Latest / Adventure Sports Podcast / Ep. 1108: Michael and Milton Willis - The 100 Foot Wave

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Ep. 1108: Michael and Milton Willis - The 100 Foot Wave · Adventure Sports Podcast

• 0:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: Curtis, the famous saying in surfing, who is the bit world's best surfer?
• 0:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: No idea.
• 0:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: No one having the most fun.
• 0:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's it.
• 0:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Episode eleven-oh-eight.
• 0:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Milton and Michael Willis, the hundred foot wave, and the surfers wave.
• 0:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: You're listening to the Adventure Sports podcast.
• 0:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: We talk with adventurers from around the globe to bring you the inspiration and motivation you need to get started in the outdoors or to keep you moving if you're already there.
• 0:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now here's your host, Kurt Lindville.
• 0:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Hi friends, welcome to the Adventure Sports podcast.
• 0:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Today, we're going to talk with Milton and Michael Willis, who have been just legendary in the surfing world.
• 0:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: And we're going to talk about big wave surfing.
• 0:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to talk about surfing, safety.
• 0:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to talk about board shaping.
• 0:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to talk about why surf, what it can do for you, what it can do for others.
• 1:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you know surfing, you already know Milton and Michael.
• 1:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're glad to have him with us today.
• 1:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to the program, guys.
• 1:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: Thank you for having us, Curtis.
• 1:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm Milton.
• 1:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Milton and.
• 1:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, uh, which one of you is the big brother now and which ones the younger brother?
• 1:18
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm the first one.
• 1:20
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm number one.
• 1:23
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm younger brothers.
• 1:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: By how many minutes?
• 1:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: Two minutes.
• 1:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's fantastic.
• 1:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's kind of fun to say.
• 1:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: My sister and I were two and a half years apart, but I'm her little brother and she's my little sister because I grew her, of course.
• 1:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: So anyway, all fun.
• 1:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: Milton and Michael, you guys grew up in California, but ended up in Hawaii, right?
• 1:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: And surfing was the thing.
• 1:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Take us all the way back to the beginning.
• 1:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: When you first started surfing, how old were you and how did you get into it?
• 1:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: We started at the same time.
• 2:01
  [SPEAKER_04]: Michael wrote the first wave and he goes, milk, then you got to try this.
• 2:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: Wow.
• 2:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: And we were six years old.
• 2:08
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
• 2:08
  [SPEAKER_04]: And so we're we're sixty nine now.
• 2:10
  [SPEAKER_04]: So and definitely surf to a hundred is the goal.
• 2:15
  [SPEAKER_04]: And maybe beyond.
• 2:15
  [SPEAKER_04]: And for like a bit.
• 2:17
  [SPEAKER_04]: So to answer that question and feel that one six years old.
• 2:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: Six years old and that was that in California.
• 2:25
  [SPEAKER_04]: Curtis, that was at in Solana Beach at a little beach break.
• 2:30
  [SPEAKER_04]: They called Ptolebox.
• 2:32
  [SPEAKER_04]: And the name came because they had a military Ptolebox up there watching for the Japanese.
• 2:37
  [SPEAKER_04]: It might invade.
• 2:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, okay.
• 2:41
  [SPEAKER_04]: And it was back before Solana Beach was on the map as a real kind of a popular destination.
• 2:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Very cool.
• 2:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that was what sixty three years ago.
• 2:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: So Michael, this one's for you.
• 2:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm just trying to get the back story.
• 2:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: You guys got started early, obviously.
• 2:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: But how did it become the thing that shaped a lifetime for both of you?
• 3:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: So Michael, what happened after you first served?
• 3:08
  [SPEAKER_03]: My experience was very gentle and amazing.
• 3:12
  [SPEAKER_03]: I started in the smallest wave in the entire world with a friend of mine, a young kid who had a ball suit board.
• 3:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: Started on a ball suit board.
• 3:21
  [SPEAKER_03]: He goes, my brother's gone.
• 3:23
  [SPEAKER_03]: We can get his board.
• 3:23
  [SPEAKER_03]: We can go take this out.
• 3:24
  [SPEAKER_03]: Let's go.
• 3:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'll show you.
• 3:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: We went at pillbox.
• 3:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: We're melting and told you.
• 3:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I had was so thrilled on that one ride because of a little light kid on this big boat of a board.
• 3:35
  [SPEAKER_03]: It was a no-brainer.
• 3:36
  [SPEAKER_03]: I was going to ace it.
• 3:38
  [SPEAKER_03]: And the next day I go melting, you got to try this.
• 3:41
  [SPEAKER_03]: And then I didn't think about it too much, but Milton later on goes Michael.
• 3:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: I got dad talked in, we're getting boards, we're gonna, and then later on we went from white water to the swells, the bigger ways.
• 3:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: Milton came in and got me, he goes, Mark, what are you doing in here?
• 3:57
  [SPEAKER_03]: You're on repeat.
• 3:58
  [SPEAKER_03]: You just keep riding these white whiteers.
• 4:00
  [SPEAKER_03]: Come out here.
• 4:01
  [SPEAKER_03]: This gentleman came out there.
• 4:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: And then as we were actually raised in California, we were raised in California, Solana Beach, but we grew up in Hawaii.
• 4:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: When Milton was seventeen, again, he goes Michael.
• 4:17
  [SPEAKER_03]: We had some influencers in California who had inspired us.
• 4:22
  [SPEAKER_03]: They were so charismatic, these older surfers.
• 4:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: And so full of life and adventure.
• 4:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: They had encouraged us to write bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.
• 4:34
  [SPEAKER_03]: way.
• 4:35
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I had never thought about it.
• 4:36
  [SPEAKER_03]: I didn't think about continuing surfing.
• 4:38
  [SPEAKER_03]: I didn't think about writing bigger ways with Milton at seventeen.
• 4:42
  [SPEAKER_03]: Took off with a backpack and another friend he had encouraged me.
• 4:46
  [SPEAKER_03]: And he started writing sense at Beach in Hawaii.
• 4:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: So we really were raised in California and grew up in Hawaii.
• 4:53
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I followed Milton a little later, but so that's how I stepped to it was my brother and the friends around.
• 5:01
  [SPEAKER_03]: I love surfing, but mostly I love surfing, but humanity first.
• 5:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: and people first.
• 5:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: And so for me, whether it's climbing in Joshua Tree, whether it's doing mile long swims, whether it's running from a big sur all the way to Carmel, which we do.
• 5:20
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's about people.
• 5:22
  [SPEAKER_03]: So surfing for me is about, it's a beautiful sport.
• 5:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: I love it.
• 5:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's an individual selfish sport, but it's about people.
• 5:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: And that's what gives me going is the law, the people, the smiles in their faces.
• 5:35
  [SPEAKER_03]: And surfing is a very, you can't write a wave and not have a smile.
• 5:41
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's the same as, you know, rock climbing.
• 5:42
  [SPEAKER_03]: I see some of those guys that's the one thing I don't do.
• 5:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: Because those faces aren't always smiling.
• 5:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: Sometimes it's like, you know, like, dangerous.
• 5:51
  [SPEAKER_03]: And surfing, there's always a smile.
• 5:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that's great.
• 5:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think of so many things all at once as you start saying that.
• 5:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: One thing I'd like to highlight is that people do adventure sports for so many different reasons.
