It’s difficult to write about Kai Lenny without first admitting bias: he’s easy to root for. I know it’s not cool to root for people in surfing, but dammit! He just makes this surfing thing that’s supposed to look fun, look fun.
Listen to that loud “whoop!” he expels when he’s towed into a monster at Nazaré, above. You may of caught wind that he won the Nazaré Tow Surfing Challenge there last week? A heavy triumph for Kai and his partner Lucas Chianca, after a pall was laid over the contest with the near death of Alex Botelho.
It’s all sobering, and scary, and humbling. But a little insight on Kai – he’s not all that serious about everything. Yes, of course, he’s incredibly focused when he’s out surfing, safety is huge for him, he doesn’t take any of it lightly on the water. That’s not what I’m saying at all.
Having spent time with him over the years, he sort of dances through life with this light air of humility and fun that just makes him likeable. I surfed with him at small Sunset one evening, amazed how much easier it is to navigate when it’s less than giant. But out of nowhere, little bombs would pop out of the serenely-warm Hawaiian water, ready to drop on your head like a dead weight if you were out of position. “Seems like you could still get worked out here,” I mentioned to Kai, who laughed and responded to the affect of, “Small sunset can scare you worse than big Sunset.”
At a movie premiere at the high school in Dana Point a few years ago, my groms, who thought he was a god, sheepishly moved in to meet him among a throng of squeaking kids hoping to speak with him after the film. On a crisp Southern California night, he spoke with the ease a school teacher would to his class. A really cool teacher. One of the kids asked if he’d cut his foot off after a gruesome scene in his movie showed him with a nasty cut at Jaws. “Nope, still got it,” he joked, looking down.
Kai’s made big wave surfing – especially tow surfing – his own sport. There’s no one doing it like him. And with the way he carries himself off the water, there’s no one doing life quite like him either.
