You see a picture of XXL Coudbreak, or a video of Kelly doing a 540, and that is what surfing has become. Not the experience, not the people, not the setting, just the raw performance. We watch these videos and become infatuated with them. They are our standard. They are what we’re striving for. So we blitz out to the beach and try so hard to reach this standard of performance that has been set… and we miss the forest for the trees.

We forget how amazing the simple act of standing up on a wave is. We take the beauty of the ocean for granted, if we even notice it at all. We get mad at ourselves for screwing up, or at others for getting in the way. Our day is ruined if the high expectations, both for waves and our performance, are not met.

So let that shit go.

Surf porn is not real life. Yes, it is the cutting edge of performance, incredible to watch and what we all learn from. But it’s not real life. You don’t need to be that good to surf, to experience the beauty and magic of surfing. There is so much more depth to it than any image we see of the top 1% of surfers can ever capture.


So no matter where you are in your surfing journey, just slow down. Look around you and breathe it in. If you can barely stand up once or twice a session, don’t worry about it. Smile at yourself because that is where you are right now, and there is no other place you should be trying to be.

Surf Porn doesn’t understand. It doesn’t understand that it’s just a moment. It doesn’t understand that it’s just the pinnacle. Just the summit.

If you flew anyone to the peak of a mountain, they would tell you the view is amazing. But will they feel anything close to the man or woman who has punished themselves every step of the way, who has labored up step by step inch after agonizing inch? Will they feel the beauty and magic coupled with the reward and fulfillment they have earned?

Surf porn is that peak. It’s the moment that an air is landed after 100 tries. It’s the moment the perfect double up lines up and you are in the perfect position to get shacked after thousands of hours of getting wrecked.

That is what surf porn is.


Surfing, on the other hand, is the thousands of hours you put in. It’s the intuition developed through nothing other than seemingly endless failure. The blown out days you still paddle out. The cold days, the crowded days, the shitty days, the off days, the hungover days… they all feel like a loss. Until you hit that epic day. Until you land that air or score that barrel that only existed in your imagination through every second of your misery.

The peaks can be captured on film. They can be viewed around the world by thousands, maybe millions… But no one will know. No one will know the hours you put in. No one will see all the failures that led to this moment. No one will understand – except you.

Let’s be honest. Who would want to be placed in the middle of a perfect barrel on a perfect board on the perfect wave, if all you had to do was just stand there? Fuck that. That barrel is only worth it if you’ve earned every stagger and stumble… and finally swagger.