be four foot and offshore because that's what the forecast promised. But then when we arrive, it's two foot and onshore. That familiar feeling of disappointment sets in. And of course, the opposite is true. The forecast says it's going to be two foot and onshore, but we decide to go for a surf anyway. And when we get there, it's four foot and clean, and suddenly... you are elated. Now, these emotional swings aren't actually caused by the surf itself. It's caused by your expectations.

So it actually makes sense to lower your expectations, especially around conditions. For example, if your expectation is that it's surfable, that's a pretty low bar. Combine that with the mindset of "I'm going to catch one wave," and you've set a low bar that's actually empowering and realistic. Most frustration, anger, and disappointment in the surf comes from these unmet expectations. If you expect to catch ten waves but only get three, you will likely walk away frustrated. Because what happens then is, instead of you focusing on the enjoyment of the experience of being in the ocean and riding three waves, you chose to focus on the seven waves that you didn't get.

And lately, I've been practicing this idea. And when I paddle out, my goal is to catch one wave, no matter what the surf is like. A couple of weeks ago, I drove out to the beach for a surf and the only expectation I had was that it was going to be surfable. Had boards in the car ready for any type of condition, as always. And then, when I turned up, it looked like it was pumping. It was well overhead. There were heaps of waves coming through. There were plenty of surfers out, but there were plenty of waves as well.

And I sort of felt like I should higher my expectations. But I managed them in the moment and I thought, no, I'm just going to suit up, paddle out, and catch one wave. Go from there. And then, as I was suiting up, I was watching the surf, and I sort of realized, man, people aren't really catching these waves. There's a lot of paddling for waves happening, but no one was really catching them. I wasn't quite sure why when I was suiting up. But when I got out, when I managed to paddle out the back, I realized, man, it's actually really hard to catch these waves. There was a lot of water moving. There was a lot of backwash and secondary swells.

So it was really tricky to get into these waves. And most of the surfers out there were pretty frustrated with it. Because I suspect they had seen the surf look like it was pumping, and they paddled out with all these expectations of catching some of these waves. And not many people were. And the ones that were catching were just really bumpy and there wasn't much good quality surfing going on. It took me forty minutes to catch one wave, but that one wave made my day. That's because I'd kept my expectations low.

I've been sharing these thoughts with clients recently as well. And a few clients have adopted this "just one wave" approach, and it's taken the pressure off their surfing. They're enjoying surfing more, feeling freer in the water. Ironically, they're actually surfing better as a result. It tends to be what happens. Because, when the example I gave—when the waves, they look good but they aren't, which happens a lot—and it takes you ages to even get one, where you've met your expectation, you actually appreciate that one wave a lot more. But if I had paddled out there and caught that one wave in the first five minutes, then I got another, another thirty-five minutes of time up my sleeve. And if you end up catching two, that's double your expectations. And of course, I've had surfs recently where I've paddled out expecting to catch one and caught twenty. Just makes you enjoy surfing so much more.

So, listener, here's the challenge. Next time you go surfing, set your expectation to just catching one wave. Try it. Feel it out. See what happens. If you enjoyed this philosophical approach to surfing and you want to go deeper, head over to surfmastery.com and grab a copy of the e-book The Philosophy of Surfing. It's available now for about the price of a cup of coffee. The link is in the show notes. And as always, thanks for listening. Keep surfing.

119 One Wave Is Enough: The Surfer’s Guide to Managing Expectations

For the passionate surfer—whether you're a weekend warrior, a surf dad, or an older surfer—this podcast is all about better surfing and deeper stoke. With expert surf coaching, surf training, and surfing tips, we’ll help you catch more waves, refine your paddling technique, and perfect your pop up on a surfboard. From surf workouts to handling wipeouts, chasing bigger waves, and mastering surf technique, we’re here to make sure you not only improve but truly enjoy surfing more—so you can get more out of every session and become a wiser surfer. Go from Beginner or intermediate Surfer to advanced.

Joel Timmons on Surfing, Songwriting, and Soulful Journeys

If you’ve ever found yourself seeking balance between creativity and passion, or wondering how to turn life's challenges into powerful art, this episode is your invitation to explore that path. Joel Timmons, musician and lifelong surfer, shares how his emotional songwriting and connection to the ocean fuel each other—and how vulnerability, self-work, and rhythm tie it all together.

• Discover the deeply personal story behind Joel’s standout track “Say It To My Face” and the emotional reconciliation that followed.

• Learn how Joel’s journey from coastal South Carolina to Nashville—and back again—influenced the sound and soul of his new album.

• Find out why both music and surfing are lifelong pursuits of flow, mastery, and humble progression—whether you're in the studio or in the lineup.

Tap play now to hear Joel’s heartfelt journey through music, surf, recovery, and rediscovery—and why he’d pick a surfboard over a guitar if he had to choose.

https://open.spotify.com/artist/40Gd49hHE75WtRiqYGGhGj?si=_WNyIrmQQLG7n77zxft70A

https://www.joeltimmons.com

https://www.instagram.com/joeltimmonsmusic/

Episode music: “Say it to my face” - Joel Timmons

Key Points

• Surfing and songwriting, as activities that challenge individuals to be in the moment and focused on their immediate surroundings and tasks, are often pursued for personal joy and expression rather than financial gain.

• Joel Timmons discusses how songwriting serves as a therapeutic tool for self-expression and personal growth, often stemming from a kernel of pain or question that needs articulation.

• Joel Timmons started surfing at age 13 after moving back to Sullivan's Island, South Carolina, from Louisiana, where he began by riding boogie boards and small styrofoam surfboards.

• Joel Timmons identifies as a musician who surfs, valuing both activities for their continuous learning and improvement aspects, and notes that both can be pursued regardless of professional success.

• Joel Timmons emphasizes the importance of being fully invested and present during performances, noting that this genuine engagement tends to resonate more with audiences.

• Joel Timmons reflects on his early musical influences, including his parents, Led Zeppelin, and the music education he received through choir and band programs, as well as informal jam sessions with friends.

• Joel Timmons spent five years living in Nashville, which significantly influenced his musical development, particularly in songwriting and the incorporation of fiddle and pedal steel sounds into his music.

• Joel Timmons' decision to pursue music professionally was solidified after a life-changing trip around the world, despite facing significant health challenges upon his return.

• Joel Timmons discusses the impact of AI on the music industry, expressing both fascination and concern, and highlights the irreplaceable value of live, person-to-person musical experiences.

• Joel Timmons admires Tom Petty's songwriting and artistry, recalling an early concert experience and the influence of Petty's work on his own musical journey. 

Outline

Joel Timmons' Background and Interests

• Joel Timmons is a surfer and songwriter from Sullivan's Island, South Carolina.

• Joel grew up with a deep connection to both music and the ocean.

• Joel considers themself a musician who surfs, rather than a surfer who plays music.

• Joel owns upwards of 15-20 guitars and half a dozen surfboards.

• Joel's favorite surfboard is a 9-3 single fin classic longboard.

Joel's New Album and Songwriting Process

• Joel's new album is called Psychedelic Surf Country.

• The song Say It To My Face is Joel's favorite from the album.

• Joel finds songwriting to be a therapeutic and cathartic process.

• Joel wrote Say It To My Face during a period of personal growth and reconciliation with a friend.

• Joel did not release Say It To My Face as a single, which may explain why it is not as popular as other songs on the album.

Surfing and Music as Lifelong Pursuits

• Both surfing and music are lifelong pursuits for Joel.

• Joel sees synergies between surfing and music, such as the long arc of the journey and the joy of expression.

• Joel believes that most people who surf or make music do it for the right reasons, not just for money.

• Joel finds that performing from a place of authenticity and passion resonates most with audiences.

Joel's Musical Influences and Development

• Joel's parents and early musical memories influenced their musical development.

• Joel's biggest musical influence is Led Zeppelin.

• Joel's first concert was seeing Aerosmith in seventh grade.

• Joel's first song was a melodramatic piece about misery, inspired by bands like Blind Melon and Smashing Pumpkins.

• Joel's songwriting was influenced by John Prine, whose plain spoken delivery and empathy resonated with Joel.

Joel's Time in Nashville

• Joel lived in Nashville for about five years, which was important for their musical development.

• In Nashville, Joel fell in love with fiddle and pedal steel sounds and became more serious about songwriting and storytelling.

• Joel met many talented musicians in Nashville who inspired and influenced their own musical growth.

Joel's Health Challenges and Recovery

• Joel experienced a near-death experience in India, where they contracted Guillain-Barre syndrome and became paralyzed.

• Joel's recovery took a full year, during which they relearned how to walk and play music.

• Nutrition and lifestyle played a crucial role in Joel's recovery, as did their passion for music and surfing.

Joel's Future Plans and Projects

• Joel plans to perform and promote their new album, Psychedelic Surf Country.

• Joel will attend a bluegrass guitar camp to improve their skills and potentially join their wife's band.

• Joel will tour with an artist named Maya DeVitri and their own band, Soul Driven Train, throughout the summer.

Joel's Views on AI and the Music Industry

• Joel is fascinated and terrified by the potential of AI in music, but believes it is still far from replicating the human element of live performances.

• Joel uses AI tools like ChatGPT for tasks like writing emails and sequencing records, but resists using it for songwriting.

• Joel believes that the unique vibe and human connection of live music cannot be replicated by AI.

Transcription

Joel Timmons
The vast majority of people that do it don’t ever make a dollar off it. It’s just something innate in people, and it’s something joyful and a sense of expression. Surfing and playing an instrument or singing a song challenges you to be in the moment and be focused on immediate surroundings and task at hand.

Michael Frampton
Welcome back or welcome to the Surf Mastery Podcast. That is a couple of quotes from today’s guest, Joel Timmons. Joel is a surfer and a songwriter from Sullivan’s Island in South Carolina, who grew up with a deep connection to both music and the ocean. And that is a song called Say It To My Face off his new album, Psychedelic Surf Country, which will play out in its entirety at the end of this interview. It’s my favorite song off the album, so thank you for letting me use it in this podcast. I thoroughly enjoyed my conversation with Joel. I am a huge fan of listening and playing music. And this is a little bit of a different episode. Not a lot of surf content per se. It’s mostly about music. And let me know if you’re enjoying these different episodes. We did one a couple of weeks ago about parenting. This one’s about music. And let me know if you’re enjoying the eclecticness of these episodes. And without further ado, I will fade in my conversation with Joel Timmons.

Michael Frampton
Thanks for joining.

Joel Timmons
Thank you.

Michael Frampton
I’ve been listening to the new album.

Joel Timmons
Sweet, how’s it translate down under?

Michael Frampton
Man. Yeah, I’m enjoying it. Pretty good, man.

Joel Timmons
You’re in New Zealand?

Michael Frampton
Yes, I am.

Joel Timmons
Cool.

Michael Frampton
Favourite song on that album is Say It To My Face.

Joel Timmons
Oh, cool, man. Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s, for me at least, it’s the most... lyrically, it’s the most relatable song.

Michael Frampton
Cool.

Joel Timmons
Yeah. Very good. It’s pretty direct. Yeah, no, I like that. Yeah, this sounds like there’s a lot of self-work thing going on as well.

Michael Frampton
I guess so.

Joel Timmons
Yeah. Yeah. I think songwriting is like a big tool for me with that, almost like journaling can be, and then sometimes those journals end up out in the world and that is quite therapeutic. Yeah. To have some secret little kernel of pain or question and then articulate it to yourself and make it feel nice to yourself and then get to share it with an audience.

Michael Frampton
Definitely transformative.

Joel Timmons
I guess songwriting is very cathartic in that way. Yeah, the good ones are. That particular song, I was just at home, just like crying my eyes out. The words were just pouring out of me like the tears. And since that moment, I had had the opportunity to get back together with that friend and have the conversation that we needed to have, even before I went into the studio to record it. So then being in the studio, it was really magical to be able to access the pain of when we were at odds, but then also with the knowledge of, okay, we did it. And that kind of jam out at the end of the song, that sort of resolves to a major key, and that musically was that reconciliation. So it was, yeah, it was really a beautiful journey.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. It’s a beautiful song.

Joel Timmons
Sophie sent me an earlier version of it before it was released.

Michael Frampton
Oh, cool.

Joel Timmons
Once it was released, I went on to—the album was released—I went on to Spotify, and I assumed that would be the most popular song. I was quite surprised to see that it wasn’t.

Michael Frampton
Interesting.

Joel Timmons
Yeah. Yeah. And I didn’t release that one as a single. So some of those songs that have singles, were released as singles, have had a little more time out there. I just know of the few people that I’ve talked to into the empire, people like that song, which I didn’t... I love that song, but I didn’t know that it was gonna be special for some people. I’m glad to hear you say you like Say It To My Face.

Michael Frampton
We played that one Friday. I hit a release show here in town.

Joel Timmons
Oh yeah?

Michael Frampton
And we played the whole album top to bottom live, and that one...

Joel Timmons
Oh, rad.

Michael Frampton
That one felt really potent.

Joel Timmons
I’m really enjoying the Trying song as well. It’s really cool.

Michael Frampton
Yeah, that one was also very fun live. That was like the last—we were at the finish line on the record and you could really cut loose. People were dancing and everything, so it was a good time.

Michael Frampton
So, let’s keep it surfing a little bit. When did you start surfing?

Joel Timmons
Yeah. So I grew up on a barrier island in South Carolina, Sullivan’s Island. So we were like riding boogie boards and little styrofoam surfboards when I was a toddler, four or five years old. My family, when we moved to Louisiana for three years, when I was entering fourth grade—fourth, fifth, and sixth grade—we were in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. So there was no ocean there. My mom was a windsurfer, so we did a little windsurfing in Louisiana, brought that from South Carolina. And then when I moved back, all my little buddies that I grew up with were all surfing at that...At that point. I guess that was in seventh grade when I was like 13. So I started, yeah, I started surfing and studying and like reading the magazines and watching Endless Summer and that kind of thing. And then I guess like the surf season here is—we get hurricane swells in the late summer and early fall, and then really most of the waves come in the winter. But I wasn’t—when I first started—I wasn’t surfing in the wintertime. It was probably high school before I got a wetsuit and started surfing year-round. And the year I graduated high school, a couple of us took a surf trip to Costa Rica, which is a rite of passage for an East Coast surfer. Outer Banks in North Carolina, Florida, and then like the Caribbean or Central America.

Michael Frampton
Yeah.

Joel Timmons
Puerto Rico as well. I’ve been to Puerto Rico a couple of times. I went there in college for the first time, so a couple of years later. Yeah, that’s a really close flight and man, an awesome surf destination. Yeah, I guess I’ve been there maybe four or five times now.

Michael Frampton
Yeah, to Puerto Rico?

Joel Timmons
Yeah. Yeah. I’ve been there once and the waves were huge. I was so surprised how much swell they get there. Yeah, I just got back from the Virgin Islands, which are just like the U.S. Virgin Islands, like the next islands over from Puerto Rico. And I’ve been going down there every winter for about 15 years and have scored some great swells down there. This year was a bit off. When I showed up, everybody was like, “It’s the best season we’ve ever seen.” The old guys were like, “The waves haven’t stopped since September.” And then there was one more swell when I got there, and then it stopped and it’s gone quiet. But I did get to catch one good swell down there this year.

Michael Frampton
Are you a surfer who plays music or a musician who surfs?

Joel Timmons
I’m a musician who surfs. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Definitely. Nobody’s paying me to show up and surf. Yeah. And I do get gigs. I don’t know which one I would choose if I had to choose one or the other. Both have really guided me and helped me at different times.

Michael Frampton
If you were stuck on a desert island, would you choose a surfboard or a guitar?

Joel Timmons
Surfboard or a guitar? Golly, if there were waves, I’d probably have to choose a surfboard. I’m trying to think of some loophole where I can like get a guitar that’s shaped like a hand plane or something.

Michael Frampton
What’s harder—surfing or music—for you personally?

Joel Timmons
I think surfing’s harder. I don’t know. The Surf Mastery title of the podcast is scary for me ‘cause I definitely don’t feel like I’m a master of it, and I don’t feel like I’m a master of music either. That’s what the concept of mastery means. It’s not that you’ve mastered something, it’s that you have a drive to get better no matter what level you are.

Michael Frampton
Yeah, just want to improve.

Joel Timmons
Yep. And I do think there’s a parallel there in music for sure, as with surfing. It’s something—I’m 45 years old now—and I’m realizing now, oh gosh, I am one of those old guys now at this point. But there’s a generation or two ahead of me that I look up to and want to still be doing this in 20 or 30 years, both music and surfing. And it’s about learning and improving, even if my body presents limitations to me. If my fingers aren’t as fast or my pop-ups not as fast, to still be on a journey with it.

Michael Frampton
Definitely. Oh, for sure. And I see a lot of synergy with music and surfing. I think surfing is far more an art form than it is a sport. And you can pick your own journey. You could spend your entire lifetime only playing country music and never master it, and then decide to go into another genre and be like a beginner again. And the same with surfing. You change to a different type of board or a different type of wave that you want to surf and begin your journey all over again.

Joel Timmons
Yeah. Music’s interesting too, because there’s probably amazing classically trained jazz musicians living in New York who barely earn any money. And then you’ve got people like—have you heard of The Chats?

Michael Frampton
The Chats?

Joel Timmons
No?

Michael Frampton
Uh-uh.

Joel Timmons
They’re an Australian band. Just grunge, punk rock, basic music. But their lyrics speak to the entire culture of Australia. So they’re cool. Sold-out shows. And they’re certainly by no means talented musicians—they’re not terrible—but music’s cool like that. You don’t have to be an exceptional, talented musician. You just have to play and speak from the heart and be good enough to perform to make it.

Michael Frampton
Yeah.

Joel Timmons
When Jack Johnson had his records that were really hitting, that was super inspiring for me. To be like, “This guy, okay, we know him from his surfing and his writing in the surf world, and his music is beautiful, but it’s not fancy. It’s very direct and plainspoken. It sounds like something you’d hear at a bonfire.” And when that was like, “Wow, this can really resonate with so many people,” that’s amazing. I found that encouraging as a young songwriter, trying to find my sound and my way.

Michael Frampton
Yeah.

Joel Timmons
On that note, what advice would you have for, let’s say, someone who’s starting to play guitar later in life? Do you ever look back and go, “If I had to start all over again, I wouldn’t do this and this. Instead, I’d focus on that”?

Michael Frampton
That’s interesting.

Joel Timmons
Yeah. It’s such a different environment now, like with all the teaching tools on the internet. I have a few guitar students, mostly young kids, a couple that are teens and then some eight- and nine-year-old little dudes that are just exploring to find out what they’re into. And it’s easier for those kids, I think, than it is for an adult. I was probably 12 or 13 when I started picking up the guitar. And I was just, for some reason at that point, so driven to do it and had free time to dedicate hours at it. And today I don’t know that I would have the focus or the time to devote to a new thing like I had when I was that age.

Not to discourage any adult learners, but just—it’s going to be difficult. And there’s this painful part of getting the mechanics of your hand to just hold the press, press the strings down. That’s really defeating at first and it doesn’t sound good. Once you press through that and it becomes fun and rewarding because you’re making pleasant sounds—yeah.

Michael Frampton
Do you play any other instruments?

Joel Timmons
I’m a percussionist. I play a lot of hand percussion, some drum set. My wife’s an upright bass player, so I’ve gotten better at the bass. I’m not really hireable yet because I physically can’t do it for a whole gig. Ten minutes and then this finger starts getting a blister and this hand starts cramping up. It’s a physical instrument. But yeah, I’d say percussion, guitar, vocals—my main expressions.

Michael Frampton
That’s interesting because you—considering you have a background in percussion and guitar, one would assume bass would be quite easy for you?

Joel Timmons
Yeah, the bass guitar I can play and feel comfortable with that, but the upright bass is just such a—oh yeah. There’s no frets there. Strings are really big around and you really have to, one, have good technique and also just have a certain amount of strength and callous to make the instrument speak. And my wife plays bluegrass music, so it’s just like boom on the bass, and like in the jam situation, you gotta just keep that going and it’s gotta be even, and it’s gotta be loud. And she could do it all night—relaxed, with good technique and beautiful tone. And I’m like, “Take the bass!” And I’m sweating and inefficient with my movements and it doesn’t sound as good. It’s not as in tune. And then I’m like, “Okay, sub, please.” So I just haven’t devoted the hours and hours it takes to just get that basic good technique down, yeah.

Michael Frampton
Yeah, with that instrument.

Joel Timmons
But I’m—there’s one right over there. I could work on it here after this. That’s a rewarding instrument for me.

Michael Frampton
Yeah, the fretless bass—it feels really good to play it. When you play live with your band, do you have a double bass player?

Joel Timmons
Certain groups I do. The band that I played with on this album—Ethan J—he’s the bass player. And he played both double bass on some tracks and then bass guitar and some five-string bass guitar, some four-string bass guitar. We recorded it at this guy Mike Elizondo’s ISS recording studio. And Mike’s a brilliant bass player and producer, and Ethan was a kid in a candy store. “I’m going to use a different one on every—every—” This particular nuance of this song requires this particular electric bass from this era. And Mike had them. Had all of them there.

Michael Frampton
So cool.

Joel Timmons
But yes—sometimes it’s bass guitar, sometimes it’s upright, sometimes it’s both.

Michael Frampton
How many guitars do you own?

Joel Timmons
Fifteen. Upwards of 15 or 20, maybe.

Michael Frampton
Oh yeah. How many surfboards?

Joel Timmons
Half a dozen. Not too many.

Michael Frampton
And if you had to choose one surfboard, which one would it be?

Joel Timmons
I think I have a 9’3” Bing—like a single fin classic longboard. I guess it would probably depend where I’m going to be. But I guess if it’s just the board firm, I can still go anywhere I want. Of the boards I have now, I’d probably stick with the 9’3” because I get more days here on that board than anything. Though I’d get myself in trouble if I was in real heavy surf with that.

Michael Frampton
Yeah.

Joel Timmons
Break it in half, and then I’d have two shorties.

Michael Frampton
Do you see many synergies between surfing and music?

Joel Timmons
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we were talking about just the long arc of the journey. It’s something I’ve been doing since I was a kid and I’m still really excited about it and still improving in some ways. And the vast majority of people that do it don’t ever make a dollar off it. It’s just something innate in people and it’s something joyful and a sense of expression. And then there’s this little industry that makes money on it. Some people are professionals at it, but that’s just a small part of the experience of music or surfing. And yeah, I’m lucky. I’m lucky to get to be making money doing music and traveling. But I think I would still be doing it whether or not it was my job. It would still be a part of me.

Michael Frampton
So you’re doing it for the right reasons, let’s say. And when you’re performing from that place, is that the performance in the song that tends to resonate most with the audience?

Joel Timmons
I certainly—when I go to a show, it’s generally pretty obvious energetically if the performer is fully invested in the moment or disappointed or thinking about whatever. It’s a really challenging life to be away from home and putting your best self out there every night. Usually I can find that joy and the excitement of the moment. That both—surfing and playing an instrument or singing a song—challenges you to be in the moment and be focused on immediate surroundings and the task at hand.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. Do you ever find yourself struggling to get into that flow state as a performer?

Joel Timmons
Yeah, sometimes. If the audio is challenging, if I can’t hear the guitar or my voice in the way that I’m used to, or if the instrument won’t stay in tune—sometimes I’m like fighting the mechanics of it. Or if I’ve had too many gigs and my voice is worn out, if I’m thinking about just the physicality of it—that can be a challenge. But then, I don’t know, sometimes you can press through. And yeah, it’s not something that I’m thinking about usually on stage. But I think that’s probably an indication that I’m there—whether or not I’m enjoying it—I’m just really focused and primed up into the moment.

Michael Frampton
Are you able to—same thing in surfing would be the next question.

Joel Timmons
Yeah. Except when it’s real crowded.

Michael Frampton
Oh, yeah.

Joel Timmons
Yeah. I really struggle with that. To not have my mind taken by the social or the dynamic when it’s a lot of folks out there. Or get frustrated on the wave count or whatever. Where I live here, my local is just a big sandbar so you can spread out. There are certain days where it’s crowded everywhere, but that’s just a handful of days a year. So usually I can just spread out. Surf traveling—sometimes it’s not like that.

Michael Frampton
Yeah, performing as a musician is unique like that. Once you’ve got the stage, you’ve got the stage.

Joel Timmons
It’s true.

Michael Frampton
Or do you sometimes have exceptions to that?

Joel Timmons
Yeah.

Michael Frampton
What would be an exception?

Joel Timmons
You have a sit-in musician who wants to steal the limelight or something.

Michael Frampton
Yeah, the sit-in harmonica player that won’t take a hint.

Joel Timmons
Yeah. When I was on this recent tour in the Virgin Islands, we actually had a really beautiful gig that sort of morphed into this showcase of all these local musicians who had shown up. We’d been down there for a week and it was our second to last show, and we had a steel drum player that came in for a while, and a saxophone player, a harmonica player—all these guys. At the end of the show, we were like, “Wow, that could have just gone so sideways,” and it was just wonderful. Everybody read the room, played appropriately, didn’t overstay their welcome, and it just flowed.

Joel Timmons
But that—when sometimes when you're mixing too many ingredients in or just have... audio—if we're playing bars where there's not really a stage, it's just a sand dance floor and a sand stage, and then you have people that invite themselves on, think they can play the tambourine...

Michael Frampton
Oh yeah. It sounds like a crowded lineup.

Joel Timmons
Yeah. Totally.

Michael Frampton
And then when it's you and your buddies on stage, that's like surfing with you and your best mates.

Joel Timmons
Yeah. That's the best, for sure.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. And then of course you've got your solo sessions, which are extra special. What would the equivalent of the solo session be? Like you're just in the bar, you and the bartender, you're like, “Man, this sounds so good right now.”

Joel Timmons
Yeah, or just you in the bedroom with an acoustic.

Michael Frampton
Yeah, no, that’s true. That’s where a lot of it starts.

Joel Timmons
Yeah.

Michael Frampton
How many hours a day, when you were first really inspired and coming up and learning, would you spend on the instrument?

Joel Timmons
I think I spent like upwards of three or more hours a day when I was first really tackling it. And then maybe backed off that at some point. And then back to that point again at different periods. I’m actually signed up to go to a bluegrass guitar camp this May. It’s like—there’s a big tradition of fiddle, banjo, bluegrass camps in the Appalachians and out West, all over the U.S. I’m adjacent to that scene. I’ve grown up hearing bluegrass music, but not playing it and going to those camps, whereas my wife is just deeply bluegrass from before she was born. Part of it is wanting to be able to keep up with her and her friends, but also I’m genuinely interested in getting better at this kind of music. It’s going to be fun to go and, like you’re saying, be a beginner again in this particular genre. I’m like, “Yeah, okay, I get paid to play the guitar—but not this type.”

Michael Frampton
You’re going there as a student?

Joel Timmons
As a student. Yeah.

Michael Frampton
Oh wow.

Joel Timmons
Yeah. I sent my application, my video in, and sent my money in. It'll be three or four days. I’ll have to leave for one of the days to go play a gig and then come back—miss one of the days. But I’m excited about that. I haven’t ever done a surf camp or anything like that. The first time I went to Costa Rica, I guess because I was a minor, we went to a camp that took us around to the beach. So I guess I did do that when I was a kid.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. Those types of camps are becoming more and more popular in surfing—where you go on a surf trip for a week or so, and the objective is to actually learn and to get better at surfing and/or learn a new style of surfing. Those are becoming more and more popular.

Joel Timmons
Yeah. Totally. In music, there seems to be less arrogance around that. Even though you love to play and perform and write from the heart, you’re still very aware of, “Hey, you know what? I could do with some theory and learning some different styles.” And there’s a humbleness within the music industry that hasn’t really infiltrated surfing culture as much yet.

Michael Frampton
Yeah, and I was just thinking—it’s there. There are videos and people breaking down surf lessons, but it seems like a much more difficult thing. Like, I can sit here with my guitar, stop the video, play it in slow motion, and really integrate a lot of stuff with a YouTube instructor. But watching a video and then going out and paddling around and trying to integrate all that is a much slower, more difficult loop to get your reps in.

Joel Timmons
Yeah. I guess surfing with that analogy would be more similar to singing. When you are singing, and then you hear yourself back on a recording, you're like, “Oh, that’s not how I thought it sounded.”

Michael Frampton
Yeah.

Joel Timmons
Because when you watch yourself back on footage of surfing, you’re like, “Oh.” But I think in the same way as singing, the more you record and listen to yourself, the closer those two things become—the way it sounds when you're doing it and the way it sounds on the recording.

Michael Frampton
Has that been your experience?

Joel Timmons
I think so, yeah. And maybe you just get more used to the sound of your amplified voice and it not coming through your head. I’ve gotten more comfortable with that and knowing how much of that I want in the stage monitors. If it’s too muddy or too bright, I now know how to get it to where it feels comfortable and doesn’t feedback. I can sing quiet and hear myself, or I can sing loud and not blow my head off. I think that’s come with experience.

Michael Frampton
Mic technique.

Joel Timmons
Yeah. Same with surfing. When you watch yourself on video, and then go back and practice, those two things—the way surfing feels and the way it looks—start to line up.

Michael Frampton
Did you have lessons growing up—music lessons?

Joel Timmons
A little bit. It was more just like playing music with groups of people. There were other kids getting instruments at the same time I was. And there was this art school that one of the kids I grew up with—his mom started it when we were really little—and it grew into a program. There was an early American folk ensemble that this lady, Hazel Ketchum, taught. We were probably in seventh, eighth, ninth grade, and we were playing guitars. She was teaching us everything from Grateful Dead songs to old English ballads. It was acoustic music, and she was teaching us how to be in an ensemble. We did read music a little bit, but it was a lot of learning by ear and harmony singing by ear.

Joel Timmons
In school, I was in the choir and in the band program, so I was getting a little more structured musical education there. And then in our afternoons, my friends and I were making up songs and jamming in the garage on electric guitars and drum sets, so I was getting it from all sides.

Michael Frampton
Not too many private lessons?

Joel Timmons
Not really. A handful at the very beginning on guitar.

Michael Frampton
Were your parents musical?

Joel Timmons
Yeah, my mom. She had a guitar at the house. She played guitar. And at church, we would all sing in the choir. She would—before church—there would be a more informal kind of song circle, and that’s the first place I saw people playing guitar and singing. I was just amazed at how fast they could move from one chord to the next—right in time with the song, not even breaking stride. I remember placing my fingers individually, slowly, stretching them to get that chord, and I was amazed that people could just fluidly move between them.

Michael Frampton
But they weren’t professional?

Joel Timmons
No, not professional—but in a reverent way, for sure.

Michael Frampton
Who’s your biggest influence musically?

Joel Timmons
Some of those earliest memories would make it tough to not say my parents, especially because they were the ones taking me to concerts and encouraging me to be in the choir. Also, I had a really great choir instructor in high school—Ms. Austin—who also sponsored the guitar club at our school, which was like the “boys with guitar toys” jam space during homeroom. Ms. Austin helped me a lot. And then, Led Zeppelin is still maybe my favorite band of all time. They were long since passed when I discovered them through cassette tapes, but it still felt as vibrant as ever.

Michael Frampton
You mentioned concerts. What was the first concert that made a big impression on you?

Joel Timmons
I have a really early memory—there’s something in Charleston, South Carolina, called the Spoleto Festival, and it’s like an arts-from-around-the-world kind of thing. It’s still going on. Some of it’s highbrow opera and chamber music. And then the city does its own sort of sister festival at the same time. I remember seeing these guys playing Andean panpipes. It was a whole ensemble of dudes playing in concert together, and I just remember it totally blowing my little mind.

Joel Timmons
I also have memories of the choir at church. And then the first real rock-and-roll concert I went to was in seventh grade—Aerosmith. A friend of ours—the cool mom—loaded a bunch of us into the car and drove us two hours up the road to Columbia, to the Coliseum, to see Aerosmith.

Michael Frampton
Wow.

Joel Timmons
Yeah. That was awesome.

Michael Frampton
What year was that?

Joel Timmons
I’m thinking it was like ’92.

Michael Frampton
Wow, so they were already old rockers by then.

Joel Timmons
Yeah, I don’t know if it was the “Get a Grip” tour or when they had all the cow graphics—it might’ve been that era.

Michael Frampton
They still played “Sweet Emotion” and stuff?

Joel Timmons
Yeah.

Michael Frampton
That would’ve been amazing.

Joel Timmons
“Janie’s Got a Gun,” yeah.

Michael Frampton
What’s the first song you wrote—or at least, the one that comes to mind when I say that?

Joel Timmons
There were two songs, probably in seventh grade or something. There was one I wrote by myself that was super melodramatic: “My life is full of misery, you love everybody but you just can’t stand me.” Real sorry-for-myself 12-year-old emo stuff.

