Zane Schweitzer- Blue Planet Show- Episode #1

Transcript:  Aloha! It's Robert Stehlik with Blue Planet Surf.  Welcome to the very first episode of the Blue Planet show. I'm here in my home office, in the garage, and my neighbors are doing construction. So you might hear some noises from outside. I'm super excited about this new show and my first interview is with Zane Schweitzer and the show is all about wind foiling and lifestyle and technique.

And so on equipment and anything about wing foiling which is what I'm super passionate about right now. And I want to know more about it. So that's why I want to interview all the top thought leaders on the leading edge of the sport athletes, designers, and so on. And next week's interview is going to be with Balz Muller He's in Switzerland. So we got a big time difference. I'm super excited to get him on the show as well. And talk a little bit about his super radical moves in wing foiling. I was inspired to start the show by Eric Antonson's progression project podcast, which if you haven't listened to it, you should check it out.

I've been listening to it when I'm driving around. It is really a great podcast? And I'm going to post these interviews not only here on YouTube. But also on podcast channels.  That's going to be available soon. So if you don't have time to watch the whole thing on video, we will also have this available as podcasts.

And I know it's pretty long form interviews, but I know if you're into wayfinding as much as I am, you'll be interested to watch the whole thing. So in this video, I asked Zane about his background as a Waterman. He started really young as a professional windsurfer and then stand up paddler. And then now as a professional foiler and also a coach and teacher.

So he has a really good background. And then he talks about an accident. He recently had a really deep cut from his foil and the, from in the waves. And there's a lot of learning experiences that he shares in that. So it's good to listen to, but the visual is pretty gory and bloody. So if you're sensitive to that, he might want to skip ahead to around 30 minutes where we started talking about wind foiling, actually wind foiling.

And then we talk about when filing a bunch and then at the end, We talk about life and life during the pandemic saying positive, having gratitude and so on. And that's actually my favorite parts of stick around for that really good stuff in the end too. So I hope you enjoy the show without further ado.

Here is Zane Schweitzer. All right, Zane. Thanks so much for joining me. It's my first time doing this blue planet show. So super stoked to have you as my first guest. Yeah, thanks so much. It, yeah. It's great to have an opportunity to chat with you again, it's been a while since we've got the connect. So let's start a little bit about your, tell me a little bit about yourself and I'm gonna screen share and play some video of you growing up from YouTube.

Let me see here. I was going to play this video.  Can you see that? Yeah. All right. So tell us a little bit about yourself growing up and all that. Yeah, I grew up here on West Valley over in, Kahana and, being surrounded by my big brother. Who's five years older than me and all his fans and as well, my, my parents.

And all their friends I got to be surrounded by some pretty amazing watermen and water women. I think my brother really had a huge influence on me though, because at that time all him and his friends were like my heroes, like they were all the up and coming junior pros and the sharp board surf world, like dusty Payne and Ian Walsh and Granger Larson and clay Marzo.

And so I was always chasing those guys around and. So I got introduced to, big wave surfing at Honolua Bay at a pretty young age, just chasing them around and think big wave surfing, really set me on a journey to just be super in tune with the ocean. When, as soon as I started feeling like the excitement of riding big waves, that's when I really fell, I was just caught by.

No. And for all by the ocean, because the, for that time, I was probably more enthralled by my little mongoose bicycle, but yeah, pretty quickly, started to, get into winning, surfing and all that kind of stuff. And on the professional tour, I was about 12, 13 years old. When I first started on the professional tour for wind surfing.

Yeah, I really, I first met you. That was that battle of the paddle, right?  The second battle of the paddle when you were just a little grim, I think just traveling by yourself, doing the race when you were still pretty young and yeah, and that was years after too. I was already a pretty.

Familiar with traveling at that point, by the time standup paddling came into the world. But it's cool to see it go first full circle. Because when I was competing as a professional windsurfer, all of a sudden Starboard's started to make these standup pallet boards. And of course we heard of them seeing like guys like Laird Hamilton and Dave Kalama out, driving paddleboards, doing downwinders and stuff, staying fit.

I would sent us, sent me one actually Connor Baxter, and I believe we're like the first people in the whole country to, to get a standup paddleboard from star board. And we had so much fun on them before the wind surf event started. We would we would bring these up pal events on our travels and, before the wind came up, We would be out in the water, palling around catching waves and, doing all that kind stuff.

And everywhere we went, people were like, what is that? What can we try this? And we would, young little, 13, 14, 15 year old. And we were like hosting clinics all over the world already at that age at wind surf events, sharing this new sport of up paddling and. And it's cool to see it come full circle.

 We've seen kind of standup Palin and go from being,  this little, a niche of a thing to the world's fastest growing sport. And now here we go again, we got star board sending us hydrofoils. And earlier before that, I got to work with Alex, a Yara and this was my. My real first enthrallment with Stan, with with hydrofoiling excuse me.

I tried it before with Brett lyrical when I was probably 10 years old, but it was just like one time and I was able to get up and go in, but my legs were too small for the strapped in boots. Cause at that time it was on a first-generation rush Randall. Foil Bret lyrical and all the boys layered Hamilton, all those guys were using and, they had one on the motu Island and, they asked if I wanted to give it a go and I threw my feet in it and was able to get a feel for flying, but never, I don't know.

It just was a one-time thing. And until I saw. Alex testing these downwind foils. And I got involved with that early round of development with Gofoil and I, it just changed changed my world for sure. The first time getting out on a foil one of his gold foils, I remember riding it all the way to the beach and thinking this is the funnest thing ever.

Like it was my Dan, the Hina, which I grew up riding and Hola Hina doesn't really ever get too exciting if you're, used to surfing barrels or, overhead waves, it's more of a longboard spot. But with the foil, it was so exciting. These little knee-high away, we were able to, ride all the way to the sand and then even pump back out.

And this was. Before pumping was even a thing. It was just like, wow, we can make our way back out there. It's just Johnny, and it's amazing how fast it's changed because that feels like that was just months ago, let alone years ago. And  the gear has really changed.

At that time we were putting 12 foot six race boards. Onto down lenders with the foil. And then we literally Ross mucin the owner of starboard and cornerbacks there. We would, you're on the boat. Cutting a foot at a time off the board. Oh, okay. 12 foot six then it worked. Let's try 11, six, then there's Stan on the boat with the hat saw cutting a carbon fiber all-star race board just chopping foot after foot.

And then we got down to I want to say we got down to maybe eight feet or nine feet long. And the foil was just too far forward. At this point, it was like, it was just a scrap. And we're like, okay, now we know let's just go small. And after that I put a foil on my shortly after that. Maybe not immediately after that, but Modify the box huddle box onto one of my hyper nuts, a 69 hyper not, which was one.

I know I've used that board a lot. Standup paddle surfing. And I already had the board around in my garage and had this thing modified for a go for oil. And it was so fun to be able to get out on a down Linder and just. Not even touch the water from malico bolts all the way to call her the Harbor, but not only that, the be going faster than I ever could have imagined and having so much fun the whole way down.