• 6:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: And there are a few dark reasons that people can get involved in things.
• 6:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, it's more often than not a very good positive reason.
• 6:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: And one of the best ones is what you just said, Michael, it's about the people.
• 6:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, different people, I mean, they like to challenge themselves.
• 6:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: Some people like to check lists of, of to do's that they've been dreaming about doing, you know, other people want to do something really, really big to benefit some sort of a charity to try to get a, you know, some sort of traction so that they can make a difference in the world.
• 6:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Some people, it's all about the people, and maybe it's a combination of all the above.
• 6:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I think of my daughter, if I say, hey, you want to go climb the Fort Tina, her question is, well, who's going?
• 6:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: because it's not about the mountain.
• 6:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's about the people.
• 6:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's great.
• 6:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I hear you, Michael, when you're talking about it's about the people.
• 7:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's one thing that's so wonderful about adventure sports is the way that people have a common interest that they can talk about.
• 7:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's a great way to be introduced to new people and then to become quickly friends because you're doing something you both love.
• 7:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I just think that's one of the most positive aspects of adventure sports that's very, very necessary today.
• 7:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because of social media and all the things that tend to move us apart from each other physically, we need sports that pull us back together one on one, or, you know, it doesn't people together.
• 7:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Milton, here's the question for you.
• 7:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: You've been surfing a long time.
• 7:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: How has the surfing seen changed?
• 7:41
  [SPEAKER_04]: Good question.
• 7:43
  [SPEAKER_04]: And I would feel that with, I'd say, well, it appears the same.
• 7:48
  [SPEAKER_04]: The community members, the long term, there's been a shift.
• 7:53
  [SPEAKER_04]: And when we started surfing, it was pretty much a big guy might come up and punch you.
• 7:58
  [SPEAKER_04]: It was just how it was.
• 7:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: And it was extremely localized.
• 8:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: And you don't go to that guy's beach, even though it was only a mile away.
• 8:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: Everybody had their own little beaches.
• 8:08
  [SPEAKER_04]: And it was extremely localized and territorial.
• 8:11
  [SPEAKER_04]: And this still goes on.
• 8:14
  [SPEAKER_04]: And isolated events and surfing communities.
• 8:17
  [SPEAKER_04]: However, there's been an extreme shift and surfers like Michael Willis and the above in the community and many of the elders nowadays are trying to share and give back to the community for all the gifts they've had.
• 8:32
  [SPEAKER_04]: So instead of discouraging, they actually encourage and it's a real need to line up to when somebody who can easily take that wave and this other person
• 8:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's going to be the way of their life and you encourage them.
• 8:47
  [SPEAKER_04]: Go, hey man, you take this one.
• 8:49
  [SPEAKER_04]: It moves somebody to an incredible level and that gives back and then the whole lineup shifts.
• 8:57
  [SPEAKER_04]: So it's like you said community and if you surround yourself with the kind of energy and
• 9:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: positivity and optimism that you're seeking, that's what you'll find.
• 9:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: Because the truth is, one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch.
• 9:11
  [SPEAKER_04]: You get one guy in the line up yelling and hitting the water and cursing.
• 9:15
  [SPEAKER_04]: Boy, I'll send the line up gets tense.
• 9:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: Versus, yeah.
• 9:19
  [SPEAKER_04]: Man, get a half this way, right?
• 9:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: There's another way for me.
• 9:22
  [SPEAKER_04]: And usually you give one away.
• 9:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'll give you an example.
• 9:28
  [SPEAKER_04]: We had two boards recently, we purchased and we didn't really care for them.
• 9:32
  [SPEAKER_04]: And we know a guy rents boards and we go, man, this guy could use these boards.
• 9:36
  [SPEAKER_04]: And we didn't write him one more time.
• 9:37
  [SPEAKER_04]: Just gifted that guy those boards.
• 9:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: Don't want nothing.
• 9:40
  [SPEAKER_04]: Just hear a hat boy.
• 9:41
  [SPEAKER_04]: He was so lit up with that spirit of giving.
• 9:46
  [SPEAKER_04]: I couldn't believe it.
• 9:48
  [SPEAKER_04]: Unless in a week a friend called me up and goes, I got these two boards.
• 9:52
  [SPEAKER_04]: Would you guys like them?
• 9:53
  [SPEAKER_04]: They were better boards.
• 9:56
  [SPEAKER_04]: That community in other words, well, I gave the guy that way, which was, I wanted it.
• 10:01
  [SPEAKER_04]: But man, in my heart, I go, that guy would get the right of his life.
• 10:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: Boom, usually, believe it or not.
• 10:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: You don't do it for this, but, wow, better one's there.
• 10:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 10:11
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's what's changed.
• 10:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: The community's changing and it's getting more into sharing and giving and loving.
• 10:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love that.
• 10:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that's that's what I want to do here.
• 10:22
  [SPEAKER_03]: Well, Milton said he goes one bad apple one bad apple can spoil the bunch.
• 10:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: The other side of that two is one candle can light many flames.
• 10:31
  [SPEAKER_03]: One positive attitude can change the whole line up to everybody's going, let's do a law.
• 10:36
  [SPEAKER_03]: You know, one candle can light many flames.
• 10:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: I like that.
• 10:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, those two things need to go together.
• 10:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Don't they?
• 10:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's cool.
• 10:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: Michael, this one's for you.
• 10:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Before we hit record here, you were talking about how surfing had a physical impact on your life.
• 10:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: It had a spiritual impact on your life.
• 10:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: It had a social impact on your life.
• 10:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Tell us about surfing and how it can do those things.
• 11:01
  [SPEAKER_03]: We connect with surfing when we connect with the ocean and outdoors.
• 11:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: Outdoor sports are the best sports.
• 11:08
  [SPEAKER_03]: The more sunshine we get, the more vitamins we sunshine runs our battery.
• 11:12
  [SPEAKER_03]: And it helps our neuroplasticity.
• 11:15
  [SPEAKER_03]: Outdoors is worth that.
• 11:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: So number one strengthens an outdoor sport.
• 11:20
  [SPEAKER_03]: It takes place in salt water where the ions, negative ions, or the healthiest.
• 11:24
  [SPEAKER_03]: for a human being to ever be.
• 11:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: Salt extracts impurities from the body.
• 11:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: All sports outside are healthy sports.
• 11:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: But if you can get, like Milton said, surfing now has evolved.
• 11:36
  [SPEAKER_03]: Thank goodness for the, it used to be just mainly guys who are super fit and crazy and wild and wonderful.
• 11:46
  [SPEAKER_03]: group, but now it's women, older people, younger kids, six girls, four-year-olds, eighty-year-olds, and all getting and worldwide in their building wave pools.
• 11:58
  [SPEAKER_03]: Worldwide, they're expecting multi-millions of people now to be introduced into surfing with the advent of wave pools.
• 12:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: It turns out surfing may out distance.
• 12:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: Surfing is on fire right now.
• 12:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: We're looking at the precursor to a whole world.
• 12:17
  [SPEAKER_03]: And everybody in one way or another is surfing.
• 12:20
  [SPEAKER_03]: When you climb that cliff, you gotta have rhythm, flow, focus.
• 12:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: rhythm flow, focus, timing, faith, all the same attributes that go into something going to every single sport.