Joel Timmons
And then me and my friend, Natonya, co-wrote a song about a stick. It was like a story about an inanimate object—a little bit buried Tom Robbins—which I didn’t really realize at the time. It was the whole life story of this stick. Neither one of those songs ever got recorded.

Michael Frampton
Maybe they should be.

Joel Timmons
Dig back, yeah—why not? You never know. There’s a lot of wisdom in the childlike perspective.

Michael Frampton
It makes me think of “Hazard” by Richard Marx. That was a songwriting project given to him by a teacher. He wrote it for no reason apart from that, and it became one of his most famous songs.

Joel Timmons
That’s cool.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. And I definitely—there was one song, I can’t remember the title—but I heard a lot of John Prine influence in one of your songs.

Joel Timmons
Cool. Yeah, he was a huge influence for me, for sure. I do remember hearing John Prine for the first time—not live—but my friend Joey, his dad lived up in the country in McClellanville, South Carolina, and we would go up there sometimes on the weekends, probably around that same seventh, eighth, ninth grade. We stayed at his dad’s—Dirty Dan’s—house, and Dirty Dan was like, “You guys need to listen to this.” And he played us “Sam Stone” and “Paradise” and “Angel from Montgomery.” Since then, John has been a total songwriting light for me. His plainspoken delivery, but with layers and layers of empathy and humanity.

Joel Timmons
I got to see him live a couple of times in Nashville. He lived in Nashville when I was living there. One time we went to Arnold’s—it’s like this meat-and-three restaurant. My mom was in town, my wife, probably both my parents and my wife and I, all went for lunch. And then here comes John—this was one of his regular spots. He goes to the buffet, and I’m kind of stunned. He walks past the table, and my mom—she can’t keep it cool—she says, “I love you, John. We love you, John. Thank you.” And he was like, “Okay.” I was so embarrassed at the time. And then a few years later, COVID happened and we lost him in the early days of COVID. I was really grieving that a lot during a crazy time, and I was so glad that my mom told him that she loved him when she had the chance. Even though it was a little inappropriate, hey—that was her chance. She took it.

Michael Frampton
And he knew it.

Joel Timmons
Yeah. I’m sure he appreciated it on some level. She didn’t grab him or jump up and try to take a picture or anything. I was probably the one taking a picture over my shoulder at him.

Michael Frampton
How long did you spend living in Nashville?

Joel Timmons
I lived there for about five years. I was visiting Shelby, my wife, for about a year before I moved there. So I think I moved there in 2015, and then in 2020 we moved out. But I’m heading back there next week. I love it—it’s an awesome place.

Michael Frampton
No surfing though?

Joel Timmons
No. It’s a long way from the beach.

Michael Frampton
How important was that Nashville time to your musical development?

Joel Timmons
I think this new record definitely wouldn’t have happened without Nashville. It’s me trying to document and take a Polaroid of that time and the people I met there. There are lots of songs about South Carolina, the Lowcountry, my youth on the coast—but all the sounds, the fiddle, the pedal steel—I fell in love with that in Nashville. I got more serious about songwriting and storytelling. The musicians I got to meet there—you just get better by hearing those people play regularly and watching their approach up close. You’re just surrounded by it. It’s like going to the North Shore as a surfer.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. You better learn to duck-dive or go back to Alabama.

Joel Timmons
Yeah.

Michael Frampton
Psychedelic Surf Country—what inspired that title?

Joel Timmons
It was after we’d made the record, and it was like, “Oh God, here comes another one of these decisions—what are we going to call it?” I was just describing the sound to somebody and I said, “I don’t know—it’s like psychedelic surf country.” And then I thought, “That kind of sounds cool.” The first way I was using it was to describe it as a genre or an amalgam of sounds. But I also like thinking about it as a place. A friend of mine the other night said, “Oh, I thought it was a place—where you’re from.” And I was like, “Oh yeah, sure—that too.” It just came out of my mouth, and I thought, “I think I like that. I think it sums it up pretty well.” I did a quick Google search and it wasn’t already a band or anything. Lots of psychedelic surf rock, lots of surf-country, even psychedelic-country, but I couldn’t find all three together.

Michael Frampton
Does it describe your three favorite things?

Joel Timmons
Yeah. Pretty well. Three interests for sure.

Michael Frampton
The psychedelia is when the walls start getting fuzzy and the boundaries between things get blurry and you realize there’s a great unity behind everything. And that’s like music—a genre-less place.

Joel Timmons
Yeah.

Michael Frampton
That gave me the image of—what’s that cartoon? With the Black musician who has an out-of-body experience. Have you seen that?

Joel Timmons
I don’t know if I have. Was it one of those documentaries with cartoon reenactments?

Michael Frampton
No. It’s a really good movie. It’s about a Black music teacher who finally gets offered a gig with a famous jazz musician. But then he dies and has an out-of-body experience and comes back.

Joel Timmons
Oh, I have to check that out.

Michael Frampton
I’ll put the title of that movie in the show notes if I don’t remember it before the end of this. Really cool movie. All talking about the soul of music. He very much loses himself in the music and has a psychedelic experience while jamming.

Joel Timmons
Yep.

Michael Frampton
I’m very much an amateur musician, but I’ve certainly had jam sessions where you’re just playing a song and the song takes over and you’re almost witnessing yourself. And I think those are the best surfing sessions too—when you become one with the rhythm of the ocean. You’re not really thinking, you’re just moving in time with the waves.

Joel Timmons
Yeah. That’s a noble pursuit.

Michael Frampton
I think so. And I think for getting better at surfing, I always say to people—if you want to become a good musician and you’re not naturally gifted or you don’t play by ear or anything, then there’s no way around it. You have to spend time learning your chords and your scales and your modes. And then when you jam, if those things are in your muscle memory, you don’t have to think about them. That’s when you can slot in and have that creative expression.

Joel Timmons
Yeah.

Michael Frampton
And I think surfing is the same thing. It’s more athletic—it’s full-body movements, not just fingers. But if people want to become better at surfing, they really do have to practice those movements over and over again. Just install a slow-motion popup and a tube stance into your nervous system—just like a music scale or a chord shape.

Joel Timmons
Yeah.

Michael Frampton
Do you have people doing those motions on land? Like surf-specific exercises?

Joel Timmons
Yep.

Michael Frampton
That’s the thing—if you didn’t grow up surfing as a kid for eight hours a day, and you come to surfing later in life or you reach a stage where you want to really improve, there’s no way around it. Because even if you go surfing for three hours, maybe three minutes of that is actually spent standing on a wave. The rest is just paddling or waiting.

Joel Timmons
Yeah.

Michael Frampton
So there’s no getting around those surfing exercises.

Joel Timmons
The rest is just paddling in circles, trying not to drown—is what I tell people basically.

Michael Frampton
So I always use the analogy of music. Musicians humble themselves. They do the scales, they learn the chords, the theory—and that’s what gives way to jam sessions, songwriting, and creative flow.

Joel Timmons
Yeah. Totally.

Michael Frampton
Where in New Zealand are you?

Joel Timmons
I’m in a place called Hawke’s Bay, which is on the east coast of the North Island.

Michael Frampton
Cool.

Joel Timmons
Long way away. I got to visit New Zealand just once, in 2003. I was doing an around-the-world itinerary. I had finished college, worked for a year, saved up some money. We flew to Tonga, then crewed a sailboat from Tonga and came in through the Bay of Islands. Then caravaned around New Zealand for six weeks. It was awesome. I can’t believe I haven’t been back. It was life-changing. I’ve been back to Australia a few more times since then.

Michael Frampton
Were you here in New Zealand playing music?

Joel Timmons
I had a little backpacker guitar with me, and we were just cruising around. Met some house truckers, did some car park jamming. But no gigs or anything. I wasn’t at that level yet. That was the trip where I decided, “Yeah, okay—I want to do music for real.” When I came back to the States, I started. I already had a band and had been playing gigs, but I was like, “No. I’m not going to grad school. This is what I want to do.”

Michael Frampton
How old were you then?

Joel Timmons
Twenty-three or twenty-four.

Michael Frampton
Was that a scary decision?

Joel Timmons
Yeah, I guess so. Maybe not at the time. When you’re 23, you feel like you can do anything. There have been scary parts along the way—moments of reevaluation, reinvestment, digging back in. But on that same trip, we went to Tonga, New Zealand, Australia, then Indonesia, Southeast Asia, Nepal, and India. The plan was to go to Europe, but in India I got super sick and ended up in New Delhi with Guillain-Barré Syndrome. I was basically fully paralyzed.

Michael Frampton
Wow.

Joel Timmons
It was a real near-death experience. When I came back to the States, I was in a wheelchair, couldn’t sing, couldn’t play guitar. But I knew that’s what I wanted to do. Focusing in on music—and my old bandmates, who would accommodate me, let me play just a little bit, and encouraged me—was a huge part of my recovery.

Michael Frampton
How long was recovery?

Joel Timmons
Like a full year. I was in the hospital for six weeks. When I came out, I was super emaciated. Then it was just physical therapy for the better part of a year. Retraining everything—learning how to walk again, everything.

Michael Frampton
How important was nutrition and lifestyle on that journey?

Joel Timmons
Extremely. And surfing, too. Initially I was body surfing and bodyboarding, then longboarding and stand-up paddleboarding. Through my different physical restraints, it opened my eyes to all these different ways of getting out there and riding waves and getting the benefits. Nutrition was more about just eating anything and everything because I was down to a skeleton. I’ve always been thin, so I just try to eat a lot—but make sure I eat a lot of vegetables too.

Michael Frampton
Lifestyle must be a challenge being a musician?

Joel Timmons
For sure. Having a regular time to go to bed, a regular time to wake up, and three square meals—it’s tough. Sometimes I’m in a different bed in a different town every night. And there’s always alcohol and every other thing around. But I’ve managed to not go to jail or die. I’ve seen plenty of people who have, and the wreckage along the way—it can go either way.

Michael Frampton
So when you finally made that commitment—“I’m going to put everything into music”—was it a relief in some ways?

Joel Timmons
Maybe, yeah. It definitely allowed me to let go of some of those other voices. I studied geology in undergrad, studied science. That’s a field with a lot more opportunity if you go to graduate school or get a PhD. I also wondered about being a wilderness instructor or a few other things. But I dove into the band, treated it like a business. Moved into a house with my buddies—my best friends—and everybody had their role. It was super DIY. Not necessarily punk rock, but very communal. We shared groceries, piled into the van, drove across the country, played shows, made what we could out of it. It was pretty dang fun—but also very scary. You’re watching your friends take exits off this lifestyle—getting married, having kids, settling down—and I’ve seen folks take the off-ramp. But for whatever reason, I’ve stayed the course.

Michael Frampton
You mentioned a scientific side. Did that show up in your songwriting? Any songs based on science or theory?

Joel Timmons
Yeah, I wrote a song that started off as a kid’s song. I was working at a camp in North Carolina—right around the time the band was getting serious. It was for the summer solstice. I wrote a song explaining the position of the planets, what the solstice is, why we have seasons. It turned into a jam that my band Sol Driven Train has played for years. But it started off as a nursery rhyme science lesson. I’ve also written some book report songs about local history and stuff like that.

Michael Frampton
So what’s the future hold for your music? Do you have another album concept or are you focused on this one for now?

Joel Timmons
It’s going to be performing and doing press stuff for this record. I’m heading to Nashville the day after tomorrow to play a show. My wife—she’s also a musician—has a listening party for her new record. So it’s coming right in the tail of mine. Part of my going to bluegrass camp is to get good enough that maybe she’ll hire me in her band when her record comes out. I’m also touring with an artist named Maya de Vitry. She’s a Nashville songwriter I met when I was living there. We’ve got a bunch of West Coast tour dates and more throughout the summer. My band, Sol Driven Train, is guys I’ve known since childhood here in Charleston. We have a scattering of shows—next ones are in Key West, Florida.

Michael Frampton
I’d love to get your opinion on the music scene in general. There’s a lot of talk about AI and AI-written music. Are you experiencing any of that or is it all hearsay?

Joel Timmons
I’ve heard some pretty funny AI songs. It’s getting pretty good. I’m simultaneously terrified and fascinated with AI. I use ChatGPT. I’ve resisted using it for songwriting, though I think it would be a brilliant songwriting partner. But I’ve used it to write difficult emails, or the other day I was doing a TV thing, and it helped me sequence my record. I asked it, “Here are the songs, and a little note about each—give me five different sequencing possibilities.” I didn’t use any of them, but it suggested putting one song first that I never would’ve thought of, and I thought, “What does that mean?” It just generates ideas I wouldn’t think of—really rapidly.

Joel Timmons
As far as generative songs and recordings—I’m sure it’s going to get perceptively good at some point. It’s not quite there yet, but it’s pretty funny. My wife played me this AI bluegrass song the other day—something about Ricky Skaggs in outer space. Very strange, but it had a banjo roll in there and hit the elements. Every field is going to be affected.

Michael Frampton
The music industry’s been through a lot. When you were getting into music, a lot of musicians were making money off CDs. Now those musicians spent all that money, and they’ve got to go back on tour.

Joel Timmons
Totally. Hootie and the Blowfish are a Charleston band that were absolutely blowing up in the early ’90s—when CDs were at their peak. Multi-platinum Cracked Rear View. Darius is still out there. I don’t think he spent all his money, but he’s still touring, doing country. Mark Bryan’s still super active in the Charleston scene. But yeah, I definitely missed that boat. I’ve been a live performer my whole career. That’s how I’ve managed to make it work. The recordings support that and help capture the songs, but most of the revenue has come from face-to-face, old school.

Michael Frampton
Which I don’t think AI will be able to replicate.

Joel Timmons
Unless you’re thinking Westworld.

Michael Frampton
No, I think that’s a long way off—robots as jukeboxes in bars that can play any song. But not just a jukebox—a mechanical robot that physically plays drums, guitar, etc.

Joel Timmons
Chuck E. Cheese used to do that, but they just played recordings. Still, I think you want to see a real person.

Michael Frampton
I think so. That’s a life transmission of heart and soul.

Joel Timmons
Like Rick Beato tried to quantize a John Bonham beat—it sounded terrible.

Michael Frampton
Yeah.

Joel Timmons
There are drummers whose feel and groove you just can’t replicate.

Michael Frampton
That vibe of a band like Led Zeppelin can’t be recreated.

Joel Timmons
You could program it—dump all Bonham’s tracks into an AI, and it would get the tone and feel. But it wouldn’t be new. And it wouldn’t drink all the beer.

Michael Frampton
Are you a fan of Crowded House?

Joel Timmons
Yeah. Absolutely.

Michael Frampton
What did Tom Petty mean to you?

Joel Timmons
Man, I love Tom Petty. I saw him in high school at the Coliseum in Charleston. What a songwriter. The sound was bad that night, and the performance seemed a little lackluster, so I didn’t have a great impression of the live show. I’ve seen videos since and I know he was a fantastic live performer, and his band—one of the best ever. But as a 16-year-old, I was a little unimpressed. Still—I love Tom Petty. That Wildflowers album—maybe my favorite.

Michael Frampton
It’s special.

Joel Timmons
Yeah.

Michael Frampton
Where can people go to find out more about you and listen to your music?

Joel Timmons
I’m on all the streaming services. My name’s Joel Timmons. joeltimmons.com is my website—that’s the main portal. I’m a reluctant user of Instagram—that’s about my only social media—but I’m on there pretty regularly.

Michael Frampton
Awesome. I’ll put links to everything—your website, your Spotify profile, etc.—in the show notes. Joel, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it, man.

Joel Timmons
Michael, thanks a lot. I appreciate you having me on.

Michael Frampton
Cool. Alright.

118 Joel Timmons on Surfing, Songwriting, and Soulful Journeys

For the passionate surfer—whether you're a weekend warrior, a surf dad, or an older surfer—this podcast is all about better surfing and deeper stoke. With expert surf coaching, surf training, and surfing tips, we’ll help you catch more waves, refine your paddling technique, and perfect your pop up on a surfboard. From surf workouts to handling wipeouts, chasing bigger waves, and mastering surf technique, we’re here to make sure you not only improve but truly enjoy surfing more—so you can get more out of every session and become a wiser surfer. Go from Beginner or intermediate Surfer to advanced.

What happens when a lifelong connection to the ocean turns into a mission to surf every single day through winter?

Whether you're a surfer, an ocean lover, or someone chasing consistency in your passions, this episode dives deep into the transformative power of daily dedication and the personal growth that comes from truly connecting with the ocean. If you've ever wondered how doing something every day could reshape your mindset, this is for you.

• Hear how DJ Morris turned his childhood love of the ocean into a thriving surf school and daily surfing ritual.

• Discover the surprising challenges and benefits of surfing every day through a New Zealand winter.

• Learn the biggest beginner mistakes in surfing—and how to actually pick the right board for your skill level and local waves.

Tune in now to get inspired by DJ’s story of ocean connection, consistency, and the joy of sharing surfing with others—this episode might just change the way you approach your own passions.

Follow Dee Jay on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deejaymorris/

Hawkes Bay Surf School: https://www.facebook.com/HawkesBaySurfSchool/

Song - Fernweh By Nachur

Key Points

• Surfing every day during winter has led to a deeper connection with the ocean and improved surfing skills for DJ Morris.

• DJ Morris has been using a 4/3 wetsuit for the first time this winter, which has helped him adapt to the cold conditions.

• DJ Morris has noticed a significant improvement in his surfing style and ability to connect with the ocean due to his daily surfing routine.

• DJ Morris emphasizes the importance of matching the right surfboard to a beginner's skill level to avoid frustration and enhance learning.

• DJ Morris discusses the transition from being a passionate surfer to a surf instructor, highlighting the energy and satisfaction of teaching others to surf.

• DJ Morris shares his experience as a former lifeguard, including the challenges and emotional toll of searching for drowning victims.

• DJ Morris mentions that the surf school is busy and continues to offer lessons through the winter, despite the cold conditions.

• DJ Morris provides information on how to follow his daily surfing journey and the surf school's social media presence. 

Outline

Introduction to DJ Morris

• DJ Morris is a guest on the Surf Mastery Podcast, sharing their journey and experiences in surfing.

• DJ Morris is a surf coach at the local Hawke's Bay Surf School and can be followed on Instagram at DJ Morris.

DJ Morris's Surfing Journey

• DJ Morris started surfing properly around the age of 10, initially introduced to the ocean through surf lifesaving at age 7.

• DJ Morris's first memorable surfing experience was catching a green wave on a Minnie Mouse longboard provided by a friend's dad.

• Surfing is currently a significant part of DJ Morris's life, serving as both a source of income and an outlet.

Surfing Every Day in Winter

• DJ Morris set a goal to surf every day throughout the New Zealand winter to deepen their connection with the ocean.

• This challenge was documented on social media to maintain accountability.

• DJ Morris has been using a 4/3mm wetsuit for the first time, having only worn a 5/4mm previously.

• DJ Morris has not yet resorted to wearing gloves or a hoodie, managing with earplugs and a beanie.

Impact of Consistency on Surfing

• DJ Morris believes that surfing every day has helped them achieve a perfect flow state and improve their surfing style.

• DJ Morris has noticed changes in their surfing approach, including a better understanding of tides, wind, and wave patterns.

• DJ Morris emphasizes the importance of patience and observation in surfing, rather than rushing.

DJ Morris's Relationship with the Ocean

• DJ Morris has a long-standing relationship with the ocean, influenced by their family's history as fishermen.

• DJ Morris worked as a lifeguard, gaining a deep respect for the ocean's power and unpredictability.

• DJ Morris describes several challenging experiences as a lifeguard, including searching for drowning victims.

Transition to Teaching Surfing

• DJ Morris transitioned from surfing as a passion to teaching it professionally, finding joy in helping others learn to surf.

• DJ Morris has learned to adapt their teaching style to better suit beginners, emphasizing patience and proper technique.

• DJ Morris highlights the importance of matching beginners with the right type of surfboard for their skill level.

Common Mistakes of Beginner Surfers

• DJ Morris notes that beginners often rush their learning process and may choose inappropriate surfboards for their skill level.

• DJ Morris advises beginners to start with foam boards or longboards before progressing to high-performance shortboards.

Future Plans for the Surf School

• The surf school, run by DJ Morris, is preparing for a busy summer with school lessons and private lessons.

• The surf school is in the process of creating a website, currently operating primarily through their Facebook page.

Social Media and Contact Information

• DJ Morris can be followed on Instagram at DJ Morris (D-E-J-A-Y Morris) for updates on their surfing journey.

• The Hawke's Bay Surf School can be found on Instagram and Facebook under the handle HB Surf School.

Transcription

DJ Morris
I reckon it's got me into like this perfect flow state on surfing, and I wanted to get out and get that connection properly in tune with it.

Michael Frampton
Welcome back or welcome to the Surf Mastery Podcast, the podcast that helps passionate, lifelong surfers to catch more waves, surf with more speed, style and grace, and to gain wisdom and confidence in the water. I am your host, Michael Frampton, and that was a couple of quotes from today's guest, DJ Morris. DJ Morris. And this interview was done at the end of winter last year, where DJ had a goal of surfing every day throughout the New Zealand winter. In this episode we will hear about DJ's story of ocean connection and, of course, consistency, and we discover the surprising challenges and benefits of surfing every day through a New Zealand winter. DJ is a surf coach here at the local Hawke's Bay Surf School, and you can follow DJ's story on Instagram at DJ Morris, which is D-E-E-J-A-Y Morris. Links to everything in the show notes, as always, and without further ado I shall fade in my conversation with DJ Morris. When did you start surfing?

DJ Morris
Started surfing probably around like properly going out around the age of 10. So I actually started in surf lifesaving when I was seven. And that got me not introduced to the ocean, but just got me confident in the waves and that, and then ended up, yeah, going from those long paddleboards into a short board that someone found on the beach, I think had been fixed up. Yeah. It was an old season board and the nose had actually been snapped off and they had fixed it by just rounding the nose. And then gave me that a whack and yeah, fell in love with it. Yeah, so that was about 10 years old. And then kept going. And that was just out here. That was at Waimarama. So I grew up at Waimarama, still living at Waimarama. Have moved around a bit. But yeah, back there raising a family.

Michael Frampton
Do you remember like the first time you caught like a green wave? Yeah. Like really?

DJ Morris
Yeah. I definitely remember that. It actually wasn't even on that board that I was talking about. It was on a, so my dad used to manage bars and run nightclubs and he had a mate that had a Lion Red longboard or mini mal. Mini mal. Yeah. And I remember him being like, oh, you gotta come out of the whitewash and come right out the back. And it wasn't, it mustn't have been that big. Felt big. And then he pushed me in on it, and I just remember that feeling like, whoa, okay. Did it. And then actually paddled that board back out to him so I could do it again. Yeah.

And what does surfing mean to you now? Surfing means everything to me. Like, at the moment, it's—well, it's every day. And then I'm part owner with Bronson Primer in the surf school, Hawke's Bay Surf School. So it's my income and it's my outlet and, yeah, I'm focused in on it, like super focused in on it at the moment. Yeah. Yeah. Just loving it. So every day at the moment.

Tell us about that. Yeah, so surfing every day of winter, it wasn't even meant to be like this thing that it's kind of turned into. It was just kind of a goal for myself to more connect with the ocean and, 'cause I'm doing the surf lessons, I wanted to get out and get that connection properly in tune with it, and teaching people how to get in that connection. And I thought, well, through winter, I'm not the biggest fan of like cold weather in the winter here. So I was like, I'll make a challenge for myself. But then I got real into like documenting it.

And I put it out on social media and that was for like—how can I explain it—to make it accountable? Yeah. So if I did stop, people might reach out and be like, hey, you didn't even make it. So that kept it going, but then it got easier and easier. Like, well, it hasn't been hard yet. Because I love surfing and I love getting out there. There's been a couple of dicey days that were like, yeah, oh, I'm not even gonna make it out where there was no back to get out to. So I just grabbed the foam top and jumped on a couple of little ones on the inside.

But yeah, surfing every day of winter, it's been awesome. Yeah. Day 81 today.

Day 81. So what, technically there's 90 days?

Yeah. Yeah. Technically. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Going through it.

Michael Frampton
Oh cool. And what is it, getting colder and colder as you go?

DJ Morris
The water—it has, but then like, I dunno if I'm getting used to it more, but there's like colder places like Te Awanga, for example. That little outlet of the river, that's real cold. Yep. And then I surfed a couple of times at Perfume Point off Napier. Yep. And yeah, that was freezing. But the wetsuits that we have now are mean. Yeah. Like can't beat them. Rocking those 4/3s, booties. It's my second season ever in my life in booties. Yeah. First season was last year and I was like, didn't know if I was onto it. And just a different feel, eh? Like I know. I liked feeling the board. Yeah. And then, yeah. Put them on and yeah. Yeah. You get to a certain age and your feet just start hurting in the cold. Like it's, you can't not wear them.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. That's definitely it. Yeah. Wait, you gone gloves?

DJ Morris
I didn't wanna put that one—gloves yet? Age? No gloves yet? No. Gloves and hoodies messed me up. Even I've, I've only just gotten used to the earplugs.

Michael Frampton
Hmm. I don't hear yourself. Do you wear earplugs?

DJ Morris
Yeah, I wear earplugs. If I don't, I'm so prone to ear infection, so I'm just used to them now.

Michael Frampton
Oh yeah. I wear the surfers ones so you can still hear.

DJ Morris
Yeah. Yeah. I got those ones. It's not the same. No. And it does take a bit of getting used to. Yeah. But, um, yeah. And my hearing's bad, like already, so when I've got those in and people are talking to me, I'm like, yep. I'm like screaming at them.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. You could try the Docks plugs. Have you seen those? You could try those. Yeah. They've, they've vented. So they don't—what I find is that it's not about stopping all of the water. It's about stopping the pressure of the water going in. So there, there's these ones called vented Docks, and they've got a little hole in them so you can actually hear pretty good.

DJ Morris
Oh true. And they let a little bit of water in, but there's no, like lots of—there's no pressure and no lots of water going in. Yeah. Those do okay for me as well. But, um, yeah, no, earplugs are just a habit for me now. You get used to it, nice sort of thing. Yeah. But yeah, slowly getting used to it, so yep. It's good.

Michael Frampton
You get to know the next age bracket is when you have to wear gloves when it's cold. Otherwise your hands just hurt. Stop moving.

DJ Morris
Yeah. Luckily I've surfed in like colder times where I remember my hands freezing up. This winter has been—like everybody's saying that it's been like quite a wet, bad winter, and I'm like, man, it's been mint for me. I don't know. Yeah. Just in a different flow of things, I guess.

Michael Frampton
So every, every day this winter. And has anyone joined you? Anyone jumped on the bandwagon?

DJ Morris
No, not really. No joining me to come every day, but heaps of people I've been surfing with. Yeah. Yeah. There's a couple of local guys out at WA that I kind of rope in when it gets to a decent size and I'm like, I don't really wanna surf by myself. And I go jump around there and be like, you guys want to come out? They're like, yeah, as a kid. I'm like, yeah, it's real good. But yeah, it's been fun. Yeah, definitely been fun.

Michael Frampton
What do you think that consistency does for your surfing?

DJ Morris
Oh man, I was talking to someone about this. I reckon it's got me into like this perfect flow state on surfing. And the way that this has been moving—going on TV, which is weird—it's just hooked people into it. And then, yeah, but with this surfing side, I've definitely seen a different style come out of myself because I've been changing boards up quite a lot at the moment. And I've been surfing, like to myself, real good. I don't know. It's just, yeah, like I said, connecting. Especially with the ocean and that and knowing where to be. Like I used to kind of rush surfs, like it would be on a timeline or I'd jump out just because there's a wave that I've seen. But now I can just walk down to the beach and be like, oh yeah, that looks like a good little spot. Sit there, watch it. And then even days where it's like, okay, I gotta get this done 'cause I've got other stuff to do, I can now time it like, oh yeah, I know this tide, the wind's doing this. So that connection's really helped.

Michael Frampton
Mm. Yeah. 'Cause you get in tune with the tide, the banks.

DJ Morris
Yeah. The wind. And you just—and I can see the banks moving. Yeah. It's crazy. Like different little peaks and that. So it's been—yeah. Definitely helped my surfing.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. It's like a long-term relationship, surfing.

DJ Morris
Yeah, it is. Yeah. Finally got it back.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. But no, the longer you stick with it, the more effort you put in, the more it gives back, you know?

DJ Morris
Yeah. That's it. Yeah. It's been cool, like going to just beaches along in Hawke's Bay and just, yeah, finding that right wave. And people even messaging me like, oh, there's a wave coming over here. We'll be surfing today? Yeah, I'm going out now. Okay, let's go find it.

Michael Frampton
Oh, cool.

DJ Morris
Yeah.

Michael Frampton
How would you describe your relationship to the ocean?

DJ Morris
I've got a long relationship with the ocean. I love it. I can't be away from it too long, even if it is just a flat body of ocean. No swell. I grew up around it, obviously my whole life, but my dad and my granddad were fishermen. So I live off it as well, like during the—well now during the summer. Love seafood, love fish, gather from it. And then now my business is in it. So I spend a lot of time with it and then respect it as well, like a lot. Because I know, as my first job I was a lifeguard, so I know what it can take from us and what it can give. So, you know, I love, love the ocean.

Michael Frampton
Was any gnarly experiences as a lifeguard?

DJ Morris
Yeah, like we had a few. We never had drownings—like we saw them drowning and then they drowned. It was just like searching for bodies that had been. And that's pretty gnarly. Like, you know that someone's out there, but it's been too long for them to be alive, so you know that they're probably gone. But then you've got like the family there that are holding on hope and you kind of want to give them hope. But you know, an hour out there in that condition—yeah. Unless they're on the beach somewhere lost, they're definitely gone. And yeah, you grab your fins and your tube and you have to go out. Or like when I first started, 'cause I was the rookie, you jump in the water with your fins and tube. And you're just floating and there's other guys in the boat and you're just sitting out like, I wanna find them but I don't want to touch them.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. Oh, that's heavy.

DJ Morris
Yeah. But then beach crashes—oh well, yeah. People, uh, not crashes—people running into the water and there's like holes or a sandbar and just banging their knees out and like coming up and you're like, oh yeah.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. How long did you do that for?

DJ Morris
So that was my first paid job. I did it—so I used to compete in it. So I did the boards and did the swimming. Then really got into the IRB, so the racing boats. It was just a bit more adrenaline really and real fun. Had a lot of mates that we all did it together. So I think I kind of left when I was around 18, 19. So I did it for—yeah, probably a good 10 years.

Michael Frampton
Mm-hmm.

DJ Morris
And then surfing kind of took over, kept that relationship going with the ocean.

Michael Frampton
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

DJ Morris
I went straight into surfing. And just kept that up. Yeah. But then I kind of dropped out for a while as well. Some of us do. I went into the hospitality scene and that kind of took over majority of, well, a good seven to eight years.

Michael Frampton
Yeah.

DJ Morris
And I was like on and off surfing. So I was, oh yeah, go out for a wave. But kind of lost that fitness level. Was definitely it. Doing late nights and then, yeah, everything that comes with hospitality.

Michael Frampton
Yeah.

DJ Morris
So, yeah. Didn't lose touch with the ocean, but definitely lost like the flow of it. Yeah. And just, yeah, it was kind of, if I was around it, I would surf. Not like hunting a swell.

Michael Frampton
Yep. And now it's every day obviously. And you've also bought into the surf school.

DJ Morris
Yeah.

Michael Frampton
What was that transition like, going from surfing being a passion to then teaching it for a living?

DJ Morris
Like, I helped them out during summers for probably two years. So I got a taste of it then. And it's, yeah, like it's pretty cool as you know, like teaching someone how to surf. Just the energy and the water when people are like catching their own wave and being able to stand up and finally—it's like one of those things, when you really wanna do something, and they're the people that are coming to the beach. And then they finally do it, it's like an energy wave just comes over you. But it was a cool transition. It's been, yeah, awesome.

Michael Frampton
What has it taught you about your own surfing?

DJ Morris
Probably gaining that connection, seeing how stoked they are just to be in the water, catching anything. And then you kind of pick up little tips. Sometimes you're just in the flow of things and you're teaching them something and then you're like, oh man, I need to do that a little bit more. You know? It's, yeah, you're analyzing them and then once you go and do something and you're like, I've said to someone to do that and I'm not doing it myself. Yeah. Like, just breathe, relax, you know, things—little things.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. It's a reflection of what you need. You're always teaching yourself in some way.

DJ Morris
Oh yeah, definitely.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. Yeah. And you mentioned boards—what board are you riding at the moment?

DJ Morris
At the moment I'm riding this twin fin, J-Dub 5’8”. Like it's real thick, real easy to paddle. It's been like a hand-me-down. Well, it was made for one of our mates, Damien. Then Bronson got it and then was like, this is too short. I was like, I'll give it a go. It was like perfect for Te Awanga.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. I imagine when you first started working with the surf school as an employee and now fast forward, what, four years is it?

