Mason Ho, the 27-year-old surfer from Sunset Beach, Hawaii, has spent his entire pro surfing life travelling with his book of Jeet Kune Do by Bruce Lee. If it works for Mason, it'll work for you, right? Here, Mason reveals seven profound lessons that will improve your life and your surfing.
How to improve your surfing with the Kung Fu master Bruce Lee!
For the past seven years, the Hawaiian Mason Ho has travelled the world with the Bruce Lee book Jeet Kune Do.
The book, which was published in 1975 and bought by Mason at Singapore airport in 2009, contains notes and essays by Lee and, as well as kung fu techniques, is heavy on Zen and enlightenment.
Mason, who is 27 years old, adores Lee’s philosophies and applies the teaching to his own surfing. Examine the ways in which Lee’s words can pertain to surfing.
On practising turns:
I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.
On living a good life:
If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.
On individuality:
Man, the living creature, the creating individual, is always more important than any established style or system.
In this episode of Like Bitchin, Mason gives you, me, seven lessons you can learn from Jeet Kune Do. And it’s totally random! Mason throws the pages open, stabs a finger, and jabs Bruce Lee’s pistol words straight down your throat!
Fin manufacturer goes into hiding after fun making!
This morning I wrote a story about a dead snake that washed up on a little surfed California beach one year ago. It was not my finest moment, of course, but let us be very honest. None of these past two years worth of moments have amounted to much more than a hill of beans. In any case, as part of the narrative arc (pretend it had one!) I included a ditty about Kolohe Andino changing his fins by banging them on a bench.
Do you remember that video? It came out 3ish months ago and starred your fourth favorite blonde pro surfer under 26 smashing his FCS II fins on a boat bench in order to get them to pop out of his board.
I can’t recall specifically what I was drinking at the time but the whole thing seemed very funny and so I made fun of it. Knowing me I made fun of it a few more times. And when I went to make fun of it again today I realized it had been ripped down! Scrubbed off the entire Internet. Scrubbed from Vimeo, from Facebook, from YouTube. Like it never existed!
I almost fell off of my kitchen stool laughing. It means that my gentle barbs so disturbed the content producers at FCS that they had the thing pulled down. They had it vanished like a poor Italian shopkeeper who couldn’t pay his protection money!
Poof! Gone!
But once I stopped laughing I realized the potential power of mighty BeachGrit. I realized that with enough fun making anything can happen. How then should we use this power? What would you like to see made fun of until it goes away?
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Stop looking at me! Look at the waves! | Photo: WSL/Kelly Cestari
Oh if you can find your way to a computer or phone or iPad or Smart TV then do! The Fiji Pro is on and Cloudbreak is perfect. Not even hyperbole!
Kelly Slater almost scored a perfect heat total. He took off late toward the end and shattered his board and even though he had the field combo’d let a barrage of F-words fly! “Fucking fuck fuck fuck!” he said or something much like that.
And that’s how good it is! I’m glad that the WSL doesn’t have a delay because otherwise they could have scrubbed Kelly’s swears. But his swears were like sweet honey! Like cocaine wine!
Click here and watch the rest of the day! Your boss will understand.
Sharks are busily chomping all-comers in Australia. Chomping people and fish and birds and dogs. Maybe chomping so many that Australia’s yellow bellied sea snake decided to swim to Huntington Beach.
“Yellow bellied sea snake?” You ask while popping new FCS II fins in your board. “What the hell is that?”
“Oh.” I respond while taking a sip of coffee lightly touched with cream. “Only the most poisonous snake in the whole wide world.”
Your eyes go wide as you say, “Tell me more.” I can see that you are trying to take your FCS II fins out but they….are….not….budging.
“Watch this video of Kolohe bench banging his fins…” I offer before adding “…and read this before getting too scared.”
A poisonous yellow-bellied sea snake has made appearanced again on California beaches. The environmental group Surfrider Foundation made the startling discovery 30 miles south of Los Angeles at Bolsa Chica State Beach during a beach cleanup. They belive snakes appearing due California shores due to warm waters that are attributed to El Nino.
The snakes are highly poisonous , but their small mouths and fangs make it difficult for them to bite humans Initial sightings of the toxic snake happened back in October on Silverstrand Beach in Oxnard. Yellow-bellied snakes are the most wide-ranging in the world. Most reported bites are by fishermen, said Pauly. There’s never been a recorded human fatality.
“These snakes spend their entire lives eating small fish, and it’s not like a rattle snake that can open its mouth really wide… So it’s very difficult for them to bite things that are very large,” he said.
The aquatic snakes tend to live in open ocean waters.