• 12:34
  [SPEAKER_03]: And we're all surfing.
• 12:36
  [SPEAKER_03]: So it's only natural that waves now are coming to a place near you and Colorado.
• 12:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's fantastic.
• 12:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: So you guys have had these experiences thousands of times and I'm such a novice when it comes to surfing because I'm laying locked here in Colorado.
• 12:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, if you can see the picture behind me, those are my waves and move kind of slowly, but I still try to get on them.
• 12:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: But mountains.
• 13:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, they're mountains.
• 13:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're mountains.
• 13:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: Those are mountains.
• 13:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: We call big waves.
• 13:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: We call big waves.
• 13:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: Mountains.
• 13:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, there you go.
• 13:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I went to Tafino on vacation several years ago and I rented a nine foot softtop.
• 13:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: because i thought i'm gonna learn how to do this because i i had only body served in things prior to that and i just got worked i was beat the pieces by this nine footboard you can't hardly not catch a wave with yet i was still struggling and i watched so many people that were doing so much better but i saw a lot of people that were fighting the water it almost felt like the catch a wave and then i saw the thing that i was like oh that's different there is a gal
• 13:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: who stood up on a small wave effortlessly.
• 13:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: She didn't fight.
• 13:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: She was like floating above the board.
• 13:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: And she just had decided it was time to go in, I guess.
• 13:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: But without any effort without any evidence that she was even trying, she just walked on the water until she stepped off the board and the white foam two inches deep on the sand and picked up her board and walked away.
• 14:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I thought, wait a minute, something's going on here.
• 14:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: How was she able to effortlessly and perfectly in silence and with respect it seemed?
• 14:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Just like a goddess, you know, walked to the beach on her board.
• 14:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: And everybody else is out there thrashing and fighting and, you know what I'm saying?
• 14:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: What did I witness there?
• 14:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Milton, can you feel a sin on that?
• 14:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: Well, what you witnessed was, and it's a beautiful thing,
• 14:43
  [SPEAKER_04]: We used to teach surfing and one of our questions to our students, which you were a student, she was a teacher, was what's more important, desire or knowledge?
• 14:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: You have the desire, your train is hard and can.
• 15:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: She had the secret.
• 15:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: She had the power and she had the knowledge.
• 15:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: And really so, for her, it was effortless because she had struggled and gone through just like the cocoon and when the caterpillar has to do that, go through that to be a butterfly, which you were going through, she'd already gone through that process.
• 15:19
  [SPEAKER_04]: So, when we taught surfing, and for twenty years we taught surfing, that's one of the ways we paid for our lifestyle.
• 15:26
  [SPEAKER_04]: and our record trip advisor and plug for them was a hundred percent and twenty years every person who ever went with us and from the military to after school programs to elderly so don't let anyone tell you that oh you're too old to try surfing you can't do it oh you're too overweight oh you're whatever that you can't do it and we prove that anyone on earth who even if you don't want to do it
• 15:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: But you have to.
• 15:57
  [SPEAKER_04]: Here's the recipe and man.
• 15:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: I didn't want to do it, but I could do it effortlessly.
• 16:01
  [SPEAKER_04]: So realistically, it comes down to the recipe.
• 16:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: So when you saw, I actually have the recipe.
• 16:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: And if I was on that beach, I would have had you riding away the same exact way right there.
• 16:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Nice.
• 16:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: So how she did.
• 16:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: I tell you, I break it down for you and steps, step one, step two, step three.
• 16:19
  [SPEAKER_04]: You know how I can teach one thousand people to surf by myself.
• 16:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: Break it down into groups and a point leaders and share that information.
• 16:28
  [SPEAKER_04]: So anyway, that's what your witness was.
• 16:30
  [SPEAKER_04]: She had the experience.
• 16:32
  [SPEAKER_04]: People, here's the problem with the surfing industry regulation, the surfing lessons.
• 16:37
  [SPEAKER_04]: You're a genuine guy.
• 16:38
  [SPEAKER_04]: You bring your family.
• 16:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: You want to take a surf and lesson.
• 16:41
  [SPEAKER_04]: You're from Colorado.
• 16:42
  [SPEAKER_04]: You got it, you know, like this.
• 16:43
  [SPEAKER_04]: You want to make a experience of a lifetime for your family.
• 16:46
  [SPEAKER_04]: You get there, the surfing instructor's cute, blonde hair, it's got braces, perfect looking kid, you know, what?
• 16:52
  [SPEAKER_04]: Well, that guy's looking good, daughter stoked, everybody's happy.
• 16:56
  [SPEAKER_04]: Only problem is that kid really doesn't know how to teach surfing.
• 16:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: And he'll tell you, oh, you're too old, you're overweight.
• 17:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: It was you guys, you know, you couldn't do it.
• 17:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: But hey, we had fun.
• 17:08
  [SPEAKER_04]: So realistically, wow, there's no criteria to cut here.
• 17:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: You need a license.
• 17:14
  [SPEAKER_04]: You got to take a test to be a lawyer, to be a doctor, to be any kind of professional that you're going to instruct.
• 17:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: There needs to be some qualifications.
• 17:23
  [SPEAKER_04]: And that brings us around to the NOAA and USLA and lifesaving and our mission and giving back
• 17:31
  [SPEAKER_04]: for all the gifts we've had is able to save lives just by sharing the information, how to serve, how to survive in the ocean.
• 17:38
  [SPEAKER_04]: You don't need to be afraid.
• 17:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: The only spookiness in the ocean is the panic and fear.
• 17:45
  [SPEAKER_04]: Nothing the fear.
• 17:46
  [SPEAKER_04]: Do you need to forget about the freeway going north?
• 17:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: No, you just get on the freeway going north.
• 17:52
  [SPEAKER_04]: If you're going south, don't get on the freeway going north.
• 17:54
  [SPEAKER_04]: That kind of information.
• 17:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, it makes a huge difference.
• 17:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, you guys started an educational program on how to save lives in relation to rip tides.
• 18:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: You can explain this better than I can, but just for the listeners, the idea is that there's a lot of water going up on a beach and eventually it has to go back out again.
• 18:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: And as it does, it's going contrary to the waves.
• 18:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: And if you get cottonies, they can try to take you further out than you may want to go.
• 18:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you guys described this effect in and what it is that you're promoting so that people can be safe.
• 18:29
  [SPEAKER_04]: No, uh, drowning is a big big problem.
• 18:33
  [SPEAKER_04]: And so they tell you, uh, stand the beach if you don't understand, but bottom line.
• 18:38
  [SPEAKER_04]: Surfers are rip current is your best friend.
• 18:40
  [SPEAKER_04]: Surfers love.
• 18:43
  [SPEAKER_04]: Love them.
• 18:43
  [SPEAKER_04]: They take the rip current out.
• 18:45
  [SPEAKER_04]: You don't even have to paddle.
• 18:46
  [SPEAKER_04]: You just get in it.
• 18:47
  [SPEAKER_04]: It takes you out.
• 18:48
  [SPEAKER_04]: You paddle over to the waves and you ride into the shore.
• 18:51
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's just wonderful.
• 18:53
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's South Surface do it.
• 18:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: So our message is one how to see a rip current.
• 18:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: You get to the page.
• 19:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's invisible to you.
• 19:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: You don't see it.
• 19:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: Wow, man.
• 19:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: What I can't see it.
