I Learned How To Surf In 5 Days

Sometimes to learn fast, you have to slow way down. The only thing that there is, is that now, that's the most honest way to be. Four days, one badass legend... You think you have it? Paddle again. ...and some seriously unpredictable terrain. Come on. Turn. Catch a wave. Go, Tim. Here we go. I'm Tim Ferriss, bestselling author and human guinea pig. I'll show you how to make the impossible possible by bending the rules. I'll find the world's best teachers and push myself to the edge to deconstruct, decode, and demystify some of the world's toughest challenges in record time. If you can do it, so can you. This week's experiment is surfing. I've always been afraid of surfing. I grew up on Long Island, right on the water. Never learned how to do it because I was afraid of drowning. I had lung issues, swimming issues, but all of my friends who do it say it's changed their lives, it's a spiritual experience, and I want to get a taste of that firsthand. So where better to do that than in Kauai? Surfer culture is very protective because they're dealing with a limited resource. Nowhere is this more true than on Kauai, where they have an Eden-like island, they have a very fragile ecosystem, so they've asked us not to mention any specific beaches. So I'm not going to tell you the name of this beach on Kauai's northern shore, but I can tell you who I'm here to meet. Laird Hamilton is a living legend. He's widely considered the undisputed king of big wave. Greg Noll, who's a pioneer himself, said that he's the best the Earth has ever seen. Laird is also an unbelievable physical specimen. The guy is a mutant. He is almost 50 years old, yet he trains alongside NBA all-stars and he can outrun them, out-jump them, out-lift them, and certainly out-surf them. The guy's a monster, and he's also an innovator. You've seen stand-up paddleboarding? Well, guess who popularized it? That's right, Laird Hamilton. You know, the whole thing about the ocean, it's more powerful than you are, and so in a way, you want the ocean to work for you. You don't want to work for the ocean, and you don't want to try to work against the ocean. People go, oh, you conquered the wave. You don't conquer a wave. The wave allows you to ride it, and you survive it. Waves are moving energy. Wind energy formed out at sea rolls through the water in a circular motion, creating waves. In shallow water, waves slow down and begin to pile up. They increase in height, crest at the surf zone, and finally collapse. Typically, a wave is measured on its face from trough to crest. As a rule of thumb, if it's 20 feet or higher, it's considered a big wave. Some waves are so big and fast that you need a jet ski to catch them. Laird has surfed waves that tower more than 60 feet high. The official world record for largest waves surfed is 78 feet. But I'll start out on waves that are more like the bunny slopes. Normally, beginners learn to surf by taking a quick lesson on the beach, then trying to pop up on actual waves. They expend a ton of effort paddling and often burn out before they can master even the basics. Since I have just four days to learn to surf, over-paddling could very well be my downfall. To avoid this, Laird has created a progressive training approach. We'll start by exploring wave dynamics and, hopefully, how to relax when the ocean punishes you. Next, we'll work on board balance and control, and then progress, finally, to prone surfing technique and how to catch waves. At the end of the four days, I'll complete an undisclosed challenge of Laird's choice. Body surfing is the most intimate form of surfing. We always say that your body is the first board that you own. Being a gymnast, you want to learn how to land first, not how to flip first, because you'll flip and then you don't know how to land. Learn about wiping out, and then go learn how to surf, and then when you wipe out, you'll be like, oh yeah, no problem, I won't panic. The location that Laird chose for body surfing is a very dangerous location. A lot of drownings here. He grew up nearby, and every other time he went out, he would see tourists or novices get swept out to sea. And this location is to be my introduction to body surfing. Is there any sort of textbook understanding I should have? There's a thing about what goes out must come back. Now you can use that to your advantage. If you want to go out, you go under and you get brought back out. And if you want to come in, you don't come in under, you come in on top, because then the energy pushes you in. So you don't fight it. At this particular corner of the beach, you have fresh water coming down from the mountain, colliding directly with the