It's. I don't think I've done a normal download mirror on a support. And it's probably been about a, I'd say four or five years since I've done like a solid season of training on a race board for down lenders  racing scene. You gave up on that pretty much. I didn't give up on it. I just, I'm having so much more fun doing other things and so much more other opportunities doing other things.

There's, there was a few years in my career and in my life stand-up paddle racing had the most opportunity and there was a, it was floating my lifestyle to be able to be a big wave surfer at winds there for Astana, pallor, but really I was floating it from stout, pallor races and.  Now I feel like we have, we've had a little bit of a shift in trends, stand-up paddle racing and it's just taken a little bit of a dip and either foiling and wing riding or just taken off.

And my sponsors are excited about it too. So if I love it and my sponsors want me to keep doing it. Then why go compete in a Lake in Europe to go paddle 17 miles flat water? For me it's not exactly where my heart is it, but I'm all, I'm definitely a guy who sees opportunity. And so I knew that I could train and I could be a great paddler.

And I've won most of my world championship event wins that are under my bill or from racing. And it gave me so much experience to travel the world and to, get a taste of, really what it's like to be a true professional athlete and racing racers. I definitely it's different than surfers.

You get into diet, you get into training, you do everything you can to get that incremental increase. And so just transferring those skills that I've learned in professional stand-up paddle racing. Into my surfing lifestyle, whether it's big wave surfing or foil surfing and wind surfing, I feel like I'm able to, make goals and smash them.

And it's whether it's a mental obstacle or did I say mental, whether it's a mental obstacle or a physical obstacle, I think between the preparations that an experience in these different areas of sport. Can can implement it, even if it's just I'm just the, my wife and I are starting up our own a foundation this year.

And it's funny because a lot of the lessons I've learned in sport, I'm transferring into business too. And yeah, but I, you do a lot of good things like beach cleanups and looking kids and all that kind of stuff. Is that what your foundation is going to be doing too? Yeah my, our unofficial not-for-profit that I've ran for about 12 years is the insane super drums.

And we've introduced over 4,000 kids. We've lost track by now. It's been so unofficial, but definitely I'd say over 4,500 kids in the last 12 years to ocean spore and ocean activism and conservation. And our main goal of course, is getting them stoked on and having fun with each other.

They're on the water. And then at the end of these

Oh, and then at the end of these events, get the kids hands on with the beach cleanup or some sort of a science and education exercise around coral reef for microplastics or the Marine biology and the. Eco diversity in the area, there's it's a lot of fun. So that's something I've been enjoying doing on my travels and at home, on the side of competing and and training.

And it's really rewarding because I give so much credit to where I am right now as a professional athlete, because of all the lessons and all the mentorship. I've had from, guys like Dave Kalama and my dad and Brett lyrical and Archie CalEPA. And I'm just so grateful to have had these these positive influences in my life.

And I think growing up, my parents always encouraged me to share those same experiences. And now at COVID hitting, all contests going to nothing, it was a good time. I thought to really actually make our foundation official. So yeah, this is maybe one of the first public announcements actually.

But our new foundation is  and Yeah, we'll link to that and have a place for people to get more information prepare. When I asked you by doing this interview, you told me you were laid up with stitches and so on.  Just wanted to get into the story. I probably just posted this video a few days ago on YouTube.

So tell us about this day. I just stopped telling the whole story with what happened and stuff. It started off as, a pretty fun day just trying to hunt for some waves. And I knew it was a pretty windy day. So I brought my wing foil and foil gear as well. And  scored some waves at home, the little Bay first surfing, and there was a blast and the whole time I'm looking at the wind line, just thinking all it's cranking Lynne.

And I cut my S my surf session, a little short to go wing foil at one of my favorite shrimp training spots, unless Molly, and it's a little more countryside. There's usually no one out on the water when I'm, if it's windy out. And definitely the only person, laying foiling the area.

And so this same to go for this day. So I went out on my own very quick session. The tide was pretty low, which is normal for this spot. So I'm just getting my board out, upside down with the foil up and right before I cleared the reef, there is a set that came and it wasn't a big set, but it was, it was about head high, little overhead.

And it was enough for me to hesitate letting go of my board because I had no leash with my board. And so I held onto my board, like just bear hugged it. And in the whitewash, as I'm getting pounded my foil swings around and mix my leg, or I might've even kicked the foil. I'm not even sure. Which part of the flow you hit or are you not sure?

I'm almost positive. Just from the shape of the cut. My mom was positive. It was the trailing edge of the tail wing. And it wasn't very wide, but it was very deep. And that's why I say that because my tail wing isn't super wide. But it went a good inch and a half, two inches all the way to the bone.

And so that's why I think it was the tailing. And the buzz is probably the sharper to it. Yeah, exactly. And so I'm guessing it was that trailing edge of the tail wing and was able to get in at an angle to go. Go down deep as opposed to slice. And so when I got, it definitely hurt, it felt like more of a Charlie horse at first, but as I'm getting back on through the waves, I'm like, I felt something flapping a little bit against my leg and I'm like, I lift my foot up out of the water, which you could see in the video.

I'm like, Oh man, this, I cut myself. And just went straight in from there. And  learned a lot through this video and as well through my talk there, because I ended up doing tying my leg a little bit with my leash. It just seemed like the right thing to do. It was already attached to my leg.

And I tied off my, my my calf a little bit thinking, I could slow down the bleeding and That for everyone who's watched this video and I've included in the caption as well. There's a big, biggest learning lesson for me is you probably don't need to turn a kit an injury, unless it's too big or messy of a cut to have a pressure, a wrap on.

And so a pressure wrap would be better. And once I get back to my car, I realized, Oh, I got duct tape. And so I ended up using duct tape and And I also didn't know I had this little, I almost forgot I had this little first aid kit in my car and it had these gauze pads. And so that would've been ideal instead of tying it, just putting the gauze or a clean shirt or something, and then wrapping duct tape, a pressure wrap for a cut like this the time that a tourniquet would be necessary from what I learned.

Is say if it was like a really wide open cut and you can't just put something over it to stop the bleeding and so yeah, I could have actually made my, then my situation worse if if I had a long drive, luckily I only had about 30 to 40 minutes before I was taken off the tourniquet and being seen by a doctor and Yeah.

So that was my biggest lesson from that is yeah. Mean, I think for everyone who's into sports in general, but also hydrofoiling or surfing and that's over reef, it's always good to have some sort of first aid kit. This one that I had in my car was crap. It's a generic first aid kit now.

After really having to deal with that. I'm like, I've re reassessed my first aid kit and I have a nice, a good sized bottle of alcohol and hydrogen peroxide. So immediately you could wash the wound and the area around the wound. You could have a bunch of gauze. There's, my gauze is great and duct tape or our ACE bandage.

