Wild Ideas Worth Living

Life Lessons from Big Wave Surfing with Shane Dorian

Episode Summary

Shane Dorian is a legendary surfer, winning his first surf contest when he was just 11 years old. At 21, he joined the World Surf League and traveled the globe to compete with other athletes. Shane has won countless competitions over the years including 11 WSL Big Wave Awards. He was part of a generation of surfers who became influential in the sport, and was able to make a career out of surfing full time. Now, after more than 30 years as a professional athlete, Shane has some wisdom to share.

Episode Notes

Shane Dorian is a legendary surfer, winning his first surf contest when he was just 11 years old. At 21, he joined the World Surf League and traveled the globe to compete with other athletes. Shane has won countless competitions over the years including 11 WSL Big Wave Awards. He was part of a generation of surfers who became influential in the sport, and was able to make a career out of surfing full time. Now, after more than 30 years as a professional athlete, Shane has some wisdom to share.

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Episode Transcription

Shelby Stanger:

As a kid in the late eighties and nineties, I grew up watching some of the most legendary surfers compete in their prime. One of them was Shane Dorian. Shane was part of a generation of surfers who became influential in the sport, and he was able to make a career out of surfing full time. Now, after more than 30 years as a professional athlete, Shane has some wisdom to share. I'm Shelby Stanger and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living, an REI Co-op Studios production.

Shane Dorian won his first surf contest when he was just 11 years old. At 21, he joined the World Surf League, which is like the NFL for surfing. He traveled the globe and competed with other athletes. Some you might've heard of, guys like Kelly Slater and Rob Machado. He's won countless competitions over the years as well as 11 WSL Big Wave Awards. Growing up in Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii, Shane's relationship with ocean sports started when he was young.

I want to dig into Kona because I think it's such a unique place. The contrast is really - dark and the light there is really bold. I love it, it's my favorite Hawaiian island. So how did growing up there, how did you get into surfing? Because it's not known as the best surfing place, but there are definitely waves. And when it's good, it's good.

Shane Dorian:

So, where I was born and raised in Kona, the surf is normally pretty small. It's not like the Hawaii you think about with these massive waves in the North Shore. Where I live is still kind of small. So the long story is that my parents took over a little restaurant that was right on the beach, and they named it after our last name, Dorian's. And it was right on the beach. And the beach is called Magic Sands Beach and it's a little tiny white sand beach in Kona. They got the restaurant when I was three. And so I learned to swim, learned to body surf, fish, dive, surf, everything, right around that age. So from three to five I started getting into riding waves, body surfing, bodyboarding. And then when I was five I started surfing, and just kind of fell in love with it from there.

Shelby Stanger:

Who taught you to surf?

Shane Dorian:

One of my dad's chefs.

Shelby Stanger:

How interesting.

Shane Dorian:

Yeah. Actually he was a waiter, he wasn't a chef. And so my dad, for my fifth birthday, he had these really old balsa wood surfboards under his house from when he used to surf in the thirties, forties. So he had for my birthday, he had one of his old boards reshaped down so I could learn how to surf on it. And so, one of his waiters, his name was Jeff B-Band, really awesome guy, he was like, "Hey, I'll take Shane surfing for the first time." So we went to this little place called Kahalu'u, which is in the south of Kona Town. And I remember paddling out. And I was already pretty good in the ocean, I was a good swimmer and I was already riding waves on a bodyboard. And I remember this little whitewater wave came in and I turned around and I caught the wave, fairly easily because the board was kind of bigger. And I remember getting to my feet and I remember just crouching down really low to the board, and it was the first time I'd ever stood up on a craft and rode the energy of a wave.

And I'll never forget it because I was looking down at the surface of the face of the wave and I put my fingers in the water. And it was like that feeling of... Imagine you're snowboarding or doing something, going fast, and you put your hand down and you just feel that natural speed and energy that you're riding this... I don't know, it was so different to me from any other type of riding a wave, and I was hooked. I was immediately like, "Hey, this is me. This is who I am."

Shelby Stanger:

That's so cool that you have that memory from five years old. So okay, you competed for a little while, but then you found... When I first met you, you were winning a Big Wave Award. So you found big wave surfing kind of early, at a time where not everybody else was chasing big waves. Why did you decide to switch?