salt water. It presents very gnarly vortices and forces, which is exactly what Laird wanted me to experience firsthand, so that I could get tumbled, so that I could get uncomfortable, and learn to get comfortable with that discomfort. I've always thought of body surfing as having both arms out, Superman style, barreling straight into shore. But Laird rides with the brake on his side, giving him more edge and allowing him to ride across the wave. You'd be going left, and that's a left, and you'd be going right, and that's a right. I got inside two very small tubes, which was a cool experience, and I'm just feeling my heart beat. It's incredible. You can feel the grip that the water gets into you, and that's where people freak out. An effective way to overcome your fears is to simply expose yourself to the worst-case scenario, and this is why Laird brought me body surfing. In this chaos, I asked myself, in the words of Seneca, is this the condition that I so feared? And ultimately, it wasn't nearly as bad as I'd imagined in my head. While respect for the ocean can help you, fear of the ocean simply handicaps you. Got a little hickey from the ocean. That's a good start. This morning's body surfing lesson gave me a feel for powerful ocean currents and how to best roll with the waves. Now it's time to add a board to the equation. I got you one real nice and stable. I appreciate that. But instead of going straight to surfing, we'll start with stand-up paddleboarding. And I'll give you a quick little pointer. So everybody always tries to get stable first before they start moving. Get moving, and then you'll be stable. Interesting. Laird makes it look incredibly easy. Now you can switch again. Switch sides. Unfortunately for us mere mortals, walking on water is tougher than you think. The board doesn't make your balance better. The head has to be up. Everything's all about spinal alignment. And don't react to something that hasn't happened yet, because that's what happens. You see the thing coming, and you go like that, and then all of a sudden you're reacting to your reaction and not the obstacle. And sometimes it doesn't even affect you. In short, I need to stop getting ahead of myself and trying to prepare for what may or may not happen. It's time to feel more and think less. There you go. There you go. Nice, nice. Catch it. Yeah, catch it. When you think you have it, paddle again. Better to paddle when you've already gotten it. When you think you have it, take an extra paddle. And that's true with prone. Squaring up to the wave, matching power with power. You know, I always tell people, paddle like you want it. I finally make some headway on the stand-up paddleboard, so Laird's graduating me to prone surfing. Tim, this is Kamalei. For my day-to-day surfing practice, I'll be working with Kamalei Alexander. He's 4th generation Kauaian. He's also very well known on the pro circuit for being extremely strong and very, very stylish. Watching a pro surfer catch a wave makes it seem effortless, but it requires technical prowess, an intuitive feel for the ocean, masterful balance, and the ability to read waves. It engages all the senses. What are the most common mistakes that you see from novices? Sometimes people try to get to here, and then they'll try and get up. It's like a David Blaine trick. Grab the board until you're comfortable and get up. Perfect. How far apart would you like your legs? This is kind of the style thing. Like, once you get good, you're like, oh, the quiz. And then this is kind of not being too cool. You know, a little more than shoulder width, yeah. Go left now, go left. Just a little twist, I'm going left. I'll go right. That's good, perfect, like that. You got it, you're going to be an asshole. Walk it through, come on. Challenges my first time surfing were manifold. Number one, my paddling motion was way too large and noisy. I was really kind of windmilling. Reach too far. Yeah. Right about here, you know, your arms still nice and bent. Very short, sort of water polo-type swimming motion. When we're paddling, every once in a while, you know, you look back a little, you know? OK, lay down. Look at the wave. Secondly, I wasn't paddling enough, so I would paddle, paddle, paddle to try to catch a wave, and then I would stop just short. In the process of paddling for a wave, it's also very important, as novice, that you maintain your board in a perpendicular position to the shore. I had a lot of trouble with this because I would pull really hard with my left hand, and it would push the nose of the board right. That caused all sorts of problems. Once I finally popped up, on a longboard, you don't need to pump your legs to keep