• 19:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: And then I'll show you how to see the invisible look.
• 19:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: You look of if there's no waves, there's no recurrent.
• 19:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: On a lake, if it's blown wind and there's waves, there's a rip current.
• 19:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: In fact, they recently, they just did rescue two people from the rip current in the lake.
• 19:22
  [SPEAKER_04]: I read about it in my little news feed, but
• 19:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: So how do you spot a rip current?
• 19:26
  [SPEAKER_04]: You go down the beach.
• 19:28
  [SPEAKER_04]: You see all the white water of the wave where you don't see white water like a missing tooth.
• 19:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's the rip current.
• 19:37
  [SPEAKER_04]: It sucks.
• 19:37
  [SPEAKER_04]: You write out the open and takes you out.
• 19:40
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's already know how to identify it.
• 19:43
  [SPEAKER_04]: There you go.
• 19:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: Just look for the openings.
• 19:45
  [SPEAKER_04]: If you want to go to the shore, go to the white, the wave.
• 19:49
  [SPEAKER_04]: If you want to get out,
• 19:51
  [SPEAKER_04]: Look for those little openings.
• 19:53
  [SPEAKER_04]: So that's identification.
• 19:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: Now, there's a guy named Dr. Jamie McMahan from the Monterey Bay Institute of Oceanography.
• 20:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: He did it.
• 20:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: He got a five million dollar grant to study rip currents.
• 20:08
  [SPEAKER_04]: And he says it's more dangerous to tell somebody swim parallel than it is just to let it take you.
• 20:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Really?
• 20:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
• 20:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: And so that no included that in their latest when they updated their policies, they included it to sometimes you can let it take you.
• 20:30
  [SPEAKER_04]: Well, the Willis brothers say, hey, if you let it take you, you might just end up a mile out there.
• 20:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: They don't come back to the shore.
• 20:38
  [SPEAKER_04]: And the way they're a lot bigger out there than they are closer to the shore.
• 20:42
  [SPEAKER_04]: So our philosophy as soon as you notice you're in a recurring, you don't want to be in it swim with the current and the direction to the nearest waves.
• 20:51
  [SPEAKER_04]: They'll pull you to the shore.
• 20:52
  [SPEAKER_04]: And now Noah has included that in their latest updates.
• 20:56
  [SPEAKER_04]: So we're real proud of you.
• 20:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let's that's high like that again.
• 21:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: What you're saying is that if you stay in the rip current, it can take you too far out.
• 21:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you fight it, you know, you're not going to get where you want to be, but if you look for the waves, you're looking for the white and you go with the current toward the waves.
• 21:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's a least effort and the fastest way to get out of the rip current.
• 21:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Did I get it right, Michael?
• 21:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Is that it?
• 21:21
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, that's the only way to get out of a rip current.
• 21:24
  [SPEAKER_03]: Waves go in, rip currents go out outside of a helicopter or a boat or a jet ski.
• 21:31
  [SPEAKER_03]: The only way to escape a rip current is the waves.
• 21:35
  [SPEAKER_03]: The only way to avoid a rip current and your listeners are going to love this.
• 21:40
  [SPEAKER_03]: And this is what they're going to want to pass replay, listen to it three times and educate their children and their family.
• 21:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: is to avoid reprints, wait, play, or swim in front of waves.
• 21:53
  [SPEAKER_03]: And they'll just keep pushing you back.
• 21:55
  [SPEAKER_03]: And then if you find that somehow you weren't paying attention and you got swept out a little bit, look for the waves and calmly, whatever you've got to do, just drift over to the waves and they'll push you right back in.
• 22:09
  [SPEAKER_03]: So, Milton actually had taught me and he had learned from an esteemed Hawaiian lifeguard, an iconic legendary lifeguard named Eddie Ikau.
• 22:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: And Hawaii, when Milton was seventeen, and Eddie had seen Milton getting ready to go out with no leash, a young kid, from, you know, Albuay himself to these giant waves, and Eddie, the only lifeguard Ikau iconic figure in surfing told Milton, I'm the only lifeguard here,
• 22:38
  [SPEAKER_03]: And if this is how it works blue out white and blue out meant the deep waters blue and there's no white water waves.
• 22:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: So that's gonna take you out.
• 22:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: and then the whitewater will bring you in.
• 22:52
  [SPEAKER_03]: And Eddie told Milton no one's going to be here for you.
• 22:55
  [SPEAKER_03]: So you remember this blew out white in and now we call it rips out waves in because you know, and we've been educated.
• 23:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: Milton worked for years lobbying Noah to update their ocean curve policies to the surface way, which is to understand waves.
• 23:15
  [SPEAKER_03]: And finally, they did.
• 23:17
  [SPEAKER_03]: And so now that internationally, you'll see signs where people are actually standing in front of the wave and people are swimming to the waves.
• 23:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: And that's due to Milton.
• 23:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: I like to say the Willis brothers.
• 23:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: And yes, I've put in my time to making videos, speaking in front of Audit on and on and on.
• 23:36
  [SPEAKER_03]: But Milton really spearheaded that water safety program.
• 23:40
  [SPEAKER_03]: And he was the one who updated policy for Noah.
• 23:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
• 23:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, guys, thank you for your contributions.
• 23:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: I know that lives have been saved because of that, and more maybe because you're sharing that again here.
• 23:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, in Colorado, we never hear that, right?
• 23:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's no reason to.
• 23:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: You know, we have our other thing.
• 24:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: And we've been up and down the coast to Monterey and down to San Diego.
• 24:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 24:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: And there's a lot of people from Colorado who are actually surfers.
• 24:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: I know a few of them.
• 24:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 24:14
  [SPEAKER_03]: And they're good surfers.
• 24:15
  [SPEAKER_03]: And they go skiing in Colorado in the winter in the summertime.
• 24:18
  [SPEAKER_03]: They come out here.
• 24:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: And there's a lot of families that want to come visit the coast and as Milton said, Rick currents can be in rivers, not rivers, but lakes.
• 24:28
  [SPEAKER_03]: They can be, you know, and so whether you only make it to the beach one time in your life or you want to go every year, you know, it's good to know everybody should know, waves go in, and rip currents go out to be safe, swim in front of waves, and God forbid you ever get caught in the wind, go out of the waves, and get washed in.
• 24:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, that's awesome.
• 24:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: So on a related note, Milton, this is going to be a question for you.
• 24:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to step on any toes, and I don't want to give any bad advice, but here's what I've noticed when I've been at the beach.
• 25:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: They put up the flags now.
• 25:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, you've got a green flag, you've got a red flag, and the good waves are not going to be on the green flag day.
• 25:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so it turns into one of these situations where, hey, I wanted to go play in the big waves.
• 25:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to serve.
• 25:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to do these things, and they're telling me to stay out of the water.
• 25:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I appreciate that they're trying to keep people safe.
• 25:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: But what do you do?
• 25:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: One anecdote that might explain this a little bit.
• 25:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was on a beach in a place where they had life guards and they just weren't letting anybody go anywhere and do anything.
• 25:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I thought, well, but what about the people that have really good skills in the water?
• 25:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that kid could do a little bit more.
• 25:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it almost seems to me like there's a conflict.
• 25:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: between being overly safe and allowing people with the skills to go ahead and access the water.
• 26:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: What?
