He’s back. It’ll be a long road back, but he’s on it.
Last December, Owen Wright nearly died. Initially, it wasn’t as dramatic as, say, Mick Fanning’s shark attack, but the wave(s) at Pipeline that took him out turned out to be much worse.
Just before the trials for the Billabong Pipe Masters sounded the horn, Wright was out surfing. After hitting his head and enduring a multiple wave hold down, he decided that he wasn’t feeling all that great. He staggered up the beach to the Rip Curl house to take a nap–decidedly not a good thing to do when one has a concussion. Soon after, he was taken to hospital, where the situation was revealed as much more serious than previously thought. Owen, with bleeding on the brain and swelling, was forced to pull out of the 2016 title race, and for the time being, surfing altogether. He disappeared from the public eye and got on the long road to his recovery. Just a few days ago, he surfed again for the first time since his injury. Here’s what he had to say about it on Instagram:
Sharing my journey – I went for my first surf a couple days ago. It was the funnest thing in the world. Funny thing is… I couldn’t get to my feet. So I just laid there. It was about knee high and the drop was.. well there was none but it felt like I was dropping into 10ft Teahupoo. I finished the wave and I was so stoked I let out a hoot and claimed it and high fived Kita.
5 mins later I was on the beach and started to think about what I actually did and started comparing it to what I used to be like or what everybody else was doing out there… and started to question why cant I….this I found started to ruin my experience and change how I really felt.
It made me realise that self improvement is necessary but to focus on comparison of what used to be, what others can do or why you’re not good enough is detrimental to the now; negative emotion in yourself will hinder improvement and happiness. Simple statement …. challenging to practice.