Cause then you could do a pressure rap, but I was lucky that I had some gauze, cause I probably would have ended up just doing a dirty shirt or something. Yeah. It looks like that duct tape was the best movie they made because then get a tight on there. Obviously we have a little bit of a delay here.

That's why we sometimes talk over each other as  silence, but So in terms of like your learning experiences, obviously you said first aid kit, that's suitable for deeper cuts and stuff like that. What about Foil Hatton lane or, have you thought about just like Sandy, the trailing edge and here for us to make sure it's not as sharp or like any other learning experiences that you've been passing a hundred percent.

To avoid all this, just wear a leash, like I, I had a 10 foot surf leash in my car that I used for my surf session before. And I actually, I was like, shoot, I forgot my foil board lease, which is normally a short. And thick leash. And and I held my longboard leash from my hand for a moment.

And I'm like, ah, nah, I'll just know these shit today. It's nothing too crazy out there. This is just another session. I'm always out doing this anyway. And I, and because I didn't have Alicia on my board, I held on to my board and I kept it close to me. Whereas if I just had a leash on my ankle, even though it might not have been a dangerous day or anything that I can't.

Control. It was a random situation where I chose to keep my gear closer than it needed to be. And so add a question button, this video real quick. It said that the clinic closes at 3:00 AM. You got there at three 15 and then, but then all of a sudden you're inside. Is that the same clinic or did he have to drive somewhere else or no, I had to drive to a different clinic all the way down.

All right. No, not to call Louis. Luckily there is another Hina clinic open that closed at four and I was able to go visit them. Okay. Okay, cool. Yeah, I was wondering about that. Sorry, I should put like the little annotation or something on the video, so people know. Yeah. It seems like these nurses are really cool.

And and then I was, I'm not going to show all thing. It's pretty gross. But then you actually pass out while they're stitching you up. Yeah. The funniest part was, these nurses are they're foil and they surf and we're already friends. And so when they saw me come into the office, they're like, Oh, what happened now?

 And we got to, we we got to have fun with it and everything, but yeah, why I asked if they don't mind me filming and they're like, yeah, that's cool. Just don't pass out on us all laughing. And I'm like, yeah. Okay. Whatever, I'll be fine. I normally am pretty good with with all that injuries and treating, being there to treat yeah.

But I think I got a little overwhelmed because I'm stitching, they're stitching me and I'm filming. And then all of a sudden, my mom called and my mom, when my mom called, I went to go answer her phone call. And as soon as I lifted the phone to my head, I just remember saying, I think I'm gunna. And I just.

Went out. And luckily the other nurse that was there, caught me from rolling off the table. Oh, they also injected some like local anesthesia. Yeah. Yeah. Cause they, they really had to go deep in and clean it out. So  they shot me with Santa Ana, STI whatever pain relief stuff. And then they really got in there and scrubbed it with With these these hospital grade bristles.

Yeah. So that's a important process, clean it because you don't want to get an infection, especially when you have a deep cut like that.  They ended up doing three different layers of stitches, one against the bone to close up the muscle. And that, that bar, or that bottom layer, and then another in the middle to pull together that Whitey, fleshy, fat look and stuff.

And then another layer on top to close it all up. And by day two, I already felt an infection coming on. When my leg was starting to get swollen, my glands were getting swollen. I called up the doctor and I'm like, Hey I think it's getting infected. And so I came in and sure enough, it was They needed to on day four, I think it was, they reopened the whole thing.

They cut open all three layers of stitches and they had to do this process all over again, where they got in and scrubbed it with the same stressful thing and and just flush it with beta Nene and all that good stuff. And and yeah, it got pretty bad actually to a certain point where I'm sure you're pretty familiar with staff and Marissa Robert, being here in Hawaii for so many years, but it's nothing to take lightly.

And I've been hospitalized many times and threatened to even, have a lambs cutoff if it were to get any worse. And so I was on top of it, but. This infection happens so quick. It was crazy. And it got to the point where I was like, they almost sent me to the emergency room to get antibiotic Ivy, drip just through my system or I'd have to pretty much stay there for 12 to 24 hours and be monitored.

But luckily we were able to catch it, and they reopened it. They were really aggressive with the cleaning and the draining process when they, when this. Dr. Heidi here stitched me back up after reopening it and cleaning it. What she did was she placed a rubber piece of tubing on, under the the bitches.

And so for them, for the following days, it could actually continue draining out as it's healing. And that's what really, I think, did the job, was, that getting back in there and cleaning it.  And now I'm on the man. I think I'm in the clear and hopefully be back back on the water in the next five days or so.

Nice. Wow. What an experience, huh? Yeah, I've had the same thing happened on my back like that. I hit the back the reef, lift my back and have a big cut and they sorta shut it and then it got infected inside and you had to reopen it and stuff like that was pretty, pretty bad zone. Whenever you have cuts like that, you almost have to heal from the inside out.

Yeah. Otherwise it's and so you got the C bacteria. Yeah. It's gnarly, but anyways, let's not talk about that anymore. It's pretty good. Yeah, we got viewers tuning out. Get nosy. Yeah, maybe we can

but yeah let's talk about wind fighting. Cause that's what my show is really supposed to be about wait, it goes into some wing foiling there after the doctor clips. Oh yeah. Let's play this one here. We get on West Molly last night. It's a good one. But yeah. So how long have you been waiting for now?

I could look back at my journals and probably get an exact date, but  want to say. It was 2018 where I first got to try one with Alan kudus and Pete Cabrina at Kanawha or out wind surfing. And I saw them using a prototype Cabrina one. And I remember thinking, I, I saw it around cause Kai had his videos folk now with one of his wings on the early on.

And this was around that same time. And. I remember talking to uncle Alan and uncle  I can I sample, I can sample uncle and they both looked at me with the most concerned look and they're like you don't have one of these yet. And I'm like, no, I don't have one of those things yet.

Like what I try and they're like, God, this is the only one we have, like in all of Hawaii besides the one I had. Yeah, but just don't do anything crazy on it. And I'm like, okay. And and they were all pissed, because I got up on the thing and right away, just boom, just, I was up and riding and doing planning, jibes and tax.

And I came in, Oh, that's pretty fun. They explode Mitch. And they're just all pissed. Like you just came in and out and we've been trying to do this for weeks and you and I met, I even threw a backflip on my first run out. And I, I remember thinking,  just from all my wind surf experience right away.

And of course with the foil experience too, it was easy to put it together. I got up and ride. I'm like, okay, this is cool. What else can I do? Let's just roll the emotion of a bathroom. And I remember thinking like, Oh there's some potential in this for some pretty fun stuff. And , I very clearly remember sitting down that night and writing an email to to Stan and saying, Hey, Spann, I know you've been a little skeptical, wondering if this wing thing is going to be a trend, but  think this thing's going to stick around.

I think it's pretty functional, and sure enough, here we are What two years later, three years later, I don't know what it was winging is taking over the community and in Maui at least, I mean on Maui everyone's winging. It's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. They call it the wind surfing crowd, but also the.