Shane Dorian:

When I moved to the North Shore, if you rewind a little bit, when I moved to the North Shore at 15, I went from Kona where I lived, where the waves are small nearly all the time, to the North Shore in the wintertime for four years straight in high school, where I was surfing a lot of bigger waves and getting comfortable in much larger conditions.

Shelby Stanger:

And your buddies were pushing each other so you had to go.

Shane Dorian:

I was living and surfing with guys who were really good at huge waves. And they really kind of took me under their wing and inspired me to start surfing really big waves. And so I was into it at a pretty young age, like 16, 17, 18, I was riding really big waves. And then when I started on a tour, basically that takes up all your time.

Shelby Stanger:

For 11 years, Shane competed in the World Surf League, becoming one of the best surfers on tour. He frequently placed in the top 10 and even won a number of events in Spain, France and Brazil. He was sponsored by Billabong and had essentially made it as a pro surfer. But eventually, Shane knew it was time for a change. He was burnt out from competing for so long at such a high level.

Shane Dorian:

I was just really uninspired and I felt like I wasn't doing what I should be doing in life to feel like I was maximizing my potential. And I hated that feeling. I was like, "I love surfing. I shouldn't feel like this."

Shelby Stanger:

In 2003, Shane made the call to leave the tour and try something different. He started chasing big waves. In this new discipline, Shane was traveling around the world, frequently surfing waves as high as 60 feet. Surfing big waves brought him a different kind of rush than he got from competing and he loved it. Over the next 10 years, Shane earned a reputation as one of the greatest big wave surfers of his generation, and he won a lot of awards along the way. What do you do before you go surf big waves? What is your mentality? What do you say to yourself? Do you have any mantras? Do you have a prep that you do?

Shane Dorian:

Yeah. I mean, a lot of it is breathing and visualization to kind of visualize how I want the session to go, how it'll start and how I'll approach it. And do a lot of breath work, breathing up to that and making sure my heart rate stays where I need it to be.

Shelby Stanger:

What does that look like, your breath work?

Shane Dorian:

It changes. But say I'm going out to Jaws and I'm paddling out from the rocks. I do a lot of nose breathing and box breathing because it will lower your heart rate, and so you'll have less fear if your heart rate is low. And then the science behind holding your breath, which is that's how people die surfing really big waves, is they run out of their breath and then they drown. You drown because you can't hold your breath long enough and the ocean will not let you up in time, which is terrifying. And so the way your breath works is if you have a super-high heart rate, it's like imagine having very little gas in your gas tank and just flooring it. If you can keep your heart rate low, then you can hold your breath much longer. So that's kind of what it's all about for me.

So not being surprised by anything, visualizing all the things that can happen, and also visualizing the wave I really want. For me, I approach really big wave sessions and I want to catch one wave, and I'll visualize it over and over in my head. I'll visualize myself in the spot and what that wave looks like. So when I see the wave, I identify it right away. "This is the one I want, this is the one I've been visualizing." And when you feel yourself in the spot, I visualize putting my head down, not hesitating at all, and just fully committing to it and having a successful ride and building that confidence.

And then when I do ride that wave that I've been looking for, and it's one of those rides I'm going to remember for a very long time, I kick out of that wave in the channel, throw some high-fives to my buddies and watch them surf for the rest of the day. I take my suit off, take my leash off, put my boards away, and I just relax. I don't go back out looking for another one. It's just, for me, the stakes are too high. So for me it's more like I really want to get that wave I'm looking for but not get too greedy.

Shelby Stanger:

What do you do when you're held under a wave and you're just waiting for it to let you up? What do you say to yourself? How do you relax your breath? Because to me, that's always the scariest part.

Shane Dorian:

Basically, I don't come up with something to think about in the moment. I think about what I'm going to think about way ahead of time. So I have a plan on what to think about when I eat shit and I'm underwater. And for me, that plan is to think about all the other times I've been held down. Hundreds of times, thousands of times, and dozens of times where it seemed super heavy. And so I rely on those experiences. I've lived through this before. I know what this feels like. I'm getting pounded by a huge wave, just like all the other huge waves. And I'm going to come up just like all the other times. And people have lived through way gnarlier things than this. I'm not going to be the one to drown right now, and I got this.

But two different times in my life, once I blacked out underwater because I couldn't hold my breath long enough. And the other time I basically was blacking out as I resurfaced. So there's a limit, right? Your brain tells you it's okay, but just because your brain's telling you it's okay and just because you're telling yourself it's okay doesn't mean it's okay.

