Hang Ten With These Five Surfing Stories

There's so many reasons why I do what I do. I love surfing, and I love helping people. I think if everybody found what they love to do, what they were designed to do, and used that gift to help others, this world would look so different. My name's Lambert Lowe, and I'm a surf instructor. I was living in Hawaii, living the dream, teaching surfing to billionaires and celebrities. At the end of the day, something was missing, and I knew in my heart that I needed to come back to where it all started. I grew up in California. The ocean was where I felt the most connected. I came back and started a nonprofit called The Mix Academy. One of the things that come out of The Mix Academy is this surf school, and I brought that gift of surfing here with some of the people that need the most smiles. Push up from the side, stand up, go. My current class consists of a refugee from North Korea, Nathan, a nine-year-old who's visually impaired, and Shannon, a veteran going through alcoholism. School of the Misfits is a place where you can belong. On land, everyone looks at us a little differently, but when you're in the water, the water washes all of that off. Surfing, like life, is full of ups and downs. There's waves that are coming, and you can't stop that from coming. Pain's gonna come. What you can't control is yourself and how you're gonna react. You can choose to paddle for it, embrace it, adapt to it, and enjoy the ride, or this wave's gonna come and it's gonna knock you out and it's gonna wipe you out. Catching a wave is a great feeling. Helping others catch their first wave is a greater feeling. To watch that smile just ear to ear and knowing that, man, that's gonna change someone's life. I'm 100% blind right now, and I think I'll never stop surfing. What is surfing to me? Well, it's my whole life, right? My house is eaten by the tides, and everything around me is dedicated to surfing. My name is Aitor Francesena. I'm a professional surfer, and I'm also a teacher, and I've been surfing my whole life. I was born with a congenital glaucoma. I've been struggling with not going blind all my life. I've been blind for four years now. I was surfing, and I fell in a wave from top to bottom, and I fell with my eyes open, and I broke my eye. I've been running away from going blind all my life, and, well, in the end, I've been doing what I like the most, which is surfing. The question that everyone asks me is, if I thought I could surf while I was blind. Well, at first, if I'm honest, no. Until one day, after I got out of the hospital, I was with a girl who was taking care of me, and I said, I'm going to try surfing. I put on some glasses, and I realized that the sea gave me a lot of information. A wave came, I turned around, I started rowing, I stood up, and I said, wow, this can be done. And since that day, to this day, I haven't stopped. I hear a lot. The ears give me a lot of information. The ears give me information about the size of the waves. Very few times I don't get the sound right with the real size of what's there. Let's see if you can do it. I'm a person who's been surfing all my life, but I've also dedicated my whole life to teaching. Before, I trained in a way that, every time I saw something that didn't convince me, I would take it out and explain it to them. And now that I don't see it, I do it another way. Sergio, here are the images that we're going to put in. You're going to tell me, for example, what you're seeing. We record it on video, and with the video recordings, I get the mistakes. By putting each one on their side, you can learn and have a very good technique. For me, teaching in this way is easy. We've also organized a clinic for people who are in wheelchairs and have physical problems, so that, little by little, more and more people practice this wonderful sport, which is surfing. My life is a challenge every day, but a wave, in which you stand up, makes you forget everything bad. I want to teach all the people who have a disability that, with enthusiasm and desire, you can do anything in this life. Women surfers have been marketed very sexually. You'll see a girl in a string bikini or a G-string standing on a beach, but when we go out there, it's totally different. We're wearing full suits and hoods and booties, and we're not trying to be sexy. We're going out there to become stronger, better, more awesome humans. Big wave surfing is really ferocious. People have said that women can't surf it, but I do. I'm Bianca Valente, and I'm a professional big wave surfer in San Francisco, California. 11 years ago is when I first surfed in San Francisco. I nearly drowned, and that was when I decided I wanted to put in the time in and out of the water and start training to prepare and ride big waves. The water in San Francisco is really, really cold. Sometimes there's even ice on the sand in the morning, and when it's super cold, your hands are tingly. You have to have a really thick skin, and you have to be very driven, determined, and motivated, because this isn't Hawaii. Mavericks is a surf spot where gigantic waves break. It's been called the Mount Everest of surfing, and it is located 20 minutes south of San Francisco. An average size wave is three to four feet. Mavericks starts breaking at 15 feet, and there's been waves ridden there up to 100 feet. People have died surfing Mavericks. It is serious business. It's for experts only. There's excitement, there's fear, adrenaline, nervousness, happiness. It's really every emotion at once. When I hear somebody say that women are not strong enough or good enough to surf big waves, I just start laughing, because it makes me feel alive, and I love it. It's about challenging yourself. It's about persevering and overcoming obstacles, and so it's a much deeper experience for me personally, and that's why I embrace surfing in San Francisco. They call this stretch of the North Shore the Seven Mile Miracle. There's a world-class surf break every 100 or so yards. We rescue up to 1,000 people a year. Definitely one of the most dangerous stretches of beaches in the world. My name is Tao Hanneman, and I've been a lifeguard for 14 years here on the North Shore. I work here at Iwukai Beach Park. It's the home of the surf break Banzai Pipeline, which is a very dangerous wave that breaks in very shallow water. It's such a critical wave that if you fall down, the chances of getting injured, of hitting the reef is very high. Even when it's really small, we have very strong, powerful rip currents. It's very easy to get swept out in the rip current and not be able to make it back to shore. Just yesterday, the lifeguards made about 20 rescues. Knowing that the possibility of drowning is very real, you know, especially in large surf, we all train. My training consists of running the beach, of swimming. Anything, basically, in my area. We do mock rescues. If the surf is big, I'll tell one of my partners, hey, go out and get pounded in the surf. I'll come get you with a rescue tube. So he'll go out and, you know, he's taking waves on the head, and we'll see how fast we can get to him. Whatever the ocean's gonna do, if someone needs help and you have to go get that person, you gotta be ready to do that. You're putting yourself in a very risky situation, but knowing that your partner has your back, it builds a strong sense of camaraderie. We have a good morale between us all. We do this job for the love of the job. Basically, if you can save another person's life, it's very rewarding, for sure. Montana is a landlocked state. It blows my mind every day, but there is waves in the river, and you can surf them on surfboards just like you would in the ocean. We have a huge surf culture here in Missoula. My name's Kevin Benhart-Brown. I go by KB, and I own Strongwater Mountain Surf Company. We are the original mountain surf shop, and still the only surf shop in the state of Montana. I mean, it's cowboy country here. Surfing is in my soul. One of my very first earliest memories at the age of three is visiting my grandparents in San Diego and seeing surfing in the ocean. And for whatever reason, I've been kind of searching for surfing my whole life, and I happened to be here in Missoula, Montana, and tapped into river surfing. In the river, it's a standing wave. So the wave is essentially stationary. You're going back and forth across the wave, but the wave is kind of in one place. The water's coming at you. It's pretty amazing. You know, we've built a really strong river surf community here. There's just a ton of support, and good vibes, and good energy. This whole connection with nature correlates directly with kind of that same vibe that you get in the ocean. Not a lot of people know about river surfing, but there's river surfing communities popping up everywhere, and it's just starting to explode. For me personally, it's about doing what people don't think you can do, and proving that you can do it, and just getting out and having a good time, sharing the sport. It's exciting and fun to be on this whole new frontier.