Circle the prone surfers, I got into foiling and now they want to win foil. So it's almost like a bigger community than stand up paddling or wind surfing was that it seems like, yeah, just what's in many ways, it's bringing everyone together, which is cool. It's bringing everyone into one community, which it should be.

It should be the ocean community,  and that's why I've really loved my experience with wing. Foiling is. Just like you said,  we're the real popular spa on Mallory right now is called Hulu Harbor. Now that's also one of the more popular spots for canoe paddling. It's also one of the more popular spots for foil surfing over at the break.

And so now you have all these different communities merging together and everyone's getting a little taste for the wing stuff itself and yeah, so it's really cool to be able to also, I think the most unique thing though, is seeing surfers shortboard surfers, cause to me, a lot of my friends who shortboard surf are the most closed minded when it comes to being multi-faceted with multiple sports on the water they just don't care to do anything else.

They just want to serve for you. If it's not good enough throughout the board, they don't want you to do with it.  And now I have friends who are like totally transitioned into foiling and wing riding, where it's hard for them to even get on their shortboard anymore because they just have so much more fun and feel that sense of freedom that we get to feel.

And I, I don't think surfers truly understand that sense of freedom that a wind sport has. But it's, a lot of surfers has had the opportunity to get into. Hydrofoil surfing. Now, hydrofoil surfing is a good stepping stone into downwind riding. And then once you get into downwind foiling, you're like this you're tea, you're getting a taste of what that freedom is like.

But as soon as you put a sail on your hand or a kite in your hand or a wing in your hand, You could just explore anywhere you want. It's a real special activity too, that really taps into the freedom of accessing all these different places on the water and being able to just explore up and down the coastline.

So Zen, obviously in this video, you're doing like three sixties. You're practicing, like doing them over and over trying to get them done. So can you run us through kind of step-by-step what exactly what you're doing and like your hand placement and so on. Just give us like a step-by-step run on.

Yeah, totally. And if anybody's interested for some more of this step-by-step stuff, I have a zero to hero wing boarding tutorial on On, I believe it's a free wing YouTube channel. We have seven episodes currently including a three 60 deep, really breaking it down. Should we take a look at that one?

Okay. Probably better. So as I'm talking and get a better visual. But yeah, I've also, since COVID opened up my coaching and mentorship online to virtual classes, and so I started up the water sports division on belays coaching to IO real popular soccer coaching platform online. And we did we did a partnership with them to do foiling surfing and stand-up paddle.

And so that's been a lot of fun too. People have been sending me a lot of foiling and wing clips lately, and it's a lot of fun to be able to break down these different maneuvers and help people from home, improve improve their confidence on the water with the foil or with the wing.

Yeah, no, you've always been really into coaching and analyzing the technique. Yeah, I think that's something I really like about your videos to you're trying to break it down and make it easy to understand, but actually it's about tax and jive, so that's probably a little bit more applicable.

But yeah. Like for more, a little bit more entry level stuff. Yeah. So one, one of the biggest things that people I think are asking me about are inquiring about on my social media channels and as well through my coaching is how to better their jobs and tax. With switched with switching stance.

A lot of people coming from a surf or up paddle background aren't as familiar switching their feet with each turnaround as say a wind surfer or a caterer, it might be. So what I found to be a really easy breakdown of the jive is to be able to first do a little edge up wind. Don't just get lost going downwind because then you lose power in your sale.

And so what I, what are your wing? Excuse me, before you turn downwind for your jive, do a little edge up when it's like to have power in the wing, or just make sure you have power in your wing, and then you could actually follow through and lead through your turn. Do a nice turn, holding the wing up above your head.

And once your nose is pointing straight down wind, you can let go of your backhand and then start to transition your backhand to your front hand and your front to the back. And that's the point where then I'll start to do a little pump with the board up and down. And I switched my feet with the up and down motion.

I found it to be a lot easier to. Go through that little quick motion of changing your feet from regular to goofy, or regular motion with that up and down pump with that rollercoaster motion, as opposed to just trying to go straight, stay still and then jump into position, and so that's something to really keep in mind that a lot of my students have found to be super helpful is both do your turnaround first with the wing.

Once you switch your hands, your cross stance. Then you could go up and down with the little pumping motion, little roller coaster. And then on your, before you start driving down from a higher altitude, you could slide your slide your back foot to the middle position and do that quick transition from from your back foot to your front foot.

And of course everyone's weight distribution and pivot points is going to be a little different according to their board and their foil. And it really just takes time getting that confidence and the quick shuffle. But remember that the wing is going to allow us to have the S the ability to do that shuffle, and also the slight engagement of the foil up and down.

And so give  your foil something to do with that up and down motion before you go into that switch, and also make sure you have a little bit of power holding your weight up. So you do a little wait lists of footwork. Now one of the best exercises to practice this kind of stuff.

I think for cross spore is his longboard surfing,  doing your cross, cross stepping and stuff like that. Also even just walking a curb in the parking lot before you go out, walk the curb and cross step your fee and maybe practice doing some quick changes with light footwork from one stance to the next.

And Yeah, for the most part it's repetition. Even for me coming in from a windsurf background, it took me a little bit of time to really dial in getting comfortable and, still to this day there's certain situations where I'll choose to stay in my goofy foot stance. What I mean, especially

when you haven't really, the smart board is actually, it's pretty hard to switch stands on. Yeah. You just don't have weapons room for two foot straps and stuff in the front to it. So you're on a wall and most guys that ride in shorter boards, they just don't switch their stance. But, and then another helpful tip is to when you do switch stance at the beginning, it's good to just.

After the jive just dropped on the water, switch your feet and then come back up on the foil again. That makes a lot easier, until you're comfortable moving your feet around while you're up on the foil. Yeah, totally. You could bring the board back down to the water and have that extra stability for sure.

Yeah. Yeah. Those are good tips. What about these jumps? Any, can you break those down? Yeah.  No for a little bit there. I was like starting to get a little bit I'm bored with the three 60 and this donkey kick. Cause it was like like everyone was doing it and it seemed like it was one of the only tricks you could do.

And sure enough, that, that motivated me and I'm sure a lot of other people that try and get creative doing other things But these three sixties definitely gave me a lot of excitement in between that transition, cause the donkey kicks are probably the first maneuver I worked on and really dialed the three sixties, both front side and backside both into the wind and downwind were really fun.

Variations of maneuvers to work on. And so I'd say the easiest variation of the three 60 is the downwind rotation in your normal stance. So not S not switch, not on your backside, just going out with in your natural stats are going in. If your natural stance is going in holding the wing doing a nice edge into the wind.

Okay. And then a slight poll on the backhand as you kick your back foot out behind you and rotating downwind. And that one is a really fun variation, but what helps is to the quicker you transfer your hands. And as soon as you, you get off the water with a slight edge into the wind.

Then you could give a little poll with your backhand, but it's more so just kicking out that back foot and almost doing like that one 80 motion with the the foil board. Once you let go of your back hand, that's, what's going to really light up your rotation. And so if you want to slow down your rotation, like in that one right there, I held on to the last moment to keep my rotation steady.