Shelby Stanger:

Who picked you up when you were blacked out?

Shane Dorian:

I was underwater. I fell in a wave, went over the falls. And a woman named Sachi, she put a video up at some point of this wave that I caught and did put a timer under it from when I hit the surface of the water and went underwater until I came up, and it was like a minute and seven seconds or something. So I was underwater, getting pounded by the wave. And underwater I hit the reef. And then it was holding me down forever. And then I started swimming up, and I was about 10 feet from the surface when the next wave broke.

And so I'm underwater for that whole next wave as well and it pushed me straight back down to the reef. And that was a really, really scary situation but I ended up holding my breath long enough to barely resurface. And a guy named Frank, who's a photographer up there at Mavericks, he was there. But I was blue. I lost all my color. I had a really horrible concussion. That was a really bad experience. But for me it was more like having that thought ready to go, that I've survived a lot of heavy situations, and that gives me the confidence.

Shelby Stanger:

What about big waves lures you in?

Shane Dorian:

I just feel like the attraction to big waves for me is just a personal challenge. It's funny, I am definitely not the type of person who gets off on being close to death. I'm not like, "I want to ride big waves because I can almost die over and over." For me, it's more like this is something I feel like I'm really good at, I've been doing for a super long time. I've ridden hundreds of thousands of waves, if not millions.

And I have stockpiled this amazing database of memories and experiences in my brain and they all kind of accumulate into skill and expertise in this one area. And I want to push that to the ultimate level. And also I love the challenge of trying to stay levelheaded in really intense, high pressure situations. I've always loved that. I've always loved trying to overcome fear and see what I'm made of in heavy moments.

Shelby Stanger:

I want to dig into that. How do you deal with fear? Because for many people, I mean, I'm sure even at one point for you, it's terrifying.

Shane Dorian:

It can be. Yeah. I guess I probably had a personal process of dealing with fear from a really young age. I didn't like being scared, I liked overcoming my fear. Does that make sense?

Shelby Stanger:

Yep.

Shane Dorian:

So for me it was like I didn't think of a scary situation as being fearful, I thought of a scary situation as an opportunity to overcome the fear. And so I would look at heavy situations and be like, "Hey, how can I deal with this fear? How can I deal with these emotions that are really natural? How can I really lean back on my expertise and my experience and get through this moment?"

Shelby Stanger:

Do you feel like when you conquered your fear in the water, you could then take that courage that you gained from that and it translated completely to the rest of your life?

Shane Dorian:

100%.

Shelby Stanger:

When we come back, Shane talks about surfing with his kids, and what he's learned from chasing big waves.

Shane Dorian has been surfing since he was five years old, and his relationship with the sport has changed over the course of his career. In his early years, Shane was competing on the global circuit. Then he became a big wave surfer. Now he's focused on life as a dad and mentoring the new generation of surfers. With a career that spans more than three decades, Shane has definitely had his share of fun and funny moments in the water. Do you have any big wave stories you like to tell?

Shane Dorian:

Well, I have multiple, but one that's actually pretty funny. I was surfing Teahupoʻo in Tahiti and the waves were really big and it was a scary session. I remember this heavy wave came to me and I ate it. And as soon as I hit the water, on impact my trunks blew open. My drawstrings went pop and blew open and they were gone, my trunks were gone. And they were on my leash. So I came up, just like buns hanging out. And I was in the impact zone still and I took three or four waves on the head. And the way Teahupoʻo is, there's a big lagoon, and if you go into that lagoon you got to go all the way around. It's like a 20 or 30 minute mission.

So I was scrambling to get back through the little keyhole before getting pulled in too far, so I didn't have time to mess around with my trunks on my leash. So I just got up back on my board and started paddling as hard as I possibly could. And I was like duck diving through the impact zone, and I made it back out, just barely. And all these boats were right there, photography boats. And I was basically naked paddling back out, and all my friends are just cracking up at me. And I finally got my trunks off my leash, but I think they just thought maybe I was being a bit of an exhibitionist.

Shelby Stanger:

Love it. That's great. Okay, so you're a dad now to a kid that I've seen on Instagram. And you have a daughter. Do they both surf? Does she surf too?