• 26:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Can you address that?
• 26:11
  [SPEAKER_04]: I think that certain situations, the authorities know what they're doing and unfortunately, because you look at the beach and you can judge the crowd in terms of there's a lot of people that could get in trouble on this day and you made the judgment.
• 26:29
  [SPEAKER_04]: I can't second glance to a person's judgment on that.
• 26:33
  [SPEAKER_04]: What you're describing is basically kind of isolated.
• 26:36
  [SPEAKER_04]: It doesn't happen every day.
• 26:37
  [SPEAKER_04]: And Hawaii, they get some days at our giant, and they tell us tourists say, stay back off the beach.
• 26:43
  [SPEAKER_04]: And that's deadly stuff.
• 26:46
  [SPEAKER_04]: So I'd have to be there to see them as waves, to even know if that guy, I wouldn't second guess the captain of the lieutenant, if they said beach clothes, that's just how it is.
• 26:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, that's wise.
• 26:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I appreciate that.
• 27:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: They got the experience.
• 27:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: Wow, I can do that.
• 27:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: Whoa, you can't.
• 27:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: And they know it.
• 27:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: They've been through it.
• 27:08
  [SPEAKER_04]: I've seen, I've asked guys before, when we tough surfing.
• 27:11
  [SPEAKER_04]: If I take out there, can you be cool?
• 27:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: And they're all, they're cool.
• 27:14
  [SPEAKER_04]: Until they get in the situation, one way breaks over them.
• 27:16
  [SPEAKER_04]: They start panicking.
• 27:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, God.
• 27:20
  [SPEAKER_04]: I thought you said you could handle this, man.
• 27:22
  [SPEAKER_04]: Come on.
• 27:22
  [SPEAKER_04]: We're going to show her.
• 27:25
  [SPEAKER_04]: You know, sometimes you got to make the executive call.
• 27:30
  [SPEAKER_04]: You look at this guy.
• 27:31
  [SPEAKER_04]: He wants to write his twenty foot wave and he's eager.
• 27:34
  [SPEAKER_04]: Beaver, but you know, man, the guy doesn't belong out there.
• 27:36
  [SPEAKER_04]: So it's kind of responsible to say, look, you don't belong out there right now.
• 27:41
  [SPEAKER_04]: And maybe I'm making the wrong judgment call, but that's the call.
• 27:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'd like to add one point to what Milton's saying.
• 27:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: And Milton has told me this before.
• 27:50
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, Curtis, you're right.
• 27:51
  [SPEAKER_03]: There's a conflict because now what if I've got the skills?
• 27:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: So I'm going look, I've got the skills.
• 27:56
  [SPEAKER_03]: Those guys don't hear right, but don't hold me back.
• 27:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: But Milton had a point one time when he told me Michael, do you realize if you go out there, all these other guys are going to go look, he's out there.
• 28:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: That guy's out there.
• 28:08
  [SPEAKER_03]: They don't know if you've got there.
• 28:10
  [SPEAKER_03]: So you have to, the lifeguard's have to come to a point when it gets too, so Milton scored me up and he was right.
• 28:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: You know, you have to say nobody can go because sometimes these other guys are going look, that guy's out there and then they got to deal with that.
• 28:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's better safety for all than the one champion gets the, you know, he lost his chance, but at least we didn't lose in your lives.
• 28:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Good answers, gentlemen.
• 28:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: I appreciate that very much.
• 28:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know what?
• 28:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: You're talking about slightly bigger waves and we're gonna talk about the really big waves here next, but I wanted to ask, what is your recommendation when you get work?
• 28:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: The wave is crashing on your back and it pushes you to the bottom and you're pinned down for a little bit.
• 28:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: People that have never had that experience, that could be pretty terrifying.
• 28:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: So what do you do?
• 28:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Milton.
• 28:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, thank you.
• 29:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's why raised my hand.
• 29:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: These intents, yes, because of this is fantastic.
• 29:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: There's no such thing as an undertone, nothing pulls people under the water.
• 29:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: What it is, is the way it breaks over you, and that feeling of, of, I'm paned down in surfing, there's an expression, it's called the ABCs of surfing.
• 29:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: always be cool.
• 29:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: So the first thing you do in a wave breaks our view is if it's a three feet wave, well, you know you're three feet under the water.
• 29:34
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's not particularly deep.
• 29:36
  [SPEAKER_04]: You could stand up.
• 29:38
  [SPEAKER_04]: But the point is always be cool.
• 29:40
  [SPEAKER_04]: Keep your mind relaxed.
• 29:42
  [SPEAKER_04]: Stay calm and relax.
• 29:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: And if you have trouble starting to exaggerate in the wave been over you, count yourself, one thousand to one.
• 29:52
  [SPEAKER_04]: And you can't stand to the water.
• 29:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: We're all buoyant.
• 29:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: We all pop right back up.
• 29:57
  [SPEAKER_04]: go try to a pool toss a quarter in the pool and go try to dive down there and get it, look kids, they can't, they can float back up.
• 30:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 30:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: So the thing is just relax.
• 30:05
  [SPEAKER_04]: Stay relaxed.
• 30:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Always because the wave is going to move on and then you come up, right?
• 30:10
  [SPEAKER_04]: The world's right over here.
• 30:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: And that's it.
• 30:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's that's the same for the big ones.
• 30:15
  [SPEAKER_04]: They don't really hold down there forever.
• 30:17
  [SPEAKER_04]: The wave rolls over you and you come up.
• 30:20
  [SPEAKER_04]: Big wave surfants a lot safer than people think.
• 30:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: Rules over you.
• 30:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I've never played in really big waves.
• 30:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: I've been in six, seven foot waves.
• 30:30
  [SPEAKER_04]: You got to work yourself up to it, Curtis.
• 30:34
  [SPEAKER_04]: Just like Red Van Dyke, a legendary big wave pioneer who led the way for us later on in his life.
• 30:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: He started becoming a rock climber.
• 30:46
  [SPEAKER_04]: He said there's no acceleration on earth like that.
• 30:49
  [SPEAKER_04]: It was incredible.
• 30:51
  [SPEAKER_04]: which for a big wave surfer to say rock climbing was something that just he'd never felt that kind of exhilaration before it moved me.
• 31:01
  [SPEAKER_04]: It didn't give me to want to be a rock climber anymore in the skydiver.
• 31:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, there's something to be said for trying the new sport, the novel sport.
• 31:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: What have you've not done before?
• 31:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, once you're very good at something and accustomed to it, then it, it's not that it loses its thrill.
• 31:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's that it becomes like an old friend instead of the new thing.
• 31:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's great.
• 31:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: But sometimes trying something new can be really exhilarating.
• 31:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I get it.
• 31:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: For me, surfing would be very, very exhilarating right now.
• 31:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: And let's talk about, okay, Michael, I want to ask you this question.
• 31:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: You hear people talking about every seventh wave, or you get to feel for the rhythm of the water, or you just get a sense that this is going to be the one.
• 31:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean?
• 31:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: All that kind of almost intuition about
• 31:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: the ocean and what it's doing.
• 31:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: And people like to translate that into a spiritual experience.
• 31:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: What of that is mumbo jumbo and what of that is is right on?
• 32:03
  [SPEAKER_03]: Well, people also like the physical experience.
• 32:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: So, you know, it's the timing of the ocean.