DJ Morris
Yeah, been four years.

Michael Frampton
What's changed in the way you teach an absolute beginner?

DJ Morris
Probably the confidence in teaching. Like when I first started, it was kind of like, okay, I know how to surf and I know what I'm doing in the ocean. But then it was kind of relaying it to them in a way that they get it. Because I'm trying to teach—like you say, you teach yourself everything—but I'm saying it how I probably wanted to hear it, where it needs to be, not that it's dumbed down or anything, but put into terms where it's go slower. Where I'd just be like, get up, get up, get up, you can do it. You know? Then it's like, actually I'm shouting at them to stand up quicker, where it's like, okay, just breathe. Take your time. Get your balance first. Stand up.

Michael Frampton
Mm-hmm.

DJ Morris
So I think that's changed a bit. The way that I teach them is how it's kind of changed into it. And then yeah, it's been pretty cool showing them how to catch waves, surf, obviously.

Michael Frampton
What's the biggest mistake that you see the beginner, that early learner, make?

DJ Morris
Biggest mistake? Like when we are teaching them or even when you just see them?

Michael Frampton
Both.

DJ Morris
Like sometimes rushing and then kind of confidence level to what their level actually is—and probably boards. Like we were talking about. The wrong board. You just need to pick the right—well, yeah, pick the right board is probably the biggest one. I'm trying to think. Actually, last time I was seeing somebody learning, they go hard out and get, you know, performance boards from the shops that are selling them here. Like, I reckon surf shops would sell a whole lot more boards if it was for the waves that we've got here.

Michael Frampton
Yep. I agree.

DJ Morris
But the industry just gives them the latest.

Michael Frampton
Yeah, whatever John John's riding, the industry pumps to them and yeah, someone comes in—I need a board—and they're like...

DJ Morris
And I was a sucker for that when I was younger.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. We all were.

DJ Morris
I was like, go in and be like, oh, that one. Then I'd paddle it out. But it was a lot lighter on the feet. But yeah, for the waves that we get here—like even when we are sending our students to go find a board and, you know, they've not just mastered the foamy, but you can tell that they don't want a foamy—we try push it always. Especially kids. Like kids, they'll probably get the foamy, but someone that's done, say, a few lessons with us and is like, what proper board do I go get, we lean them into a nice fish, big long, or even a mini mal.

Michael Frampton
Yep.

DJ Morris
Longboard. And say, start there and then start dropping down. And then you see them come back out and they're, yeah, they're on a high-performance board. You're like, and he's like, oh yeah, but he said it's like six-seven. Like, okay, I don't think I can catch waves on that board yet today.

Michael Frampton
I know what you mean.

DJ Morris
Yeah. But yeah, and especially with the level of their surfing. So you're matching a high-performance board? Well, not—yeah. I don't know what they—like I said, I'm a little bit different in the way of the surf culture. I like to pick up a surfboard and feel it. And still looking at dimensions and what it's doing.

Michael Frampton
Mm.

DJ Morris
And the new ones—ah, what is it? Liters. Liters.

Michael Frampton
Yeah.

DJ Morris
They're like, oh, you know, but I'm this weight and I've got this many liters. And I'm like, well, where are the liters? 'Cause I don't know how you're gonna paddle it.

Michael Frampton
Yep. I know what you mean. It's kind of a guide. I think liters is a guide for performance shortboards.

DJ Morris
Yeah. Kind of. Oh, is it gonna help? Is it gonna float me? Kind of guide.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. Yeah. That's about it.

DJ Morris
Yeah. It's irrelevant otherwise.

Michael Frampton
And you're right. Most people—it's so funny. You go to TA and it's waist high and there's a bunch of kids on performance shortboards like pumping and not catching waves, jumping up and down.

DJ Morris
And then, mind you, I was one of those.

Michael Frampton
Screaming, "Whee, there's a wave!" Just kidding.

DJ Morris
You come back frustrated and you're like, oh man, should I go give them this one? And then, yeah, get out there.

Michael Frampton
We've all been there.

DJ Morris
Yeah. But yeah, now a bit more foam is your friend.

Michael Frampton
Oh yeah, definitely.

DJ Morris
No, yeah. That's super fun.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. And those soft tops, I mean, they are fun, man. And they're pretty—nowadays, they're made pretty well.

DJ Morris
Yeah. And now it's got me, when I'm on a shortboard, thinking about, oh, I could do a turn there, but I'm just like gliding along the wave past that section. I'm like, oh, what did I just do? Damn it. Okay. But just getting that—the line, eh—finding that perfect line and, yeah, just feeling comfortable on the wave. Especially, I love getting on bigger waves now. You know, 'cause it's been quite small lately. Today was a good little surf. But you get on—say I'm on the foamy here at knee-height waves and you're just cruising. Then you get onto a proper wave and see it stand up in front of you and you kind of just have that confidence of just standing there, just watching it. Oh, well, I find now I'm just—yeah, it's bigger, bigger, bigger. Ah, that's the one. I might not even turn on it. Get to the little end section to a little whack and then it's, that was sick.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. That was done.

DJ Morris
That's all it is. Surfing.

Michael Frampton
Yeah.

DJ Morris
Yeah. That's all it needs to be.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. It's just the pure joy of being on a wave.

DJ Morris
Right. That's enough.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. That's it.

DJ Morris
Yeah. Because that's the connection to the ocean. You're waiting for it. You're on a wave, searching for it, standing there.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. Sometimes it's all it needs to be.

DJ Morris
Yeah. That's that.

Michael Frampton
What's—what does the future hold this summer for the surf school?

DJ Morris
We're pretty busy. So we do school lessons as well. The schools come out and we take them. And then we had a real good last summer. It actually hasn't stopped, so I'm still doing lessons through the winter with people. So it's been cool. Bit different. Because you have to explain that it's cold, real cold, and they get a shock. But everybody's been amped in it. And the waves have been reasonably good. You know, we're having those offshore winds as well. And yeah, tides are all matching up to the weekends, so it's been real fun.

Michael Frampton
That's good.

DJ Morris
Yeah. But the summer, hopefully we are pumping. Last summer was real good. There were some big days in there. Big days in the water.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. Just staying salty really?

DJ Morris
Yeah.

Michael Frampton
So, is there a website for the surf school?

DJ Morris
Not at the moment. So it's just getting built. But we run our Hawke's Bay Surf School Facebook page.

Michael Frampton
Okay.

DJ Morris
That's Facebook page.

Michael Frampton
That's what happens here in New Zealand. People don't have websites. They just have a Facebook page.

DJ Morris
Yeah. It's just kind of easier to control at the moment. But yeah, the website's literally being made as we speak. So that'll come out.

Michael Frampton
Oh yeah. It'll be—it's just down to Hawke's Bay Surf School when it's out?

DJ Morris
Okay. Is it Hawke's Bay spelled out or HB? Hawke's Bay spelled out. Yep. But then our Instagram page is different because someone's got Hawke's Bay Surf School. So we’re just trying to get it back now. But it might've been made up and now no one knows the password before me.

Michael Frampton
Oh okay. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Well, if someone goes on Facebook and searches Hawke's Bay Surf School, you'll come up.

DJ Morris
We'll be there.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. And on Instagram it's HB Surf School.

DJ Morris
Yeah.

Michael Frampton
And then what if people wanna follow your surf everyday journey and stuff?

DJ Morris
So that's on DJ Morris, just on Instagram or Facebook.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. And that's D-E-E-J-A-Y?

DJ Morris
D-E-E-J-A-Y.

Michael Frampton
Okay.

DJ Morris
Yep. Morris, M-O-R-R-I-S.

Michael Frampton
Alright, cool man.

DJ Morris
Yeah.

Michael Frampton
I'm sure there'll be people that want to check that out and come and get a lesson as well.

DJ Morris
Yeah.

Michael Frampton
Try surfing if you're a local listener and haven't tried it, and yeah, Waimarama is the perfect beach for it.

DJ Morris
Yeah, it really is.

Michael Frampton
Alright, well thanks for joining us man.

DJ Morris
Awesome.

Michael Frampton
Thank you, appreciate it.

DJ Morris
This has been awesome.

117 Surf Every Day: How DJ Morris Found Flow in Winter Waves

For the passionate surfer—whether you're a weekend warrior, a surf dad, or an older surfer—this podcast is all about better surfing and deeper stoke. With expert surf coaching, surf training, and surfing tips, we’ll help you catch more waves, refine your paddling technique, and perfect your pop up on a surfboard. From surf workouts to handling wipeouts, chasing bigger waves, and mastering surf technique, we’re here to make sure you not only improve but truly enjoy surfing more—so you can get more out of every session and become a wiser surfer. Go from Beginner or intermediate Surfer to advanced

Are you raising boys and wondering how to guide them through risk, resilience, and real conversations—without losing your mind or your connection with them?

Navigating the journey from boyhood to manhood can feel like walking a tightrope—especially in today’s digital, high-pressure world. This episode offers a refreshing, deeply insightful look into parenting boys with empathy, science, and solid boundaries—while still letting them crash, climb, and surf their way to growth.

• Learn the three foundational rules every parent should use to help kids make better choices and build integrity.

• Discover how movement, like a simple walk or shooting hoops, can open powerful pathways to communication with your son.

• Hear real-life stories of parenting wins (and fails) that show how warmth and structure build trust and resilience for life.

• How surfing helps to shape good men.

Hit play now to discover how you can be the calm, connected parent your son turns to—no matter what.

https://www.maggiedent.com

Key Points

• Advocating for three foundational rules for children to make better choices.

• Importance of resilience, risk, and nature in parenting boys as highlighted by Maggie Dent.

• Discussion on effective communication strategies, especially through small chats, for guiding children.

• Highlighting the importance of allowing boys to experience the unpredictability of life and the value of nature play.

• Discussing the role of surfing in developing deep friendships and its impact on mental health.

• Exploring the concept of masculinity beyond societal expectations and the importance of emotional expression.

• Sharing insights on grieving processes and the importance of safe spaces for emotional expression among men.

• Emphasizing the significance of unconditional love and safety in parenting. 

Outline

Surfing and its impact on boys

• Maggie Dent discussed the positive impact of surfing on boys, highlighting that it teaches them to deal with outcomes they cannot control

• Surfing was mentioned as a way to build resilience and frustration tolerance in boys

• Maggie shared personal anecdotes about her sons and their love for surfing, and how it helped them reset and regulate their emotions

Parenting boys with backbone, heart, and resilience

• Maggie Dent emphasized the importance of raising boys with backbone, heart, and resilience

• She discussed the need for parents to guide boys through risk and resilience, and to have real conversations with them

• Maggie suggested three foundational rules for parents to help their kids make better choices: be aware that every choice has a consequence, ensure choices do not hurt oneself or others, and do not damage the world around

• She advocated for warm, connected, and responsive parenting, emphasizing the importance of boundaries and consequences

Communication and listening in parenting

• Maggie Dent highlighted the importance of effective communication and listening in parenting

• She shared her experience as a teacher and counselor, emphasizing the value of being a safe and non-judgmental listener for children

• Maggie advised parents to resist the urge to immediately solve their children's problems, allowing them to develop problem-solving skills

• She suggested taking a walk or engaging in physical activity to facilitate conversations and create a safe space for children to open up

Dealing with teenage behavior and challenges

• Maggie Dent discussed the challenges of parenting teenagers, including their tendency towards risky behavior and impulsivity

• She shared personal anecdotes about her sons' experiences with injuries, accidents, and emotional challenges

• Maggie emphasized the importance of maintaining a warm and loving relationship with teenagers, even as they push boundaries and seek independence

• She advised parents to be patient, empathetic, and understanding, and to avoid shaming or punishing teenagers for their mistakes

Navigating the digital world and online safety

• Maggie Dent addressed the challenges of parenting in the digital age, including the exposure of children to harmful content online

• She discussed the importance of monitoring children's online activities and having conversations about online safety and appropriate behavior

• Maggie suggested limiting children's access to smartphones and social media, and using monitoring apps to keep them safe

• She emphasized the need for parents to be aware of the potential dangers of sextortion and the importance of teaching children about consent and respect in relationships

Masculinity and men's mental health

• Maggie Dent discussed her views on masculinity, rejecting the concept of 'toxic masculinity' and emphasizing the importance of men's emotional vulnerability and connection

• She shared her experiences working with men and highlighted the need for men to process grief and trauma in their own way

• Maggie advocated for men's groups and safe spaces for men to express their emotions and connect with others

• She emphasized the importance of men being present and involved in their children's lives and expressing love and affection towards their partners and children

Transcription

Maggie Dent
And I think that's one of the beautiful things, you know, why I talk about why surfing was so good for the boys, because... They couldn't control the outcome. I think if every family had it and we came back to just three rules instead of too many rules is that.

Michael Frampton
Commonly known as the queen of common sense, Maggie Dent has become one of Australia's favorite parenting authors, educators, and podcasters. Welcome back to the Surf Mastery Podcast. I am your host, Michael Frampton, and today's episode, a little bit of a different one. It's all about parenting. So if you're not a parent or an expecting parent, this might not be the episode for you. But if you are... Stay tuned. Maggie raised four surfers, four boys, four surfing boys. And she is a parenting expert with a podcast and 10 books. So really cool conversation. We talk about raising and guiding boys through risk resilience, real conversations. We talk about the three foundational rules that every parent should use to help their kids to make better choices. Plus much more. This episode is for any parent, not just surfers. So please share this episode with friends that could use it. A little bit of parenting help, and we all can. Without further ado, I will fade in my conversation with Maggie Dent. Excellent. Thank you so much. Nice to meet you too. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

Maggie Dent
Total pleasure since it's something I know a little bit about. Heh.

Michael Frampton
Surfing and boys.

Maggie Dent
Resilience, risk, injuries, you name it, I've got it all. I live in Jerringong, which is south of Sydney, right on the coast of Cook. So my lawyer son lives here. My doctor son lives in Pottsville, just south of the Queensland border. One lives near Manly. And the other one is in the Margaret River area and his favourite beach is the one where three people have been eaten by white pointer sharks. Nice. And he said, like I said, you never see any of my sons happier than... After sift.

Michael Frampton
Yep. Where the good waves are is often where those big creatures are as well, sadly.

Maggie Dent
Yeah, and I think, you know, early on, as every, I think every probably woman, even more so than a man. That was, you know, I had to really give myself some really strong talking to's because I...The chances are you get killed by mosquitoes at far higher. They came with me with the stats. I love it with this pragmatism of boys and men. Now look, mozzies kill millions. Donkeys kill more than sharks, Mum. And I had to sit there and go, they're actually right. Put it in perspective, Mark. And then, you know, the other thing they say, I know I'll give you the full story to this one where they came to. So they've come down for Christmas when I lived in Dunsborough, which is near Margaret River. Somebody had been attacked in the area on the Saturday. All four boys got up, put their wetties on, and they're about walking out the door. And I'm looking at the Sunday Times front page story. And they paused and they looked and said, you're okay, Mum. And I said, no, I'm not okay. And they said, well, it's, you know, it's a really rare chance, Mum. And then one of them says, and we'll all die doing something we love. And then the third one, which I thought was the classic, the clown of the family says, anyway, it's not hungry. Ha. Only a mother of four sons would know that.

Michael Frampton
Gosh, how old were they when it happened?

Maggie Dent
Yeah, that was, that would cover 22, 20, 18 and 14.

Michael Frampton
Oh, okay. Yeah. Is that, that sort of 14–15, that's, is that the age where you just, you have to sort of let go?

Maggie Dent
Oh look, you know, and I think it was even before we really had the science to show, I mean, I was a high school teacher, so I taught them, and we all know the age of 14, they turn into kind of Neanderthal apes. Really. There's an awful lot of crazy behavior. 'Cause they're wired to hang out with mates and make 'em laugh and be stupid. And often it's the physicality, which many—often women don't understand. So punching and slapping and wrestling isn't a sign of aggression. It's actually a sign of connection with a lot of boys. So in my English classrooms, there were just days, I'd just be rolling my head going, no dude, that's it. Outside afterwards, right? Can we get on with the English? Oh yeah, miss, sorry, miss. You know, and that whole—they use lightness, laughter, and physicality to try to deal with the incredible stress that they're living with because they haven't got a clue what's going on. They don't know their brain is pruning everything, which means they're even more forgetful, even more poorly organized, even more impulsive, uh, and are wired for risk. When you get the science, you see them through such a different lens, Mike, and I, I loved, you know, I absolutely loved boys in that window, and that was kind of firstly before I had my own, and then even more so after I had my own, 'cause that was my house.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. No, and I, I have three boys. So—

Maggie Dent
How old are yours?

Michael Frampton
Eight, nine, and 12.

Maggie Dent
Wow. Right there. We're on the cusp of that beautiful journey, and please don't listen to all the doomsayers. You know, like I, I probably had, I reckon we worked it out when we had a couple, not long ago, my boys are now, 43, 41, 39, and 34, 35, and they were—we talked about it. We reckon there were five big moments. That were, yeah, that were really scary and a bit frightening and not necessarily involving them. More their mates. They lost a couple of mates in a car accident… mm-hmm, in a cousin, in a plane crash. There were moments where one got diagnosed with type one diabetes, knee reconstructions, crash cars, broken hearts, you name it. When you put it in that perspective, you know that with four boys. So it's not half as bad as the world paints it to be. That's why I've written my latest book. 'Cause if you get a way of communicating—and it doesn't matter if it's girls or boys—that doesn't sound like you're a grown-up who knows everything, that you're a grown-up who just damn cares and can remember how bumpy that ride was, then you know what? They'll turn to you. They'll turn to us. And quite often, it was their—the boys would actually get their mates. They come in some days and say, “Mum, can you talk to him?” And I go, “Why?” And he said, “'Cause he's being a dickhead in class. And he's gonna get in trouble, he's gonna get expelled. Can you just have a bit of a chat, but don't tell him I told you.” And so there is a genuine concern for friendships in that window. And quite often teens are more worried about their friends than they are themselves.

Michael Frampton
Mm-hmm. So it's one of those, you know, I call it a, a bit of a hack is that, you know, check in with how are your friends going as these exams are coming, or are any of your friends vaping? Go by the friend door and there's a more chance the door stays open. If you go straight at them, bang, it's shut. Interesting. So what—so your boys were getting you to talk to their friends. Were you one of the few adults that would actually just listen to them rather than straight away give them advice or something?

Maggie Dent
Yeah, I think I was. I was kind of born to be that lighthouse figure. I can still remember in my boarding school days having chats to my own age group. Making sense of stuff. I don't know—did I grow—was I born old? I don't know. But also being a lighthouse figure while I was teaching, you know, the kids all knew that you can hang around and talk to Mrs. Dent. And also if they were worried about one of their friends, and in actual fact there were a couple that were contemplating suicide that their mates came and told me about. And I was able to actually be there right near that time because where are the safe people that they can turn to? So it's great if we've got a warm, loving relationship with your parents, even though you are wired to push 'em back. Because you're meant to start individuating into being an adult. It doesn't matter, girls or boys—girls start earlier than boys, which again makes boys often look like they're even thicker than they were. It's not their fault. And then as they go forward, is there a safe grown-up? And that really is why I ended up leaving teaching English. And then I became a relief teacher. 'Cause I really was drowning in English marking. So with four sons obviously. So I became the relief supply teacher. So that meant I could say no if someone was sick or—and I loved it 'cause I'm a bit of a, you know, basketball freak. So quite often I liked the phys ed classes the best, because there's not so much sitting, 'cause I'm not good at sitting for long periods of time. Then I realized, anyone can teach 'em how to write a paragraph or an essay, but I don't know. You know, not everyone can do what I can do when they're really struggling. So I did a post-grad diploma in counseling and therapy and set up a counseling and training center, which was in—oh God—1998. Yeah. And that began the whole different journey for me.

And it's been interesting as this book launched because I kind of went back to where I started. So I've locked the gate, 10 books for parents—no more. I might write fiction or something next. But I've had all these messages, you know, via socials 'cause they can find me. And there was a really big feature in Western Australia, which of course embarrasses my sons, but anyone I counseled or taught, they all were reaching out and I just sobbed for the first two weeks because of the gratitude that was coming. Because having that capacity to shut up and really listen, and kind of hear them and see them and validate them, that's something that you can learn. But for some people—and the most exceptional of our teachers and coaches have that ability—mm-hmm. But we can learn it. And I think that’s, you know, it wasn’t hard for me to know how to do it. 'Cause I was such a moody, dark teen myself.

Michael Frampton
So, yeah. Uh, I think as parents, often, I know when my boys—if they come to me with a problem—my initial thought is, here’s the solution. Isn’t it obvious? Yes, you idiot. But I have to tell myself, no, no. Just repeat back to them what they said—like empathy. Just hear them out, let them vent. Then quite often they’ll figure it out themselves or maybe they’ll ask a specific question. But I just always have to stop myself from just giving advice willy-nilly.

Maggie Dent
I know, and it’s because when they’re younger, that’s absolutely valid. Because they’re young and they’re kids. But as they go on this journey, their prefrontal is growing and the capacity to learn things is growing, even not as fast as we’d like. And boys are again, later than girls. But if we keep solving all their problems, we deny the capacity for them to be able to solve their own problems when they leave home. So in other words, we make them even more incapable of living an independent life. And I know it’s so hard, you know, when they do some of the big muck-up that I write about in the book—you know, you find the bong under the bed or there’s vapes or a used condom or whatever. Our number one first reaction as a parent—it’s biologically been proven—is to get really angry.

Michael Frampton
Hmm.

Maggie Dent
And the same will happen if you lose a toddler in the supermarket. Your first reaction is anger, which apparently they don’t really know why, but we do it. And then, so you can imagine what happens with a teenager who’s just realized, or—you know, they know what’s coming. If we come at them with anger, we aren’t going to facilitate that to be a teachable moment, an opportunity for reflection, or giving them the support they need right now. And the big one there is: can you still love me even though I’ve messed up? These are the really big things. So that’s why I keep on going through—you turn up with calmness, even if you have to walk for a few hours to get yourself back into regulation. It’s worth even leaving it 24 hours. And that’s not easy for women. We are biologically wired to have it out right now. Whereas we know that’s the female brain—it goes from fired up to word center. And the boy brain and the male brain goes from fired up to the body, into the body, and then at some point later it could come up into the word center, which is why I advocate so often for taking your son for a walk.

Michael Frampton
Yep.

Maggie Dent
Go for a walk.

Michael Frampton
Yeah.

Maggie Dent
You know, somewhere—if you can feed him, even better. And there’s a beautiful story that came from a dad who heard a podcast I did with Richard Fidler on conversations about this—just connect, and know if they’re hungry, they can’t listen anyway. So he—their 14-year-old boy was getting into so much trouble at school. You know, he was on the verge of getting expelled, he’d already had some suspensions, and they just couldn’t get to the bottom of it. You know, they banned everything and they punished him and it was just awful. And the dad walked in the door and said, “Just heard this lady on the radio. I’m gonna try something different.” She said, “Yeah, the school’s called again.” And he’s just called out, “Hey dude, come for a walk.” The son was very suspicious—as they will be—the first time you start coming on a different angle. “Where did you get this from?” Walked up to the Macca’s, which was a K and a half away. Mm-hmm. They just sat and ate a big bucket of chips and had a smoothie and stuff. And then on the way—halfway on the way home—the boy started to cry. He told his dad that these year 11 boys had been bullying him and they bailed him up when they caught him in the toilets, and they’d said if he dobs, they’re gonna cut him.

Michael Frampton
Mm.

Maggie Dent
And he was able to give it all to his dad. And as he walked, you know, his dad held him and said, “No mate, that’s not gonna happen. We’ve got your back, we’ve got this.” Really. He didn’t even go into anger ‘cause it came from a different space. Right? It just came up, and it was easy to be empathetic. Anyways, he walked in the house, the boy’s called out, “Hi Mum,” and he’s gone to his room. And she said, “What the heck?” And he said, “Who would’ve thought—a walk and a bucket of chips.” Now we’ve got to the bottom of it. And he said that’s a really powerful thing for us to remember. All of those things in it. Can you just sit with me so I can get the courage first? But also the fact that my word center opens much better after movement. I use a basketball hoop—I’m a tragic basketballer. I’d shoot hoops, and then my boys, if I was worried about them—

Michael Frampton
Yeah.

Maggie Dent
Yeah. It could take 20 minutes.

Michael Frampton
Yeah.

Maggie Dent
Yeah. And I can go, “Is everything okay? You look a bit—you sound a bit off.” And, you know, gradually little bits come out. But if I confront him in the kitchen, especially if his brothers were there—

Michael Frampton
Shut down.

Maggie Dent
Yeah. Yeah. And men are the same too. We connect, you know, standing side by side, doing something.

Michael Frampton
Yeah.

Maggie Dent
Not this eyeball stuff.

Michael Frampton
Yes.

Maggie Dent
Yeah. There’s another really big part that I wrote about in From Boys to Men a lot, which I learned from my boys. And you gotta get the timing right. You know, like if they’ve just got out of bed—nah, it’s not a time for a conversation. They’ve got an erection in front of you, that’s not a time. If they’ve got their phone, it’s not a time. If they’re eating, it’s not a time. In school after night, it’s not a time. Getting ready for bed, it’s not a time. If they’re gaming, it’s not a time. You’ve gotta find this window. And quite often that window will be in the car, especially if you wanna have a big conversation, Mike. If you wanna just sow a seed. People keep saying, “I don’t know how to talk to my son about pornography,” or something. We don’t go at it with one big conversation. We go at it with lots of small ones. And a great way to start that conversation—as you’re driving at 110 with only your son in the car, possibly in the back seat—is to say, “Mate, I meant to mention this to you for a while. I’ve just been reading a lot of information about, you know, how many young kids and boys particularly are watching porn. And I just want to tell you that one day I want you to have fabulous sex. But I’m gonna tell you—porn won’t give it to you, mate.” That’s the mic drop. Boom. You say nothing else. You’ve dropped something that you’re gonna go up and pick up later in a different, well-timed moment. So that, you know—otherwise they just—because they can’t get out at 110.

Michael Frampton
That’s good. I like that framing because essentially you’re—that is what they want.

Maggie Dent
Yes.

Michael Frampton
And you’re acknowledging—yeah, of course you want that. And I want that for you too.

Maggie Dent
Yeah, totally right. But that is—that’s seriously not gonna do it for you. And of course I think that one of the things that’s been coming up a lot, which is quite problematic here in Australia—and maybe where you are—is boys who’ve been ranking girls. Now, when I’ve spoken to my boys over the years, and I’ve seen the ranking sheets when I was teaching—45 years ago—but it was “super hot” to “freezing cold.” Whereas now with the influence of pornography and the misogynistic content online, it’s notable. Oh, right. And totally fable. Right? So the language has changed. The intention under it is probably still in the same alignment—that it’s this kind of fun game, “let’s rank the girls,” without recognizing that it can be really, really harmful.

And then the second thing that’s quite problematic at the moment, which AI is now creating opportunities for—you know, where we can take a photo of a girl off her socials and put her in a disgusting, sexualized position—still thinking it’s funny. So that line in the sand is something I talk about a lot, which is: there’s a line in the sand when we’re being kind of funny and trying to back our mates’ life, and there’s a line where it’s actually hurtful and potentially illegal. And I’m gonna have many conversations with you so that you know where the line is in terms of the values of our home.

Michael Frampton
Yeah.

Maggie Dent
Because I want you to be a man who’s proud of himself.

Michael Frampton
Right.

Maggie Dent
Yeah. Yeah. And these choices aren’t gonna set you up on that pathway.

Michael Frampton
Yeah, there’s so many things like that where I’m not quite there with my—he’s 12 still, so we’re on the cusp of talking to some of that stuff. But mostly it’s about—it’s almost like, you know, all of his friends—we live in quite a sort of an okay area, so all of his friends have an iPhone. I’ve only bought him a flip phone two months ago, ‘cause I’m—no. I’m saying no. You can call your friends, but you’re not going on social media, having access to the internet. Not on my watch. So that’s been great. He can now call his friends, but, you know, his friends all have iPhones and they all have PlayStations in their rooms and—yeah.

Maggie Dent
And Mike, you do realize he can sit next to those boys on the school bus.

Michael Frampton
Yes.

Maggie Dent
And so he’s gonna be exposed to it, and he is also gonna feel the peer pressure—feel sort of left out in some sort of way.

Michael Frampton
Yeah.

Maggie Dent
So how do we negotiate that? Because he sees my point of view and he’s seen—I’ve shown him some of Jonathan Haidt’s work and he’s like, “This is how bad it is. You can’t deny this.” And he gets that. 'Cause he wants to—he wants to be an athlete and he wants to look after himself. But he’s also feeling the peer pressure of, “Come around to my house and watch this,” or “Do this.” So how do we negotiate that culturally?

Maggie Dent
We know that not all of it is harmful. And that is, you know, I’m part of the big movement that’s trying to shape those tech companies to just shift those algorithms—because they could change the algorithms tomorrow. That would take the harmful content away from all of our kids under 18.

Michael Frampton
Mm.

Maggie Dent
They wouldn’t see porn, they wouldn’t see the misogynistic stuff. They wouldn’t see it. And so what we’re trying to do by banning it to 16—everything, social media—is that they might go, “God, we’re gonna lose some serious coin here, so let’s just alter the algorithm because we don’t want to lose that market.” Right?

Michael Frampton
Mm.

Maggie Dent
And that’s really—you know, whether we can get there, I don’t know. We know all the difficulties, but banning doesn’t necessarily teach our kids. They’re going to be a digital native. So my challenge to us is, you know, as late as possible—which you’re doing really super well—but also how can they, you know, can they FaceTime their friends on their phone with your phone? So it’s actually not a call—‘cause who calls as a tween or a teen? No, we don’t. Or an app on your phone that you monitor and you keep an eye on so that they’re part of the group. And it needs to be just one—and preferably not Insta or TikTok, both a bit dodgy—but one app that the other families are aware of. So we’re actually gonna monitor one and keep them as safe as we can, knowing what is going on.

And one of the biggest challenges at the moment is it’s not just seeing pornography—it’s the sextortion. Where a 14-year-old boy really thinks it’s a 14-year-old girl that’s flirting with them online. And of course when she asks for the dick pic—you know, every boy wants to show their best friend to somebody who likes them. That’s just a little bit of a thing I cover in my seminars.

If that is a sexual predator, then the shaming that is coming up later—now it’s 94% of boys aged 14 to 17—and we have had boys die by suicide as a sequence of that shaming. So you can see again, those are the conversations if you keep having with your son, he’s aware of what dangers are out there. But also, one day, you know, we are gonna step you forward into this space because you can access fantastic support services on there. There are some—you know, if you’re into music, there are some great music ones that you can have, you know, playlists. If he’s into surfing, he can watch other dudes who are doing stuff. Do you know what I mean?

So while we need to know it’s potential for harm, we need to know it still has a potential for connection, which is a really big part of this journey. But the fact that you’re in that sort of an area, you’re having those conversations, and you are letting him access those things—and he’s already active. If he’s not out there doing some things in real time, then I get worried. If it’s not organized sport, is it riding your bikes? Is it going surfing with friends? Is it—you know, what are we doing in real time? Because I’m extremely concerned about our kids with social anxiety ‘cause they’ve just been in a bedroom.

Michael Frampton
Yes.

Maggie Dent
Staying safe—technically—but no capacity for making great choices in the social context of the world, which also means your capacity to be a resilient, capable, independent human has been compromised. Because those opportunities have been displaced. By the damn phone.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. Well, all three of my boys are—they’re mad on football. They love sports and they’re always out and about and doing that, and they’re very confident. They’ll talk to anyone. So—

Maggie Dent
They’re doing well. They’re doing well in that regard. They happen. Yeah.

Michael Frampton
But my question would be that, like—obviously this—as they get older, they’re gonna get exposed to more and more stuff, especially once they get to high school. And you know, if he doesn’t have a smartphone with access to the internet—

Maggie Dent
Yeah.

Michael Frampton
Someone does. And he’s gonna get exposed to a lot of stuff. So I guess, what’s the overarching principle? Because you can’t be there all the time and you can’t—you also don’t want to be. Right? What’s the overarching principle? If there’s one thing you could give to all parents, what should be consistent throughout the boys’ life?

Maggie Dent
I think it’s a very simple—and it’s a three-rules—that I think if every family had it and we came back to just three rules instead of too many rules is that: you know, as you go forward in life, you’re gonna make choices. And what I want you to be aware of is every choice has a consequence. So I want you to be aware that the choices you make don’t hurt yourself, and they don’t hurt anyone else, and you’re not damaging the world around you. Right? So it’s a call to—yeah, that you’re gonna make some impulsive choices. And if you do, then how are you gonna make it right? That’s what grows into a good human later, is—we are all gonna make mistakes. And we still do. Trust me, I still do. So I’m gonna call it that—ah, that wasn’t a very good choice, was it? Now I need to make it right. And I need to make sure that I’m gonna think about what I might do next time.