Shane Dorian:

She surfs too. My daughter's 13, her name is Charlie. She likes to surf but she's definitely not hardcore in any way. She's a social surfer. And then my son's the opposite. He's already a pro surfer and he's really hardcore and wants to surf eight hours a day. He's like a full surf rat kid. He's 100% focused on surfing. So yeah, it's fun. I'm really grateful to have kids that like the ocean, like the outdoors, like to surf.

Shelby Stanger:

What do people ask you still about when it comes to parenting and mentoring kids? Because I know you must get hit up a lot.

Shane Dorian:

It's funny because my wife and I have put on a kids surfing event in Kona called the Keiki Classic. And it's a kids' event, so all these parents show up with their kids. And then I've been around a ton of kids in the surfing world for a long time, as a kid first and then, now kind of mentoring kids on the Billabong program and doing a lot of development camps with them. So I'm around a lot of crazy soccer dads and moms that are nuts. The second their kid can do a cutback, they want to take them out of school and put them into homeschool and get them a coach. And they're dead serious about the pro surfing thing. Which is cool, that enthusiasm is really cool. But some parents are so overboard so quick and that is crazy. And the amount of pressure some of these kids get from these parents getting all serious right away is nuts.

They always ask me, "Hey, how can I get my kid to get better faster? Can you suggest a coach, like a psychological coach or competition coach? Or can you do some trips with my kids and help them get better?" And it's neat in a way, but most of the time I'm talking them off the ledge, as a parent. I'm like, "Hey, you need to step back and relax. Be grateful your kid is passionate. Be grateful your kid loves the ocean. Be grateful your kid's not sitting in front of video games all day. That's 99% of what you should be worried about." The 1% of how would I get my kid better should be 1%. Of course, support their goals, but remember, it's their goal, it's not your goal.

Even for me and my kid, my son's a full-on pro surfer now, and I tell them all the time, I'm like, "Dude, this is your goal. It is not my goal. It's not my goal to relive this whole pro surfing thing. I'm on the other side of it now where it's at the very end, I'm looking forward to totally different chapter in my life. I don't need to do this. This has to be your goal. So if this is what you want, you need to act like it. You need to live like it."

And so that's probably the biggest thing that I tell parents all the time, is, "Your kid's 12, your kid's 13, your kid's 16. It is not that serious that he won or lost a contest, or she won or lost a contest. None of this matters. It's just fun learning experiences, developing kids to become great humans as they age. That's all you got to worry about." And if in the end they end up being a really talented pro surfer, then great, and support that along the way. But it's probably the biggest thing is just, "Hey, step back. And don't lose sight of what's really truly important here."

Shelby Stanger:

I think you hit the nail on the head, though, when you said the thing is to have purpose. If a kid has purpose and direction, that's huge.

Shane Dorian:

And not all kids are going to be super passionate about something. I think you should be grateful if your kids have a passion really early, but it's not necessary.

Shelby Stanger:

It's nice to, though, have something to point a compass to, at any age.

Shane Dorian:

For sure. Yeah, I'm incredibly grateful that, for one, my son is really passionate about surfing. Because just before this, we were in Mexico together. And we've been going to this place in Mexico since he was eight and now he's 16. And I had my GoPro and I rode waves behind him. And the waves are really good and we were riding these waves that were like 300 yards long. And so I'm literally talking to him, having full conversations, where I'm like three feet behind him and he's ripping, surfing really well. And just being able to share those experiences and do surf trips, I tell him all the time, I'm like, "Dude, even if this pro surfing thing doesn't work out, I'll remember this the rest of my life, we both will." Doing surf trips and spending time together, it doesn't matter if you become a pro surfer or not.

I mean, it does in a way, but it doesn't really matter. My favorite thing to do in surfing now, honestly, is riding the same wave as my kids. So riding behind my daughter surfing on a wave is the best thing ever. And hear her giggling and talking to her on the wave, which I don't get to do very much because she doesn't surf as much as I wish she did because I would love to have those experiences more with her. But to have those moments where you're having a conversation with your kid on the wave and then walking back up to Sand Point together, talking about life or whatever, and then riding waves again, that's the pinnacle for me, for sure.

Shelby Stanger:

What is surfing for you today? I'm curious. It's been a career, it's been so many things for you.