And I'll have a change of pace, but if you want us to really speed it up, let go of that back hand, switch your hands and you get that quick rotation. Yeah. Now once you do come down, you've got to switch your hands really quick. Now this was actually a. Different from what I was explaining the X thousand, a backside one, but that's a good example.

There's four different variations of three, six. These you could do your natural stance, your switch stance. And then you could also do it with a downwind rotation or an up window occasion. Have you tried the ones with the up? I've been trying to do the ones with the Uplander rotation, but keeping the sail keeping the wing and just spinning the wind when the wind have you tried those.

It's so funny. Every time it looks like that every time I want to do one of those, like three sixties without into the wind without letting go, I ended up doing a backflip or like some sort of a sideways backflip. And it's funny because I have wing riders. Ah, shoot. I'm spacing his name. One of one of the last, so there's that wing event in Brazil?

I think the guy got sec, second place. Oh yeah. Paul's Miller, right? Who got first place? Paul Mueller. Oh, and then what's his name? A younger kid. Yeah. I'm from new Caledonia. Tetouan yeah.  Teton. So Tiguan. Actually messaged me and he was like, dude, how in the heck are you doing your back?

Flips like that, like more like straight up and down. And I responded back to him, dude. How in the heck are you doing you're sideways spinners?

Yeah, it's just, our unique style is more I'm I more naturally can throw the top to bottom.  More like up and down type of flip, but I have a harder time with that more horizontal spinner.  seem to have the opposite where he maybe has a, some sort of a block for the straight up and down, back flip, but can do the sideways back flip slash three 60.

And so I've been actually playing around with it quite a bit and still haven't. Felt super comfortable with that maneuver. But I do feel like the backflips are keeping me real busy. The other day I came pretty close to landing a double back. Oh no, maybe walk us through the back slope. Yeah, like what's I see it's almost like you're doing a windsurfing backs will be look for a steep ramp and you just throw yourself back, but can you break it down step by step a little bit? That's something I've been wanting to try. This is the backup.  As a windsurfer and for the Winster viewers that are listening you can relate to this Robert, approaching a lip or a wave for a back loop and a friend, a push loop is a little different, right?

So I was making the mistake early on with my back flips of going too far into the wind. And there's a certain point where just the wing would be like awesome all up against my body. And then it's hard to bring the wing back in a position where it's getting powered up. And so then I started approaching it more like a push loop where actually just before you hit the wave, Go at a straight reach, maybe even a little bit on a downwind reach.

And so just slightly downwind into the wave so that you could actually have the power in the wings throughout the rotation or throughout the majority of the rotation. And so you could see right there, there's a moment where  the back wind the wing like a push loop. But I'd say it's easier to do this with a little bit of download, as opposed to a little bit of upwind.

And so right there, slight back wind. And then what you'd want to do is not have it get stuck in that back winded position. You want to be able to whip it right back up and over your head. So the more you could have the wing powered up throughout the rotation, the more smooth it's going to be.

Okay. So you're saying go a little bit upwind more yeah I guess like a push loop, but then, do you think about throwing your head back? Like just trying to take, so I'm a takeoff. Totally. Yeah. So I take off point your point downwind slightly. And I like to think of it more so with the,  you angle the wing from pointing forward, like it is now to all of a sudden you just drive your upper pant your forward hand up your bottom hand around, and you're looking over  your front over your shoulder, behind your head and really throwing the wing like this, like whoop.

Back towards the beach, you load up the power. So then you point it straight up in the air and then  your hands continue that momentum behind you. Now, all of a sudden you're swinging the wing behind you as your body's arched. And then from there you just got to, you time the arch, depending on how big your jump is.

You arch more. If it's a big jump. And you are less than tuck. If it's a small jump for me, I have a lot more fun throwing it off of waves because I could get way higher and I could just have more fun with the arch and play with it a bit more. But the Flatwater ones you really have to spin them quit.

You want to like it's all with the flat water ones. It's more of that slicing rotation. Like you go full speed. And you slice your foil slightly up Rand, a little bit. You hit that chop and immediately you're just throwing your feet up into the air. As your wing is getting powered up to the sky and pulling and throwing behind you.

And with the Flatwater ones, I think it's really important to pull that front hand, pull that front hand in. And back when the wing sooner, rather than later. So you could  fold the, fold the flip as opposed to the smooth roll. Yeah. Cool. Thanks for that breakdown. Let's talk a little bit about here and stuff like, so what.

 What have you learned about, the foil gear, the wings and all that kind of stuff?  Any, anything you can share on that? Just all top secret stuff. Not, yeah.  Try and ride whatever I can,  I'll try and give tests, test rides on all the gear, because I think.

I think there's a lot of concepts floating around, but everyone's doing the same thing,  or at least in the past, it's been like that everyone was making the same type of thing type of design. Now you have people getting a little more out of the box. It's in a little more risky with the designs and concepts.

And so testing gear right now is more exciting than ever. I of course work close with star board and AK durable supply coast. So the most majority of my sessions, I'm riding the star board foils or the AK foils. I've found that I've just wanting to go smaller and smaller. That's one of the biggest things that I've noticed with a lot of my wing riding lately is Anything with the wing in my hands, I'm probably going to be using a 1300, a thousand or an 800 on now.

And so quite small wings, as opposed to what you might be riding in the waves. My most used wings Wing size for the actual LinkedIn. The inflatable wing is a four meter and a five meter. Believe it or not. Especially because I like a smaller hydrofoil wing. I sometimes prefer to have that little extra power to get me up and going.

But of course on now you get away the three meter a lot. And those days where you do have the three meter wholly could really just feel so lively to be able to do some quick rotations and flips and things like that. But there's something about the four meter and the five meter that just flows.

If you just want to fly high and. And flow.  Usually end up going one bigger than I want. Yeah, easy for beginners.  We usually recommend going with the bigger foil just because it makes it easier to come up out of the water and it's more stable and you can fly under then, yeah. The smaller foils are just once we get on a wave this cause the big foils. They're just not fast enough to keep up with the bigger ways or faster moving ways. And then for attorney to inquire that you do get that just the small nor the veteran really almost right. Yeah.

Yeah. Th the idea is, the bigger, the more lift, the smaller, the less lift now with less surface area and a smaller wing, you also have the opportunity to go faster.  Would say if you're learning, you want to go on something around 1600 to maybe even 2000, if you're a bigger guy. Most of my lessons that I teach I'm at our foil school here on Maui. Cause we've been teaching hydrofoil as one of our primary activities, our surf school It's, most of our lessons are getting guys out for their first time on a 1600 behind the boat or a jet ski.

And there seems to be a pretty comfortable size to not be moving too fast but have nice slow speed lift and control. But as you start getting better one of the things that you're going to start to notice maybe before speed, is that ability to roll into your turns. And so as a intermediate or beginner rider, you might not want to be rolling into turn so much.