• 32:12
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's corporal in a way.
• 32:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: So, the two, you're conflating the two spiritual and physicality because
• 32:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: where you're explaining is more of a physical, you know, when you get into that rhythm of the sea, it's not guess work or mumbo jumbo, it's, you watch the interval of the waves, right?
• 32:34
  [SPEAKER_03]: You know, and it's mathematical, you say, okay, and then you, you know, you, you, you, you,
• 32:40
  [SPEAKER_03]: you're out there and they're not coming a sequence of seven or something coming in sequence of three or they're coming in sequence of fifteen or you know and you to experience through experience more than intuition but through experience and physical experience it's very physical
• 32:58
  [SPEAKER_03]: So things as all sports are, what are we moving our bodies?
• 33:03
  [SPEAKER_03]: And then there are those, which everybody translates that physical into their spiritual.
• 33:09
  [SPEAKER_03]: You know, the three levels of the mind, the sub, the alphabet.
• 33:14
  [SPEAKER_03]: So you translate that physical into the spiritual.
• 33:18
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I suspect it's a personal experience for everyone.
• 33:23
  [SPEAKER_03]: I can tell you this, when people write a way, including myself,
• 33:28
  [SPEAKER_03]: Many times, right after that experience, you cannot remember exactly the complete totalitarian of what you just did because you're so into the moment.
• 33:40
  [SPEAKER_03]: from a beginner to an experienced server, you're so into the moment.
• 33:44
  [SPEAKER_03]: So if we want to call that spiritual, that awakening, if you can transcend that to your life and your everyday life, be surfing.
• 33:53
  [SPEAKER_03]: As I say, everyone's surfing in one way or another and we're finding out that the universe is a pulse.
• 33:58
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's a wave.
• 34:00
  [SPEAKER_03]: So all our activities are surfing.
• 34:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: So it's maybe we're physical beings having a physical experience and it doesn't have to be translated as much as experience.
• 34:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
• 34:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, there's something that I've started realizing in my own life, gentlemen, and that is that, for instance, like in, I can watch a storm sweeping across a valley.
• 34:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I can say things like, well, I know what makes forms and why these monthsons happen.
• 34:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I know why the rain comes down and what makes the water cycle.
• 34:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I can see that, you know, as the sun was bike backlighting that cloud, I know why it makes that silver lining.
• 34:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I can go through all the physics and, or I can just experience it.
• 34:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: And as I experience it, it might impact me on a different level, and it could impact everybody differently.
• 34:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: But there's something about realizing, it's okay to be in awe of what you're experiencing.
• 35:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's okay to look at something and say, I don't have to know.
• 35:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's the plan.
• 35:09
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's the goal to be in awe.
• 35:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: The purpose of living is to live.
• 35:14
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's to live.
• 35:15
  [SPEAKER_03]: The purpose of living is to live.
• 35:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: The goal is to be in awe.
• 35:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: So when you step into that water, when you see that mountain, and then you become one with the mountain.
• 35:24
  [SPEAKER_03]: When you're climbing up not when you become one with the wave.
• 35:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: You don't conquer the wave.
• 35:28
  [SPEAKER_03]: You become one with the wave.
• 35:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: You don't conquer that mountain.
• 35:31
  [SPEAKER_03]: You become one with that mountain.
• 35:34
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's the goal is to be in awe.
• 35:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: And that is the highest spiritual praise I suspect anyone can do is to be in awe.
• 35:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Hmm.
• 35:43
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm in awe.
• 35:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's cool.
• 35:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, let's talk about the big waves now.
• 35:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: I know that our listeners are going to want to know what it was like.
• 35:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Both of you were instrumental in, what do you call it?
• 36:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: To win to catch big waves where you use a jet ski or something to get you out there so you can catch a wave that otherwise might not be catchable.
• 36:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: You are instrumental in that and then
• 36:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: You went out on the big day and your book is entitled Hundred Foot Wave.
• 36:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: I can't even fathom that.
• 36:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Tell us how you developed into doing bigger and bigger waves and then what is it like to ride the monsters?
• 36:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Milton will you start?
• 36:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's a combination.
• 36:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: You have to be present.
• 36:41
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's a beautiful thing about it is your present.
• 36:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: You're not thinking about tomorrow.
• 36:46
  [SPEAKER_04]: You're not thinking about yesterday.
• 36:48
  [SPEAKER_04]: You have to be in the present moment.
• 36:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's really powerful situation.
• 36:54
  [SPEAKER_04]: And so you also need to stay relaxed and
• 36:58
  [SPEAKER_04]: timing figures into it.
• 37:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: When you get into that situation, your heart starts racing and your thoughts start going, you have to slow down.
• 37:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: Time is just like beginning surfing.
• 37:10
  [SPEAKER_04]: When you very first start surfing, you just want to get up quick, but you never caught the wave.
• 37:15
  [SPEAKER_04]: So in beginning surfing, you've got to slow down.
• 37:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: The waves aren't moving that fast.
• 37:20
  [SPEAKER_04]: Same for giant wave surfing.
• 37:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: You know what you're dealing with, you work yourself up.
• 37:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: Fear is lack of preparation.
• 37:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: So as long as you're prepared, if you're not prepared, man, don't go out there.
• 37:31
  [SPEAKER_04]: But if we've trained on a daily basis and our minds were focused.
• 37:37
  [SPEAKER_04]: And we knew what we were looking forward to.
• 37:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: And one day, the waves, it was almost like a premonition.
• 37:43
  [SPEAKER_04]: We didn't know why we were training and working out and practicing these new techniques and all this.
• 37:48
  [SPEAKER_04]: And one day, the day, the Holy Grail.
• 37:51
  [SPEAKER_04]: the devil's garden, rear its head, and we had the opportunity to go where no man or woman or anyone on earth had ever gone.
• 38:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: It was an incredible experience, but we felt prepared.
• 38:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: So the fear wasn't an aspect.
• 38:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: However, you do in those situations you have to have like meditation or lotus, you work where you can't do a little bit.
• 38:15
  [SPEAKER_04]: Y'all and respect ultimate respect for the sea on the smallest wave as the power of the whole ocean behind it.
• 38:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: So you got the respect starts at the beginning.
• 38:23
  [SPEAKER_04]: Respect the ocean.
• 38:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: Respect the sea.
• 38:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hmm.
• 38:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, what was it?
• 38:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, go ahead.
• 38:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: There's a documentary.
• 38:33
  [SPEAKER_03]: Thank you Curtis and excuse me.
• 38:35
  [SPEAKER_03]: There was a documentary.
• 38:36
  [SPEAKER_03]: There's an Emmy nominated documentary out now.
• 38:41
  [SPEAKER_03]: HBO, the one in search of the one hundred foot wave.
• 38:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: And it's really good.
• 38:46
  [SPEAKER_03]: And it stars Garrett McNamara are reworked with Garrett McNamara when he was young.
• 38:51
  [SPEAKER_03]: He's wearing his new book or I don't know if it's his new book.
• 38:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: But anyhow,
• 38:56
  [SPEAKER_03]: And it's all about these guys getting together searching for the one hundred foot wave.
• 39:01
  [SPEAKER_03]: Milton and I were never searching for a one hundred foot wave.
• 39:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: We weren't searching for a fifty foot wave.