Shane Dorian:

It has. I've had a lot of different chapters in surfing, and now surfing in my life is very similar to how surfing was in my life when I first started. When I was a kid and first really fell in love with surfing, there was a lot of turmoil in my household. My parents weren't getting along, there was a lot of stress in the house. And so surfing for me was my escape. It was my way to stay sane. It was my way to kind of get away from my problems in my life. School was really hard on me, I was kind of a bad student, and I was just really uninterested in school. And so I would just stare at the clock until it was over, the pain was over. And then as soon as I was out, I would try to go surfing and I'd try to surf as much as I possibly could, just because I felt like it brought me sanity as a kid.

And now it's kind of the same. I feel like it's such a great escape for me. If I'm stressed out or I'm angry about something or whatever it is, all I got to do is grab my surf trunks and jump in the ocean and everything's better. I don't even need to ride a wave. I can watch the sun set or the sun rise or just talk to a buddy in the water. It's so good for your soul. I've found a lot of really cool things that I love in my life, but surfing is really unlike any of them.

Shelby Stanger:

You've had an incredible career, and experiences that most people on earth will never get to experience, because you've pushed yourself. I'm curious, is humility just something you were brought up with, or is it something that you get from living in Hawaii, or is it something that comes from surfing giant waves?

Shane Dorian:

Oh, wow. Those are really good questions. I never really thought about it that way. Yeah, I mean, I grew up kind of like... I don't know how to say that, but I grew up with not a whole lot of advantages, I guess. And then I just found and fell in love with surfing and that kind of set the direction for my childhood. And I was super passionate about that as a kid and then I was competitive in that. And the competition scene in surfing keeps you super humble because it's highly competitive, and I definitely wasn't the best competitor. I think the competitive aspect is definitely very humbling because in a surf competition, or any competition for that matter, there's only one winner in an individual sport.

Shelby Stanger:

What has big wave surfing taught you about life that you apply to your everyday philosophy and you'll never let go, this is just part of who you are now?

Shane Dorian:

I mean, that's a hard answer to give, but it's an easy answer to come up with, and that's just appreciating life.

Shelby Stanger:

Gratitude.

Shane Dorian:

Yeah. Had really close calls, almost died a couple times. Those aren't the funnest to talk about. I lost a couple really close friends to surfing really big waves when I was in the water with them. When you're a big wave surfer, you really have totally different than being a normal surfer. There's a comradery level that is totally different when the stakes are that high, when people are dying around you doing what they love to do and you're a part of that. Or they have really close calls and you're helping them get into medevacs and helicopters and helping bring them back when they're blue and they're not breathing. There's a lot of those type situations over the years. And it's really neat because it kind of develops a family amongst big wave riders. When you have that in common, you have all these experiences together, it's really neat.

So that's probably one of my favorite things about riding big waves, is when I see people that I surfed Jaws with and Mavericks with and have these really intense experiences with, there's something that connects you on a deeper level that is pretty magical. And to live through that, you just realize how fragile life is and how it's not guaranteed. And all of us, not just like I'm whatever, a big wave guy, but that doesn't mean that I'm unique in any way. All of us have friends that have died from cancer, this shit you can't control, in their thirties or forties or twenties, way too young. And so that's the lesson for me, is really appreciate life.

And it's amazing. Friends have passed away that would give anything for another year, another month. So I always trip out when people are like, "Man, getting old sucks. Can you believe we're getting old?" I'm like, I'm so grateful to be getting old. I hope I get old as fricking dirt. I'm so grateful. I'm having the best time ever, have an amazing family, and I'm really truly enjoying life. And I think that's the big lesson, is don't take it for granted.

Shelby Stanger:

I've personally enjoyed watching Shane throughout his career as a surfer. I love his perspective on aging. It's a privilege to get older and we have to take care of our bodies so we can keep doing the things we love. If you want to see some of Shane's latest surf adventures, check out his Instagram at Shane Dorian. That's S-H-A-N-E, D-O-R-I-A-N. We interviewed Shane at the Revelshine Wine event in Laguna Beach, which was an absolute blast. Huge shout out to Revelshine Wines for the invitation. A special thank you also to SCP Hotels for providing incredible accommodations for our team in Laguna Beach.

Wild Ideas Worth Living is part of the REI Podcast Network. It's hosted by me, Shelby Stanger, produced by Annie Fassler, Sylvia Thomas, and Sam Peers Nitzberg of Puddle Creative, and our senior producer is Jenny Barber. Our executive producers are Paolo Mottola and Joe Crosby. As always, we love it when you follow the show. Rate it and take time to write a review wherever you listen. And remember, some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas.