Surfers VS. Hawaii's Biggest Waves

There is a paradigm shift happening in our culture. Make it, make it, make it, make it! One of the days I was out there, the lineup was 50-50 men-women. The thrill and the adrenaline just brings you this incredible clarity. You have to have that like crazy switch. Something about when I go and surf these waves makes me feel really unstoppable. Hello! Welcome to my storage unit. I'm glad you guys are with me. I always think I'm going to get murdered in here. In here? I never thought I would surf waves like this big. Rightio. It gives me this feeling that I can't describe. Helmet? It's actually matching my outfit today. I guess I just want to chase that. This is my big 10-0 beauty. And it just makes me so empowered. Good night. The way that we push each other, us women, out in the water is just, it's really special. You know, I surf big waves because I literally just love it. For my own personal reason, surfing was a way to work through a lot of things. It was a way to focus my energy on something that I connected with. Obviously getting barreled surfing is one of the best feelings in the world. But I could almost argue that taking a big drop on a big wave is pretty close. The field of people that we have competing in Red Bull Magnitude is so crazy diverse. It's encouraging women from all levels of big wave surfing. Younger women trying to get into the sport. It's really inclusive. It's been really fun to learn about new athletes. It's really awesome to have that support system. There's such a great variety of competitors, from like youngest 19 all the way up to like veterans. It's giving all of us female big wave surfers a platform to pursue our dreams and push ourselves. It's pushing the sport. Just anything where I'm either getting barreled or catching like a 15 plus foot wave. I'm just like, this is living. You're in this constant state of anticipation for the winter season. You kind of have to be ready to go like at any time. Knowing your surroundings, thinking positive, just living in the moment. You kind of have to be on it for every swell. You kind of have to take advantage of any time it's going to be on. I have been really focused on performing in a way that is really technical on big waves. There's the Hail Mary, just go for like the biggest bomb, where I really want to be like in control. And that's been my focus. I think for me it's a personal challenge. In tandem with catching a big wave and how fun that whole experience of the drop and going fast. We as women can come into our own and bring our own personalities to the sport. It's not just like women in big wave surfing. It's all these different women that approach it so many different ways in big wave surfing and uplifting each other as they're doing it. I think when we're all out there together with the competitive aspect, it also pushes progression. In that way, we all grow and so does the sport. For me, when I see someone get the wave of the day, that's like where I get extra fired up. It is 2.07. Training for big wave surfing is a full body, mind and soul training program. When a swell comes, you're preparing for like at least a week before that. You're ticking all your boxes of do I have all my equipment for my jet ski? Do I have my boards dialed in? I hope you never have to use one of these. There's all these moving parts that have to all line up. This is the tow rope. Number one thing is you train hard because you know what situation you could get into and hopefully it's not a bad one. It gets tough and it gets isolating when you're here just by yourself with no family. It's very rare that you have those moments where you're like, okay, this made it all worth it. For me, that's the biggest sacrifice is that time away from my loved ones. Big wave surfing is definitely not about the money. I'm broke. I mean, I worked five different jobs to be able to maintain the lifestyle that I did. It's a road of hard knocks. And if you really want to do it, I mean, the majority of big wave surfers all have other jobs. People aren't doing it for anything. They're not doing it for money. They're not doing it for fame or anything. They're just doing it because they actually like, I just can't live without this as a part of my life. Everyone that is in Magnitude has a really cool story of like how they got to where they are. I graduated with my master's in microbiology and with a minor in risk and uncertainty quantification. So during the pandemic, I was out of work because nobody could travel. So at that time, I was kind of doing several odd jobs, including being like a substitute teacher. And then eventually I was doing some crabbing too out of Eureka. I was looking at the Magnitude footage from year one and I was like, OK, I think I could do that. So I actually wrote a message on Red Bull's webpage. They got back to me and here we are. Anything could happen to anyone. That's the risk that you take every single day. Your board's super heavy, like it could hit you underwater. We get really thrashed. You get rocked. Our bodies endure so much, but then we have to get ready to turn around and perform again the next day if the swell stays around. It's such an endurance thing. It's not just physical, it's also very mental. Holy crap, you gotta paddle so hard. Paddling, paddling, paddling. I get sucked up and just detonated. And I felt my vest unzip and I was like... Events like Red Bull Magnitude are giving opportunities to a lot of people that don't have any sponsors. I love Magnitude and how it brings a bunch of different people together. It's not just one day, one event, at one spot. This platform is allowing for them to grow their surfing and to support them with water safety. And having water safety is huge. They have actual people documenting it. Completely focused on them and them being able to see their waves. The cameras are finally on the women. The cameras have been there, but they haven't always been shooting the women. The women historically haven't really had the chance to be put out in pumping waves. The way we're able to push each other is just really, really cool. It's really exciting and fun to see people being rewarded for their abilities in the water. I felt like I was going to get a huge set on the head out there. I felt like it's coming, but I'm just frothing that I got a wave. Whenever I'm scared and I push myself, I just feel like I've grown and I'm proud of myself and I feel freaking awesome. Let's go get some tacos. I don't want to die wondering. I just want to make the most of every opportunity. I realise that nothing's forever and this is what really makes my heart sing, so that's why I want to do it. The level of the sport is being pushed every single swell. The jump in performance has been the most drastic on the women's side. Having the Red Bull magnitude, it paves a way to the new generation. My mind's blown every season by what everyone does. There's more women that are fired up on wanting to send it. We've seen such a huge surge in the growth of women's big wave surfing. It's evolution and I'll never stop admiring everything that all the women that came before us did. And I can't wait for young girls to hopefully look at me doing it and say, I can do that too.