• 39:09
  [SPEAKER_03]: We weren't searching.
• 39:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: We were just out there doing.
• 39:14
  [SPEAKER_03]: And the truth of the matter is, waves of this magnitude, when we did it, it was called a code black.
• 39:20
  [SPEAKER_03]: That was Hawaii's official code black.
• 39:23
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's never been another code black in Hawaii issued after that.
• 39:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: That meant it's illegal to essentially go surfing.
• 39:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: We didn't know the code black was on because we launched on the tip of the island, on the northern tip of the island.
• 39:35
  [SPEAKER_03]: And they had blocked off all the beaches, and it was called code black, condition black, illegal to go surfing.
• 39:42
  [SPEAKER_03]: But it's a very nice documentary, but they keep looking for these hundred foot waves.
• 39:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: But what everybody has to understand, there has to be a super storm.
• 39:50
  [SPEAKER_03]: There has to be a super storm that's once in a hundred years.
• 39:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, a hundred foot waves plus, hundred foot waves plus.
• 39:58
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it doesn't happen every year.
• 40:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: It doesn't happen every decade.
• 40:08
  [SPEAKER_03]: Once in a lifetime, you know, I wouldn't spit,
• 40:12
  [SPEAKER_03]: Maybe I wouldn't spend my life in search of a hundred foot weight.
• 40:15
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's a great documentary, but we didn't spend our lives in search.
• 40:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: It just happened and as Milton said, we've been preparing.
• 40:22
  [SPEAKER_03]: We didn't know what we were preparing for, and that's what he meant.
• 40:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: We were planning to ride the hundred foot weight.
• 40:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: We were just into the art of riding giant waves.
• 40:34
  [SPEAKER_03]: and communing with nature, and becoming one with that power, it was more of a relationship with a higher power that was inside, matching what was outside, and fusing, becoming harmonious.
• 40:48
  [SPEAKER_03]: It wasn't an outward, we're gonna get this giant way, but it just so happened that we did.
• 40:53
  [SPEAKER_03]: And they say it's the January, twenty-eight, nineteen, ninety-eight is the largest way.
• 40:58
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's definitely written in the twentieth century, and so far today in the twenty first
• 41:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: century.
• 41:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: And an interesting thing, and I know I'm being long-winded, but on that day, Shayna ran the number two world champion, he wanted Milton to be his tow driver.
• 41:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: And oh boy, that's Shayna.
• 41:18
  [SPEAKER_03]: I go, no, I became Milton's driver.
• 41:22
  [SPEAKER_03]: And we started out at this place called log cabins, which Google calls it, eighty-five feet.
• 41:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: And this wonderful, one of my best friends, Kim Bracha, I gave him this wave that is now iconic.
• 41:35
  [SPEAKER_03]: He'll tell you, I gave him the wave that is the face of the swell that we rode.
• 41:41
  [SPEAKER_03]: And he never thanked me, really.
• 41:43
  [SPEAKER_03]: Much can.
• 41:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: But anyhow, Milton and I later on, other surfers saw Milton and me do it, including Ken and Shane and other guys, and they came out and followed us.
• 41:53
  [SPEAKER_03]: And, well, cabins now, they became very competitive.
• 41:57
  [SPEAKER_03]: Cameras, helicopter.
• 41:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: We went out there, nobody was there.
• 42:01
  [SPEAKER_03]: And then all of a sudden, other surfers go, it's possible that canceled the EDI Cal Bigway Contest.
• 42:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: Every Bigway Surfer was sitting on the beach.
• 42:09
  [SPEAKER_03]: And then Milton and I went out stealth.
• 42:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: And then we were writing waves.
• 42:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: All of a sudden, there was, you know, all these other surfers around us, helicopters.
• 42:18
  [SPEAKER_03]: It was incredible.
• 42:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: It became very competitive.
• 42:21
  [SPEAKER_03]: So Milton and I cut out and had North.
• 42:24
  [SPEAKER_03]: And that's when we discovered the Devil's Garden, which was twice the size of log cabins and Nick.
• 42:33
  [SPEAKER_03]: Nathan Fletcher, Robby Page.
• 42:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: Robby Page said the pipeline master winner said he called it over a hundred and fifteen feet and said it's a largest way.
• 42:44
  [SPEAKER_03]: He's ever seen in his entire forty years of professional stuff that we can be surfing.
• 42:50
  [SPEAKER_03]: right and so it was quite a milestone in surfing and right after that giant wave surfing all of a sudden everybody around the world was getting a jet ski and chasing hundred foot waves but there's no need to chase hundred foot waves you can get the same joy and experience from a twenty foot wave paddle into a twenty foot wave
• 43:10
  [SPEAKER_03]: Basically, you can get the same joy on a one foot wave.
• 43:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: Milton said earlier, even the smallest wave has the power of the entire ocean behind it.
• 43:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: And it's that respect of that one foot wave that you have to respect nature.
• 43:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: The mountain, if the mountain doesn't move, it all starts with respect.
• 43:33
  [SPEAKER_03]: So we were chasing, it found us, it called us.
• 43:36
  [SPEAKER_03]: Hundreds of waves called us, and we answered the call.
• 43:40
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I'm so glad I got to participate in that.
• 43:43
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's a life-changing endeavor because if I, Michael Clebert Willis and my twin brother, Milton Bradley Willis, too, very regular guys, can do it?
• 43:56
  [SPEAKER_03]: Anybody else can do it.
• 43:57
  [SPEAKER_03]: They can climb the mountain that nobody said could be climbed.
• 44:01
  [SPEAKER_03]: They can take that trek that nobody said could be tracked.
• 44:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: They can anything that someone said was impossible.
• 44:09
  [SPEAKER_03]: If you want to do it, it's possible.
• 44:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: You can do it.
• 44:12
  [SPEAKER_03]: It calls you.
• 44:15
  [SPEAKER_03]: Answer the call.
• 44:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that's beautiful.
• 44:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: I need to let that soak in for just a minute.
• 44:22
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, I would like to add and I know I'm along with it.
• 44:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: I had a friend named Mark Foo.
• 44:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: He's still my friend by the past.
• 44:28
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm in the greatest big, great surface that I've ever lived.
• 44:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: He said, I'm chasing the thrill.
• 44:34
  [SPEAKER_03]: You know, it's a big way surfing.
• 44:35
  [SPEAKER_03]: He goes to get the ultimate thrill, be prepared to die.
• 44:41
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't remember his exact quote right the second.
• 44:43
  [SPEAKER_03]: See, to get the ultimate thrill, you have to be prepared to pay the ultimate price with your life.
• 44:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I never liked that, and Mark eventually passed on writing big waves at Mavericks.
• 44:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: But to get the ultimate thrill, you have to pay the ultimate price with your life.
• 44:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's not in death as in death, Mark.
• 45:01
  [SPEAKER_03]: It says, and living, which are whole passion into it.
• 45:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: Plan on living.
• 45:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: Don't do take unnecessary risks.
• 45:09
  [SPEAKER_03]: There is a risk worth the reward.
• 45:12
  [SPEAKER_03]: Don't, there's no thrill that is worth risking a life for us.
• 45:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: Chasing thrills is not worth a risk.
• 45:18
  [SPEAKER_03]: We do this because you're passionate and because you're called and it's in you.
• 45:23
  [SPEAKER_03]: If not because, you know, it's a death-defying thing.