You want to do more flat pivotal turns where you're keeping the board flat, and you're just doing these direction changes, keeping the board flat, but. As you start to get better at it, you can have a little bit more opportunity for maneuvers, by leading into enrolling into your turns, the wider, your span is on your wings.

The harder it is to roll into turns. And so that's one of the biggest reasons why I've really wanted to go smaller with wing riding. Because a lot of the time you're edging, right before going into the air for a big jump and a flip I'm edging into the wind for that last little bite of power.

Or edging downwind, a little bit to release power. And so being able to have that little extra control of edging into the wind or Dowling turning side to side is important because as soon as the tip of the wing, Breaks the surface, if you're rolling over and you have a wide wingspan, th it's you're not going to be able to lean over as much before that wing hits the water and breaks the surface and then gets X-rated and you lose you lose all your all your lifts because air gets under the wing.

And yeah, I think if you're working for more performance stuff, think about the width of your wing. Not necessarily just the size. Yeah. That's why I also like the super high aspect. Wings are not necessarily that easy to arrive because yeah, when you turn it, when you try to turn them, they breach more easily because they're so wide and I have such a wide wingspan and they don't have occurred.

So having a lower aspect, sometimes in the ways it's actually easier to use a narrower phone. That's not as wide. But as I'm sure you're starting to see in your, local foil spots, it's, there's different types of foils. You have some people who are just really into pumping. Some people who are, who could care less about pumping and they just want to get their terms to be a little more critical and just make it look more like a shortboard maneuver, and then you get other guys who really want that. Just smooth ride and be able to not really turn too much, but just feel like their Cadillac, they're just cruising, and so depending on what style you want to achieve it's going to determine  your gear, and so if you like to pump around and you like to connect waves and you want to just stay up and riding, then Hey, a high aspect.

Foil 13 to 1600 is probably going to be really nice. You might really like just pumping around catching plenty waves, but if you want to do start to do break the tip and do really nice snappy turns and really sharp radius turns, then maybe a more medium aspect, low aspects, foil.

It's going to help for those sharper turns. So you were saying you do beginner lessons for foiling and stuff.  Maybe, can you talk a little bit about the most common mistakes people make and like sweet. Get some financing, just beginners, I guess the very beginning four-lane tips.

Like what? Cause sometimes once you get more advanced, it's harder to think about  The challenges of learning. Yeah. Yeah, totally. One of the, one of the biggest things that I think helps for the student is to start with a clean slate, try to approach this sport humbly and almost forget about your previous board riding knowledge, because our surf knowledge, if we stick to it could hinder us.

I also recommend doing some sort of mentorship or lesson if possible, because you, I've seen a lot of people who are very talented athletes, just beat themself up and spend more money than they need to both on gear and maybe even medical bills. There's a, there's an appropriate way to do this.

And I, I tell you what. It's learning behind the boat or jet ski with a coach and in a controlled environment with the appropriate learning gear.  If you're a first time rider, you buy a kite surf foil on Craigslist and you Mount it to your short board and you try to go paddle around. I tell you what you're gonna have a hard time.

So if you can. Get behind a boat or jet ski and start off with very little movements, keep your body and the majority of your weight over your your front foot, which is counter intuitive from other board sport. And also keep your center of gravity straight over that for oil or. More so you could think standing upright, which is also counter-intuitive from surfing.

A lot of times surfing, we want to get really low and sometimes our butt and our chest has a tendency to get over the water foiling. We really want to try and bring our way over the foil. And so in the beginning, I'm always reminding my students, your center line, make sure your feet are completely along the stringer or the center of the board.

Make sure you're starting off with the majority of your way over your front foot to keep the board on the water, make a goal of keeping the board on the water before you get into flight. And then from there you from control on the water, you could slowly distribute your way back towards your back foot and slowly achieve lift.

Now, one of the biggest things that's going to help with the smooth transition here is to immediately shift forward again, because achieving lift is so much more easy than controlled landing. So as soon as you start to feel like you have control of the board on the water, your body over your front foot, then check your posture, stand up or rack.

Keep  your body more upright and control that weight distribution back towards your back foot. And as soon as you feel that lift shift forward again, nice and smooth and bring the board back down because that transition. From nose up to nose down, lift to land is what's going to give us all of our control.

It's that transition up to down, that transition from water flowing on the bottom side of the wing to the top side of the wind. So as soon as you feel that lifts shift forward again, and then you can take it slowly from there a little higher and shift forward, bring it back down. A little higher shift forward.

And instead of bringing it down, just neutral, level it out, you're not going higher. You're not going lower. You're just have it level. You're focusing on your eyes and your breath your eyes focusing out in front of you, and also focusing on your breath, minimizing your movements, because the best thing you can do, especially if we're talking controlled speed behind the boat, holding the rope.

Is keep your movements minimal and control your weight distribution from the front to the back and back to front. Do you have people like when they are being on the boat yard to all try to get out of the week or do you have straight behind the boat? Oh, totally. Yeah. I think you'll feel real quick.

Those bubbles from the weight and this these. You want to immediately get out of the bubbles and out of the weight in order to feel a little bit of control and feel that smooth sensation of foil moving through water,  relate it to an airplane. Would you rather be flying on an airplane it's her the whole time, or would you rather be flying and smooth air?

No, it's the same thing. If you want controlled flight, then try and find smooth water outside of the turbulence from the engine. All right. Yeah, it was this really good point. It's going to begin here. I appreciate you for sharing so much love to my YouTube channel, Robert. Yeah, I got it. That's the whole idea of play some videos while you're talking.

So talk a little bit about like on Instagram you were showing some I had some footage of you when filing a jaws, getting  guess you were actually let go of the wing and then the assertive without the wing. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, totally. So that was really exciting.

I was a little under prepared as far as my equipment goes, because I only had My smallest wings I could get my hands on from AK was an 800 square centimeter. And this is something that I pump around on and surf with in shoulder high waves, but it was the smallest thing I had. So I decided I would build my experience out at payoff, then see how it works.

And so I was out on my normal setup that we saw there in that video for eight. A four eight board with an 800 square centimeter foil. And I didn't have a jet ski year or a budget to pay for a team. And so I went out there thinking, Hey if it's a tow day and or if it's windy, I'm not going to miss on the action.

I'm just a pump up my, and go wing into some waves and have some fun. And I was just thinking of it as like a way to stay out there and have fun, right. Accessibility opportunity. And and yeah, I ended up having a lot of fun, getting into some waves with the wing, and that was the first day anyone's ever taken a wing out at out at Paoli.

And it was not as functional as I thought with that foil though. And the wing itself, because I couldn't get going fast enough with the speed of that wave. I kept feeling the sensation that I was stuck at the top of the wave or at the middle of the wave using my wing. And eventually with, because what happens?

The wave moves so fast and it hits the Tradewinds to the point where the wind is literally going straight up. It hits the wave and it just creates a parent lift going straight up. And so as I'm dropping in, down into the wave, the force of the apparent wind against my inflatable wing is more. And so I want to drop in, but it's actually lifting me out the back.