So it’s just having those ongoing conversations totally, rather than coming at our kids with the shame, the blame, and the punishment, which is still lingering from last century. We know now it’s not terribly effective. And what it tends to do is create shame inside people. And shame inside people means the inner critic becomes even louder and they can really struggle with this sense of self and their sense of self-worth.

So when we have great humans who create those opportunities—even if you just grab a small chat of something you’re watching on TV—you know, “God, what do you reckon? That wasn’t really consent, was it? They just moved on in, didn’t they?” Just drop these little moments. What happens then if you are safe—we want our kids to know if something happens online or something happens in the real world one day—because it can happen anywhere: at a party, on the way home from school, or one of your friends is doing something really harmful—we want them to turn to us or a significant lighthouse figure.

And so we say to them, “If it’s not me, you know, who else is it?” You’ve got to have a safe landing place on this journey to adulthood. And that—the big line underneath it—is just: no matter what.

Michael Frampton
So…

Maggie Dent
I’m gonna love you no matter what. And your lighthouse figure’s got your back no matter what. But together, we’re gonna work forward through this. Because the most successful people in life have all made mistakes. And it’s not a sign that there’s something wrong with you—it’s a sign you are human. And we all have hard times. So I just want you to know, if I’ve got a hard time, I’m gonna let you guys know so that we can kind of gather together. And that’s a really big message—it’s you’re never on your own.

Because that was the thing when I worked with a number of teens who were contemplating ending their lives—they would say, “No one cares. I don’t matter. And the world would be better off without me.”

Michael Frampton
Hmm.

Maggie Dent
We can fix those.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. Shame is a big, big, big one. And like you alluded to, I think it was passed down from my parents and the parents before that. That’s kind of—that’s the way they did it.

Maggie Dent
That’s it. And there was physical abuse—it was a normal way. If you didn’t, you know, spare the rod, you’re gonna have a horrible child. And fortunately we have the science of child development now that shows that warm, connected, responsive parenting—it’s just not fluffy stuff. It’s what you do in those big moments. Where you—how you hold the boundaries. You don’t clip your kid around the head to get that boundary. You don’t give them a belting if they’re drunk. But you’re coming alongside them to reaffirm that boundary and that there may be a consequence as a result of not being able to do something.

And I love a beautiful example a dad told me—he said he got it off me, the idea came off one of my seminars, which I can’t even remember—but it was you give them three chances. So if they’re leaving their bike—and that’s what this boy was doing—he’d ride home from school, leave his bike straight behind the car. His dad had said to him—and then he’d come home from the seminar—he said, “Mate, I’m gonna give you three goes to make sure you can put that away without me having to do it ‘cause I don’t wanna drive over your bike.”

Anyway, after two goes, it was still dropped, and the boy comes home from school. He says, “Dad, I can’t reach my bike.” He says, “Why is that, mate?” He says, “Yeah, it’s up near the ceiling in the garage.” And he said, “Yeah, yeah, it’s gonna stay there for a bit.” And he says, “Why?” He says, “Remember I had that conversation—that if you—you know—then I’m—well, it’s obvious you can’t do it yet. And I’m worried about your bike and I’m worried about you. So let me know when you are ready to have another go at riding your bike and putting it in a safe place. And I’ll get it down. But I reckon you can have a few days without it.”

Michael Frampton
Mm.

Maggie Dent
Right. See the difference in the learning?

Michael Frampton
No, I like that.

Maggie Dent
It is technically a form of discomfort. I believe you just need to create discomfort—not punishment.

Michael Frampton
Yeah.

Maggie Dent
Punishment is when we hurt them. And this is mildly uncomfortable and inconvenient. And I have—one of mine actually, he was into that sort of 15-year-old wanting to punch his 13-year-old brother, but it was harder than he used to do it. So he was trying to be a macho male and he’s the alpha boy. And I gave him—you know, these three—I said, “Look mate, if you’re unable to pull that back, then I’m having your surfboard for a week.” He said, “No you won’t.” I said, “Yes, I am.” Anyway, yep, and he’d kind of—you know, he’d been kind of trying, but he still swung and gave him a good crack around the TV one night. And so I said, “So it’s a week. I’ve got your board. It’s in my room.” Was not happy. Was not happy. Anyway, I was the worst mother on Earth of course.

Michael Frampton
Mm-hmm.

Maggie Dent
And I was quite happy to be the worst mother on Earth ‘cause that’s actually what happens with good parenting. And he knew then there would be—yep. Anyway, I got to day six and I sat down with him and said, “So, what do you reckon about this kind of—have you got an idea around it now? What else you can do? Can you back it off?” And he said, “Yeah.” And I said, “Well, you can have your board.” He said, “Not a week?” And I said, “Well, you’ve just said you reckon you’ve got it, so I reckon I’ll give you another chance ‘cause I believe in second chances. I also believe in third chances. And we’ll see how we go with it.” And I never had another problem.

Michael Frampton
Hmm.

Maggie Dent
However, they did bring it up at my 50th birthday with the other one. I had a sugar freak—totally, right—and he was—what was he doing? He was doing something else equally as annoying. Anyway, I said, “No, there will be no dessert for a week.” And he went, “You wouldn’t do that. You know I couldn’t live without that.” Anyway, so he’s got up at my 50th birthday and said, “Mum is so tough. Did you know once she—she wouldn’t let me have dessert for a week?” And everyone just fell on the ground laughing. And he just is still really, like, “My mum was the toughest mum ever.” And that behavior also didn’t happen again.

Michael Frampton
Isn’t that funny?

Maggie Dent
Yeah.

Michael Frampton
Yeah.

Maggie Dent
Right? So they’ll hold—they’ll hold onto that: “I didn’t have sugar for a week.” It’s better than, “I got the strap,” that’s for sure.

Michael Frampton
Right?

Maggie Dent
Yes. Generations—man, you got the belt. Oh God. I love it because it’s all about perspective. But what it’s done is it’s just said, “Look, I’m holding this boundary ‘cause I’m the adult and you don’t have power over me.” We work together with most stuff—you have choices. And that’s another big thing I think. Where we had no autonomy in the past—except we did have a lot of autonomy, ‘cause we weren’t in the house very much. Kids in those previous generations, “Make sure you’re back when the lights come on,” had not—so they had a massive amount of free autonomy.

And then they came into a tough system. But they actually had that. So today they almost have too much freedom without boundaries, which doesn’t help you make good decisions later. ‘Cause you get into a work environment and you’ve got to be there at a certain time. You’ve got to actually work, even if you’re not feeling like it or it’s boring. You don’t develop those things if you’ve been able to get away with those mildly uncomfortable things like chores. And those sorts of things.

I was super tough. My boys—if they broke a surfboard, they got the big foamy for the next few months till a birthday or Christmas, and I gave them specific chores to earn money towards their new board. And I can remember once they all came home—similar ages—and I said, “I was pretty tough, wasn’t I, about that?” And they said, “Well, actual fact Mum, we’ve already had a conversation about this and we are really glad you did. Because we really value our stuff. We look after our boards, our wetties, our cars. Whereas we’ve got friends that just trash their stuff.”

And I went, “Oh, okay.” So isn’t it interesting—as their prefrontal lobe grows and they start reflecting through a different lens other than a teenage boy lens—they land on a very different perspective of it. Because they still were surrounded by a warm, loving human. But she just had boundaries that were not negotiable. And I was a good cook. That was another reason.

Michael Frampton
But that must have been quite like—as a parent—to set a boundary like that. And whilst it’s not a punishment per se, it’s more of, you know—it ends up punishing you, doesn’t it?

Maggie Dent
Oh, it always—

Michael Frampton
It’s a long week.

Maggie Dent
Yeah, exactly.

Michael Frampton
And that’s why—

Maggie Dent
Welcome to parenting. You know, if we wanted our children to think that they’re gonna run around in a field of daisies and everything’s gonna be lovely—we are dreaming.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. But you got that—you got that gratification when they were probably over 25. Once they realized, you know.

Maggie Dent
Yeah. Yeah. And I think that’s one of the beautiful things—you know why I talk about why surfing was so good for the boys—because they couldn’t control the outcomes. So at times, you know, they’d go out with great enthusiasm, they’re sure they’re gonna get the best waves and it’s gonna be the peak moment of their life. And some blooming offshore wind happens, or something happens, and it all flattens out and they get back and they’re really pissed off with it.

So it’s really good that they know what discomfort feels like—or what we call frustration tolerance—because I feel today’s, many of today’s kids—we pass, we change pass-the-parcel rules so they don’t get sat at a birthday party—so they’re actually less capable of dealing with setbacks and hard times and things that don’t work out how they want. Whereas that was one of those beautiful gifts that I felt going surfing was providing them—not just once or twice, it was, you know and just recently there was about a five-week stint here where there was no surf. And my surfer—my son who’s a lawyer—so he works really long hours from home, and he was in the end—you know, he’s got into the second week and said, “Oh, I’m just going swimming now.” Right? He missed the ocean so much, he’s just gone for a swim in the ocean pool. 'Cause it just—it resets him.

Michael Frampton
Yeah.

Maggie Dent
It’s like—they’ve all said it’s a part of their mental health. It resets them into something that nothing in the home or in the—nothing else does it. They’ve all played different sports, but surfing’s the one that resets them. And I think it’s that profound connection with Mother Nature in a way that—it’s always familiar. Salty water smells and tastes like salty water every time, right? And the ebb and flow of waves—it’s kind of, after all these years, she’s like a second mother figure that holds them until they reset.

So it’s a beautiful capacity of self-regulation that is following them into adulthood. And I’ve spoken to some older surfers and they said that sometimes, “I don’t care if I don’t get a wave.”

Michael Frampton
Yep.

Maggie Dent
“I just—getting on the board and paddling out and just waiting—that is where I reset. That’s where I have a chance to ponder and reflect or just—” And it was one of the boys’ mates who said to me once—he was probably only about 20 and he had had some really big stuff going on in his life—and he said, “The best place for me to figure out where shit is going down is waiting for a wave.”

And I felt, what—isn’t that gold? Another boy said to me—he wrote in his English class, he was in year 11, which is 16—and he said, “The closest you can get to God is in that blue tube—is in that wave.”

And I—that’s when I realized it was way bigger than me. ‘Cause I—seriously, I’m a farmer’s daughter, there was no surf near me, no waves. And I swim in ocean pools ‘cause I know I’m not gonna get eaten by a shark. But I’m never gonna go—no waves scare the heck out of me, right? So it took me a while to really comprehend what was going on on many different levels.

And why me having to get out of bed early every weekend to go and look for bloody waves was the best thing I could do as a mother of boys who liked to surf. Even if they didn’t get one, we drove from beach to beach to beach or whatever. The banter in the car, the conversations about which directions, them working it out together, they were problem-solving together, they were communicating together. I just—I learned so much being a witness to something I didn’t understand.

And originally, in my days, the only people who surfed were dopeheads, weren’t they? Which is the other reason I think—just being able to expose them to the unpredictability of life. And that risk is something that you can get better at if you have opportunities. Which is why I’m a nature play advocate. Why I want the long monkey bars back. Why I want them climbing trees.

Our kids can get better at it if we actually allow them to move into those spaces with their own intuitiveness and their own early warning systems and their own—because they actually are wired to keep themselves alive. And we shouldn’t have to be there always plucking them out of things so that they stay safe.

Michael Frampton
Yes. Safety is not such a good thing.

Maggie Dent
No, I agree. Let them make the mistakes while they’re young and made of rubber, and the consequences are a lot smaller than when they’re 15. That gives them that—like you said—the autonomy. Right. And the self-confidence.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. And I love those analogies with surfing you’re talking about. ‘Cause surfing is something that’s so much bigger than us. Obviously you didn’t know it back then, but since your boys started, books like Blue Mind have been written.

Maggie Dent
Yeah.

Michael Frampton
We know how getting out into nature—and especially with water—how it affects the brain. Inherently, whether you realize it or not, your subconscious brain realizes how risky it is to enter the ocean. So there’s—you’re satisfying that risk, connection with Mother Nature, the unpredictability/slash safety boundary, and all of that.

Maggie Dent
When I look back to the—and that was really the first book I ever read was Steve Biddulph’s Raising Boys. And I remember when he wrote Manhood and he talked in there—‘cause I’ve done a lot of work with men and I think it’s partly ‘cause I spent most of my childhood with my dad—‘cause he was my attachment figure, not my mum—that I have an ability to see a lens through both male and female.

And I’ve worked a lot in shearing sheds and in recovery from disasters and things. And when I talk to men, the understanding too of making sense of stuff through inner processing—and that men are actually a lot deeper than they’re perceived to be—and that when they work out their own values around things, they’re quite deep.

Whereas sometimes—this is a sweeping generalization—women are often shifting around and not being quite so anchored.

So learning really that Steve talks about the wild man. And if we recognize that we are still biologically linked to our earliest of mankind, the number one—the two biggest roles for men were to keep everyone else safe and alive. So it was to protect and to provide. And there are so many of those biological drives that still tend to drive our—and also the females as well, even though we can do either side of things. You know, we have amazing women in our armed forces and fire response—firefighters and things—so we know that we can. There is a proportion that can swap over. But I think there’s something about the wildness, the uncontained part of that. And I kept suggesting that it’s a really good thing for men with their mates to go and have a few wild days.

Just the same as women love going and—whatever, book club weekends or whatever. It’s really good for that. If you’ve got a friendship circle, it’s incredibly cup-filling to stop having to be responsible for your family and your partner and whatever for just a couple of days. And it—whatever they wanna do. Whether it’s a golfing weekend, and there’s something that is about filling us up. ‘Cause it allows almost like the boy within us—or the girl within us—to just stop having to be responsible all the time. And it’s usually—whatever fills that cup.

And sometimes it’s fishing trips, it’s golfing trips, it’s surfing trips. So two of mine have been on surf trips with their mates from high school this year. And listening to them and—yeah, it was just—you know, magical. And also you don’t realize that sometimes guys’ friendships were actually formed early in life. So it’s another thing that surfing often does. Of course, you can play in different sporting teams. But if you go surfing with the same kind of guys, you are actually deepening a bond of connection even through the silence of those moments.

And often guys don’t have as much time later in life to form the same depth of friendship. So a lot of them—it’s linked back there. I read a study recently—it’s 400 hours to develop a deep friendship.

Michael Frampton
Wow.

Maggie Dent
So you can see how, if you’re in an area and you stay in that area and you hang out with certain boys, it’s often—that’s where your 400 hours will come from. Whereas with girls and women, they’ll prioritize hanging out with a new friend till they build up their 400 hours, so they can actually create new, significant friendships. I found that really fascinating because I’ve written a piece about fragile boy friendships and that they often just have to be in proximity. And we’re all busy now, and parents are more busy, there’s not much neighborhood play, and so they’re not getting the same amount of 400 hours to develop a friendship that they look back on and—

Michael Frampton
Yeah.

Maggie Dent
—which is interesting.

Michael Frampton
Yeah, does that make sense?

Maggie Dent
Yeah.

Michael Frampton
Yeah, it does. Yeah. And even—yeah, just sitting there with a friend, not—you don’t have to be talking. You just—you know—you’ve got each other’s back. You’re sitting there in the ocean or—

Maggie Dent
Yep.

Michael Frampton
Even if the other one’s in the car, you still—you know you’ve got each other’s back.

Maggie Dent
Yeah, so interesting. And one of the beautiful things I found—so my oldest had a battle with bowel cancer. He was diagnosed on his 40th birthday, which wasn’t exactly the gift he wanted. And what I loved was how much support he got from not just his brothers but his mates he surfed with. They stepped up.

People often talk about guys not being really open and honest—I was just blown away. And yeah, it was—it was a big part. ‘Cause I couldn’t fill that cup, you know?

Michael Frampton
Yeah.

Maggie Dent
As his mum, neither could his wife. But those mates—you know, they were nearly on a plane over, the ones from WA. And the ones that were scattered around—they checked in at times and they asked big questions. He was able to really own it. Not just say, “Oh, it’s fine. It’s all good. I’m handling it.” No, they wanted to know the ins and outs.

And so again, that proximity of time that they’ve spent means that we are more likely to turn up in the crisis moments. And then, you know, one of the biggest issues that we are noticing with men’s mental health later in life is loneliness.

Michael Frampton
Yes.

Maggie Dent
So that’s yet another thing I think you’ll find in significant surfing communities. You’ll have older guys still surfing, still ready to have a chat, still—you know what I mean? So not as significantly lonely as without something like that.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. Surfing gives everything—almost gives community as well. All of that. As long as it’s not a job and doesn’t provide you money, it almost gives everything else.

Maggie Dent
Yeah. And of course you help lots of other surfers who need to make money from that.

Michael Frampton
Yes.

Maggie Dent
I go right back—in Albany, what was her name? Jodie—what was Jodie’s last name? She was one of the first female surfers out there, around Layne Beachley’s time. But it was really interesting ‘cause she had brothers, so she was kind of part boy.

And the skate track opened up over there—the first time we ever had a skate—skateboard. It was the first one in Australia. It’s interesting, isn’t it? It was set up by her dad and a lot of whole guys that were in town. And so watching it—watching her—there were days she wagged it, you know, because the surf was good. And there was one teacher who would probably be okay with that. And that was me.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. Get ‘em outside. Everyone should be outside more. Sitting in classrooms is the worst thing for them, isn’t it? In some ways.

Maggie Dent
Yeah. Hopefully that changes one day soon.

Michael Frampton
And you touched on something I’d like to ask you about. You mentioned men—traditionally providers and protectors. That leads me to a slightly taboo question for the times we are living in, but—how would you define masculinity?

Maggie Dent
Oh golly. And I’m a really passionate believer that there is no such thing as toxic masculinity.

Michael Frampton
Thank you.

Maggie Dent
I get really cross when we label it like that because I’ve worked—I’ve been surrounded by exceptional men and I meet them all the time. So it’s not the gender that is toxic. There are toxic males. But I’ve also met many toxic females. So I guess my—you know, being surrounded by men and my dad was an exceptional man as well—is that I think the man of today, given the societal shift towards men turning up to want to be equal, team parents, wanting to turn up with their big heart—it’s very much exactly what Steve Biddulph had talked about all those years ago: that we want men who turn up with backbone and heart.

So we actually—there are times that we need your physical capacity to be strong and stabilize the ship. But we also know that in our relationships, you don’t have to be the stoic, tough guy anymore. And that in actual fact, in my work around relationships and counseling, especially around trauma and death and dying, is that when a man owns his struggling to a female partner or wife, what happens is she then activates her masculinity, and she becomes this absolute fierce lioness. And she’ll cover that guy’s back like you won’t believe. He’ll be so supported so he can stay in that vulnerable state getting whatever support he needs.

What happens though if he shuts down and keeps it from her? Then there will be just more and more distance. And he will struggle alone. And that’s why one of the reasons that so often with a major death in a family of a child, there’s a really high degree of divorce. Because men are still driven by those big societal things that you’re supposed to be tough, you’re supposed to deal with it—you know, toughen up.

Where in actual fact, that’s not how we process major trauma. And one of the experiences I had, which I treat with incredible respect, was I was called—I’d already been into an area in Western Australia where there was massive bushfire. And at the small community outside, these guys had fought for five days with no extra support. They’d lost most of the primary school, many farms, and they lost one of their most significant community members and two of his workmen. So they were shattered, right?

So I’d gone and run a couple of community seminars talking about recovery and stuff. And then the men, about three months later, they found some funding to get me to come back, and it was a shed full of men. And what they wanted to know was, why were they still feeling so lousy?

So I had to put it through the context of, well, you know what? You went to fight, as you are biologically wired to fight—to be the hero and defender of your community—but every day you are driving around and you are seeing how you failed. You see that it didn’t—so that’s feeding into you a sense of not enough. Not all that shit that you’ve been told—you have to be the hero and everything. And I said, what you’ve got is also grief.

You are grieving not only the guy you lost—you’re grieving where your community was before. You’re grieving that there are so many that are really on their knees. And that’s grief. And grief is just a bitch of a thing because it lasts so much longer than you think.

But you’re also dealing with what I call situational distress. And that’s that continual reminders of it. And the guy who was killed in the fire—his twin sons were in the front row. And so it was a really powerful moment for the guys to realize that when people keep—your wife keeps saying, “Why aren’t you talking about it? You need to talk about it,” I said, it’s not actually really helpful for a lot of men. Talking works for women—it doesn’t work for men.

So I need to give you permission that you are actually processing so many layers of grief at the moment—that that’s why you are tired, why you’re even more grumpy, why you’re finding it hard to get out of bed—it’s because you are processing it. But you are processing it, and you are probably halfway through it. But it’s not a magical, “Oh God, today it’s all over.”

But I’m gonna give you permission that if you do actually feel like you want to sit down and just howl—you have it. You have permission from this group. You will never be judged in this area.

And then kind of after, when I left—it was interesting because about two weeks later, BlazeAid is this beautiful organization where retired farmers and men with their wives turn up with caravans and they rebuild fences for free. It’s just the most beautiful thing. And the BlazeAid people—it was about four or five caravans—they’ve always got a campfire going. And over the next few weeks, every now and then about nine o’clock at night, a farmer would turn up with a beer and just have a yarn around the fire.

And quite often—that’s when the tears were coming.

Michael Frampton
Yeah.

Maggie Dent
So they don’t want to cry, they don’t want to break down in front of the woman they love particularly, or their children.

Michael Frampton
Yeah.

Maggie Dent
But they will if there’s another safe place for that. And that’s something, when you understand it, it makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?

Michael Frampton
Yes, it does. And we’re seeing a lot of men’s groups that are facilitating that sort of stuff coming up a lot too. So that’s good.

Maggie Dent
Ah, so good. My hubby—he joined a Men’s Walk group during COVID and it’s been the best thing. Like he—yeah, he and that group—and in that, he’s developed a new friendship with a guy he really likes. And I’ve just seen such a happier husband.

Michael Frampton
Yeah.

Maggie Dent
But I could have told him till the cows came home, “A bit of exercise would be good for you.” But what he actually needed—he was—he actually needed the company. He was lonely. Because there’s only so much of our cups we can fill.

Michael Frampton
Yeah.

Maggie Dent
And I think that’s—and also the men—you know, the story that we tell ourselves is sometimes incorrect. You know, the narratives we’ve learned over the years.

And there was this beautiful man who I had actually supported—his—I was a bereavement support person and a death doula—supported his wife as she died. And she had two sons—beautiful sons. And he was there like every day. He was just full-on, right there. He is a beautiful man.

And after the funeral, which was a beautiful celebration of her life, and the boys spoke beautifully in that—anyway, I just noticed the dad walking like in an angry walk down the car park. And I thought, well, that doesn’t look right. Anyway, so I wandered off after him and he’d slid down behind a car and he was just crouched on the ground.

And I said, “I’m just checking in mate—what’s going on?”

He said, “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe that in all that time that she was sick, I never actually got to tell her I loved her. It just got stuck in my throat. And now she’s dead and I can’t tell her.”

I sat down next to him and said, “Women are not quite that shallow. You were there every day. She knows.”

I said, “Can you see that same thing again? What have you been conditioned to think? And how easy is this next generation of men—telling their kids they love them, and telling their partners that they love them, or turning up?”

Look, you turn up to a playground in Sydney—when I’m up there sometimes—and there aren’t any women. There are just dads with babies tied on, toddlers, and you’re just—they’re absolutely nailing it.

And that’s the reason I did The Good Enough Dad podcast. Because I wanted to give dads voices to own. That it’s still a struggle because there’s no game book. Like they said, “Give me the game book.” Well, there is none for parenting.

And that you’re gonna have meltdowns, you’re gonna have arguments, gonna get frustrated at your kids. And that’s—every parent does it. But there’s this slightly different lens—“Am I supposed to fix shit?” So am I supposed to fix that toddler who’s yelling and screaming? No mate, no. That’s what they’re meant to do at that age.

Oh see, I had a game book and what I really loved about it was when I asked all 26 of them at the very end—I said, “Okay, so what’s the one thing you want your kids to learn from you as their dad?” You should see it—the depth of the responses. Honest to God, the number of times I got tears.

And that’s what I loved the most—was giving men an opportunity to own their muck-ups. Own the bits they’re doing good. What they found hardest when they became a dad.

And some of them were really older dads. Some had gone through 10 years of IVF. Some had lost a baby at birth. So some of them had a real story.

Michael Frampton
Yeah.

Maggie Dent
But what I wanted them to say—and that’s the depth of men. They actually have already worked it out. It was beautiful to be able to share those.

Michael Frampton
That’s a cool story. I like that. Wow. It’s just coming up on the hour.

Maggie Dent
Thank you so much for your time.

Michael Frampton
Really appreciate it. I’ve listened—a friend of mine put me onto you about three or four months ago actually. He’s a father of three, lives in Avalon—Nick. He’s a big listener and a reader of your books, and I’ve been absorbing your podcast and your work ever since and learning so much.

Maggie Dent
Oh, my boys are pretty happy we were having a chat—like I’m talking to the right sort of people for a change.

Michael Frampton
I love it, don’t you? Parenting is—it’s hard. I just love putting the podcast on and just getting little bits from you and your guests and it just helps put the pieces together and build your own overarching principles to—

Maggie Dent
Yeah, and there’s no—you know, people kind of sometimes look to an expert and I say, “No, look, I’m not in your home.” Right? What I can give you are possible suggestions. But your child is a one-offer. There’s only ever gonna be one of them. And you are the only parent that is—you know what I mean? So yeah, sure. These are guidance, but at the end of the day, you are the best person. You are your kid’s best bet.

Michael Frampton
Yeah.

Maggie Dent
Provided they know how fiercely and unconditionally you love them.

Michael Frampton
That’s it. Yeah. I always tell my kids, “Here in this home, you are safe and you are loved.”

Maggie Dent
Yeah.

Michael Frampton
No matter what happens, come back here. No matter what—we can talk about anything. ‘Cause you’re safe and you’re loved.

Maggie Dent
No matter what.

Michael Frampton
That—I keep it that simple. No matter what.

Maggie Dent
Yep.

Michael Frampton
Alright. Well Maggie, thank you so much.

Maggie Dent
Thank you.

Michael Frampton
Awesome.

Maggie Dent
Cheers.

116 Maggie Dent - Parenting Boys With Backbone, Heart And Surfboards

For the passionate surfer—whether you're a weekend warrior, a surf dad, or an older surfer—this podcast is all about better surfing and deeper stoke. With expert surf coaching, surf training, and surfing tips, we’ll help you catch more waves, refine your paddling technique, and perfect your pop up on a surfboard. From surf workouts to handling wipeouts, chasing bigger waves, and mastering surf technique, we’re here to make sure you not only improve but truly enjoy surfing more—so you can get more out of every session and become a wiser surfer. Go from Beginner or intermediate Surfer to advanced

Have you ever been snaked, dropped in on, or steamrolled by an aggressive surfer who seems to think they own the ocean? Find it hard to deal with localism? 

Navigating the lineup isn't just about catching waves—it's about dealing with egos, entitlement, and sometimes flat-out intimidation. If you’ve ever felt powerless or frustrated by alpha surfers who constantly push the boundaries of etiquette, this episode offers a crucial shift in mindset and approach.

• Learn how to gain respect in the lineup—even from surf legends like Laird Hamilton.

• Discover the psychological principles behind why some surfers bully and how to respond effectively.

• Get practical tips for standing your ground calmly and confidently without escalating conflict.

Hit play now to learn how to hold your own in the lineup and start catching the waves you deserve.

Key Points

• Introduction of the topic on dealing with aggressive surfers and the importance of standing up for oneself in the lineup.

• The host shares a personal anecdote about dealing with Laird Hamilton, emphasizing the need to stand up for oneself and not be a willing victim.

• Discussion on the psychological principle that aggressive surfers often connect through conflict and the importance of facing conflict to gain respect.

• Advice to match the energy of aggressive surfers and be willing to engage in conflict to earn their respect and avoid being bullied.

• Caution about confronting certain individuals, such as psychopaths, and the suggestion to ease into confrontations in crowded lineups.

• Reiteration that being bullied in the surf is due to being a willing victim and the importance of not being conflict avoidant to connect with dominant surfers. 

Outline

Dealing with Aggressive Surfers

• Michael Frampton discusses strategies for handling aggressive surfers, emphasizing the importance of standing up for oneself and adhering to surf etiquette.

• Michael shares a personal experience involving Laird Hamilton, highlighting the need to confront aggressive behavior calmly and confidently to gain respect.

• The narrative illustrates how matching an aggressive surfer's energy and being willing to face conflict can lead to mutual respect and cooperation.

• Michael advises that experienced surfers, especially those who exhibit dominant behavior, will test others. Demonstrating skill, respect for lineup etiquette, and confidence can earn respect.

• It is noted that while confronting aggressive behavior is important, one should be cautious and read the situation, especially in crowded lineups, to avoid unnecessary conflict.

• Michael suggests that if confrontation is not feasible or safe, finding another surfing spot might be a better option.

Psychological Principles in Surfing and Life

• Michael discusses psychological principles relevant to both surfing and everyday life, particularly the dynamics of conflict and respect.

• He explains that many dominant individuals connect through conflict and may take advantage of those who avoid it, suggesting that facing conflict can sometimes lead to connection and mutual respect.

• Michael advises that if someone is consistently causing problems, such as snaking or dropping in, it may be necessary to match their energy and engage in conflict to resolve the issue.

• He emphasizes that surfing is a competitive activity where waves are a limited resource, and surfers need to be assertive to catch the best waves.

Avoiding Conflict with Psychopaths

• Michael warns about the presence of psychopaths in surfing and advises caution when confronting aggressive behavior.

• He suggests easing into confrontations and reading the situation to avoid dangerous encounters.

• Michael emphasizes the importance of knowing when to confront and when to find another surfing spot to ensure safety.

Surfing Etiquette and Respect

• Michael stresses the importance of surf etiquette and mutual respect among surfers.

• He highlights that standing up for oneself and adhering to lineup etiquette can lead to a more harmonious surfing experience.

• Michael advises that experienced surfers will test newcomers, and demonstrating confidence and respect can help earn their respect in return.

Transcription

Welcome back, or welcome to the Surf Mastery Podcast, the podcast that helps passionate, lifelong surfers to catch more waves, surf with more speed, style, and grace, and to gain wisdom and confidence in the water. I am your host, Michael Frampton, and in today's episode, we're gonna learn how to deal with the aggressive surfer.

The arrogant surfer, the take-every-wave surfer, the entitled surfer. We all know who this person is—the person that snakes everyone, drops in on everyone. They are everywhere. How do you deal with this? The first thing you gotta remember is it takes two to tango. Every bully needs a willing victim. Let me tell you a story about how I dealt with the literal take-every-wave attitude of Laird Hamilton.

I used to surf this novelty spot on an outside reef in Southern California. And every now and then, I'd cross paths with Laird. Always tried to be friendly and say hi. He would always just blank me. And then it got to a stage where he started surfing basically on my schedule. We'd almost paddle out together at first.

It was the same thing. I'd try and be friendly to Laird, and he would just completely ignore me and do his thing—take every wave. He was on a standup foil, which was a wave-catching machine, and he himself is a bit of a wave-catching machine. His ability to be in tune with the best wave of the set was pretty admirable.

But even when it was my turn, he'd always just come straight at me on his SUP, on his standup foil. Having Laird Hamilton come straight at you on a foil SUP is very intimidating. And the first couple of days, the first couple of surfs this happened, I just backed down and, "Okay, yeah, take that wave, Laird. I'll catch the next wave of the set."

But after two days of this, I thought, you know what, if you lead, I'm going. And a set wave came through, and I wanted the biggest wave of the set. So did he. But he'd already just taken the biggest wave of the previous set. And I thought, you know what? It's my turn. I'm gonna hold my ground.

And same as before, he got in a little bit earlier than me, and he was pointed straight at me. But I put my blinkers on and I caught the wave. He got scary close, but at the last second, he turned away from me and he continued to surf the unbroken, the shoulder part of the wave, which you can do on a foil board.

And I continued to surf my style of surfing, which was closer to the whitewater. And as we were paddling back, he said, "Hey, that was my wave." I stopped paddling and sat up on my board and looked him straight in the eye and with calm confidence I said, "No, it was my turn." And he immediately gave a cheeky smile and paddled off.

As I joined him at the takeoff zone and sat up on my board, he said in this friendly voice, "Oh, was that a New Zealand accent? Which part of New Zealand are you from?" And from that moment on, we just chatted and swapped waves.

As soon as I chose not to back down and to stand up for—not necessarily my rights—but just general surf etiquette of, "We're both surfing. We're both capable and confident enough to be out here. We can just take turns." As soon as I did that and stood up for myself in a calm way, I instantly gained respect. And that is when he actually engaged with me.