going. That's something that I'd seen shortboard riders doing in competition, so I tried to use it, and he said, look, walk further up on the board, you don't pump it. It makes you look like a poser. Slow down. Slow down. Speed up. Screwed up now. Yep. Perfect. Cal is an outstanding teacher, and he understands how to layer in skills and to also practice in tandem. The side-by-side comparison allowed me to not only hear what he was saying, but to emulate his technique. He was by my side the entire time. Tomorrow, we'll up the ante and head to a new beach to tackle more difficult waves. It's day 3, and I'm not sleeping in. The surf conditions are just right, so we get up at dawn. Not much of a morning person, but you have to always be on call, like a fireman. If you're not there when the waves are there, you ain't going surfing. You're going to be swimming. The session itself was frustration upon frustration. I'm falling left, falling to the right, and then repeating that ad nauseam. Finally, two amazing things happened. Number one, I actually turned. I got up, and I was able to turn for the first time. That is an incredible feeling. It reminded me a bit of snowboarding, but it was much more sublime. Good job. Secondly, as a reminder of why so many people find surfing incredible, the interaction with nature came to a head. There's a turtle. There's a turtle there. An enormous sea turtle, directly in front of us, popped its head out, looked right at me, and then I turned around, and he goes, oh, look, a whale. Literally five seconds later, a whale breached, and then there was a double rainbow above us. I mean, if I had put it into a novel, my editor would have been like, too much, Ferris, too much, dial it back. It was amazing. To help us navigate this beautiful and unpredictable ocean wilderness, we found an experienced team of watermen who were working behind the scenes. Titus Kinimaka is managing water safety for our crew and manning the jet ski. Uncle Titus, as he's known to the locals, is also a songwriter and a beautiful musician. He's a direct descendant of King Kamehameha. He's a respected elder. He's also one of the first pros out of Kauai as a surfer, and he's dedicated his life to protecting the fragile ecosystem of Kauai. You can learn how to surf as quickly as you can, but to learn how to read the waves, read the water, it takes years to learn that, yeah. During a lull in the waves, I get the inside scoop on what it's like to live and breathe the ocean. I think the sensation of surfing sometimes is where there's no time, and there's no end and no beginning. It's just a continuation, and so that's why you wake up at 5 in the morning. That's why every time there's a swell, you're looking because you want to go back to that place where there is no time. And really, the only thing that there is is the now. So in a way, that's the most honest way to be, and there's nothing past, nothing future, just then. It's a lifetime program. It's not just a seasonal thing. It's a lifetime. It's the only activity that I know of where I have friends who are not professional athletes who have reorganized their entire lives around that one activity. Part of it is your relationship with the ocean, and that everything's from the ocean, and that we're made of ocean, and I think it does chemical things to your body, your pH balance and all that stuff. The entire conversation was really just a rumination of the various approaches and philosophies of two masters. Not only masters, but people that I aspire to be like because both of them view age as just an excuse. It is an excuse that people use to dodge the things that they want to do. That, for me, was hugely inspiring. And if you keep surfing, you're going to develop your own style. I really want to keep surfing. You'll have your own style. There's your wave right there. Waves are picking up, and it's time to ride. Paddle that way. My still-unknown final challenge with Laird is tomorrow, so Kamalei is pushing hard. Come on, come on, paddle. Harder, harder, harder. It's like trying to stress him out. Hey, hurry up, stop, turn, go. Test him, you know. This is the last afternoon to work on my two biggest problem areas, position and wave selection. That was really good. So for the first part, positioning, Kamalei taught me to start on the beach, identify where I want to be, and then look back and identify a land marker so that when you get out on the water, you can line yourself up with that. Secondly, for wave selection, there's a lot of subtlety involved, but waiting for a set, let's just say of three waves, he would encourage me as a novice to go for the second or ideally the third so that if I screw up, I