And so I thought. I'm just going to ditch my wing. I took, I went back to the channel. I took my leash off of my wing. I I  gave a little heads up to one of the jet ski drivers and I was like, Hey, I might let go on my wing. Can you get it? And he's okay. And so I went into the wave and I, right as the apparent wind started to catch me and lift me up, I let go of my wing and was able to just continue riding the wave with my hydrofoil.

But, even then I realized it's not just my wing, that's slowing me down. It's actually my hydrofoil too. I mean my 800 Senan square centimeter hydrofoil, I felt like I was completely maxing the thing out, just leaning so far forward, trying to keep the thing controlled and Yeah, I still, I couldn't quite go as deep as I want it to or get as critical.

I really ride how I wanted to, but regardless I got to build experience foiling out at  and I got to learn a lot about what kind of equipment might work and what isn't going to work out there. And no, after talking with Kai, he was like, dude, you're crazy. I can't believe you're out there with that foil.

And I'm like, what do you mean? And he's I would never ride anything like this size on anything bigger than like a 300. And I'm like Oh shoot. Okay. 300, 400 good. That's a hell of a lot smaller than 800, I was happy to be able to pull off what I could with what I have, I don't have the big budget to make custom wings or a big budget to have water safety and jet ski teams.

But I got to have so much fun that day with the self assist, with the wing and riding with foil. And it was a good day for it. So it wasn't super crowded. Yeah, that's awesome. I'm waiting for my big wave foil though. I told star board and AK I'm like, dude, I need a foil to push start building more experience in big surf because I'm comfortable in big waves.

I really want to push the limits. I just need something that will allow me to handle that speed. And in that force, I'm sure. A few days after that, I think Kailani was writing. Even postseason a video of him, like getting these errors on the off the face of the wave and like floating down the face of the closet.

Yeah. And that was actually just with a normal toe board. Yeah. He's pulled into those ways, right? Yeah. So that was, I wanna say The end of Jan. I don't quite remember when he did that, but the day that I went out was January 3rd and sixth with the win-win. And later Kailani went out. I want to see later in January and he got surf his toe team pulled him with with the tow rope on the jet ski and one hand with the wing and then got into it on his toe board.

No foil. And then as soon as he grabbed on to the wing, it was pretty much fly time because that apparent window I was telling you about. And there's definitely something to be said about opportunities for just no foil on a toe board, having fun with that apparent lift. And if you're a, if you're a hang glider then, you look for those locations where you have that apparent lift to give you that nice long flight when you when you slide off now, this essentially the same thing, except the mountain is moving into the wind.

And so honestly, I can't wait to try that. That looks so fricking fun. What you guys did with the with the tow board and the wing. I'm really excited to give that a go. It's pretty inside. It's a little hesitate temp for me though. I'm as I'm goofy footed. And so as soon as I got get off the water in that situation with my body, lower body, all twisted my upper body, my lower body wants to start doing a three 60.

And so it's but I'm going to get, I'm going to find someone to tow me in like that and give that a go once. Once my injury heals up, for sure. Yeah, it's amazing. He gets so much float out of that. Like this fund here a lot of brands go straight up the face. So it's like this floating in the air.

It's so cool. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. If he sees an, if you see, tell him, I'm interested in talking to him about that too. Charlie, let's just talk a little bit about, advice, life nutrition what you do to. Hey saying during the pandemic and stuff had gotten any advice for people? I know I, during the pandemic, I went to know so many people are struggling with loneliness or addiction and things like that.

Depressed,  any lifestyle or any tips on living, living your best life,  as Robert, we're very fortunate with our location here through this pandemic. But we still have experienced, a taste of the law, the lockdown and business closures, and,  it was a pretty crazy time even on Maui.

I'm not sure what it was like on a wall, but it was wild and I'm very grateful that I was able to be home through this because there is a A short time there where I was stuck in Indonesia through February. And all of a sudden borders were closing. Airlines are shutting down and I couldn't get home, no matter how much money I had, I couldn't get home.

And it was scary at that point, but luckily, we were able to find a flight home and I made it back. And so I started off this pandemic with a good attitude because. I was facing the reality that I might be in a foreign country without my family through this really uncertain times. Early February when I started, when literally all of Bali shut down and my contest dollars there for canceled, all of a sudden, I tried to get flights home.

You couldn't even get connected with the airlines. They've busy slides shut down too busy. And so it was. For me to get home and be with my family. It was like a sigh of relief. But then I started realizing this is actually real serious. Like I started losing a lot of my sponsorship funding. Our business shut down.

Our surf school had to legally shut down. Our All pretty much all our whole community had to stay inside for a certain time. And  started to feel like, Whoa, this is our whole lives may change. And I didn't want to let that consume me too much. And so I I tried to stay as busy as I could, however I could, whether it was, Keeping up with home workouts while at home, I'm doing pushups and pull ups and sit ups and rebuilding my website and catching up on emails and all that computer work that I always put aside because I'm having too much fun in the water.

That first month was like a lot of catch up. I was able to catch up on stuff and then the second month came and I'm like, Oh, this is still happening. And, Still not making money for anything, not are any of our businesses are sponsors. And so I started to realize, I need to get creative, making some money.

And I started offering online coaching through since we couldn't do coaching at our school, I started doing online coaching and I S I got a lot of people doing wings, full and foil video submissions for personal coaching. And that kept me pretty occupied for a bit. One of my big goals that's been lately, keeping me really motivated is starting my foundation.

I mentioned earlier, I have had an unofficial not-for-profit for over 12 years called the insane super gums. And now we've we've decided to go all out and get our five Oh one C3 and. Get us in a position where we could do more for the kids in our community. And so our mission at  is to inspire the KCI, to choose healthy, active lifestyles that uplift our community and environment through mentorship and sport.

And and we try to get kids stoked on surfing or paddling and boiling and in return inspire them to be ocean guardians themselves and care for. This natural environment that, that brings so much opportunity into our lives. And we offer scholarships and equipment.

And and so now that I actually have this five Oh one C3 filed and we got our website going and it's the last thing too. If someone wants to donate, where do they go? They could go to  dot com and that's K a H a. K U K H i.com or they could reach out to me through any of my social media and I'll share the info.

Our website is not public yet. We're still working on launching and we should have our five Oh one C3 paperwork within the following month. So we're, so my wife and I are really excited about that. Because now it'll give us a chance to  maybe even. Get more kids that we want involved in these programs because in the past, we weren't legally allowed to pick up people.

They had to already have rides. Now that we have a foundation, we could actually pick up at risk kids, underprivileged kids, alternatively abled kids, and be able to physically take them to the beach and and get them set up with scholarships for equipment, for mentorship. For education and science based programs and a hundred percent with the goal to give these kids passion on the water and a reason to to be guardians of our community and environment.

And  that's been keeping me so excited lately and, especially with this now I'm, can't be in the water at all. It's been really fun. But for everyone out there who is on more serious lockdown, I have friends out in the Philippines and all over Asia, we're still it's serious lockdown.

And the best thing we can do in these times  is true and keep our mental and our physical fitness up, and our mental and physical health is so important. And so it's too easy to get caught up, looking at Facebook or YouTube or Netflix all day. If you're locked up in your home, give, make a goal, give yourself one hour, start with just one hour to yourself, whether it's trying to do some stretching, some breathing, a little bit of physical fitness and exercise.

Even if you have a tiny little studio apartment, maybe that means just doing some Wim, Hof breathing, maybe that means doing some push-ups and pull-ups maybe that means doing some journaling,  and getting familiar with a daily routine that you could have. That's all, distractions, because I think even for myself it's so easy to just wake up and.

Get sidetracked in work or in social media or brand caught up with the overwhelming, whatever you have going on in life. And I noticed that if I don't give myself that time, which is usually best in the morning for me, first thing, just give myself that time to, to know how I feel, to know what I want to know.

If it helps me throughout my day. Yeah. Sorry then to drift down do you have a routine things that you do every morning? Like a certain routine that every morning do for care? Exactly. Like what you do after you get up? I love to drink tea. So tea is a good routine for me. I'll wake up, I'll get some tea going.

I like to do my morning journaling. My morning journaling consists of a meditation. That's instilled it. It starts off with writing down three things you're grateful for. And and this was a practice. My grandmother left with me.  She told me that grab at with the attitude of gratitude.

You'll never have an excuse to be unhappy when you're grateful. You'll always have something to be happy for. And so through these times, I think it's more important than ever to stick to my journaling routine. And I've kept up to this over the last 10 years, almost to the day, no matter where I am in the world.

And so I try and I'm keeping to that, my morning journaling starts with gratitude and then it starts with three things that I could do to make today. Great. Three things that would make my day feel proactive or feel. Feel successful. And first thing in the morning I'll sit there and it might even take me 10 minutes to really think what do I want to accomplish today?

According to how I feel, according to my current state of mind and my wellbeing what do I want to do today? And just those three little sentences that I write down that determines every choice I make for the rest of the day. Then if I met with the choice. To watch a Netflix show or to work on my website because I did that little journaling in the morning.

I'm not going to get sidetracked and procrastinate. I'm going to get straight to one step closer to my day, being successful to my day, being one step more amazing. And then I'll also finish it with A daily affirmation on a community a community goal, which I call a blue life choice. And Robert, if you've been following me over the year, as you've probably seen this hashtag I've been sharing,  live a deep blue life deep hashtag deep blue life, hashtag blue life choices, hashtag embrace the power of choice.

This is my way of taking my daily. Journaling and meditation, which is very selfish, but that's the point of it, right? It's to it's the tap into our own. It's the figure out how, what we want to accomplish for how we're feeling. But I believe from over 10, 15 years of journaling, that my most. My most prized days that have stuck with me both in my mind and in my heart and stand out the most.

When I recall my journals are the days in which I could accomplish a goal that helps someone else, or that helps our community. And so a blue life choice is my way to recite an action that will uplift me immunity or environment around. It could be something as simple as planting a tree.  Or supporting the local farmer's market or it could mean doing some coaching online with one of my students who's been wanting to do some coaching.

Maybe it can mean sending a thoughtful message to a friend or family member that you haven't talked to in a long time. Heck it could either need writing a review on a product so that it's changed your life, or it could mean, A number of things, it's the possibilities are endless, and the more you start to practice gratitude, and the more you start to bring in others into your daily choices, the easier it starts to become, to be grateful and to be there for others and to be there for your community.

And I think that's why I'm so happy. I owe so much, it gives me chicken skin because. I think back to my grandma giving me my first journal and you know what she said, Zane, if you journal you'll never forget your experiences with the world and its people. And if you're embraced the attitude of gratitude, you'll never have a reason to be unhappy.

And I owe so much of my success, my mind state. And my values to the simple practice of taking a few minutes each morning and even each evening to journal I've I, I even take that same practice and into the evening, but then I'll write down three things that made today. Great. Three things that I actually did and accomplished that made today.

Great. And then I'll write down something I could have done to make today better. That's awesome. I love that. And so for me it's the base of my mental my mental health, but it's also the foundation from my manifestations and my journal thing and my hour of choice, because we might not know it, but we rely so much on our subconscious calls to action.

And we sometimes have to, be a little more conscious with these practices is that we know are gonna be more that are gonna be healthier for us. And yeah. I might rather get on YouTube and watch some killer surf videos or or go run out of the door and surf even.

But I know if I don't do my journaling in the morning, I'm missing out on an opportunity I'm missing out on. On bringing my day to the fullest. I'm missing out on truly tapping into how I feel today. Yeah. Good. Awesome. All right. I think we went way longer than asked you to schedule, but I really appreciate it.

That was really cool stuff at the end. I think that's good advice. Advice, but I dunno what do you want to leave people with and who do you Where you want to plug in anyone spot your sponsors or I know, cause last time you met, you gave me your book and you talk about the journaling in there too, I guess a lot of it.

Also your stories, I guess I've, I haven't journaled since I was like 18 years old, I think, but maybe I should start doing that again to  good way to start your day for sure. I like that.  I'll share with you my favorite journals if you're looking for them, cause there's a few that I like that that really fit this style of journaling.

And I'm actually working on publishing my second book which is this exact style of journaling. We just talked about with those blue life choices incorporated into them. And  guess to leave everyone off, I'd like to share my gratitude for all my supporters online. Like over the years I've tried to separate my life online and personally, because I find it in authenticate myself, but I've found that through these times, I'm so grateful for my online community, because it's given me a voice through this these times it's given me a platform to stay, to feel like I could keep busy and to keep sharing with others.

And I think that's a huge part of me. And I didn't really realize that truly until I was stuck at home on quarantine is how grateful I am for all of you guys that. Tune in to my Facebook or Instagram or watch my newsletter every Friday or, it's and for those guys who take it a step further and actually get to the share surfs with and get out on personally with, yeah, I think we all won't take those experiences for granted after this time with COVID, but but yeah.

Thank you to all the viewers and also. So my sponsors that I have today, they're still behind me, even through these challenging times, a star board and an AK foils and Maui Jim sunglasses on Lewis surf, co you know, Celsius energy. Now foods appreciate it. Robert MuTu for giving me a chance to talk story with you.

Sorry. Oh, sorry. My bad here. And then the wifi disconnected and I lost Zane at the end, but I help you guys as much out of this interview as I did. I learned a lot helping you too. And if you liked this show, also check out next week's interview with Baltimore. And we post a new video every Saturday at 7:00 AM coy time.

So make sure to subscribe to the blue planet surf YouTube channel down below. And give it a thumbs up. If you enjoyed it, ask questions and comments, questions for future interviews that you want to know about. And let's try to answer it all. So thank you so much for watching. See you on the water. Aloha