• 45:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: Whatever it is, climbing that mountain, making that tractor because of love and wanting to live and live to the fullest.
• 45:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh man, good word, good word.
• 45:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I do mountaineering.
• 45:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: I haven't done much surfing at all, but there's a parallel.
• 45:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: There are people that want to talk about.
• 45:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: The big climb, or the big wall, or the big this, or the big that, or how many they've done, and all these sorts of things, and I'm not criticizing people for having goals.
• 45:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think that's awesome.
• 45:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: But people ask me, how many mountains have you climbed, and I like, I don't know.
• 46:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's because I climb for the joy of climbing.
• 46:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't even climb for the summit.
• 46:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love the summit, but that's not why I climb.
• 46:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Right?
• 46:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: I climb because I love to be in nature with people I love.
• 46:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love to experience the world in that way.
• 46:20
  [SPEAKER_03]: Curtis, the famous saying in surfing, who is the bit world's best surfer?
• 46:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: No idea.
• 46:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: The one having the most fun.
• 46:28
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's the one having the most fun.
• 46:31
  [SPEAKER_03]: So you may be the best climber in the world because you're not climbing to set a world record.
• 46:36
  [SPEAKER_03]: You're not climbing to go prove something to yourself.
• 46:41
  [SPEAKER_03]: You're climbing for pure joy and passion.
• 46:44
  [SPEAKER_03]: And thus makes you possibly the best climber in the world.
• 46:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I will say amazing someone who enjoys it.
• 46:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: It makes me someone who really enjoys it.
• 46:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: The best of her in the world is the one having the most fun.
• 46:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I love that.
• 46:58
  [SPEAKER_03]: That was since I was a kid.
• 46:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's what they, they said.
• 47:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's fun.
• 47:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: I said.
• 47:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, Milton, will you describe just as if we were, you know, a little lizard on your shoulder, will you describe what it was like to drop into a really big wave
• 47:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: What does it feel like to be that high above the trough and to feel yourself accelerating as you go shooting down the face of something like that?
• 47:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: What goes through your mind and through your heart?
• 47:28
  [SPEAKER_04]: Here comes the way.
• 47:30
  [SPEAKER_04]: Timeie goes through my mind and a positioning and there's no time to
• 47:38
  [SPEAKER_04]: Once you've learned waves and you study waves, they have certain lines they call it and surfers know about the line.
• 47:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: You take the high line.
• 47:45
  [SPEAKER_04]: So if it's extremely steep and big, where you drop in on the wave, you need to be at the very top.
• 47:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
• 47:54
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's a rush taking that drop.
• 47:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's the thing.
• 47:56
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's a escape on a mountain.
• 47:58
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's just being straight down that hill.
• 48:01
  [SPEAKER_04]: Wow.
• 48:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: But then you're timing you have to know when to come off that bottom.
• 48:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: But again, it's a personal experience.
• 48:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: You could ride it for your first day.
• 48:11
  [SPEAKER_04]: I always love the joy of a first time surfers seeing them do it.
• 48:15
  [SPEAKER_04]: I did this.
• 48:16
  [SPEAKER_04]: That feeling that rush.
• 48:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's what I enjoyed.
• 48:19
  [SPEAKER_04]: And so for me and time to reflect on all this stuff that we've done, it gives you a little platform where people are paying attention to you.
• 48:28
  [SPEAKER_04]: If I was to say what I got out of it was, hey, man, achieve your dream.
• 48:31
  [SPEAKER_04]: Don't let anybody tell you you can't.
• 48:34
  [SPEAKER_04]: You can do whatever you want to do.
• 48:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: And it's mainly your own personal competition with yourself.
• 48:40
  [SPEAKER_04]: And if man, I climbed a little bit higher than I did yesterday, that's me.
• 48:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: And maybe you climbed five times what I did.
• 48:46
  [SPEAKER_04]: But you know what, I did get for me.
• 48:48
  [SPEAKER_04]: And that's good enough for me.
• 48:49
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm happy with that.
• 48:51
  [SPEAKER_04]: So that's my approach to it.
• 48:53
  [SPEAKER_04]: Is if you're going to look at me, I'm going to say, hey, man, look at yourself and achieve your dream.
• 48:57
  [SPEAKER_04]: Have a dream.
• 48:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: Have a purpose that you're doing something for myself right now.
• 49:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: My goal is to be able to, for my legacy and my legacy is to give that.
• 49:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: If you can help educate and make it easy to make that other guys load and light and path just a little bit easier if they want to.
• 49:14
  [SPEAKER_04]: And inspiring.
• 49:15
  [SPEAKER_04]: And inspiring.
• 49:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, good words, gent's, good words.
• 49:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: So how can people learn more about what you're up to?
• 49:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Go ahead, Michael.
• 49:23
  [SPEAKER_03]: I would recommend everybody to get a copy of one hundred for way, the official book, because it uses surfing as the conduit for communication, but inside it, it talks about our story and in regards to coming from
• 49:43
  [SPEAKER_03]: So a lot of beach is known for some of the most mediocre waves in the world.
• 49:50
  [SPEAKER_03]: And so it's a beautiful story that can be applied and transposed into whatever activities.
• 50:00
  [SPEAKER_03]: And hopefully it's inspirational and educational.
• 50:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: It talks about the surface way.
• 50:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: of saving lines, which is blue out wide in, eddy-eyed cow, and rips go out, waves come in.
• 50:14
  [SPEAKER_03]: It talks about how we started out in increments, but it's very inspirational.
• 50:18
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I think everybody that's read it that's talked to me, one very seasoned salt surfer right here in a mustache.
• 50:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: It almost interfered to you guys.
• 50:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: You captured it.
• 50:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: And so I hope that it embodies that spirit of rock primers, of long distance runners, which we have long distance runners all over the world at swimmers.
• 50:40
  [SPEAKER_03]: You know, people who go outdoors and push limits.
• 50:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
• 50:46
  [SPEAKER_03]: Not necessarily push limits, but let's say break limits.
• 50:51
  [SPEAKER_03]: And so I would recommend getting a copy of one hundred foot wave, the official book.
• 50:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: How can we follow you guys?
• 50:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Website, Instagram, what's the best way to follow what you're up to?
• 51:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: Our organization is ThinkWaves.org.
• 51:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: We have a five or one C three.
• 51:08
  [SPEAKER_03]: And it's ThinkWaves.
• 51:10
  [SPEAKER_03]: And ThinkWaves is what it's all about in every area.
• 51:14
  [SPEAKER_03]: But anyhow, that's that.
• 51:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, you know, our conversation today, we're talking about surfing, but you made it more universal.
• 51:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: You made it into what it means to be human.
• 51:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: and what it means to stretch ourselves and to accomplish the bigger goals and to make life more meaningful and more fulfilling and to help others along the way to shine your light you know and that's that's a beautiful thing and I thank you for your time and thank you for sharing with us what it was like to have a lifetime of surfing but to do some of the really amazing things that
• 51:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, most of us probably won't get the chance to try, but we appreciate it that you're willing to share it with us.
• 51:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Gentlemen, we're out of time, but thank you very much.
• 52:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: So there's think waves, there's the hundred foot wave, Milton and Michael Willis take care of brothers.
• 52:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're stronger together.
• 52:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Blessings of respect.