don't get pummeled by two or three waves and get tumbled to the point that I get extremely fatigued. I'm like a proud father. You know, he's a teacher's dream. You know, you tell him not to do something, he listens and doesn't do it. You tell him to do something, he listens and doesn't. Okay, lay down, buddy. Come on. Yeah, let's try it. To actually ride this terrain, which is changing every second, and get a really nice ride out of it where you're feeling your body and the board and everything respond to this intrinsic force, it's a beautiful thing. I can definitely see why people get hooked. The moment of truth finally arrived. I asked Laird, what's the objective? What's the goal? What's the challenge? And he turned it into an anti-challenge. You know what your goal is today? Have fun. To grasp that as a very goal-oriented, OCD-type personality, why bother surfing if it's not fun? You know, we always say the person that is the best is the one that's having the most fun. This laid-back approach makes it much easier to incorporate Laird's instruction and take my surfing to the next level. He recommends using a butterfly stroke to paddle. For the last, say, three or four strokes to catch a wave, which would keep me more aligned. Here we go. Paddle, paddle, paddle. Laird also gives me a good pointer on how to improve my balance. Laird was saying, look, you might feel silly doing it in smaller waves, but get used to really sticking your arms out so you can kind of tightrope walk and correct your balance as needed. Laird and his buddies invented foilboarding. They discovered that spreading your fingers improves performance. Something about that opening of the fingertips connected with the, like, the neurological thing to flying. Because if birds fly, they look pretty, but it's also a functional thing. It's not just, oh, it looks good. It actually is for a purpose. I think Tim's challenges will be just to be able to generate the endurance to be able to paddle for, you know, longer periods of time in order to catch waves and get out of the way and get back out. Until I build up my endurance, Laird suggests a trick for increasing momentum. Using my leg kick, almost like a Jane Fonda workout, to help propel me slightly more forward. I liken it to arms with running. All of those things combined allowed me to catch a bunch of waves today. Nice. Go, Kevin, go. That's it. No more lessons. That's pretty cool. I'm kind of impressed, man. Some people take them a year just to learn how to not go straight. If Laird does have a hidden challenge for me today, it's seeing if I can be self-sufficient so that I can go surf at home in San Francisco or anywhere in the world. He goes up on shore to watch me attempt to choose and catch my own wave for the first time. I'm projecting. Catch a wave. Go, Tim. Here we go. Here we go. Go. Paddle. Paddle. Paddle. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Stand up. Nice. Nice. Good job. I'd heard Laird interviewed before where he said the goal is to feel supremely alive. In this one week of surfing, now I realize a day of surfing, no matter how bad, is better than a day in the office. And that was the point of the exercise. I performed better than I had all week. Why? Because I was just trying to have fun. Hey, guys. Tim Ferriss here. One of the things that kills me about TV is that you have to take all of this amazing footage. In our case, we had 5 to 6 days of 12 to 16 hours typically per day, and you have to chop it down to 21 or 22 minutes, which is a 30-minute show with the ads removed. It just makes me want to stab myself in the eyeballs with bicycle spokes. It's so agonizing. The good news is we have all that footage, and so we've taken huge extended scenes, we've taken interviews, we've taken tutorials, everything imaginable that we could get our hands on that we thought was really world-class that we wanted to put in, and you can find it at 4hourworkweek.com.tv, all spelled out, F-O-U-R, etc. And we really feel like we could have made the best 2-hour documentary imaginable on the subject that you just saw or had 5 different shows of equal quality all different with the footage that we captured. So please check it out. There's some amazing stuff. And you can also check out the podcast where I do very long, in some cases, 2- to 3-hour interviews with a lot of the experts in this show. And that's The Tim Ferriss Show, which was nominated one of the best of iTunes, which I'm very, very happy about. And you can check out both. So find everything at 4hourworkweek.com.tv. And if you think that's an oxymoron, by the way, you're right. If you want 4-Hour Workweek, do not work in television. Thank you for watching.