Surfing
Surfing
5 steps to a successful professional surfing career
We asked some top World Championship Tour surfers – including Ian Walsh, Kanoa Igarashi – to explain how to make it in the professional ranks, so get the inside track here!
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At one time or another, all amateur surfers have dreamed about making it as a pro. Just imagine what it must be like to have your bank account loaded every month because you surf well and people want to buy the board you’re using or the trunks you’re wearing.
Most of us, at least those who have the talent to take a serious shot at being a professional surfer, stumble on two hurdles: contest results and being lost amid thousands of other surfers with the same desire and roughly the same ability. Beyond competing, being a professional means making yourself marketable, and marketable means being a figure of influence. But how do you become the surfer others want to emulate? These five tips should have got you covered.
01
Do it yourself
Once upon a time getting coverage meant greasing the wheels of magazine editors in the hope of a double-page spread in an upcoming issue, or liaising with cinematographers to land a few waves in a video project waiting just over the horizon.
43 min
Chapters
Travel with surf star Kanoa Igarashi for insider access to the World Championship Tour.
However, in the digital era you can take care of such matters without leaning on others. Look at Kanoa Igarashi for example, travelling with his childhood pal Tanner Carney and filming their Chapters series together, painting an intimate portrait of life on and beyond the Championship Tour.
2 min
Reckless Isolation
Kolohe Andino and his best friends score perfect waves during the summer of 2020.
Alternatively, take your cues from the way that the original digital kid, Kolohe Andino, has done things lately. Not only did he pack up his best friends and crack the code to unlock Indonesia's Mentawai Islands as they sat empty through the pandemic years, he then turned it all into Reckless Isolation, the movie above. Once the film was in the can, Andino chartered a bus to premiere the movie to stoked groms the length and breadth of the United States and give them a taste of the old-school screening days.
The full house sign went up early at the Brooklyn premiere
© Jason Le Cras/Stab
In 2022, Andino started his own production company, 2 Percent Surf, to rally his hometown crew, guys like Griffin Colapinto and his brother Crosby, and see if they can't get another San Clemente surfer or two on tour sometime soon. What a guy.
02
Work with the best photographers in the game
Surfers and photographers, and more recently surfers and cinematographers, live symbiotic lives, equally dependent on each other. This is where developing rock-solid relationships is vital.
Jordy Smith making magic in Margaret River
© Trevor Moran/Red Bull Content Pool
Take Jordy Smith for example, seen above sitting pretty in the tube at Margaret River's infamous Box, shot by his great pal Trevor Moran. The pair have been doing this for years, Smith competing and Moran shooting thousands of incredible images of the world's best.
Jordy Smith flares in West Oz
© Trevor Moran
Caitlin Simmers charging beyond her years at The Box
© Trevor Moran/Red Bull Content Pool
Griffin Colapinto laying down a solid West Oz groove
© Trevor Moran/Red Bull Content Pool
Michel Bourez digs in at Pipeline
© Trevor Moran
Smith's family decided not to come to the recent Margaret River Pro, so wanting a travel companion his first call was to Moran to see if he was keen. Were Smith not a solid human to hang with, a tireless worker and of course a sensational surfer, Moran wouldn't have entertained the idea. Instead, the man known as Tall Teef flew to the opposite side of the world from his home in Philadelphia to keep the partnership with his favourite South African subject rolling. The shots speak for themselves, and everyone's a winner.
03
Develop an open mind and a hunger to learn
If there was a blueprint for surfing success it would probably be the situation Caroline Marks found herself in as a youngster. A beautiful house on the beach in the sunshine state of Florida, five super competitive and loving siblings and parents who support your every dream. But, as you can see in the movie below, That's Caroline, it's what you do with those gifts that determines how far you can take things.
21 min
That’s Caroline
Caroline Marks is just a normal young woman – who also happens to be the face of surfing’s future.
Until the age of 10 all Marks ever wanted to do was ride horses and her family was fine with that. There was no pushing her to harness her surfing talent and tread the same path as her older brothers. Marks had to find surfing by herself and develop her own love for the sport. And when she did... wow. Despite her young age, she racked up so many national titles that she eventually moved across the country to California to further pursue her surfing goals.
Aged 15, Marks qualified for the WSL Championship Tour, the youngest to ever do so. Her family agreed to travel with her on land, but she took on a coach, Mike Parsons, to keep progressing in the water. From here she continued to challenge herself at every step, whether competing, free surfing or just as a person.
Caroline Marks lets rips in the warmup en route to a big win at Narrabeen
© Peter Boskovic
In 2019, Marks was the first female to win an equal prize money WSL event. She was ranked first in the world and qualified for the Olympics that same year, so how did she celebrate turning 18? Not by partying but by going to Tahiti to tackle the world's most treacherous wave, Teahupo'o, and to keep learning, keep growing and keep challenging herself. Her success has continued ever since and world titles await.
04
Study your craft
You might recognise Ian Walsh as a big wave surfer from Hawaii who's a standout at Jaws, competes in the Eddie Aikau Invitational and occasionally shows up at Mavericks and Nazaré alongside his pals Kai Lenny and Lucas Chianca. Beyond that, you probably don't know too much as Walsh plays his cards pretty close to his chest.
21 min
Ian Walsh
Join one of big wave surfing’s most renowned athletes on his quest for progression in high-risk environments.
Look more closely and you'll see a guy who's sponsored to the hilt and who lives, breathes, eats and sleeps big wave surfing. The two things are very connected. Everything he does revolves around his surfing, from gym work to nutrition and even snowboarding.
"Standing the way I do, on a surfboard or a snowboard, there’s a lot of muscle memory, especially in powder," says Walsh. "If you’re a good surfer, your style will bleed through pretty quickly when you get into good-quality snow. I find it helps from a training point of view too."
Ian Walsh, right at home at Jaws
© Zak Noyle/Red Bull Content Pool
If companies sponsor big wave surfers, they want to know they are reserved more than reckless, and Walsh, his brothers and his peers have taken water safety to new levels in the past 10 years. "Over the last 10 years, a lot of the progression can be directly correlated to the safety crews," he says.
Ian Walsh, Shane Dorian and Greg Long
© Zak Noyle / Red Bull Content Pool
Smart, strong, safe and well-fed. If that's not the perfect recipe for surfing success then clearly such a thing doesn't exist.
05
Become a global citizen
Italian surfer Leonardo Fioravanti spent most of his youth in France and now divides his time between there and Hawaii. Kanoa Igarashi grew up in California but surfs for Japan, and like his great mate Fioravanti, also owns property in Portugal. Both speak English, Portuguese, French and a little Spanish. Naturally, Igarashi also speaks Japanese, while Italian is Fioravanti's mother tongue. To be a pro surfer you need to travel the world, and you'll never meet two humans better equipped for global roaming than Fioravanti and Igarashi.
Japanese Kanoa Igarashi and Italian Leo Fioravanti share an Aussie moment
© Trevor Moran/Red Bull Content Pool
While travel leads to an open mind, surfing can too, and for Igarashi it was a safe space as a child. “Growing up in Huntington, I always stood out, because I was Japanese – I was different,” he says. “But surfing was the thing that put that racism aside and brought my world together.”
One of the best things about surfing is the travel and adventure that comes along with it. What you give is what you get, so embrace the world around you and be blown away by the doors that open for you. Learn a language, book a flight and try not to stress too hard over excess baggage fees and see your surfing come alive. Enjoy the ride.
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