Experienced surfers, especially alpha surfers, will test you. They will intimidate you. But once you prove your skills and you show respect to the lineup etiquette, and you conduct yourself with confidence, you will be respected.

But if you back down and let yourself be intimidated and you essentially gift that person the waves, they will take more than their fair share. Now, that's an extreme example with Laird, but Laird’s an extreme person. And he was being a twat. He was really pushing me and testing me.

But I still, in the beginning, in the first two days when that was happening, I showed him respect. He's a better surfer than me. He's older than me. He probably surfed that spot more than me. But then when it came time, when push came to shove, I held my ground.

The principle here is that I matched Laird's energy and I was willing to face the conflict. Remember, it takes two people to tango. Every bully needs a willing victim.

Another psychological principle here that is relevant not just in surfing but in your everyday life, is that often these alpha males—or the extroverted person, whoever you wanna label them—they actually connect through conflict and they take advantage of those who are conflict avoidant.

So if you're feeling any sort of domination or bullying happening in any part of your life, look that person in the eye and talk about it. Face them and dive into that conflict. You might be surprised—it's actually how you connect with them, because for them, that might be how they grew up.

It might be normal for them. Conflict is a normal way of life. Conflict is how they engage with people, and they don't see it as conflict. That's just normal for them.

If there's someone that you are having consistent problems with, someone that keeps snaking you, someone that keeps dropping in on you, you have to be willing to match their energy and enter some conflict with that person. Because surfing is not yoga with dolphins. It's a dog-eat-dog world out there.

And waves are a limited resource. And if you want to catch some set waves, you better be hungry for it and you better be willing to fight for it.

There are certain people you should not confront. There are psychopaths out there. Ease into it. Read the room. But if you are conflict avoidant, these surfers will run rings around you.

So sometimes it's better just to go and surf somewhere else. So to round off, remember, if you are being bullied in the surf, that is because you are a willing victim.

Side note—remember that my example with Laird was an extreme example because he's an extreme character and it was a one-on-one situation. At your local beach, in a crowded lineup, it's gonna be more of a slow burn over time. You have to ease your way into that. But there will be a point where you have to engage in conflict because if you are conflict avoidant, you will never connect with those dominant surfers and you'll never earn.

So for more surfing tips and information, please check out the back catalog of this podcast.

115 Handling Aggressive Surfers: Surf Coaching Tactics for Confidence, Respect & More Waves

For the passionate surfer—whether you're a weekend warrior, a surf dad, or an older surfer—this podcast is all about better surfing and deeper stoke. With expert surf coaching, surf training, and surfing tips, we’ll help you catch more waves, refine your paddling technique, and perfect your pop up on a surfboard. From surf workouts to handling wipeouts, chasing bigger waves, and mastering surf technique, we’re here to make sure you not only improve but truly enjoy surfing more—so you can get more out of every session and become a wiser surfer. Go from Beginner or intermediate Surfer to advanced.

What happens when a lifelong surfer ditches big-name fashion brands to carve out a niche as the go-to copywriter for the surf industry?

If you're a surf business owner juggling content, marketing, and your next session in the water, this episode is a must-listen. Discover how surfer and copywriter Lachlan Campbell turned his passion for surfing into a thriving business that helps other surf brands rise above the noise—and how you can do the same.

• Learn how to align your passion with your profession and create a business that truly fits your lifestyle.

• Discover the current marketing gaps in the surf industry—and how surf camps, product brands, and retreats can capitalize on them.

• Get practical insights into how AI is changing the copywriting game and what it means for small surf brands on tight budgets.

Hit play now to learn how to elevate your surf brand with strategic, authentic storytelling from someone who truly speaks your language—waves and all.

https://thesurfingcopywriter.com

Key Points

• The podcast discusses the alignment of profession with passion, focusing on business within the surf industry.

• Lachlan Campbell, the surfing copywriter, shares insights on marketing gaps in the surf industry and how AI is changing the game.

• Lachlan discusses the importance of managing expectations and being grateful for being in the water as a key to enjoying surfing.

• The shift to Europe influenced Lachlan's preference for different types of surfboards, moving away from performance shortboards to more fun boards like twin fins.

• Copywriting is defined as writing with intent and purpose to move someone from having an issue to having the solution, essentially the written form of marketing.

• The surf industry is increasingly recognizing the need for more proactive marketing strategies, especially post-COVID, to stand out among growing competition.

• There is potential for new surf brands to shine, especially in underserved markets or by offering unique experiences and collaborations, such as with wellness coaches.

• AI is changing the game by providing assistance in content creation and idea generation, though it's advised to add personal nuance to AI-generated content.

• Lachlan's ideal client is someone passionate about their business, considering more than just profit, and invested in improving people's lives through surfing. 

Outline

Surfing Background

• Lachlan Campbell started surfing at a very young age, possibly around seven or eight years old, and grew up on the east coast of Australia.

• Lachlan moved to Portugal after meeting their spouse in Nicaragua, as a compromise location for their shared living.

• Lachlan's surfing style has evolved over time, moving from performance shortboards to more fun boards like twin fins and mid-lengths.

Surfing Advice

• Lachlan's best piece of surfing advice is to surf with no expectations and to be grateful for being in the water.

• Managing expectations and focusing on the quality of the experience rather than the quantity of waves can lead to a more enjoyable session.

• Lachlan suggests trying fun boards for a more relaxed and enjoyable surfing experience.

Copywriting and Marketing in the Surf Industry

• Lachlan Campbell is a professional copywriter who specializes in the surf industry, having started in 2013 and focusing on surf businesses since 2018.

• Copywriting is defined as writing with intent and purpose to move someone from having an issue to having the solution, essentially selling an idea or product using words.

• The surf industry's grasp of marketing is described as limited, with many business owners relying on visual appeal and location rather than strategic marketing.

• There is an increasing need for surf businesses to invest in marketing due to heightened competition post-COVID, with more emphasis on SEO, email newsletters, and paid advertising.

• Smaller surf brands with limited budgets are finding opportunities to stand out by focusing on niche markets and unique offerings.

Innovation and Trends in the Surf Industry

• There is ongoing innovation in the hard goods sector of the surf industry, with niche products like fin rental services and specialized surf accessories emerging.

• Surf camps and retreats are evolving by adding wellness, mental health, and resilience coaching to their offerings, catering to a demand for more comprehensive experiences.

• The integration of AI in copywriting and marketing is discussed, highlighting its role as a tool for idea generation, structure, and efficiency rather than a replacement for human creativity.

Business Advice and Ideal Client Profile

• Lachlan offers business advice through a weekly newsletter, sharing insights from working with clients and personal musings.

• The ideal client for Lachlan is someone passionate about their business, invested in its growth, and aligned with the values of improving people's lives through surfing.

• Lachlan prefers working with clients on a retainer basis to build a deeper understanding of their business and contribute more effectively to its growth.

Transcription

Michael Frampton
Welcome back or welcome to the Surf Mastery Podcast. The podcast that helps passionate lifelong surfers to catch more waves, surf with more speed, style, and grace, and to gain wisdom and confidence in the water. I am your host, Michael Frampton. Today's episode is a little bit different. We're talking about business, in particular business within the surf industry. Today's guest is Lachlan Campbell, the surfing copywriter—that's thesurfingcopywriter.com—and we're going to discover how you can align your profession with your passion. We'll talk about the current marketing gaps in the surf industry and practical insights about how AI is changing the game and what it means for small surf brands on tight budgets, plus much more. And Lachlan is an experienced surfer and he weighs in with some nice practical surf tips as well before we segue into the business side of things. The next cohort of the Wave Catching Academy is live, so if you're on the waiting list, you can go ahead and book that if you are frustrated with the lack of waves that you're getting. And personally, I'm sick of all these surf coaches doing nothing but teach you how to do a better bottom turn or a top turn. Yet the hardest part in surfing is what happens between when the board is under your arm and under your feet. So if you want to learn the details about that and how to get into more waves, about how to catch more waves and how to set the start of the wave up, it's the hardest part of surfing and that's what this course is all about. I have a couple of spaces in the diary for some one-on-one online coaching as well. You can email me [email protected] if you want to find out more about that. And now here is my conversation with Lachlan Campbell, the surfing copywriter. When did you start surfing?

Lachlan Campbell
I can't say I, 'cause I can't remember what my first surf session was. It was, I was younger than 10, but I know there's some photos floating around at my parents' house, of my dad pushing me onto waves in Queensland. But I'd been surfing before that, let's say like eight, seven or eight years old, like getting pushed on the waves, just the beach. Not seriously going, hey, like I wanna surf, but just like my dad surfed and stuff. So he was obviously taken to the beach when he went to the beach and I was around surfing pretty much my whole childhood. But I think I, because I even went from surfing, learning how to surf and then jumped on a bodyboard for a little bit 'cause that's what all my mates was doing. And then when we all jumped on surfboards again and graduated to the kind of like the more advanced beach in the area, we were back on surfboards. So, I don't know, since I was young, but shivers, you wouldn't, you wouldn't know it if you saw me for about how long I've been surfing. I'm still pretty, pretty steady, I would say. Whereabouts was that? It's on the east coast of Australia. I live in Portugal now, but yeah, it was, I grew up on the east coast of Australia and, like a couple of hours south of Sydney in a little dairy farming, surfing, fishing community, called Gerringong. We had two beaches there. We have one just to the south in Ulla called Seven Mile Beach, which is probably like the most beginner, longboard friendly beach that I've ever been to. I would say like it's super mellow, really gradual sandbanks that just run like kind of a hundred or so meters and yeah, great for longboarding. Can be like six foot. I've literally never seen it barrel. It's just like always this like rolling whitewash wave. So good for learning, good for longboarding. The local beach is Werri Beach. So that's, yeah, that's got a point break at one end and a nice peaky little river mouth at the other end. And yeah, that was the stomping ground. The east coast of Australia is paradise for surfers. So why move to Europe, Portugal? I met my wife actually in Nicaragua and she's from Austria. And so when we were kind of trying to find a compromise on where to live, the compromise was Portugal. And yeah, I mean, for me, Portugal is kind of the closest you get to Australia, I guess that surf lifestyle and that surf culture. And yeah, when I moved over here, I lived in Amsterdam and worked in Amsterdam for a bit over a year, and then we traveled around Europe a bit. But yeah, I don't know. I kind of just found a place in Europe. Getting the business off the ground as I moved over here helped as well. It's kind of, I don't know, like there's obviously a big learn-to-surf culture in Australia, but it's more so in, I would say, the States and Central America and Europe. Morocco, Africa as well. So yeah, it's been like a good business move to live here as well. But, uh, yeah. Short answer there is love.

Lachlan Campbell
Yeah. I moved to London in 2008 and discovered Ericeira on trips. Man, what a magic place that was back then, at least. I dunno what it's like now, but the waves were—

Michael Frampton
It's still magic.

Lachlan Campbell
Yeah. It's a little bit—like, I'm in the south, I'm in the Algarve, so we have like a lot of beach breaks and stuff here. We have two coastlines, which kind of makes up for the lack of kind of reef and point breaks and stuff. But, and Peniche—I mean, the whole coastline is so good. Like, I've done a few trips now, like up to Galicia, which is in northwest Spain, and back down again and just sampled Portuguese coastline, and there's waves up and down the coast. A lot of people are concentrated around Ericeira and Peniche obviously, and the Algarve too, but plenty of waves all around. Yeah, it's good. Yeah. It's a good spot to live for surfers. Yeah.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. What's been your—what's your best piece of surfing advice that's helped you not only enjoy surfing but be a better surfer?

Lachlan Campbell
I think because I've been surfing for quite a long time now, and a lot of that progression when you're like a teenager—whether you're learning like a language or surfing—a lot of it is instinctual. So the whole technical element to surfing kind of only came to me later in life. And I'm not like technical with it at all. You know, I don't really do any coaching or anything like that. I find it interesting how people break it down, but to be honest, I'm that far gone now, I'm not even gonna try and correct some of my bad habits. But no, I think probably the biggest takeaway for me, definitely in adulthood, is how good a surf session is gonna be isn't actually determined by the waves. For me, it's expectation. It's about being grateful for just being in the water because I know—and I'm sure other surfers would know as well—the waves can be pumping, but if you are in maybe an over-frothed kind of pumped-up mood and you go out there and you're just paddling around trying to catch everything, you can come in and not get a wave or not get a good one. And I don't know, maybe just feel like a bit out of sync. Whereas if you go in some days where you're kind of expecting it to not be great, you just find like a little waist-high rip bowl or something, you can just have such a fun time just because your expectations had shifted and maybe you weren't really predetermining how the session should go. So yeah, I guess the biggest piece of surfing advice for me is just try and just get out there and maybe not think about it too much. Or I know as well, when I go out and maybe it's like pumping and I try to chase a specific type of wave, you kind of always end up being in the wrong spot at the wrong time. Surfing's weird like that. It's not something you can just—I dunno, this is why pro surfing would be such a nightmare because you can't just manufacture a wave, right? I mean, wave pools, but when you're in the ocean, you can't manufacture and make something come towards you. It just happens. And I think sometimes your—yeah, without getting too woo-woo—I think sometimes your mental state can influence that a little bit. So yeah, maybe surfing with no expectations and just being grateful for being out there. I mean, if you're in the water, you're not working, so—

Michael Frampton
Yeah, it's gotta be something to be grateful for, right?

Lachlan Campbell
Oh, I a hundred percent agree with that. The only expectation I have when I go surfing now is just to catch one wave.

Michael Frampton
You must be just stoked on every surf then you have.

Lachlan Campbell
Yep. Yeah, exactly. Just catch one wave. I think if you can manage your expectations to that. It's like the other day I went surfing and the waves were—it looked like it was pumping and I was, oh, I was excited. And then I paddled out there and the current and the backwash, it just was—the waves were so hard to catch and to surf. And it's just still like, just catch one wave, just catch one wave. Just kept reminding myself. And I only got one wave and I was stoked with it. So yeah, it's a big one.

Michael Frampton
Yeah.

Lachlan Campbell
That's a quality over quantity thing as well, right? I mean, you would've seen before, like some surfers will paddle out on a good day and just sit there and kind of wait and maybe only take like one or two good waves throughout the whole session. And yeah, some people will froth around, chase everything, can end up with nothing. So yeah, I think just to summarize that, yeah, good surfing maybe starts—or for me, a good session kind of starts before you even get in the water, which can be difficult because if you're all on a boat trip with your mates or on a surf camp or something with your partner or whatever, and you've been hyping it up for ages and then you finally get to a wave that's pumping, yeah, sometimes your expectations are met, but I think if you try and just, I don't know, just keep it a little bit level-headed, yeah, you'll end up having a good session.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. Oh, definitely. Yeah. So for most of us, surfing is not a sport. It's a pastime or an art form, so—

Lachlan Campbell
Mm-hmm.

Michael Frampton
There's no need to perform or surfer, no. A shortboard or did shifting to Europe, did that change the type of surfboard you ride?

Lachlan Campbell
Well, sure. So, I mean, I think it's still the same in Australia, let's say there's like a lineup with 20 people out. In Australia, 18 of them will be on a—I mean, it depends where you are. In Australia, let's say Byron Bay is a bit of an outlier, but other places in Australia, 20 people out in the lineup, I'd say 18 are gonna be on like a performance shortboard. And I mean it's different where you're going in Europe too, but I'd say like on a whole, most people are on maybe more fun boards. And for me, coming to Europe, I—maybe the wave quality played a little bit of a role in that, but I realized pretty quickly, like no one gives a shit what boards you're riding here, right?

Lachlan Campbell
Like you can jump on whatever you want. So coming to Europe for me was coming with shortboards and then kind of transitioning out and broadening my horizons and trying some different boards. And now—if you had said this to me like 10, 15 years ago—I’d just be like, I’d laugh you out of the room. But now, for most of the year, I’m on like a twin fin or a mid-length, or, I don’t know. I guess I also lost that desire to rip a wave every time I surfed it. For me, like, definitely my definition of good surfing has changed a lot. But yeah, for me, I’m just looking to surf the wave well and just, I don’t know, make it easier for myself too, right?

I see a lot of people struggling on performance shortboards, which—even the most user-friendly performance shortboard—it takes a little bit of finesse to surf it well. And yeah, for me, maybe my own style is not great, but style is pretty important for me. It kind of comes into the equation for me for good surfing. And yeah, you kind of want a board that makes surfing with style a bit easier instead of a shortboard where you're just constantly trying to pump for speed and generate speed. So yeah, I don’t know. Definitely bigger, wider, less fins surfboards since I came to Europe.

Michael Frampton
Yep. Yeah. I’m in the same boat. If there's one piece of advice I could give my younger self, it would be, yeah, try some of those fun boards. Mate, my shortboard surfing career probably peaked when I was 15, 16, and I was on a steady downhill after that. So to be honest, the mid-length kind of revolution, these more performance twin fins, when they came along, I was like, yep, that’s me all over. Still catch plenty of waves. Easy to generate speed on, easy to paddle. Yeah. That for me is the sweet spot. Just easy.

Lachlan Campbell
Yeah. So now let’s segue into your work because your website, The Surfing Copywriter—how did that come about?

Michael Frampton
I started copywriting in 2013 but really got serious about it in 2014. That was just before I moved to Europe, and, you know, Amsterdam—started copywriting kind of professionally there and managed to pick up a few bigger name clients, but they were mainly in that, I don’t know, lifestyle, fashion sector. And it wasn’t until 2018—so I’d been doing it for four, 2019, four or five years—when I was like, why don’t I just do copywriting for surfing? Because I’ve surfed all my life. It seems so obvious now, but at the time I didn’t even think about marrying those two.

And so I actually went and had a look and just made like a list of all the surf businesses around the world—a pretty comprehensive list—and just thought, okay, is there scope for someone to come in and help with copywriting? And yeah, like on a broader sense, marketing as well. And yeah, then it was kind of 2018, 2019 where I launched it. It wasn’t like a hard launch. It kind of started with a really ugly website and no branding and then just evolved pretty quickly after that. But yeah, it kind of was just like a natural progression because there’s no way I was writing about men’s fashion for the rest of my life. Or, I mean, the beer companies—I worked with Heineken for a bit—that was okay. But yeah, like some of those other brands were just not up my alley. So yeah, having The Surfing Copywriter just—yeah, pretty simple looking back on it. But it allowed me to bring that passion for surfing, which it’s a passion. I don’t know, it’s weird to call it a passion ’cause I’ve been doing it for so long, it’s nearly just like something I’ve done all my life. So by default, I just knew so much about it and kind of merged that with my marketing and copywriting skills, and yeah, that’s how it was born. Nearly by accident, but yeah.

Michael Frampton
What is—define what copywriting is.

Lachlan Campbell
So copywriting—the best way to define it is kind of put it into contrast with something. And to do that, well, let’s say content writing, which would just be putting out content for the sake of putting out content. So writing a text or a social media caption or writing a blog article, not really having any intent behind it except maybe just to finish it and put it out there. Copywriting’s like a little bit more formulaic and there’s a little bit more of a strategy around it. And on a broader sense, it’s tapping into people’s pain points and connecting with them on an emotional level and revealing your location, your product, your service to them in a way that it’s gonna meet or solve their pain points. So yeah, I guess it’s really like writing with intent and purpose to move someone from situation A to situation C—and situation A being they have an issue or there’s something in their life they want to solve, to situation C being you have the answers to solve it. So yeah, that’s what it is in a nutshell.

Michael Frampton
So it’s basically the written form of marketing.

Lachlan Campbell
Mate, I honestly, I compare it to like—you’re like an online salesman, but you’re not talking, you’re using words to sell. But I don’t know, sometimes that can sound a little bit cheesy, but you’re essentially like trying to sell an idea, a location, a product, using words.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. I think marketing often has a sort of—it’s a—for some people, it’s a dirty word or has bad connotations. And that used to be my perspective, but now, you know, running my own business and learning about marketing, my definition of marketing is very different now. And I define it as: marketing is the tool that you use to describe what you do in a way so others understand what it is that you do.

Lachlan Campbell
Exactly. And that word understand is really important because whatever you are doing with marketing, it’s all about making a connection, right? And you can only make a connection when you’re able to understand what the people that you are marketing towards want. And yeah, I’d say copywriting, it’s also like a bit of a linchpin for other marketing methods because the written word these days—it’s a little bit different, like say copywriting back in the 1940s and 1950s where people would write literally like a one-page, 300- to 400-word ad. Whereas now, it’s a little bit more concise and condensed. But these days, it’s really the linchpin that all the other marketing material depends on because to release a newsletter, there’s gotta be some element of writing in that. Blog articles—there’s gotta be writing in that. Social media ads that use text—there’s writing within that. Social media captions—there’s writing within that as well. So yeah.

Michael Frampton
How does the surf world—the surf industry—compare to other industries in terms of their use of marketing and copywriting?

Lachlan Campbell
So, I would say on the whole, the grasp that most surf business owners have on marketing is quite limited. I mean, it’s hard to compare it to other industries. I’ve worked in men’s fashion and in the lifestyle industry before, and for them, it’s super competitive. But I think one thing that the surfing industry is maybe struggling with is that surfing is such a visual sport, and you can sell a lot just based on your location or how nice a product looks or the way that you present yourself. But these days—let’s say post-COVID—it’s gotten so much more competitive. And some of those bigger brands are falling to the wayside and fractured and splintered into smaller brands. And there’s so many more brands out there now that it is becoming more essential to do marketing.

Whereas I reckon even five years ago, a lot of brands could get away with just posting on Instagram where their location was and what they did. But I know for sure that the amount of investment in SEO has gone up in the last few years, and new email newsletters have gone up. Even paid advertising, which is—can be traditionally something people are a little bit wary of because you’ve got to have quite a substantial budget to do that long term—that’s increased as well. So I’d say where it was even five years ago, the surf industry—and when I say surf industry, I mean everything from apparel companies to surf tourism and hospitality, to surfboard shapers, to even poncho brands, surf equipment brands, surf hardware brands—there are so many of these now that didn’t even exist before COVID. But that just kind of accelerated everything. And then with more brands, yeah, more competition. So yeah, I’d say it’s still in its basics, but it’s just getting to that point now where I’d say surf business owners are kind of thinking, Wow, to get ahead here, I need to do something a bit more proactive about getting the word out there and getting our name out there.

Michael Frampton
Does that mean there’s a lot of opportunity for some of these new brands to become top of mind or to really start to shine?

Lachlan Campbell
Yeah, there is. I think the kind of paradox there is that most of these brands are smaller brands that don’t have a massive marketing budget. I would say that a lot of them as well are run by one person or a couple of people, or a very small team. And while they do turn a profit, these are people that—they’re not looking to get rich. I don’t know. I think that’s nearly like a little bit of a new mindset amongst business owners as well, where they’re just looking for something that is a passion project, that they can make some money from, and that actually contributes something to society as well, but doesn’t suck up all their time. I mean, we’re surfers, right? Like we want to still be able to surf at the end of the day.

But there is still potential in some markets. I would say there’s places—let’s say Portugal for instance, with surf tourism and surf hospitality—like it’s a super saturated market, and there are some brands here that do a really, really good job. But there are other places, like let’s say the northern area of Morocco and yeah, even some parts of Australia where there were surf businesses there, but not a lot of people are doing marketing just because they’re getting by on the strength of name and the niche that they operate in as well. But yeah, I don’t know. Competition is good. I think it’s really good because it gets more eyes on a certain category or topic or product or location. But yeah, I’d say in some areas there is still some potential, yeah, for people to get out and make a name for themselves.

Michael Frampton
Do you think there are sections of the surfing industry where the customer is underserved?

Lachlan Campbell
I don’t know if underserved is the right word, but it would depend on what part of the surf industry we’re talking about as well. If we want to break it down into, let’s say, surf camps—

Lachlan Campbell
Some, in some countries, there’s such a broad array of different types of surf camps to meet all different needs, right? There’s the ones for budget backpackers, then there’s the more luxurious ones. But in that same area, maybe another surf business starting up isn’t going to be able to meet the same needs for that broad range of people. Again, it would have to depend on the type of businesses within the surf industry and the location as well.

Michael Frampton
It seems like the hard goods side of things—that’s pretty much saturated, you know? Wetsuits, boards, and stuff.

Lachlan Campbell
Yeah. I mean, there’s always these niche products coming out. Like there’s a company that’s just started up in Europe, I believe, somewhere, which is doing—it’s called The Fin Library, I believe—there’s a plug for these guys. And they’re doing, instead of having to buy brand new fins every time you want to change your fins, you can actually rent fins from them. There’s also new surf helmets coming onto the market that look more like the old soft rugby helmets that maybe me and you are more familiar with.

And then there’s also a guy that I saw the other day in Australia that’s doing a special plastic case just for holding your wax and your wax comb, which on some level you think, you can just chuck it somewhere, like a little Tupperware container. But when you see the product, you’re like, okay, it’s actually pretty clever. So there’s all these little niche brands that are coming out, and I don’t think their intention—for the most part—is to kind of dominate the world. They know their place within the market and I think that’s actually where the beauty lies, because instead of growing to great heights and scaling and becoming these huge brands—which, how strong are their foundations to start off with—they’re just getting deeper on their products and just knowing really well what their customer base is and how they can better meet their needs.

So, I mean, I like that. I see myself like that as well. Like I’ve had opportunities to grow before and bring on a team and stuff, and then I just thought, what’s the point? Growth for me is more about maybe doing some courses or deepening my knowledge of AI or something, just where I can better serve the people that I’m already looking after and help them get more bang for their buck, I guess.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. Well, it sounds like there’s some good innovation going on in the hard goods, and it sounds like there is definitely room for growth in terms of surfing experiences—different types of and more places where surf camps are happening. Do you think there’s an increasing demand? Like, people want to go on these trips and unique trips and—

Lachlan Campbell
It’s evolving, right? So if we say just the standard surf experience model is: you come, you stay, you get food, you get boards, you get transport to and from the beach, and you get equipment. That’s the bread-and-butter surf experience model. And then there’s variations on that. I think one thing that’s interesting now is the rise of surf retreats and these surf experience providers collaborating with wellness coaches and mental health coaches and resilience coaches and people that—these are skills that definitely help in the water, but carry over into real life as well.

That’s becoming a big trend. And I think, maybe not so much recently, but let’s say in the last couple of years, like female-only surf retreats as well. So yeah, I would say that these surf experience providers—as they evolve—they’re maybe just adding new collaborations and new retreat experiences or surf experiences to their existing offerings. And I think that’s cool because you’re not actually changing anything to the fundamental structure of your business there. You still have the same kind of accommodation and services and packages, but you are adding something extra by way of a collaboration.

And let’s assume that they also have a following on social media or have a bit of a profile in the surf industry as well—mental health coaches within that, coming on with the surf experience providers, that’s just one example. But there’s others. There’s fitness trainers, which is the more traditional one. Wellness experts doing the ice baths and the meditation. Yoga is like the OG one, right? Being added to the surf experiences—that was one of the first ones. But yeah, it’s an evolution.

And I think we’re at the point now where again, that’s being driven by competition. And the more surf brands are out there, the more doing kind of the same thing, the more there is a requirement to be seen as doing something different, which causes you to think further afield. So yeah, it’s cool. It’s definitely changing. It’s maybe just now starting to build a bit of momentum post-pandemic, because it was a bit crazy there after the pandemic. I mean, numbers for everything were short—like retail was going crazy, surf hardware was going crazy, board sales were through the roof, bookings were through the roof. And then, yeah, last year and the year before, things were slowing down. And I think now they’re correcting themselves, I would say. So it’s gonna be an interesting year for innovation for sure.

Michael Frampton
If there was a surf camp that, like you described, had the standard set up, a good option for them might be to reach out to someone like me and say, “Hey look, we’ll pay you to come and spend a week with this surf group in November and you can do some coaching and some health and wellness stuff.” And then that gives them a point of difference to their existing camp as well as access to my audience, for example.

Lachlan Campbell
Exactly. Yeah. That’s a smart move. That’s something that’s definitely trending. I mean, you look at the guys that have been doing it for ages, like Surf Simply—they do everything. They’re doing everything in-house. They’re booked six months in advance at least.

Michael Frampton
Yeah.

Lachlan Campbell
And they’re not cheap. I think there’s a lot of surfers with plenty of money, especially when you look at a company like Tropic Surf, for example, what they provide.

Michael Frampton
Yeah, of course.

Lachlan Campbell
That’s next level. So yeah, there is a definitely—you’ve got your backpackers at the bottom end, and then you’ve got Tropic Surf at the top end, and there’s obviously a huge demand. Otherwise these companies wouldn’t even exist.

Lachlan Campbell
No, there is. And I say these little add-ons and these extra collaborations that these brands do are not necessarily the defining factor of why people book, but I think especially for surf experience providers—so your surf schools, your surf camps, surf retreats, surf houses—you can’t ignore the face-to-face experience that people have. I think that’s… if you’ve got the money and you’ve got a bit of backing, you can build a pretty nice place, you can build a nice camp, a nice surf retreat, you can stock it with all nice boards—everyone can do that. It’s nearly like a bit of an equalizer if you have the money.

But the people—they make a huge difference as well. I would say, I know I’ve done—for a lot of, well, not just surf experience providers but for other clients as well—we do guest interviews or customer interviews and they tell us about their experience. I think the final paragraph where they sign off just about something positive about the brand or the company that they’re talking about, it generally comes back to the people. That’s what—for me, that’s the best thing about working in the surfing world. Besides the freedom, it’s the people you meet. We’re not, you know, we’re not working in like the financial world or the real estate world, which can be a bit sharky sometimes. You’re working in the surfing world, and people on a whole are pretty cool. And we all have something in common, so easy to build rapport.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. Well, it sounds like your business—you’re providing more than just marketing. It sounds like you’re quite clued into the trends in surfing business as a whole. There’s plenty of surfing advice or surf business advice in your head going on.

Lachlan Campbell
I think that’s because when I am working with a client, I’m getting pretty deep with them and pretty invested in their own journey. And it’s always the same. These are people that are running businesses that they’re proud of. These businesses are like their babies, right? Like, they really deeply care for them. So for them, running it and being quite hands-on with it is important. But there comes a point where you just can’t give 100% in all areas, right?

So when I come on, sometimes it’s like white-label copywriting where I’m just working under a marketing manager or a marketing consultant that’s with the surf brand. But a lot of the time, my favorite arrangement is like a retainer situation where they put me on for 9, 12, longer months in order to help them out. And for me, that works way better too because we get to know each other, we build a bit of a relationship. I can see more of their business and why they started it, which makes writing about it much easier, much more natural.

So yeah, I’m not just called—I mean I’m called The Surfing Copywriter—but I would say I’m not just coming in and just “you give me what you want to write and I’ll do it for you.” I feel like I contribute to the business and to the growth. And you are just like a sounding board as well for the client sometimes, which is nice. Because I think they have so many ideas and so many things they want to do, but executing it can be a real issue. And it’s a shame because a lot of the ideas are—these are generally people not coming from a marketing background—so their ideas are actually innovative and special and, yeah, I would even say some of them are nearly even quirky. But it’s cool because they’re coming at it with originality, and for me, that kind of makes my job easier for sure.

Michael Frampton
Now you mentioned AI. How’s that changing the game?

Lachlan Campbell
Mate, absolute game changer. For me, it’s like having your own personal secretary, right? Having someone there, like a little personal assistant that you can bounce ideas off, that can help with structures and outlines and frameworks. I use it for writing articles when I have a little bit of a mental block. I still feel like—if you ask AI to write you an article on surfing, it’s gonna come out like an intern that just learned to surf six months ago wrote it. Because it’s still a niche topic. It’s not so great at pulling contest results, specific events in the surfing world—everything’s a little bit generalized. It’s going to get better at that for sure.

But it’s nearly like just, yeah, having another person working for you. So the end result for clients—it just makes the result for them so much better because I’m able to free up time that I would’ve otherwise spent maybe writing or working on an outline or something to work on something else for them, to maybe refine it even further. So yeah, mate, I love it. Bring it on.

Michael Frampton
Yeah, bring it on. Is that a mistake that you see—business owners that are trying to do it all themselves, who are relying on AI to write an article? Is that a mistake that's happening?

Lachlan Campbell
Well, it depends. Like, at a certain point—when you're just starting out, right? Say you've just started a brand and you are wearing so many hats, and you know you've gotta do marketing and you know you've gotta get some content out and you want to do some blog articles—if you have to use AI in that situation to help you, yeah, use it for sure. But just maybe try and weave a little bit of your own personality or a little bit of nuance into it because I can spot—I think most people can spot—an AI-written article, especially on surfing, very quickly.

Michael Frampton
Yeah.

Lachlan Campbell
So yeah, I understand. For some business owners, it's important, but if you have the budget to pay someone to do it for you—because at the end of the day, it still takes time. Let’s just take an article, for example. You’ve gotta research, you’ve gotta write the outline, you’ve gotta actually create the content, you’ve gotta proofread it, you’ve gotta do the linking, you’ve gotta source images, you’ve gotta put it into the backend system, you’ve gotta either schedule it, publish it, you’ve gotta play around with all the stuff within the backend system—so the AI can take care of one part of that, but there’s still a whole process around it.

So no, for sure—for the early business owner that’s just started out—it’s probably a godsend. But I think if you are a little bit more advanced, you can invest the time into having someone do it properly.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. Do you use it as well, like—we’re using it right now for note taking for that?

Lachlan Campbell
Yeah. It’s awesome. I used to hate taking notes for phone calls.

Michael Frampton
I use it for, like you said, to bounce ideas off. For outlines of stuff. And I think just getting better at the prompts you use. Like, “Hey, can you edit this for grammar, punctuation—”

Lachlan Campbell
Yeah.

Michael Frampton
“And clarity, keeping all original concepts and words as they are, please.”

Lachlan Campbell
Yeah.

Michael Frampton
Rather than just say, “Edit this,” because then it can just change the whole thing sometimes.

Lachlan Campbell
Of course.

Michael Frampton
So yeah, the prompts that you give it, that’s a—it’s a learning curve.

Lachlan Campbell
Yeah, I think you don’t have to—you just have to be specific about what you want from it. And actually tell it that. I mean, I use it a lot. I actually—I don’t know if you do this as well—do you ever write “please” as well when you ask it to do something?

Michael Frampton
Yeah.

Lachlan Campbell
I don’t know. It’s like weird. It still—I don’t know, it feels sometimes a little bit like foreign, just typing in the commands and stuff. But yeah, no, for that, it’s perfect. Because there’s still—I mean I know there’s like a lot of surfing is obviously multicultural and there’s people that maybe speak Spanish as a first language. They’re writing or doing something for an English client or an English-speaking client that markets to an English demographic. And for that, they can write something in kind of Spanglish and then just ask AI to clean it up, and, you know, so super helpful there for sure.

Michael Frampton
I wonder if like, if you do say “please,” would it write with a more sort of… polite tone?

Lachlan Campbell
Yeah.

Michael Frampton
Yeah, I think it picks up on your style over time.

Lachlan Campbell
Yeah. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just—maybe I’m just strange about it. Maybe I’m just being overly polite to it. Maybe I’m worried about the AI overlords coming and taking over the world in a hundred years, and maybe they spare me if I’m polite now.

Michael Frampton
Oh, yeah, yeah.

Lachlan Campbell
No, I also use the voice—you can literally talk to it now.

Michael Frampton
Yeah.

Lachlan Campbell
It’s pretty—

Michael Frampton
How’s it go with the Kiwi accent?

Lachlan Campbell
Oh, I definitely have to sound my words—speak a little slower and—

Michael Frampton
Enunciate a bit better?

Lachlan Campbell
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But it’s pretty amazing.

Michael Frampton
That’s cool. Yeah, it’s really fun.

Lachlan Campbell
Yeah.

Michael Frampton
And even for—in the kitchen these days with ingredients and recipes. Just being able to punch in, “Hey, I want to make a chicken curry, but I only have these ingredients. How can I substitute?” and—

Lachlan Campbell
Yeah.

Michael Frampton
Yeah.

Lachlan Campbell
I don’t know if my cooking has improved, but it’s definitely made it a bit easier.

Michael Frampton
Oh, it’s interesting, technology.

Lachlan Campbell
Yeah. Bloody oath.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. Alright, so where can people go to find out more about you and what you do?

Lachlan Campbell
My website, which is www.thesurfingcopywriter.com. Instagram at @thesurfingcopywriter. This podcast is gonna be a good one. I guess I’ve got another podcast there with someone else that people can listen to. And there’s a few articles and interviews online. And the good thing about having a name like The Surfing Copywriter—great for the SEO. So if you just type in “surfing” and “copywriting,” I think you’ll get some hits on me too. But yeah, on my website too, you can sign up to my newsletter and I’m doing a weekly newsletter, which is—I don’t know, maybe more letter than news. It’s a little bit more personal, from the desk kind of dispatch. But yeah, you can find me there and yeah, find me in the water as well.

Michael Frampton
Yeah, okay. And so is there some business advice for people in the surf industry in that newsletter?

Lachlan Campbell
Yeah, there is. Every week it’s different. Sometimes it’s just kind of stuff that I’ve learned from working with clients. Sometimes it’s just musings. Sometimes it’s just complete and utter garbage, but there’s something there every week. Take it how you want. I think you’re always gonna get something out of it, for sure. And obviously some of those newsletters, they’re backed off my blog articles too. Like I’ve been writing blog articles now for The Surfing Copywriter for, I dunno, six or seven years or something. So there’s a lot of content there you can go back through and check out. Ultimately, if anyone wants to chat, just get in touch and we’ll see what we can do.

Michael Frampton
Yeah, well I’ll have links to all of that stuff in the show notes. What does your ideal client look like?

Lachlan Campbell
Oh mate. Maybe one that pays on time. No—someone that’s passionate about what they’re doing. Someone that is maybe considering more than just the profit side of things. I mean, it’s tricky because I’ve worked with startups before and they’re always people with a real vision and a dream, but they don’t necessarily have the budget. And so sometimes I have to weigh my own schedule, my current clients, with what they want to achieve on the marginal budget that they have. But it’s honestly just someone that’s really passionate about what they’re doing, that’s invested in the company. They’re not running a business from, you know, a non-surf endemic area and they don’t really have an active role in it. I want to know that they’re kind of on board and kind of, I guess, a reflection of how I run my business, where it’s a little bit more personal. It’s not a production line. We’re actually doing things to improve people’s lives and not forgetting the bigger picture—that surfing is an awesome pastime, it’s an awesome lifestyle, and whatever content we put out, we’re connecting people to that. And maybe even people that never even knew surfing existed, which is kind of cool to think about. So yeah.

Michael Frampton
Yep. Oh, definitely. Well, I think the definition of a business is—it helps you help people. And a surfing business helps surfers. So if you’re a surfing business owner and you want to help more surfers, it’s a pretty good goal. And Lachlan can help you do that. Links to everything him in the show notes. Thank you for your time, man. Appreciate it.

Lachlan Campbell
Thanks, Mike. Cheers, mate.

114 The Surfing Copywriter: How Passion and Strategy Can Power Your Surf Business

For the passionate surfer—whether you're a weekend warrior, a surf dad, or an older surfer—this podcast is all about better surfing and deeper stoke. With expert surf coaching, surf training, and surfing tips, we’ll help you catch more waves, refine your paddling technique, and perfect your pop up on a surfboard. From surf workouts to handling wipeouts, chasing bigger waves, and mastering surf technique, we’re here to make sure you not only improve but truly enjoy surfing more—so you can get more out of every session and become a wiser surfer. Go from Beginner or intermediate Surfer to advanced.

Are you drawn to bigger waves but unsure how to prepare for them—physically, mentally, and emotionally?

In this solo episode, host Michael Frampton takes you behind the scenes of his first big wave experience—a 4.5-meter swell at an outer reef—and breaks down exactly what it took to be ready. If you’ve ever fantasized about chasing bigger sets but fear the consequences, this episode offers a realistic, no-BS look at the process.

• Learn the step-by-step training that prepared Michael to survive and thrive in serious surf conditions.

• Discover the tools, breathwork, and physical prep that separate survivors from statistics.

• Get a raw, firsthand story of what it feels like to be caught in a rogue triple overhead clean-up set—and paddle back out.

Hit play now to learn what it really takes to surf big waves safely and confidently, whether it’s a double-overhead local break or an outer reef monster.

Key Points

• Today's episode focuses on how to surf bigger waves, including big waves, with host Michael Frampton sharing his personal experience and steps taken to surf a four and a half meter swell at an outer reef.

• Michael Frampton recounts his journey from a self-taught surfer in New Zealand to surfing big waves on the east coast of Australia, guided by his surf coach and mentor.

• After six months of preparation, Michael Frampton received a text confirming he was ready to surf the outer reef, detailing the challenges faced during a massive rogue set of waves.

• Michael Frampton describes the intense experience of being caught in massive triple overhead waves, emphasizing the physical and mental challenges of surfing such conditions.

• Despite the difficulties, Michael Frampton managed to recover and paddle out, gaining a new appreciation for those who regularly surf big waves.

• Step one in Michael Frampton's preparation involved acquiring a big wave gun and familiarizing himself with the board in various conditions.

• Michael Frampton attended a breath hold course run by Nam Baldwin, focusing on underwater preparation and stress management techniques for big wave surfing.

• Comprehensive strength training, gym work, and consistent surfing were integral parts of Michael Frampton's six-month preparation for big wave surfing.

• Understanding the surf break, including diving to explore the underwater terrain, was a crucial step in Michael Frampton's preparation.

• Michael Frampton emphasizes the importance of knowing one's limits, being patient, and trusting instincts when preparing to surf bigger waves. 

Outline

Introduction to the Episode

• The episode focuses on how to surf bigger waves, specifically big waves.

• Michael Frampton, the host, shares personal experiences and insights on surfing big waves.

• The episode aims to help passionate surfers catch more waves, surf with more speed, style, grace, and gain confidence in the water.

Personal Experience with Big Wave Surfing

• Michael Frampton recounts a personal experience of surfing a four and a half meter swell at an outer reef on the east coast of Australia.

• The experience involved a clean-up set with massive triple overhead waves.

• Michael describes the challenges faced, including being dragged underwater and the physical impact of landing at high speed.

Steps to Prepare for Surfing Bigger Waves

• Step one involves getting a big wave gun, the right equipment for the types of waves to be surfed.

• Step two is attending a breath hold course run by Nam Baldwin, focusing on underwater prep and breathing techniques for managing anxiety and stress.

• Six months of breath hold training and nervous system management training were part of the preparation.

• Strength training, gym work, and regular surfing were essential to maintain fitness and agility.

• Understanding the surf break itself is crucial, including diving to see what's under the break and discussing with experienced surfers.

• Patience and knowing one's limits are emphasized, with a rule of thumb being if one is not comfortable swimming the conditions, they should not surf.

Resources for Further Learning

• For more details on the topics discussed, visit surfmastery.com and check out the Wave Catching Academy.

• Free PDFs, blog posts, and a back catalogue of the Surf Mastery podcast are available for additional information.

Transcription

Today's episode is all about how to surf bigger waves—even big waves. Uh, welcome back or welcome to the Surf Mastery Podcast, the podcast that helps passionate, lifelong surfers to catch more waves, surf with more speed, style, grace, and to gain wisdom and confidence in the water. I am your host, Michael Frampton, and in today's episode, you're gonna learn all about how to surf bigger waves.

Let me tell you about how I recovered from a cleanup set in a four-and-a-half meter swell at an outer reef. You know, ever since I started surfing, I've always been drawn to bigger waves, but it was never really a reality, sort of growing up as a self-taught surfer in the part of New Zealand where I was.

But then, of course, I found myself living on the East Coast of Australia, and there was an outer reef that I'd seen break, and a friend of mine—my surf coach, my mentor—regularly did, and I decided I wanted to surf it. So he thankfully guided me through the process of preparing for that.

And I remember—gosh—after six months of prep, leading up to these winter swells coming through, I got the text saying, "You're ready. It's on. See you out there." And I managed to get through the shore break, and just as I was getting to the takeoff zone, to the lineup, a massive rogue set came through.

You know, the horizon started to go dark, everyone scrambled and paddled, and about five massive triple-overhead waves came through. Thankfully, they broke a bit further out than us, 'cause I can't imagine getting a lip of one of those on the head. But these huge—I just remember—just massive walls of white water just steamrolling through, dragging everyone hundreds of meters in, underwater for a long time, just being ripped apart. When waves are that big, literally the water is trying to rip your limbs off.

But I managed to come up and recover from that and paddle out the back, do some breathing, regain some calmness. And I remember the first wave I paddled into—I under-paddled a little bit, got caught up in the lip, it threw me three-quarters of the way down the face. Landed. Felt like concrete when you're landing at that speed.

Instant saltwater enema through the wetsuit—never clenched so hard in my life. Managed to recover from that as well, paddled back out, and then got three of the biggest waves I'd ever surfed in my life. And what an experience. Gosh. And a new appreciation was gained for those that regularly surf waves like that—and of course, a lot bigger.

So let me take you through the steps that led me to that day.

First of all, I was a pretty experienced surfer. I'd regularly surfed, you know, double-overhead waves, so I wasn't a stranger to decent-sized waves. And I had a mentor who guided me through it. These are the steps that I took.

So, step number one was to get a big wave gun. You need the right equipment for the types of waves that you're going to surf. And then I surfed that board a lot—in all conditions: small waves, onshore waves, all conditions. Just really got familiar with that piece of equipment. So that was step one.

Step two, I went to a breath-hold course. It was run by Nam Baldwin, and that was—we covered two things. There was underwater prep for surfing big waves specifically, but also breathing techniques for managing your anxiety and managing your stress levels. And then got to practice those learnings with a group. So there were six months of breath-hold training and nervous system management training that went into the preparation for that day.

There was a lot of strength training, a lot of gym work, keeping strong, fit, agile—as well as a lot of surfing. So I was very surf-fit, paddle-fit.

Step number four was understanding the surf break itself. It wasn’t the kind of break that broke in small waves, but there were a few swells where it kind of broke a little bit, so I got to surf it. I also did some diving—got some fins and a mask—and went out there and, you know, looked underneath. See what's under there. So really understanding the break was another important step.

There was a lot of preparation and planning. There was a lot of discussion with surfers that had surfed that break. Like, where did they paddle out? What do they do if their leash breaks? And of course, I understood my limits. I wasn't doing this alone.

So, be patient. You know, surfing is a long game, and preparing to surf bigger waves doesn't necessarily mean that you have to surf the next time that it's big. Trust your instincts. Know your limits.

A good rule of thumb here is: if you're not comfortable swimming the conditions, definitely don't surf. Even brand new leg ropes can break.

If you want to learn more about some of the details about what I talked about in today's episode and others, go to surfmastery.com and check out the Wave Catching Academy, where we go into a lot of details about all this stuff, plus a lot more.

There are also free PDFs available at surfmastery.com, as well as blog posts. And of course, there is a back catalog of the Surf Mastery Podcast full of interviews and tips.

Please share this episode with a friend if you enjoyed it, and give us a rating and a review—it would be great.

Until next time, keep surfing.

113 How To Surf Bigger Waves + A Guide To Surfing Big Waves

For the passionate surfer—whether you're a weekend warrior, a surf dad, or an older surfer—this podcast is all about better surfing and deeper stoke. With expert surf coaching, surf training, and surfing tips, we’ll help you catch more waves, refine your paddling technique, and perfect your pop up on a surfboard. From surf workouts to handling wipeouts, chasing bigger waves, and mastering surf technique, we’re here to make sure you not only improve but truly enjoy surfing more—so you can get more out of every session and become a wiser surfer. Go from Beginner or intermediate Surfer to advanced.

Struggling to catch more waves and improve your takeoff? The hardest part of surfing isn’t turning or carving—it’s everything that happens before you even stand up. But what if you could master that crucial phase?

Most self-taught surfers hit a frustrating plateau because they don’t fully understand wave reading, efficient paddling, or seamless pop-ups. Without these foundational skills, catching waves feels like a battle. This episode breaks down the real reasons behind your struggles and provides actionable fixes to transform your surfing experience.

• Learn how to develop an obsession with wave reading so you can predict and position yourself perfectly.

• Discover the key to efficient paddling and why a strong sprint paddle makes all the difference.

• Shift your mindset to see surfing as starting from the paddle-in, making your takeoffs smoother and more powerful.

Listen now to gain the skills and knowledge to finally catch more waves with ease and confidence!

Key Points

• The hardest part of surfing is getting to the right position on the wave with speed, which involves reading the wave, positioning, sprint paddling, and a well-timed pop-up.

• Surfing mastery requires understanding that the process starts from the moment you paddle for the wave, not just when you pop up.

• The solution to improving surfing is to become fascinated and obsessed with watching and predicting waves, even when not actively surfing.

• Inefficient and weak paddling is a major mistake; improving paddling technique and strength is crucial for better surfing performance.

• Surfing should be viewed as a continuous process from paddling to surfing, requiring a strong and agile pop-up to maintain stability and control.

• Dry land training with surf-specific exercises is essential for improving the strength, mobility, and agility needed for a seamless pop-up.

• The Wave Catching Academy offers a four-week course designed to help self-taught surfers understand and improve their surfing techniques. 

Outline

Introduction to the Surf Mastery Podcast

• The host, Michael Frampton, welcomes listeners to the Surf Mastery podcast, aimed at helping surfers catch more waves, surf with speed, style, and grace, and gain confidence in the water.

• Michael emphasizes that the hardest part of surfing is getting to the right spot on the wave with speed, which involves reading the waves, positioning, paddling, and a well-timed takeoff or pop-up.

Common Misconceptions About Improving Surfing Skills

• Michael points out that listening to ex-pros talk about techniques or watching YouTube videos on surfing equipment will not help surfers catch more waves.

• The focus should be on practical, in-water experience and understanding the dynamics of wave reading and positioning.

The Importance of Fascination in Wave Reading

• Michael suggests that surfers should become fascinated and obsessed with watching waves to improve their ability to predict and read them.

• When waiting for a wave, surfers should practice predicting where the wave will break and observe other surfers to guess if they are positioning themselves correctly.

Improving Paddling Technique

• Michael identifies inefficient and weak paddling as a common mistake among surfers, advising listeners to improve their sprint paddle technique.

• He recommends listening to episode 12 with Rob Case for insights into efficient movement and paddling, and suggests visiting Rob's YouTube channel for visual demonstrations.

The Attitude of Integration in Surfing

• Michael discusses the mistake of separating paddling for the wave from surfing the wave, advocating for an integrated approach where surfing starts with the paddle.

• This perspective helps surfers get up to speed faster and be more adaptable if they mistime the pop-up, emphasizing the need for a strong and agile pop-up.

Dry Land Training for Surfers

• Michael highlights the importance of dry land training to improve strength, mobility, and agility for a seamless pop-up.

• He mentions a free PDF on his website with the five best exercises for surfers and encourages serious surfers to join the Wave Catching Academy for more detailed tips and training.

Wave Catching Academy

• Michael introduces the Wave Catching Academy, a four-week course designed to help average self-taught surfers understand surfing better, catch more waves, and surf faster.

• The course focuses on improving the process from when the surfboard is under the arm to when it is under the feet, with multiple links and details available for enrollment.

Transcription

Now, if you could click your fingers and magically appear standing on your surfboard with your feet in the right spot, and on the right part of the wave with speed, then surfing from that moment on is actually pretty easy. It's getting to that point that is the hardest part of surfing. It's reading the waves, it's positioning, it's the sprint paddles to get up to speed, and a well-timed takeoff or pop-up.

That's the hardest part of surfing. All of those things. Everything from when your surfboard is under your arm to when the surfboard is under your feet. That is the hardest part of surfing. That's why it takes so long to master. That's why you are feeling frustrated. Listening to some ex-pro talk you through the technique of a will not help you catch more waves.

Watching a YouTube infographic video on the difference between fins and rails by some faux British surf guru will not help you catch more waves. So in this episode, we're going to break down some of these real problems and give you some fixes. The first one being your lack of ability to predict and read the wave.

Fascination is the fix here. Now, the age-old answer of how to get better at surfing is: surf more. Spend more time in the water. Now, that remains especially true here, because you have to watch and observe lots of waves. In order to make the most of your time in the water, when you're doing that, become fascinated and obsessed with watching.

You have to practice predicting where the wave is going to break. So when you're sitting out the back, waiting your turn, or you're waiting for a set, be fascinated with reading the water and predicting where each wave will break. There's a wave coming in every 10 to 15 seconds, so watch. Mind surf the wave.

If you see another surfer positioning themselves to catch a wave and attempting to catch the wave, guess whether you think they're doing it right. Should they have been deeper? Will they catch the wave? What could they have done better? If you were them, what would you have done? The time that we spend in the water not surfing is the bulk of our surfing experience.

Now, that doesn't mean we can't get better at surfing during those times. So this is one way to do it. The second biggest mistake that surfers make here is inefficient and weak paddling. Your paddling technique probably sucks, and you don't have a strong sprint paddle. I'd say the majority of surfers fit into this category.

We've all seen the surfer that paddles past us or the good surfer that just glides into the waves. That's because they move through the water with efficiency and they have a good, strong paddling stroke—especially the sprint paddle. The fix here is: just go and listen to Episode 12 with Rob Case, where he talks through the science of what efficient movement and paddling is.

And of course, you can go to Rob's YouTube channel and get some visuals on that. The third biggest mistake when it comes to catching waves is having the attitude of separation. A lot of surfers think that there is a separation between paddling for the wave and surfing the wave. The fix for this—and this is the one perspective that helped my surfing more than anything else—is that surfing starts when you paddle for the wave.

So instead of paddling into the wave, paddle down the wave or across the wave as if you're already surfing. This attitude and perspective will help you get up to speed faster, and will also help you be more adaptable if you mistime the pop-up itself. Because if you miss the ideal window to pop up, it doesn't matter, because you're already surfing.

In order to do that, you need to have a very strong and agile pop-up as well. Your ability to keep the surfboard nice and stable and planing through the water without any drastic changes of direction is key here. So having enough strength and mobility to be able to do that—to go from having your weight in that prone position, weight on your chest, to weight on your hands and transferring that weight from your hands to your feet seamlessly without losing any feel or control of the surfboard—is the only way to improve this.

And the only way to get better at that is dry land training. Surf-specific dry land training. Exercises to improve the strength, mobility, and agility of the pop-up. There is a free PDF on my website called The 5 Best Exercises for Surfers. That will get you started. And if you're really serious about taking your surfing to the next level, and you're sick and tired of the shame and frustration of not having understood surfing yet, and you want to overcome your current plateau as a self-taught surfer, then join the next cohort of the Wave Catching Academy, where we go into details on these tips, plus a whole lot more.

112: Mastering the Hardest Part of Surfing: Surf More Waves with Confidence

For the passionate surfer—whether you're a weekend warrior, a surf dad, or an older surfer—this podcast is all about better surfing and deeper stoke. With expert surf coaching, surf training, and surfing tips, we’ll help you catch more waves, refine your paddling technique, and perfect your pop up on a surfboard. From surf workouts to handling wipeouts, chasing bigger waves, and mastering surf technique, we’re here to make sure you not only improve but truly enjoy surfing more—so you can get more out of every session and become a wiser surfer. Go from Beginner or intermediate Surfer to advanced.

Has surfing started to feel more like a grind than a joy? What if the answer isn’t better waves or sharper turns—but a new philosophy?

In this powerful and thought-provoking conversation, philosopher and lifelong surfer Aaron James shares why he abandoned performance-based surfing in favor of adventure surfing—and how that shift brought back the joy, meaning, and connection he thought he’d lost in the lineup. If you've ever questioned what surfing means to you, this is your moment to rethink it all.

• Discover how redefining your surfing goals can reignite your stoke and deepen your relationship with the ocean.

• Learn how surfing mirrors our search for meaning, longevity, and even spirituality.

• Explore how the concept of attunement—not perfection—can transform both your surfing and your life.

Hit play now to hear how reframing your surfing mindset could be the most meaningful wave you ever catch.

https://learn.surfmastery.com/the-philosophy-of-surfing & www.surfmastery.com

Aarons' books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Aaron-James/author/B007CL9J5M?ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

Other books mentioned:
The Mature Mind - Gene D. Cohen
The Mindful Body - Ellen Langer

Key Points

• Aaron James discusses the concept of 'adventure surfing,' a redefinition of his approach to surfing focusing on connection and enjoyment rather than performance and competition.

• Michael Frampton introduces the Surf Mastery Podcast and the conversation with Aaron James, focusing on how surfing shapes one's life, philosophy, and longevity.

• Aaron James shares his shift in surfing philosophy from seeking perfection and performance to embracing adventure surfing, emphasizing joy and connection over competition.

• Aaron James explains how philosophical thinking helped him redefine his relationship with surfing, allowing him to enjoy it in new ways without the pressure of performance standards.

• Aaron James discusses the concept of longevity and how philosophical ideas about mortality and the pursuit of a longer life can be connected to the practice of surfing.

• Aaron James proposes that the meaning of life is found in the stories we tell about our experiences, which allow us to find reconciliation and joy in living.

• Aaron James explains how surfing satisfies both our animalistic nature and our higher, spiritual selves, connecting us to the sublime and the larger universe.

• Aaron James discusses the social aspect of surfing and how it contributes to longevity and well-being, emphasizing the value of community and serendipitous interactions.

• Aaron James explores the concept of God and spirituality in relation to surfing, suggesting that surfing can be a form of attunement to the divine or the natural world.

• Aaron James argues that surfing is not inherently selfish but can be a self-transcending activity that enhances one's appreciation for life and connection with others. 

Outline

Surfing Philosophy and Attunement

• Aaron James discusses the concept of attunement in surfing, emphasizing the importance of constantly automating certain skills while paying attention to new challenges.

• Aaron redefines their approach to surfing as 'adventure surfing,' focusing on connection, being in the ocean, and surfing in beautiful, less crowded places with tricky waves.

• Michael Frampton, the host, introduces the Surf Mastery Podcast, which aims to help surfers improve their performance and longevity in the sport.

• Aaron shares their personal journey from pursuing perfection and performance in surfing to embracing adventure surfing.

• Aaron explains how their background in philosophy helped them reframe their relationship with surfing, allowing them to enjoy the sport in a new way.

Longevity and Surfing

• Aaron and Michael discuss the concept of longevity in relation to surfing, exploring how the sport can contribute to a longer and healthier life.

• They mention the importance of staying active, moving through space, and adapting to the environment as key aspects of living well and potentially extending lifespan.

• Aaron shares their interest in longevity biohacking and the philosophical ideas behind it, drawing parallels between the principles of longevity and the joy of surfing.

• They emphasize the value of finding joy and meaning in the present moment, rather than solely focusing on the promise of a longer life.

Meaning of Life and Surfing

• Aaron provides a philosophical perspective on the meaning of life, suggesting that it lies in the stories we tell about our experiences and how they reconcile us to being alive.

• They draw a connection between the meaning of life and the act of surfing, highlighting the attunement and skillful activity involved in the sport.

• Aaron explains how surfing satisfies both the animalistic need to move and attune with nature, as well as the human desire for music, dance, and connection with larger things.

• They discuss the social aspect of surfing and how it contributes to a sense of community, serendipity, and the feeling of belonging.

God and Surfing

• Aaron shares their definition of God, drawing from Spinoza's perspective that God and nature are one and the same.

• They suggest that through skillful activities like surfing, individuals can gradually get closer to nature and, therefore, closer to God.

• Aaron emphasizes that surfing is not purely selfish but rather an attunement to larger things, including the natural world and the ocean.

• They discuss the idea of self-transcendence in surfing, where the value of the activity goes beyond personal performance and connects individuals to the excellence of the waves and the craft of surfing.

Selfishness and Surfing

• Aaron challenges the notion that surfing is purely selfish, arguing that it involves attuning to the natural world and experiencing the waves in a harmonious way.

• They differentiate between innocent self-love and status consciousness, suggesting that the latter is the root of many social ills and vices.

• Aaron discusses the dynamics of the surfing lineup, where surfers may compete for waves and status, leading to conflicts and dominance relations.

• They emphasize that true enjoyment of surfing comes from valuing the activity for its own sake and finding joy in others' success, rather than solely focusing on personal gain or status.

Transcription

Aaron James
Think about it in terms of attunement. It's a skillful activity, and what you're going for is attunement with the wave. But the way we do that is by constantly automating certain skills and paying attention to new challenges. And that's the way we stay attuned and develop our skillful practice. And one version of it is you're trying to be the best surfer you can be, but it doesn't have to be that at all. It can just be switching up challenges and trying different things. So I decided to redefine a different way of surfing, which has its own standards. I just worked that out for myself. And I call that adventure surfing. And the goals there are just connect, just be out in the water, be in the ocean, surf beautiful places with light crowds and interesting, tricky, difficult waves.

Michael Frampton
Welcome back or welcome to the Surf Mastery Podcast. The podcast that helps passionate, lifelong surfers to catch more waves, surf with more speed, style, grace, and to have wisdom and confidence in the water. I am your host, Michael Frampton, and today's episode is a special one. You just heard a couple of quotes from it. That's Aaron James, or I should say Professor Aaron James. He is a professor of philosophy. He is an author. I will have links to his Amazon, Surfing with Sartre, among others. Aaron is a very good surfer and he spent decades chasing perfection in the water, from Lower Trestles to Indonesian surf trips. But in recent years, his relationship to surfing, just like mine, shifted quite a lot. He is no longer trying to find the perfect wave or seeking performance, but instead embraces what he calls adventure surfing, which is a mindset that values connection and attunement over competition or dominance and putting pure stoke before social status. And in this conversation we explore how surfing shapes our lives, our philosophy and even our longevity. We talk about one's surfing philosophy and how it's the foundation of your surfing experience in the water and even how it affects your performance. Is the surfing that you do coming from you, or is it influenced by the surfing industry and the surf media? Are you a product of surfing as a sport, or are you a creative surfer seeing surfing as an art form? We take a deeper dive into this and we talk about why surfing is so meaningful. We talk about how surfing not only satisfies our animalistic, primal nature, the need to move through and attune to the environment, but to our higher selves, our spiritual selves and our desire to connect to something bigger than ourselves. We liken surfing to music and dance. We discuss the meaning of life and of course the meaning of surfing. We touch on the concept of God and how surfing can bring you closer to God, why surfing is not a pointless activity or selfish pursuit, but can actually be selfless and an expression of something deeply human and transcendent. We dive into the dynamics of the lineup, the democracy of—or the lack of—in surfing, the psychology of dominant surfers, and how lineup hierarchy shapes our experience in the water. And finally we talk about learning to love surfing simply for the love of surfing and finding your own unique way of enjoying the waves without it being dictated by internal or external pressures and expectations. So if you've ever experienced shame and frustration with surfing, if you've questioned your relationship to surfing, if you've wondered whether you're chasing the right goals in the water, or you just love thinking about surfing in a deep way, this episode is for you. This episode will definitely get you thinking, and I have created this mini eBook as a workbook to help guide you through developing your own personal surfing philosophy, and it's available on my website, surfmastery.com. Not only is it a great companion with practical exercises to go alongside this episode, but it's a great way to support this show itself because it's only the price of a cup of coffee. So go to surfmastery.com and check that out. Another way to support the show is to share this episode with a friend. And without further ado... I give you my conversation with philosophy professor Aaron James. Hey, how are you?

Aaron James
Yeah, pretty good, thanks for accommodating the time change. I had to get the tide window on my spot. Oh, really narrow tide window. What's your podcast about? What's the idea?

Michael Frampton
The Surf Mastery Podcast, it's inspiration and education for better surfing performance and longevity. That's the tagline. Oh, wow. Okay. Wow. I'm super into longevity stuff. I started the show like 10 years ago where I was really interested in shortboarding and learning how to do a better turn and get barreled. And since then life is... that was when I was living in Australia. I lived—we spent four years surfing Little Doom, living in Malibu as well. Oh, okay. Got three kids now, been through a lot, lost a wife, lost a job back in New Zealand. So surfing has—the show's become quite eclectic and it's more about what's your relationship with surfing, and how does surfing affect your life, and how does it make it better or worse, and that sort of stuff. Yeah.

Aaron James
My relationship to it has changed in the last year or so.

Michael Frampton
Tell me about that.

Aaron James
Oh yeah, sure. So I spent, from my teens on—so now I'm 53—so for over 30 years, I was doing what I call perfection and looking for perfect waves. And performance. Perfection and performance, trying to perform in perfect, as good waves as I can get, right? So, became a good surfer, surf traveled my whole life, went to all the hot, the highest points. Started going to Indo a month every year, but other good world-class spots. I'm an academic, a professor, so we have our calendar. We have a lot of free time, totally free and flexible time. So, it totally accommodates surf travel easily. So, I've done that the whole, since my twenties. Since I was in grad school, even college. But then I just got to—and then at home, the way to finesse living in Southern California was, as you know, the crowds. Look at the good wave, too crowded. Surfrider Malibu is a nightmare. I made Lower Trestles my home, really got it wired. I know everybody, and I just sort of grasped the nettle and just learned to get good waves at a lot of good waves, the most crowded. I've learned. So I did that for 20 years, and then I just got burnt out, totally burnt out finally on it after about 20 years of doing that. And then I was going for over a decade to Nias for a month at a time. I throw in some Mentawais and Bali also, but I got burnt out on surfing Lagundri Bay. But I really was really dedicated for a decade.

Michael Frampton
Yeah, I've seen footage of you absolutely ripping out there. I've seen the footage.

Aaron James
Oh, cool. Thanks. Yeah. So I did that and I just cut—I mean, it was just... it's partly like, it's harder to keep up the level of performance. You're always, you're kind of sliding and then you're trying to make up the deficit, and the downward trend is—the trend is down, but you're trying to keep the slope as gentle as possible. And that was like a goal. It was fine. I did that for, still did that for a decade. And I'm still proud of myself and still had sessions that are really the peak of my life and surfing career. But I just got so over the crowd, the usual crowd dynamics and stuff. You know, originally inspired a book—that's called Assholes. I have a theory about assholes inspired by surfers, probably. And some of my colleagues in academia and surfers, but like surfers did it really well. And every surfer knows the asshole in the lineup really well. So I just got totally burned out on the whole thing. I just didn't feel like surfing Lowers. I didn't care about surfing Lagundri Bay. It's fine to go into the Mentawais, like less crowded zones or whatever. But the thing that I—and it took me a little while there to sort of figure out—to redefine. I feel like you don't discover the fountain of youth—this is a longevity point—you don't discover the fountain of youth and just decide to just not go drink from it anymore. You know what I mean? So it's like all these sort of incredible benefits from surfing—this effortless fitness and health and great attitude towards life comes, all this existential balm and all these good things just come if you just stick with surf, if you just surf. Or live your life around it. So it's pretty stupid to just not surf. So it was like, that was... and it had never been thinkable. I didn't ever live that way. So I—but I didn't know how to renegotiate my relationship to it. Trying to figure out how to do that. But it helped, I sort of redefined. So for the first time in my life, I rethought of what I was doing before was... it's not just any kind of surfing. It's not just surfing. It's specific surfing, specific goals—getting the best waves you can and surfing as well as possible. It's perfection, performing. That was the abiding goal. And I decided there's lots of different kinds of surfing and I can do a different kind of surfing, which has different goals and different standards of success. So if I do a different kind of surfing, I'm not doing a shitty job of surfing. I'm just not doing perfection and performance. I'm not doing that. There's a different game, right? It's not—if you change the game, you're not doing bad moves in the other game, or change the dance, you're not doing bad moves in a different dance. You're just doing a different dance, right? Or different game. So I decided to redefine a different way of surfing, which has its own standards. And I just worked that out for myself. And then I call that adventure surfing. And the goals there are to connect, just be out in the water, be in the ocean, surf beautiful places with light crowds and interesting, tricky, difficult waves. Like where there's a little bit of a challenge, just something interesting about it. You're out surfing, but there's like a weird reef that doesn't break that often, barely surfs, but you're the only one on it, but you're getting it wired, you know, kind of thing. The regular spot I surf now at Crystal Cove, I used to walk my dog there every day before I went to Lowers, and I'd call it the shit wave because I was like, what's that? Because I just—just shows my attitude towards it. Now I surf the shit wave all the time. I don't call it the shit wave anymore. But it has a fun—it's a reef with a fun bowl. So I've got this bowl really wired. So now, and it's kind of—and I like the wonkiness of it. And it can be fun. And I'm not trying to—I don't get the same open face and do the same open face turns like you can do at Lowers on every wave, but that's not the goal, right? So the goal is just to get the interesting waves, to just try out new things, be on it when the window's on. And then it's never that crowded. It's totally beautiful place. It's incredibly—and that's the closest place to my house anyway. So it's super easy. And then it turns out at Crystal Cove, in winter, and summer too, there's some spots that get really, really good occasionally. And a lot of people who don't check it all the time don't score it. So now I get those spots when they're on. And so I've kind of recreated this different way of surfing, but it's... like my friends who know me, knowing how I lived and how I surf, they kind of look at it like, "What? You surf out there? Oh, just a little left? Just that left?" They go over and over. They don't get it. But I'm like, it's a different thing. Anyway, so now I brought back the sort of childlike teenage joy of surfing back. I was just so stoked to surf again. And there's less sort of chase about it. I mean, as usual, I have to wait and stuff for waves, but there's less like... the thing that kind of becomes more palpable as you're chasing waves is you're waiting ever longer, it's harder and harder to score, your standards go up because you surf a lot of perfect waves. And then it's not just any good waves, it's—these are the most perfect, perfect waves you've ever... and then you see all the times the waves—now you see all the waves you're not surfing all the time. So no matter how styled out you are as a traveling pro, you're missing waves somewhere. So there's this whole kind of cruel... it's made the chase aspect harder. And then Lowers got worse because I used to surf a certain window where I could get it relatively crowded, and then the cam kind of screwed up that window. And then the professionalization culture and then the e-bikes and all this stuff just kind of screwed it all up. So it's a nightmare now. I mean, I love it. I love the place and I'm grateful for it. But yeah, so I've totally renegotiated now. It's a totally different kind of surfer. I just don't have any temptations for Lowers. Even though I check it, will see it occasionally, but I just... it's fine. Or even go back to Lagundri Bay where I don't have any temptation—just inclination. I'd want to go to other spots. They could be lesser waves, but just less crowded.

Michael Frampton
I love that. I can relate to it a lot because that basically describes my relationship with surfing now.

Aaron James
Oh, okay. Right.

Michael Frampton
And it's been like that for the past sort of five years. It kind of happened when I was living—and I spent, you know, a good four years living in Australia—shortboarding, wanting to get better at the performance style of surfing, traveling to Indo, and then living in Malibu. Tried longboarding First Point and shortboarding Zuma, and traveling down to Nicaragua. And then I surfed with Devon Howard one day out at Little Doom.

Aaron James
And I know him from Lowers. Yeah.

Michael Frampton
Yeah.

Aaron James
Yeah.

Michael Frampton
He had quite a profound influence on me and suggested, well, why don't you get a glider? He just saw the way I was surfing and what I—the kind of waves I was looking for—and he's like, why don't you get a glider? I went down to San Diego and got an 11-foot glider off Josh Hall. And then that is the board that I've been riding ever since. And I'm just looking for little unique waves that are hard to surf or getting it and just surfing away from crowds.

Aaron James
Yeah.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. And I love it.

Aaron James
That's really cool. Yeah.

Michael Frampton
Back to the simple joy of surfing and not—

Aaron James
Exactly.

Michael Frampton
I think it's still a pursuit of surf mastery because there's a different kind of challenge within that.

Aaron James
Yeah.

Michael Frampton
I'm a big believer of any sort of relationship—whether it be with a human or the ocean—if it's not growing, it's dying. It has to be growing in some way. And surf mastery doesn't necessarily mean I'm trying to master surfing. It's just the path of improving in some way, whether that be mastering a different board or learning how to ride smaller waves, or even just maintaining your surfing standards as you age is a form of that.

Aaron James
Yeah. I think about it in terms of attunement. It's a skillful activity and what you're going for is attunement with the wave. But the way we do that is by constantly automating certain skills and then paying attention to new challenges. And that's the way we stay attuned and develop our skillful practice. And one version of it is you're trying to be the best surfer you can be, but it doesn't have to be that at all. It can just be switching up challenges and trying different things.

Michael Frampton
Yeah.

Aaron James
But yeah.

Michael Frampton
There's something you said there—you said, I don't know if you used the words specifically—but you changed your surfing philosophy, let's say. Is that something that you sat down and thought about intentionally? How important is that process?

Aaron James
I don't know how other people go do it, but I'm a philosopher, so I'm a cogitator. So I use my philosophical skills. I mean, the skills really helped me. So I defined the old thing I was doing—the old activity. At that point, I said I had internalized the standards of that activity. So I had a hard time shaking the feeling that anything I was going to do was just going to be an inferior version. It was going to be—I was doing shitty surfing, a shitty surfer, low standards, subpar crap waves, not surfing well. I had to sort of—it takes a certain amount of reframing, intellectual and cognitive reframing, to think, no, wait, those are good standards for a different activity. But then that fills up with thought. It's like, but if you're doing a different activity, it can have its own standards. And then you don't apply the standards across. You don't judge pop music by the standards of whether Vivaldi and Mozart are great classical music. You're just judging apples and oranges. If you say, no—if you ask what's the best song or who's the best musical artist ever—that's not even an intelligible question. You could be asked, what are the most important genres of music? But then you're going to say, well, there's classical and then there's jazz and that kind of thing. But these just have—they're different types of things. So you assess them by their own standards. And it's not clear, if you're just talking about music period, if there's any set of standards that are specific enough to just sort of pick out the supreme form of music. I mean, some people have those views, but it's fairly silly. You're just saying, no, look, it's Beethoven's Ninth. That's the pinnacle of music.

Michael Frampton
Surfing is far more like music than it is like tennis.

Aaron James
Yeah. There are a lot of different kinds of surfing and they're all good in their own very different ways, and you assess them by the standards appropriate to the genre of surfing. So those kinds of thoughts—what I had to go through to just feel differently about this new thing I was doing. Because then when I had a thought like, oh, well, no, these are shitty waves—no, that's not. This is successful adventure surfing. This is good adventure surfing. I'm doing well. This is a goodness of a kind. Really rethinking that then freed me up to just enjoy it for what it is. And suddenly I had all the affect—just the pure stoke coming back and connecting to the sublimity and beauty of it. The stuff that really, you know, that surfers know but don't really talk about that much. But that's what stoke is all about—being caught up in the confluence of skill and changing circumstance. That's the way I think about it abstractly, but that's what stoke is about. And it just brought all that back. All that sort of sense of things came flooding back.

Michael Frampton
Yeah.

Aaron James
I already had that broad idea of what surfing is, even though when I was still in the perfection performance mode, but there was further intellectual work to do to reframe it. But then once I thought it through, I just felt permission to go and just enjoy—just never go to Lowers anymore and just surf Crystal Cove every day. And just whatever. I don't care if my friends think that I'm doing something dumb. I'm really stoked. I'm down there by myself surfing fun waves. I'm like, what do I care? It's beautiful. I'm having a totally pure surfing experience, doing the same thing I loved when I was 12.

Michael Frampton
Sounds like the adventure surfing is as much of a journey within as it is without.

Aaron James
Well, it was for me to get to there—to start to that. Yeah. I mean, where it goes, I guess, the adventure surfing might require doing some adventure—actual exploring weird waves, you know.

Michael Frampton
Every wave is different. So it's always—if you're trying to get closer to the center of now and be present, then that's part of the adventure, right?

Aaron James
Well, some people could do adventure surfing and never have done anything else and never really thought about it. That's just the thing they always did, and that's the thing they were always at peace with. And they always loved surfing. And they never had to think, rethink it. Or they just saw the other things as forms of surfing that never had any appeal or whatever. So they could be at adventure surfing but totally unreflective about it. So there was never any internal journey. They just fell into it. Sorry, I'm a philosopher, so I think that's a possibility. But for me, making a transition from one kind to another—or at least having a new kind, different kinds of surfing within a repertoire—that did require an internal change of really a journey of rethinking things. And then it was a journey too. Yeah. I mean, it was a journey for me intellectually to rethink that.

Michael Frampton
Do you think that all of your background in philosophy helped you to do that process? And are there specific questions that you'd ask yourself when you're developing a personal philosophy that crossover to developing a surfing philosophy?

Aaron James
Uh, yeah. The thing that philosophy makes you good at is identifying assumptions that you're making or other people are making, and then thinking about, wait a minute—is that true? What would it be for it to be different? What's the best way of thinking about things such that that's not true? And then what are the merits of it? And oftentimes that's really not obvious to yourself or to others, and you have to really think that through. And I do that all day long professionally for academic work, and I've done that now for decades. So that's a big part of my life. But I don't often need to do it that much. I didn't have to rethink—I mean, there were some adjustments in my earlier relationship to surfing, but it was still within the same sort of frame, form of surfing. And I made adjustments to it, and there were lots of frustrations that came out of that. But the frustrations I always found ways to manage. They never rose to sort of needing to rethink the entire enterprise that I was taking for granted.

Aaron James
I never did that before. But it was only once there was sort of a crisis, a personal crisis, which is—I suddenly just don't... can't... I just hate this now, you know?

Aaron James
Okay, wait a minute. And then the crisis was, well, I don't want to just quit surfing, you know, for the reasons I was saying, so how do I reconcile? And that was not obvious. In the way you're working on an intellectual problem, oftentimes you just pose the question—oh, well, look, here's another way of thinking. It's just obvious to you, or you're having—I'm having a discussion with someone else, and especially if you know the terrain and they're making certain assumptions, it's just obvious to you that they're making assumptions. Something you just point out. And then that wasn’t obvious to me. It took a while to figure out. I had to sort of just stare blankly, and not know. But I guess the way that being a professional philosopher, a skilled trained philosopher helped me too is I thought, well, I’ll just wait, you know, I’ll wait. I’m just going to think, I’m going to try to think about this. I’m going to wait and see—see if something comes to me to think through this more, you know, wait, try to understand what’s bothering me, what are the alternative ways of thinking about that, gradually letting myself be patient with that process as opposed to just being rash and shutting it down, just quitting and doing something else. But good. Yeah, no, it’s helped. It’s really been good. I didn’t go to Indo this year. I went to South Africa to see a friend, and we just surfed the Durban South Coast and a bunch of adventurous waves. I was doing adventure surfing there. So it was—I’ve been there before, but this was like—and I didn’t really care about scoring. It gets really, really good there. And we got good waves, but not anything like what it really—how it gets. But I was like, this is fine. This is adventure surfing. This is what I want, you know, so that was cool. So it still applies to travel and stuff. Well, it’s really freeing because you just don’t need to score perfect waves all the time. Yeah, you can just find a cool little cranny and go get it, get it wired. And anyway, so yeah, is this—this sounds up your alley? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I was intrigued by the longevity stuff, because I do have a bunch of ideas. I’m into the longevity biohacking stuff. I’m thinking of working some of that into a book project as well. Like, so I have some ideas about that.

Michael Frampton
More philosophical, like the Dave Asprey sort of world?

Aaron James
That world, yeah. I don’t take him very seriously, but other—David Sinclair at Harvard Medical School, who I think is a more philosophical kind of researcher, Peter Attia, who’s a more hardcore wet blanket kind of guy. He’s a wet blanket. I mean, I like those two. I trust both those guys, and they have philosophical differences. And there's a kind of interesting difference in how they think about longevity, you know? And I think there's things you can say philosophically about how to finesse it that kind of connect to surfing as well.

Michael Frampton
I just recently read a book—the title escapes me—about how the brain gets better as you age. And another one by a Harvard professor, female psychology professor, I forget her name, talking about basically the extreme version of the placebo effect.

Aaron James
Oh, okay.

Michael Frampton
Fascinating books and backed up by studies as well. Yeah, one study in particular where she put a bunch of 80-year-old men into a house where everything in the house was dated 30 years ago. And they were only allowed to talk about things as if it was the present tense.

Aaron James
I think I heard this. Yeah.

Michael Frampton
And their vision improved, and their walking improved, their health markers improved just simply by that. So I think, yeah, longevity has to do with the state of mind as well as—

Aaron James
Yes.

Michael Frampton
—as well as—

Aaron James
The social contact, the social context, and what's taking—That might be like, yeah, I think that's part of why some of the Blue Zone communities—why people do well—because it has to do with people being like, everyone’s old and kind of on the same page but still being active and social. And there’s still a lot of present-oriented things to live for that are joyful, exciting, lots of opportunities for social connection, doing things together. You know, about walking, games—sort of the way that surfers get together chatting out in the lineup. It’s all about like, the timeframe shrinks. Because it’s not like you’re six months, one year, two years. You know, it’s all like, what was it like at low tide? Maybe it’ll be better tomorrow. You know, it’s all really short—within hours or days. You know, the last one was so good—if it was really good as well, that might be point of conversation, but otherwise it’s like, last—well, you know, everyone’s like—is it—you know, it’s like days out or whatever. You know, like, the window shrinks really well. I think I’ve always thought of that as a big part of why surfing—it draws you into a present, a really narrow timeframe. That’s why—part of why it’s joyful, the social side of it. One of the philosophical thoughts—I mean, like in the David Sinclair—he’s got sort of a theory about why longevity work might work.

So the—I really like this idea. The idea that the commonality for what makes exercise so good, and—but also fasting—and also, why are all those things—why do these things work in terms of promoting lifespan, healthspan? They work because they’re putting stress on the body and on the cells, right? And so they’re—basically your cells, when stressed, when they’re not too comfortable—because you feel like you’ve got food, or—then they’re forced to make do with what they’ve got. Repair themselves. Use the lower quality proteins, synthesize that stuff, stuff like that. So the cells—like—and the different—and so you can stimulate that with the—best thing is exercise. Fasting is good. But then you can also do it with supplements and stuff. But this is all still pretty—supplements—but this is why I like—I mean, sorry, it’s pretty speculative in the sense that it’s like a nice theory and it’s a philosophical—it’s a theory and there’s a philosophical thought. And which is tied to like the idea that, well, maybe if the science progresses quickly enough, then—if you get on the bandwagon doing these sort of speculative biohacks, then you’ll stay ahead of the learning curve. And then maybe you can get not just like an extra six years, but you get an extra 10, 20 years of lifespan or whatever. Maybe even potentially could be even longer if you’re resetting the body clock or something like that. So this is all totally pie in the sky—not even in a bad sense—it’s a philosophical idea about like, that mortality is not as fixed as we think, right? And that there’s a value in trying to shoot for as long. And there’s a risk proposition. It’s like, the value of living longer is so great that it’s worth taking—even stuff that has a low probability of working. So there’s a lot of philosophically there. And so what I like about—what I like about Peter Attia is he’s just—he has a very different philosophical view, right? His idea—he’s Mr. Cold Water. He’s like, look, if you just look at what we already know, then none of these supplements really are going to make—we don’t know they make any real difference. They might. He says, look, it’s exercise. And it’s certain kinds of exercise. That’s the only thing that we know moves the needle on longevity, like by randomized control trials, good high-quality studies. The rest is super speculative.

And David Sinclair’s message is, “Well, I do a little weight lifting like once a week. I do a little exercise for a few hours, but mostly I just fast and take pills. And that’s how to live long and age backwards.” And Attia’s good point is like, look, if you just do that stuff, you’re not doing the thing that we already know—we already know promotes longevity, which is exercise. And it’s not any exercise. It’s exercise that promotes strength over time to prevent you from falling down while walking down a stair or a curb. Because that’s a killer. And if you survive, the recovery can be—that you’ve got to stop that. So you need strength training. And then after that, you need VO2 max. You need to get your capacity to process oxygen. And what does that is sitting on an exercise bike for three hours a week, right? And maybe a little high-intensity interval training can help.

The low-hanging fruit is the stuff we already know works.

Aaron James
And that’s just exercise—doing certain things, exercise regime. If you’re not doing that, you’re not serious about longevity. There’s a way—one way of thinking about the stuff that—that—this is going to connect—this is a long way around to a point we were making earlier in connection with surfing. So here’s my thought. So there’s something in between there, which is like—you don’t have to do a risk—you take a risk calculation now on the bet of longevity or some extra big boom in lifespan—big extra lifespan. But you also don’t have to think all you’re doing is eking out a few extra years doing arduous things now.

There’s a way of thinking about this, which is—what’s the value of living longer—a long life? Well, it’s that you’ve lived a life. What is it to be a living thing? Think about this. You’re an animal. Okay, what is it to be an animal? Well, like at the lowest level—what is it to be a living thing—is like at the cell level. It’s to be a thing that—it’s to be a thing that has a—there’s a boundary between what’s inside of it and outside of it, like membrane walls. And it moves through space. And it adapts to its senses and adapts to its surroundings. And it internalizes—it takes in resources from that to create energy to move through space. So it’s basically something like a relatively self-contained body that senses environment to move through space. So it’s movement—is the—is like the very essence—to be—as an animal. Like, that is what it is to be an animal. An animal is just a self-moving creature. Being self-moving just—it is what it is to be an animal.

And so what it is to live a biological life or be a biological animal just is to be a self-reproducing being whose ongoing existence—my existence in the future only happens because right now I’m doing these things. I’m sensing an environment, responding to it, and taking in resources, converting those to energy. That’s the only way cells or any animal perpetuates itself. So that’s what it is to live—to be alive. Okay.

So now, if you think, okay, I’m an animal, what is it—I’m a human animal, what is it to do that? Well, what is it to animal? Well, what is it to animal? Well, it’s—here’s what it is. It’s to move. It’s one of the most basic things to do—to be good at animaling—to be a good animal—is to move, move around. It’s the sense in moving around an environment that’s changing. You’re sensing and responding to the environment and then you’re moving in response to it. That’s like—what it is to fundamentally do well as an animal. That’s what all animals naturally do because they’re looking for food, reproduction. But they’re like—you have to rest—but that’s a temporary state, right? And most animals don’t have chairs. It’s no surprise, on this view, that chairs are like a curse from a lifespan and healthspan point of view. A sedentary life is like a disaster.

But we—and our self-conscious—so the worst thing to do to be a—for being an animal—is to sit around a lot. But—so human beings who’ve forgotten what it is to be an animal—to do well—just decide, well, I just want to be comfortable. So I’m going to sit around a lot. I’m going to eat whatever food’s available that is not fast. I’m not going to have any feelings of scarcity. There’s not going to be—no sort of temporary food scarcity. There’s going to be—I don’t want to have to exercise. I want to be fit and live long, but if I’m going to do that, that’s just a means of getting this bigger benefit, which is longer life. Like a longer life. Okay. For a long—for living forever, I’ll—okay, maybe I can—actually, most people aren’t persuaded because they’re not going to actually do the thing—the science we already know will give you a longer lifespan. Most people aren’t going to do it.

They’re not going to get their—they’re not going to figure out their VO2 max, get up to the norm, and then ride that down doing increasingly—with increasing marginal gains in their exercise regime every year. No, almost nobody’s going to do that. Only the really hardcore people. Nobody cares about living long enough to exercise that much because they don’t really—so the idea is like—is there some other way of thinking about why you would exercise?

And the idea is—yeah, that’s what it is to live well now, today. What it is to do well today as a living human being is to move. And more—to do well—is to move in the face of challenges. Like—this is what we were talking about with surfing. So like—yeah. So it’s the skillfully navigated environment.

And now you can think of what surfing is—it’s just like a beautiful exemplification of this thing—what it is to be an animal. But it’s now being done for all kinds of reasons—not being done for food, or for sex, or for shelter, or whatever—for survival. It’s being done for the joy of it. But it’s still not sitting around just to relax, right? It’s moving. It’s acting. It’s responding, sensing, being attuned to the environment.

And so it connects and has maybe—you know, connected to larger things and—you know, all this larger meaning as well. So this is a way of thinking about what’s beautiful in surfing—it connects with not just the bigger stuff like what Freud calls “oceanic feeling,” but like just what it is to be an animal. What it is to be a living being. It’s just to move and adapt and skillfully attune to your environment.

And so the idea on the longevity thing is like—look, so here’s why you should exercise now. Here’s why you should eat well now. Here’s why you should put your body under stress by fasting, by exercising—because that’s what it is to do well now as a living being. You’re not doing that to try to get this extra 10 years, or 20 years, or 50 years of longevity. You’re doing it because this is what it is to do well now—this year—to live well now, during this week, this month, this decade. That’s living well. So, okay, I’ll do that.

And if I can see the beauty and the joy and find some way of making it fun and worthwhile for its own sake—because it’s a challenge or because it feels good or whatever—then now that’s self-sustaining. And then the idea is you could do that and keep doing that. And now if you get lucky and science—you stay ahead of the science, and science serves up some discovery such that the things you’re doing, gradually adapting to it, let you live an extra five, 10 years, 20 years—then yeah, that’s all to the good. Why not be open to that? But it’s not like you’re forcing yourself to do a bunch of shit now for this promise of a long, way extra-long life.

So I think that’s kind of like an in-between view. And then surfing is one way of thinking about how to do it. And everybody’s got to find their own surfing. But I’ve had to supplement all this—so I started supplementing with other exercise too. Surfing. So, yeah.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. One of the things about surfing is it doesn't really put much—unless you're high performance, big waves—it doesn't really put much load through the system.

Aaron James
Not enough. Not enough as you age. Yeah. But anyway.

Michael Frampton
It sounds like Attia and Sinclair should start surfing basically.

Aaron James
Yeah, I imagine Attia—maybe he would—but I don't think Sinclair would. He's just kind of—he's a scrawny guy. He's not an athletic type. He's just a nerd guy in the lab. He wouldn’t. He just does the minimum amount of exercise, hoping he can get by with fasting. I'm not saying he won't live longer or whatever—maybe he will—but...

Michael Frampton
Well, there's two ways of looking at longevity too, right? There's "let’s try and live longer," or there's "no, let’s try and get more living out of what we have."

Aaron James
Yeah. Let’s try to live. And then it just turns out that a lot of what it is to live now also will make you live longer. And that can be a welcome side effect of living well now. And that means move your ass, get off your ass, move around, find new challenges, exert yourself. You know, just what we were saying—finding new challenges. Not stagnant. Not seeking comfort. Seeking comfort, which you do more and more as you age, right? You know, because you'd be like, I'm tired. I don't have energy. What do I want to do? I want to sit around. I want to relax. And so basically that’s the curse of prosperity—the curse of affluence and prosperity—which you have in spades once you’re middle-aged and have a comfortable life. And you can find any—and even develop your maybe interest in some... I can spend all day doing philosophy without exercising or surfing or whatever. What were you going to say?

Michael Frampton
Well, I think that those who seek comfort for comfort’s sake—it’s never enough. They always have to supplement it with a cocktail or some processed food or something. But if at the end of a day, you've been surfing, you've been to work, you've spent time with friends—yeah, you can sit down and relax.

Aaron James
Yeah, sure. I'm all for lazing and lounging and stuff, but like in its role. But even still, lazing and lounging can be like lazing around the house. It doesn't have to mean like sitting on the couch mindlessly scrolling through your social media feed. It can be like doing different projects around the house—trying, planting something, or something you read on social media, trying it out in the house or fixing it. And that doesn't have to be like a getting-stuff-done kind of thing. It can be you just following your attention wherever it naturally is drawn in a kind of totally free-flowing, relaxed, creative way.

Aaron James
So it doesn't have to be like a disciplined kind of thing.

Aaron James
That's really, I think, really valuable. That's a really important part of creative activity—for me anyway.

Michael Frampton
I'm gonna ask you a philosophical question. Okay. What is the meaning of life?

Aaron James
Oh, it's funny—I have an answer to this question. So it's a super simple answer. So here it is. Let me ask you this—let me put it this way first. What is it—first—so this is being a philosopher—first, let's ask a slightly different question. What is it for life to have meaning? So what is it for there to be a fact of the matter about whether life has meaning or not? What kind of fact is that—that it has meaning? Okay, so that doesn't tell you what the meaning of life is. It just tells you what kind of fact that consists of. It will point you the way to know what to look for. So here’s the answer. What it is for life to have meaning is just—for any set of events that occur—it’s for there to be a story that’s true enough, an apt story that’s true enough of those events. Okay? Okay, it's the best story of those events. So the meaning—what it is for meaning in life—is for there to be a true, apt story of the events that occurred in life. Okay, that’s partway there for meaning in life, I think. But then the other thing you need is that the story has to be a certain kind of story—not just any story. It has to be a story that has a function. It reconciles you to being alive rather than not, and to your life events having gone a certain way—having gone one way rather than another. So it’s a story you can tell that’s true and apt about a lot about the events of your life that you feel like you're glad that you lived. That was your life. You're glad to have had that life. That's what it is for it to be meaningful. It's—you can be reconciled to it. If your life is subpar—lacks meaning—if there's not enough there—you can’t be reconciled to it. Like it can be “All I did—like end of life—well, I did get a hole in one once, but I don't know if there’s any—I don’t know what my life amounts to.” Like someone at a nursing home, they're like, “What is my life?” “Well, I don’t know.” And they could go out dying kind of in despair because there’s not enough meaning there in their life, you know? But what people do when they’re finding meaning is they'll just tell stories. “Well, my kids didn’t grow up to be assholes, and my grandchildren are beautiful people.” And that's sort of—that’s the story. That’s the thing they did. That’s how they’re going to tell the story of their being a father, grandfather, grandma—kind of thing like that. Or—it doesn’t have to be about accomplishments either. It can be a story about failed efforts—what had serendipitous consequences that are interesting. That’s how I think about my midlife. So I just wrote a memoir about my forties. About my charity misadventures behind Lagundri Bay. I did a bunch of charity projects there with a local guy. And then I told the story of those things as a story of misadventure and serendipity—but not a complete success. So if you’re asking, what’s the meaning of my life? Well, what’s the best story you can tell about the events of your life? And does it let you reconcile yourself to having lived—that life? So that's it.

Michael Frampton
The meaning of life is to give life meaning.

Aaron James
Yeah. Maybe that’s—that’s way better. So far as—well, I don’t know if it’ll work for all living creatures because the other animals and all the cells and stuff aren’t storytelling creatures, right? It’s the humans that are the story—that are really prone to tell stories. It’s part of our sociality. I mean, dogs are incredibly social, but they don’t tell stories to each other. I mean, it’s part of what’s distinctly human—that we can represent the world in various ways and coordinate our different attitudes around—through language and these stories. And that’s a really, really big part of human sociality. So I think that and sort of narrative aspect of human—that is—it’s definitely part and parcel of human life. So what is it to be meaningful? It’s just like drawing from that way of being. Like what is it? You know, you’re already in on the stories. I mean, stories also have other functions other than being what constitutes meaning in life. Like explaining yourself to someone, making yourself intelligible to others, so you’re not dangerous or not too unpredictable or—you know—you could have a relationship with or be a friend. Or someone asks, “Why did you do that?” You just—you tell a story about why you did that. It could just be a rationalization, and maybe it’s not a true story. You’re just making something up on the fly, but it’s good enough in the moment to make you feel like you understand what you were doing, and that they can understand it. Maybe it’s passable, so it flies as a rationalization. But I wouldn’t call that meaning. So then bad views about meaning in life are just these—are rationalizations, right? They’re stories about life, but they’re just not—they’re not good stories. They’re not the best stories. They’re just stories that are getting told for an existential balm. You know, like, “Don’t worry, everything will work out in the end,” or something like that. What does that even mean? I don’t know if there’s really any—there’s not even any super cosmic story in which everyone—everything actually works out. I mean, like even the big one—eternal bliss in heaven for the elect—you know, like, there’s a whole crowd of people that are burning in hell. Eternal damnation doesn’t work out for those guys. Karma doesn’t work out. Like, you know, for the people that go down the hierarchy—the karmic hierarchy—they were human, then they became dogs, and then they became insects, and then they were just killed and became worms. That didn’t work. Things didn’t work out for them. So these are bad—those are—so you can criticize these. These are claims about what is meaning, but they’re not good stories that should reconcile you. So anyway, yeah, that’s my new take on that aspect of it. But actually, I don’t think that’s all of meaning. Because the basic meaning is still—the meaning of surfing is just attunement. Attunement to the world. And I think that’s a primitive. That doesn’t have to have a story to it. So the animals do that. Doesn’t have a story aspect to it. And we do make stories out of it all the time. And that’s what we’re sort of celebrating and we’re trying for.

Michael Frampton
Is the attunement of a lion have to do with surfing?

Aaron James
So the stuff I was saying about what animals do—before animals—like sensing, responding. Sensing an environment, moving through it in light of what it’s like—what opportunities for action it affords. “Affordances” is the way people talk about it. And then differentially skillfully responding to it for purposes of adaptation. So like, this is basically evolutionary stories about adaptation, about animals developing—being attuned to an ecological niche so they can survive and reproduce in it.

Michael Frampton
You saying that the act of surfing is just basically satisfying our animalistic nature?

Aaron James
I don’t think it’s—well, it depends what you mean by “basic.” If you mean something like “that’s all it is,” then I don’t think it’s all a lion is doing, or a dog is doing. I think it is what a lion is doing and an animal is doing, but it’s also something more. For example, here’s something that’s definitely attunement—and something animals don’t really have in the way humans have—music. Making music, listening to music. Me hearing a song, you hearing a song. I’m attuned to the song, you’re attuned to the song. We’re attuned to each other because we’re both listening to a song at a concert. That’s attunement. Okay? That’s human. That’s like deeply human-level attunement. That’s part and parcel of every religious tradition—music. Part of every culture—music’s really important. It’s one of the best things in life. Everyone agrees. Almost nobody hates—almost everybody loves music and thinks it’s the best. And then dancing to music is all part of this. Playing music—celebrated in the culture. So okay, what makes that meaningful? Well, there’s something that’s a distinctively human thing, but it’s still a kind of attunement. That’s like what the animal—the lion, the dog—is doing in attuning—or a worm is doing—in attuning to their environment. I still think of that as all different forms, ways that we attune, do attuning. And that’s like a master value that explains why truth is valuable, why poetic metaphor is valuable, why skillful practices are metaphor. They’re all forms of attunement. This is like a master theory of it. So that doesn’t have to be a story-based thing. That’s—call that basic meaning in life. And then—and there’s a distinctive thing that we humans do, because we’re storytelling creatures, which is we attune to ourselves and each other and the world through telling stories about the events—to make sense of them. Right? And that—I think that’s an essential part of meaning in life for people, for humans. Yeah. This is my grand theory.

Michael Frampton
Yeah, no, that's a good point. This is new, by the way, compared to—okay, it makes sense. Yeah. Because, I mean, it just—it’s more of a case for surfing, because not only does surfing satisfy that animalistic mammal that has to move in attunement with nature, it also satisfies the dancer and the musician who wants to be in sync with the sound waves of the ocean that are coming.

Aaron James
Absolutely. So it's not a surprise that surfing is all about waves, and wavelengths, and being attuned to waves—and waves, like—and so is music, and so is dancing. And it's all attunement. It's pure attunement. I mean, it's not—it's not pleasure. This is the thing to think about, the thing to get past—is not to make it too subjective, because it's not about the pleasure you get from music, or the pleasure you get from dancing, or the pleasure you get from surfing. The pleasure is, as Aristotle said, proper to a virtue. It’s proper to a skillful activity. It’s in an activity that’s a response to an environment. And the response to the environment—where you're in sync with larger things—you’re synced with wavelengths, with waves. You're harmonizing with waves and wavelengths. That's ocean waves, the way that they refract across a bottom. In a song, it’s the frequencies and the way they’re relating. In dancing, it’s moving your body in sync. These are all ways of mixing. Forms of conversation are ways we sync with each other as well. So I think these are social forms of attunement. I think that’s a master value. It’s what every religious tradition is after. What are they trying to do? It's—well, an idea of how you can commune with God or nature. I think of that as—even if they don’t use the word—if they think it's something else—they’re trying to be attuned to the world, to the larger, to the universe, or to larger things. It’s grandiose to call it the universe or whatever if you're just being a surfer, but it’s still pretty big. You're a surfer. It’s like, “I'm the ocean. Pacific Ocean.” I'm thinking about the storms circling around below New Zealand that are sending waves up to me. Same superstorm down there, sending waves up to the Indian Ocean. I just talked to my friend in South Africa—he's going to surf those waves, you know, J-Bay this week or whatever. So you’re attuned to large things. That’s the sublimity—that’s the sublime of large things in the traditional sense that sort of God is associated with. If it has to be super cosmic, like backing out, looking at the whole universe or whatever, then it's—I'm not even sure what it’s asking. It’s too—it’s getting too big or whatever. It’s getting greedy or whatever. Because the Earth isn’t big enough? Like, the Milky Way galaxy—which is a piece of shit speck of dust in the middle of nowhere from the universe—you know, but it’s like, the idea that there has to be something. But then there’s a whole set of galactic attunements that are out there too. So that’s all this bigger thing that we have some kind of cosmic place. It doesn’t have to have any further meaning other than there’s just this thing—the sublimity of it is—you know—there. We are connected. So this is what I think of as—surfing is right on the cusp there of what I like about it. This way of thinking about surfing is that it’s on the cusp of the low—what the animals, even the worm is doing—but it fits with whatever religious tradition or spiritualistic tradition is doing too, at one level of description.

Michael Frampton
Yes, not on all levels. Yeah, right.

Aaron James
I think that's the true level. The ultimate truth is that all the truth is about attunement. And why it’s valuable—that’s the ultimate truth. So that’s my own story about meaning, you know.

Michael Frampton
Is there anything that surfing can't give?

Aaron James
Yeah. I mean, it doesn't—by itself, the act of surfing doesn’t give you all the need for social connection. This is really important for humans. I mean, like—

Michael Frampton
Well, it depends on where you surf and who you surf with.

Aaron James
You have to bring friends. You know, friends have to be—I don't know—around, alive, not have family commitments, so they can post up with you in whatever sort of spot you’re in. I mean, you know, like—I mean, there’d be something lost, even if you had Tavarua all to yourself and no one was coming and you just had it for the rest of your life. Like Jon Rose. I mean, it was the resort. Say he got exclusive rights back and he just closed off everyone from being there and just decided to live solo, surf Cloudbreak. I mean, he’s—you know, it doesn't sound insane to a surfer, but like—he’s going to miss out on all the life of a surfer. And in fact, he can be there anytime, and he spends a lot of time in La Jolla, where he’s from, and he’s got relationships. So the social side of it, and all the relationships and connection to human society—man’s a social animal, like Aristotle says—and so that surfing as such doesn’t get you—like riding surfing good waves doesn’t get you that by itself. Bring your friends. Okay. But how long can your friends stay?

Michael Frampton
The car park is part of—and that's a social—yeah, I agree.

Aaron James
Yeah, I agree. So that’s a way you can sort of create little forms of society around surfing and surf breaks. And that adds a lot of meaning, I think. But that adds it in its own way. It’s sort of premised on surfing and appreciation of surfing and love of surfing, but it’s not—that’s not the act of surfing.

Michael Frampton
Just—surfing encompasses far more than the act of surfing. It’s the culture of surfing. It’s the discussions about surfing.

Aaron James
Yeah.

Michael Frampton
Yeah.

Aaron James
If you want to sweep in the whole culture of surfing—yeah. But then the point is that the culture of surfing involves a lot more that’s valuable that goes beyond the act of surfing itself. For as beautiful as it is—it is. I mean, the culture of surfing wouldn’t be cool and awesome as it is if the act of surfing weren’t this incredible thing. But it’s still not the whole thing. The sociality is just a separate thing. I mean, it’s still part of it. You can be a surfer—solo session—in the best waves of your life, and get one of the best tubes of your life, come out of the barrel and have an ecstatic sense of bliss. But then be like, “I wish somebody would’ve seen that.” “I wish I had one friend who I could even tell, like, just talk about it.” Paddle back out and go, “Oh my God.” You know, like—the best tube of your life doesn’t provide that. It doesn’t provide the social connection.

Michael Frampton
That's right. And I would hazard a guess to think that a lot of people who do surf—the social aspect of surfing might be quite a large part of that. Because they know if they’re out there at 7 a.m., that so-and-so is going to be there to catch up with. So surfing is very—it’s a unique thing for everyone. We all get different things out of it.

Aaron James
Yeah. And actually there’s a longevity connection here, by the way. This fits with why, like—just surfing and sticking with surfing—as a biohack basically, from a longevity point of view. Beyond the other reasons we mentioned—health, exercise. But the other thing that fits with the longevity studies, like the Harvard Longevity Study that tracked people over 50 years—the number one thing that correlates with longevity is incidental interactions with people that are outside their narrow circle of trust. So the second—the quality of intimate relationships—was the number two factor. And that was defined as people you were close enough to ask for a loan from. Then there’s this broader set of people. The people who live long all had—well, there's a correlation anyway—between people who live long and people who had lives rich in people they would just bump into. Could be at a coffee shop, or a third place—a library, a park, or the beach. But surfers have it in droves. They stick with a regular surf spot. They have all their friends. Chat about the waves. Surf tales. Surf stories. They’re, in effect, doing something that correlates with longevity even if they never surf. Just by being part of the regular chatting and surf culture, which is all about the love of waves. So that’s—like—it’s crazy. That’s more important, correlation-wise, than marrying the right person—that’s number two. Or having a good relationship with your kids. All these people down at the beach—the people that live surf—are in one sense—I don’t know what the causal relationship is. The longevity study won’t tell you that. But you could speculate about what it is. Maybe it’s something to do with what we were saying earlier about socializing in the Blue Zones. Something about the sense of meaning and connection and social connection and feeling like you belong—maybe that’s what it is. And that’s what surfers get all the time if you’re just participating in surf culture. And they don’t get that from just riding waves. It’s the socializing around riding waves that provides that.

Michael Frampton
But I would suspect the people who you trust enough to ask for a loan—you’d get all of that from them in a far safer way. What you’re getting from people who you don’t know that well is a little bit of mystery, a little bit of chaos, maybe even. It’s still human interaction, but there might be an element of anxiety there as well, which is a stressor. Which is, as you know, it’s like exercise—stress to the body. Maybe we need that randomness of stress as well.

Aaron James
That could be. Yeah, I don’t know. I’m thinking it’s more like the element of surprise and serendipity and the sense of life is magical. That’s what I would think of. I mean, you bump into somebody and then you don’t see them for a while, and then you thought of them, and then the next day you saw them down at the beach. “Hey, I was just thinking of you.” Like, that sense of serendipitous connection. We have a lot of meaning around that. And I think that’s—it does feel magical. But it’s also fairly predictable because it’s like a relatively set number of people showing up to the same kind of place repeatedly. You don’t predictably meet any one person, but you will encounter a lot of the different people pretty reliably over time. This is just part of the way of thinking about the value of communities organized around a life. A lot of people organize their lives around a common place. That creates a sense of community because it creates these serendipitous interactions. It’s predictable—and this is why we organize around common places—but any particular given interaction is serendipitous. And it makes for friendship. You bump into somebody three times and you’re like, “Hey, let’s go have some beers.” It even feels uncanny. It feels meant to be—and magical. There’s just a lot of ways that life feels meaningful and enchanted—just from that. Yeah. So I think that’s—you kind of belong. You feel like fortune is on your side. You belong to the world. Fortune’s on your side. Just—all these little interactions really bring a lot of meaning. Magic is the term people talk about it. But it’s not woo-woo magic. Not woo-woo magic. But it is a certain sort of magical way life can be beautiful and sublime. And yeah. So I think that’s part of it. That’s just part of the incidental friendships. So surfers are getting that. But you can get that by other sorts of relationships around common interests. But you don’t have to be in a Blue Zone or an old folks home. You’re out in nature and a beautiful place. And you know—yeah—you can do it for a long time.

Michael Frampton
You mentioned religion and God. What’s your definition of God?

Aaron James
Well, I like this—Spinoza has this kind of—it seems like he’s evasive, because he talks about “God or Nature.” He has this super surfer view. So this is Spinoza. He’s a super heterodox Jewish philosopher. Heterodox in that he’s accused of both being an atheist and a pantheist at the same time. Because what he thinks is that—it’s basically that God and nature are kind of one and the same thing. That doesn’t mean God doesn’t exist. God exists. It’s all nature. So he gets called an atheist—like, “You don’t believe in God.” He’s like, “No, no, I believe in God.” But, “Oh, you’re a pantheist.” “You mean you think everything that is, is God?” And then it’s like, maybe that’s his view. But he uses this phrase—the Latin phrase—“God or Nature.” And he’s kind of evasive about it. But his idea is that through skillful activity—including things like cooking and exercise and joyous conversations and dinner parties—by doing that, you're gradually getting closer to nature. And therefore closer to God. So you're a part—that’s like a perfection. Increasing skill in these ways—perfecting in activities—is being closer to God and closer to nature. Closer to God. And that’s all the same thing. So I think this is very surfer. Put it that way. That’s not the traditional monotheistic definition of God, on which God’s a separate and independently existing being or entity, aside from the universe, which might have existed or not.

Michael Frampton
That.

Aaron James
Was an ancient.

Michael Frampton
Way of thinking, and it's been bastardized over time as well. I think maybe they thought about it differently than we do. And I think they thought about it back then—oh, it could be closer to what you're saying now—Mother Nature. The skill thing points to maybe like, if you're getting better at something, then you're envisioning yourself as being better at that in the future. And that's what you're looking towards—is God is you tomorrow who's a little bit better than you were today.

Aaron James
Oh, okay. I'm not sure that would be—I don't know if that's Spinoza’s view anyway. But I think it’s supposed to allow the idea—I mean, it could allow the idea—that there’s some self-transcendence in the activity like that. You can think of through your activity, it's not just your own perfection that you're striving for, it's like excellence in the activity. And that's connecting you to the excellence in surfing, in waves, in riding waves. So—and there's self-transcendence—you can think the value of that goes beyond the value of your performance. And that is what surfers think. This is why you can go and hang around the car park and share the love of surfing, even if you've stopped doing it well. You have an injury, your better days are behind you. It's still not about your own perfection, but still your appreciation of the activity. I mean, a lot of times—this is a point Aristotle made—but one thing that appreciation and enjoyment of an activity often comes with is a greater level of expertise in your own skillful practice. The better you get at something, the more you often enjoy it. But on this view, it's not like—there's still an element of self-transcendence that could come from that appreciation. Becoming better and better as a writer, which is a difficult thing to do—I write—and it's a really hard thing to do. And your standards are always rising faster than your ability. You don't ever get to feel very satisfied. You might grow a lot as a writer, but what you really come to appreciate is the craft of writing, which is a longstanding human tradition and piece of culture and constantly being practiced. Appreciating other people's writing and great works of writing more than your own—something like that. You might appreciate and enjoy that as much as your own progress in writing. You know, you might take it when you can get it.

Michael Frampton
Back to surfing and God—is surfing purely selfish?

Aaron James
Oh no, no, no. I don’t think at all. I think it's about attuning to larger things in that connection.

Michael Frampton
Yeah, but that's within your own experience.

Aaron James
No, no, no. I think the value of this experience of surfing is that the surfer is attuned to the natural world—to the ocean wave formations and the bottom bathymetry and the breaking waves. They are attuned to it in a harmonious way. That’s a real fact about the world. They are experiencing it, and they are enjoying the experience of it. But the value of it is that. I mean, it wouldn't have the same value if they were just on an “experiencing surfing” experience machine—on a VR headset in a Lazy Boy. Like someone could have the qualitatively exact same experience and enjoy it, sitting in that Lazy Boy, and have all the same pleasure—but not be doing the activity. And they're not succeeding. And they’re not doing well in life in the way that the surfer is who's actually riding the wave. They’re not. They might be indistinguishable even experientially, but you're not surfing.

Michael Frampton
I can grant you that surfing a wave is less selfish than sitting in a Lazy Boy. I give you that.

Aaron James
Yeah. No, but you're trying to achieve something. I mean, it does involve you, because you're—if you're the surfer, right? You're trying to be attuned to a wave in a certain way. So that makes it self-referential partly. But that doesn't have to be really—your sense of self can also blur, as often happens on good waves. Right? You're attuned to—so as you go along the wave, you have to adjust, constantly adjust body position, and respond to the next moment of the wave—what it's doing. And you have to do that spontaneously. And that often involves drawing you out of your awareness of yourself. Like, you might think one part of your body position or another part, but in the limit—like a really good long tube—you might completely lose all awareness of yourself temporarily. But then realize—see the lip—realize you’ve got to twist or something. And then—back to total absorption. Experientially, the boundary between self and wave and world can be pretty fluid in the experience of the surfer. It's still you doing it in some sense, right? There's a surfer riding the wave. But you're doing it for surfing. And it's you surfing the wave.

Michael Frampton
Isn't surfing pointless?

Aaron James
No, surfing's worth doing for its own sake.

Michael Frampton
It makes me think of—if you're having trouble catching waves, don't try and catch the wave. Accept the wave’s invitation to dance.

Aaron James
Yeah, right. Sure.

Michael Frampton
The point I’m trying to make though, is like—it’s selfish in the terms of, when you go surfing, you’re not helping other people.

Aaron James
Okay, so yeah. So things don’t have to be—there’s altruism in the sense of altruistic motivation or altruistic actions, in which the goal is just to benefit someone else.

Michael Frampton
Society as a whole.

Aaron James
Sure. Yeah. Society, right. Contribute to society, contribute to someone else, some other person. Is there anything wrong with friends—friends doing something together because it's mutually enjoyable? Is that selfish? There's nothing selfish about that. Two friends having a nice chat. Two friends seeing a movie together. Two friends taking a walk. They're doing it because it's mutually beneficial. Is it selfish? It's not selfish. There’s nothing selfish about it. This is like a wonderful thing to do in life—for its own sake. Take a walk with friends. Chat with friends. If you're really someone's friend and you like doing stuff together, you don’t think, “Why do you do this?” “Well, because I enjoy walking with my friend.” That underscribes what you're doing. No, because talking with friends is great. It's worth doing for its own sake. We do that for its own sake. I mean, because we value friendship. We value friendship for its own sake. You value having friends. But because you value friendship for its own sake, you also value other people having friendships. So you might respect their friendships because you know what kind of value it has. Surfing—you surf for its own sake. And especially when you're the surfer. But your valuing surfing for its own sake means that you really appreciate seeing surfing done well. When your friend gets a good wave, or when a stranger gets a good wave—a stranger who’s been waiting a while finally nabs a good one—you’re like, “Yeah, good on ya.” Maybe the guy’s kind of an asshole, but you’re still like, “Yeah, I’m still happy for him. He finally got one.”

Michael Frampton
I like that. That's a good perspective.

Aaron James
Yeah. So it's not—the motives are not—I mean, there are some people who are just completely selfish surfers. That’s possible. But I don't think that's the typical motivational profile.

Michael Frampton
Yeah, no, I agree. I also think that if you're a surfer and you love surfing, if you make surfing one of the priorities in your life, you're actually a better person in every other aspect of your life. You're a better husband, you're a better worker, et cetera, as well. It's not selfish in that way as well.

Aaron James
Okay. Yeah. So those are side effects. I mean, there’s one way of thinking about it, which is they’re side effects—like, you're more easygoing and you're more relaxed, you’re less stressed out. And so you’re better able to fulfill other obligations or provide benefit to other people or society. I think that's real. But I think there might be something more than just accidental side effects. I mean, being a surfer means loving surfing and caring about something for its own sake, and engaging life for its own sake in a really robust way. That’s itself really valuable. And that lets you be the kind of person who engages other things in that same way. Like, you're good—you can get—because you know stoke as a surfer, you can get stoked about lots of other things. Surfers get stoked about lots of things. They’re just prone to get stoked about stuff. I mean—not things like arduous labor or whatever—but surfers are like the kind of people who can find a lot of joy and stoke in activities. I mean, a lot of surfers take to golf. I don't know—maybe there's a lot of similarities in the body movement or it’s individualistic or something like that. It's not just incidental. It’s a way of valuing activities or a way of valuing life or engaging life that flows over immediately to all kinds of other ways of doing other things, including being in a relationship—being a lover or a friend. You can be really stoked for somebody else’s—stoked to serve them or help them or support them or whatever. Contribute to them. Invest in them. Really stoked about that in a way that’s—it can be totally altruistic, where the boundary between self and other doesn’t really matter that much. And you might be that kind of person precisely because you’re the kind of person who values surfing. And the boundary between self and wave blurs there too. And you have a sense that that’s a supremely beautiful thing to do in life. So you do it. You do it in a partnership as well. Yeah. So I think that—I don’t know. That’s a little bit more than just sort of an accidental battery—accidental connection. Surfing really recharges the batteries, and now I have more energy for other things. It's not just instrumental. There’s still a way of valuing activities. It’s like you're doing the same thing as surfing at one level when you're doing these other things. A way of living life.

Michael Frampton
I've never thought of it like that. I like that though. You must have some different thinkings and definitions on what selfishness itself is.

Aaron James
Oh, yeah. I do, in the sense that I think—the one that comes up pretty significantly in this—well, here I like Rousseau. Rousseau was a pioneering philosopher on this that had huge influence on psychology and stuff. So he thinks there’s one form of caring about yourself that’s just totally innocent. It’s just the way every animal cares about themselves. You're looking out for your own. You feed yourself. You shelter. You do things that you need to survive. And that’s what he calls amour de soi—it’s French, you know? And then there's a different thing. A different thing, which is of caring about yourself—is what we might call status consciousness. Or he calls amour-propre. That’s caring about how you measure up in the eyes of other people. And especially—how you rank relative to other people. So that you are either superior or inferior. There’s this comparison and status between you and others. Rousseau’s big idea is that this innocent thing that we do—the animal self, innocent kind of self-love—is fine. There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s totally natural, normal, healthy. This other thing—amour-propre, status consciousness—is the root of all evil. It’s the root of all evil in social relations and our personal vices. It ruins us and makes us unhappy. It ruins social relations. It makes democracy impossible. It’s the cause of political evil. So he’s got this robust story about this. And by the way, this is his early work—his Second Discourse on Inequality. This story is where he first told this. And there’s a later book called The Social Contract, which was the first modern version of democracy that in fact had a big influence in Europe and instigated the French Revolution and then the American Revolution. So it actually—well, just really quickly—the idea of his, one way of thinking about his idea of democracy was that it answers to this fundamental form—way that we’re self-conscious. It solves that problem. Our status consciousness means—it’s basically an unstable—normally an unstable—situation. Because if we're competing for status, there's no way—like, I always have to rank myself. I can't love myself unless I rank myself as your superior. You can't love yourself unless you rank yourself as my superior. Or if you do accept yourself as my inferior, then you're living in dejection. You can't love yourself that way. You're conflicted. So all these evils and vices come out of this kind of status relation. But there's a solution. There's a way out of the status contest. And that’s to have a form of political community—democracy—in which everyone is sort of regarded as an equal. So at one level, we're all political equals. We have a republic of equals. Everyone gets a say in our political decisions at one level—our rights. And our rights and freedoms and prerogatives are all the same. And we all count as equals in that regard. So it confines our status contest to, like, who’s a better surfer, who’s a better artist, who has more money. It kind of contains the problem. That's the idea. That’s his idea of why democracy could last, when it never had in the past. And, so far, we’re doing the world’s longest historical experiment. We’re seeing how long it can last. And it’s on the ropes, right? Not the experiment, but… But that’s the big idea. But you see it in droves—the status consciousness in the surfing lineup. So this isn’t just about the act of surfing the wave, but it’s surfers competing for waves in the lineup. A lot of what they’re competing over is—well, just to get a wave—but it’s also about their status position in the lineup. Whether they’re getting the respect they think they deserve—either as a local, or whether they’re getting enough good waves, or whether they’re getting their fair share. And then they go to blows and fight—fight over this. What do surfers fight about? I mean, they pass all the time on good waves and let the other guy go if it's the other guy’s right of way—showing respect. But they go to blows and have fights—altercations over perceived violations of the rules of right of way—all the time. And what are they fighting for there? Well, it’s for status and respect. They’re trying to exact respect from the others. They’re in a status contest, because they’re not going to give it to you. Who belongs? Who’s really an equal? Localism is about creating a hierarchy. “We’re not all equal. Some pigs are more equal than others.” To put it in terms of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, “All pigs are equal, and some pigs are more equal than others.” You know? Like, “All surfers—surfing is for everyone. The beach belongs to everyone.” And “Some surfers are more equal than others,” meaning, “We have a right to whatever waves we want, and then you just get the scraps.” And then amongst the people within the hierarchy, they might have their own pecking order. That’s all about status. That’s a social hierarchy that’s run on status. Now, I think that leads to a lot of behavior that is totally self-regarding and self-interested. But what people are fighting for is not just getting more waves. Because somebody might still fight, even though they just got a shit-ton of really good waves. And they might even be tired. They don’t need another wave, as it were. They’re not even that worried about it. But they’re still worried about defending their position in the hierarchy. So they might still not let someone go, or call the other person off, exercise their local prerogatives to just get a good one—or get another good one, yet another. And they know everyone else is human, because they get—“This guy just got another fucking good one.” But he doesn’t care, because he’s like, “Yeah, you bet. You deserve it. You’re beneath me. Get used to it.” That might be his point. That’s why he takes off. And so dominance relations can be a big part of surfer motivation. Surfers will go out and say they want to go dominate. They want to go get a lot of waves and dominate. So that’s way more than self-interested. That’s not just for the love of waves. That’s not just wanting to get your share. It’s not just ego. It’s not just egoistic. It’s of a deeper, darker kind of thing that’s behind a lot of life’s social, society’s social ills and vices.

Michael Frampton
And so I think—

Aaron James
That Rousseau story works for the surfing lineup. Like, it works really well.

Michael Frampton
The dominance—do you think that stems from caring what other people think?

Aaron James
Yeah. I mean, it does in the sense—I mean, in different ways. It's not just vanity, wanting to be seen for being, you know, beautiful, good surfer or whatever. It's wanting to be seen as having your proper place in the hierarchy recognized. So if someone's a top dog—wanting to be seen as top dog, right? And that’s what they call getting respect they deserve, their due, getting their propers, right? That’s what they’ll fight for. They're going to fight to not lose dominance. You know, if they were previously dominant—like local—and they're starting to lose their ability, they can't surf as well, then they might become more of a barking dog. They're not giving up. This is like the silverback who's being chased. This is more of the animal kingdom. Higher apes do this in droves. This animal kingdom behavior—it does apply over. But in humans, it takes a more insidious form because we tell all these rationalizing stories about why we're entitled. "You know, I live here, la la la. I've been surfing here 40 years, la la la. I'm the better surfer, la la la." We make all these stories up, right? And some of them might have only the slightest real justification, and the rest is just rationalization. I think there's something to say for localism—the people that have invested a lot of time in a break, they know how the break works, and they have a stake in preserving it so that it's protected and preserved. And there are ways it can be degraded, and they have a stake in that. And they're often the ones that are best positioned to know what orderly wave sharing looks like. And so they often should have more authority in disputes about what that is. Those are sort of fair prerogatives that locals—people who surf somewhere a lot—have. Okay, local privilege goes way beyond all those sort of good justification.

Michael Frampton
Yeah, it's complex. Just preserving healthy order, yeah.

Aaron James
And it's all these complex stories which we tell ourselves to go so far as to justify violence. Local guys justifying violence—like literally going and kicking someone's ass, or ganging up on some surfer, or having a fight in the water. So then that goes pretty quickly to a lot of what—humans—that's not animals hurting each other either, because animals do hurt each other, but often they mostly avoid each other, or they hurt each other—sometimes there's a prey relationship and sometimes it's status—but humans go out of their way. Humans go out of their way to kill each other at great cost to themselves. And the murder rate around the world is mostly men killing men—mostly. And in one study of murder worldwide, the causes were—and they put it in this nice phrase—"altercations of relatively trivial origin." Okay, so this is men—one man killing another or trying to kill each other—and they're doing it over trivial reasons, which are to them not trivial, because it's slights, displays of disrespect. And then they're fighting, or they're fighting over status, or fighting over keeping their place in a hierarchy. They can't walk away. They can't just let it go, because they've got to fight. And they fight to the death. They put themselves at risk of death, getting sued for their house, losing their life or going to jail. They do this. And so surfers do that. But men around the world do this. Right? And that's distinctively human. That's not—it's way beyond animalistic killing. That's a deeply human kind of evil. And surfers know it all too well. You grow up figuring out how to manage that shit. What's your place? You're just going to avoid it? You're going to be cheerful and just let it all slide over your head? You're going to try to work your way up the pack, your hierarchy? You're just going to be such a good surfer that everybody defers to you? You're going to try to become the local asshole, because your uncle was? So now you can do it. They've got to find their way. And that’s these dynamics. That's selfishness, but selfishness isn't really—it's too crude. What is selfishness? I mean, it's too crude. It's like, there's nothing wrong with going in and getting waves. Enjoying attunement to the wave. You can do that partly for your personal enjoyment, for the love of surfing. That's a mixed thing. Nothing wrong with that. You can just as well enjoy someone else surfing a wave, seeing someone else surf a wave for the love of surfing. But that's not—that's less selfish, more altruistic. But there's a self—you're still enjoying being part of it. But then, the really sort of pernicious form of selfish is like status consciousness and aggressive attempts to preserve your own place in a hierarchy, or put other people in their place to preserve a hierarchy you identify with. Now you're getting into dark selfishness. And that's not just one surfer greedily trying to get a wave—out-jockey someone else for a wave so you get the good wave and they don’t. That’s contest for waves. This is way beyond. This is like upholding a hierarchy—a dominance hierarchy. And that’s going way beyond. That’s selfish in lots of ways, but in a darker—morally darker.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. Yeah. Are you also saying that it's selfish in a way to compare yourself to others? And it's less selfish—like, if you're surfing to be better than someone else or catch more waves than someone else—that’s selfish. But if you're just surfing to be in tune with nature, then it's different, even though it might look—even though it might look similar to someone else. It's what's going on within you, and the reasons why you're surfing is what really matters. Which brings us right—

Aaron James
So that's a good way of thinking about how our own attitude towards surfing can corrupt the act—the very activity we're doing. Yes. So two different surfers surf similar waves. Each one—one surfs it just for the love of the wave and love of—not comparing, just enjoying, stoked. They want to share their good fortune with friends, naturally. There’s no amour-propre. There's no status consciousness there, right? Another surfer surfs a very similar wave in a very similar way, very similar style, but they're doing it to surf better than this other guy. To get more waves. To get another guy out from under—another wave from out in front of these other guys. To uphold their position in the pack hierarchy. Now, that status consciousness—those comparisons—are now—that’s pernicious. And now that's going to undercut the value of the activity. So you can think of—this is Rousseau's idea of what—a lot of our activities are conflicted in this way. So our motivations are conflicted. And so status motivation can corrupt the value of the other activities that we're otherwise doing. His famous—in the Second Discourse—the early signs of status consciousness catching on are—so he's got this idea of the settled associations of these hunter-gatherer groups, where they learn to cooperate and they get enough resources so that they have time for leisure. And then—so then they gather around a campfire just to relax together in communal activity. But then people naturally—what do you do around a campfire? Well, one person starts singing. Right? And then, oh, that's a wonderful thing. They sing and music and sharing a communal experience. But then one person has a really great voice and the other one's kind of pissed off they can't sing as well. And that comparison—already.

Michael Frampton
Yeah.

Aaron James
That's manageable. It's not really a big problem, but that's already—that’s the beginning of status consciousness—amour-propre. And that's the thing that later—once you have a system of property and money and status comparisons—that gets radicalized and undoes society. And leads to a dictatorship—kind of tyrannical dictatorship. But it starts at the campfire. So in other words, the thing that the group enjoys, the society enjoys together—which is communal activity—gets corrupted by status consciousness. And it sort of leads to this uncontrollable down-spiral. And one way of reading it is that democracy can help resolve that and give us a way to relate as equals, and then at least consolidate or isolate our status comparisons so they're limited to sporting contests and stuff like that. And—but—how well that's working is debatable. We have this mix of motivations. Some of them are natural and good—like self-concerning and other-regarding—but then there’s status consciousness, and that corrupts these other motivations and corrupts our activities. That's a really central Rousseauian idea, and surfing totally fits. I mean, arguably it fits competitive surfing as well too. I mean, maybe this is a debate about this, because competitive surfing does have lots of advantages in inducing greater performance. But for a lot of surfers themselves—if they are surfing to be the best or get a ranking—they’re essentially—that’s comparative. Like kind of status comparisons. It’s literally scored as a comparison. And that can—they can lose their own appreciation of the value of surfing.

Michael Frampton
Yes.

Aaron James
I think I remember Mark Occhilupo saying—so he'd already succeeded, I think he'd been world champion too—and he said something about how he didn't really learn to love surfing until he just surfed for himself. Now, so this is—one way that sounds selfish, but it's not. It's less selfish than him surfing to win. Him surfing to win is surfing for status. Right? He had mixed motives. Like, he always loved surfing, obviously. You don’t get to be as good a surfer as he is without loving surfing. But he acquired status in this sort of like, kind of mixed—just by his natural gifts. And he did win a year—world champ. But then, he wasn’t enough of a competitor, maybe, to really sustain it over—year after year or whatever. And then he sort of gets burned out on competition. He learns to surf for himself. But that way of putting it—I would say he’s learning to surf for himself—he’s learning to just surf for the simple beauty and joy of surfing, which is about a loss of self and connection, communion with the waves. You’re surfing—and that's learning to surf for the love of surfing, which involves valuing something for its own sake. So that’s a much less selfish—in one sense—way of being than the status-conscious way. No, I don't actually have anything against professional surfing either. But I think it has its risks.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. Yeah. For most of us, surfing is an art form. For some people, it's a sport and a competition. But I think that’s a—that’s a nice way to round it off and to finish the conversation here, which is where we started, which is surfing for yourself and for, you know, the attunement and just keep it simple—for the simple act of surfing.

Aaron James
Yeah. Yeah. Surfing for yourself and surfing for surfing don't have to be—they can be just a blurred thing. Self and surfing blurred. So it's not inherently selfish. It's self-transcending.

Michael Frampton
Yeah. Aaron, thank you so much for being on the podcast. I appreciate it.

Aaron James
Yeah. Yeah.

Michael Frampton
Great to be with you.

111 Surfing, Philosophy & the Search for Meaning: Longevity & Adventure with Aaron James

For the passionate surfer—whether you're a weekend warrior, a surf dad, or an older surfer—this podcast is all about better surfing and deeper stoke. With expert surf coaching, surf training, and surfing tips, we’ll help you catch more waves, refine your paddling technique, and perfect your pop up on a surfboard. From surf workouts to handling wipeouts, chasing bigger waves, and mastering surf technique, we’re here to make sure you not only improve but truly enjoy surfing more—so you can get more out of every session and become a wiser surfer. Go from Beginner or intermediate Surfer to advanced.