“They have an extremely modified body form. So basically it turns their entire body into one long sort of fin,” said Pauly. “They’re really good at swimming in open water but this particular species can barely move when it’s on land.”
Your fins are bench banged out now and you are frustrated that I scared you like that so you begin putting them back in and that is almost as frustrating as taking them out and so you are glaring at me.
I take another sip of my coffee and say, “There’s never been a recorded human fatality. There’s also a first time for everything.”
P.S. Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
I tried watching that Kolohe bench banging video again myself and FCS made it private! I’m literally dying and not from a poisonous snake bite but from laughter!
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Last heat of Burrow's career, and it was the kind of heat that's worth waiting for. The kind that salves the sting of the countless hours wasted. A magnificent display of wave riding ability. 18.76 for Florence to 18.6 for the guy with the bad haircut who's probably shit-can hammer wasted right now.
Taj Burrow's last ever heat! Wilko hangs on to ugly yellow jersey!
Round three of Fiji. Kind of bumpy in the morning, cleaning up through the day. Mix of bad and spectacular. Medina started out the day with fire. Caught a million waves. Found some pits, shaved ’em good.
Poor Banting. So humiliating. We all have off days. Doing it on camera’d be the worst. As out of the groove as Medina was in it.
Life’s the worst. Explode your knee rookie year. Come back the next and eat a pile of third round exits. Mr. Paisley Pottz pointed out that our fave polite waiter spent the lay-days on the mainland. Doing his own deal.
Indicative of a poor mental state? Need to get away from the anxiety? Maybe just bored as hell sitting on a white sand beach staring at nothing. I know it sounds dreamy to those of you who’ve never, or rarely, done it. But that shit gets tiresome quick.
Next two heats slowed down bad. Bourez handed Igarashi another early round exit. Payne took out Toledo while the ocean refused to cooperate.
Slater on fire, looking like himself. Guess it just takes good surf to keep the best surfer ever interested. Good bye Jordy.
Conner Coffin fucked up bad. Totally rookie mistake. Had the win in the bag, ate an interference. Uncle Wiggly’s post-heat interview was classic. He’ll take the win. Do better next round.
Things started heating up again during the heat with the lowest combined height measurement.
Keanu dodged a barrel bad, made up for it by going balls to the wall at the next gnarly section, air dropping into obliteration. I dig the diminutive Hawaiian, and he surfed well, but he got seriously upstaged by De Souza. The Brazilian took the win easy, started showboating towards the end.
All I can think of is how funny they’d look, one on the other’s shoulders, trench coat, trying to sneak into an R rated movie.
Italian Ferrari struggled against an in-form Jug Handles Andre. Started to find his feet midway through the heat. Big barrel to deep fading cutty. Earned an even 9, not enough for the front spot. You could see the fire catch as he took a full speed exit from the ski.
Wasn’t enough. Jadson used his priority well. Chased Italo around the lineup, snagged a decent one in the closing minutes. Ferrari forced into a hail mary floater that would’ve been great if he hadn’t come unstuck. Instead he got hammered, took the set on his head, said “Sayonara.”
Kerr/Flores. Two very good backhand barrel riders. Watching Flores from the channel at solid Pipe was one of the most entertaining sessions I’ve seen first hand. But Kerr’s on my fantasy team, even though Rusty tried fucking with us over the whole in competition IV use deal.
Kerr grabbed the lead early with two solid barrels. 7.33 and 6.67. Judges being niggardly with the excellent scores today. Good to see. Leave room for improvement, rather than get excited and paint yourself into a corner.
Flores played catch-up the entire heat. Great barrels, gorgeous backside carving cutbacks, still couldn’t do it. Last second ride made for a bit of a nail biter, but not really. Great ride but not enough.
White Lightning v Melling. I know I’ve harped on it, but it’s fucked that the WSL is allowing Fanning a just-for-fun year. Give him a sabbatical, that’s great. But allowing him to cherry pick events, and guaranteeing an injury wildcard for next year, reeks of favoritism. “You’re a draw so we’ll bend over backwards to accommodate you.” Anyone else blows off shitty events ‘cuz they aren’t feeling it they get fined. But not Mick. He even gets seeded as though he’s on tour, rather than a wildcard. Which is what he is.
Mick won.
Been waiting eagerly for Taj versus Double-J Flo. Best barrel rider in the world. Much loved hero on his retirement swing. Sure enough, JJ pulls into a keg on his first wave, gets an 8.17. Full speed jet assist dismount out the back. I hope everyone starts doing them. They look fun, and someone will eventually mistime it for a spectacular disaster. Taj added an, in my opinion slightly over-scored 8, to his previous 2. JJ came right behind with stylish dreamboat arm drag. 6.17.
Taj answered with a gorgeous 9.2. Long barrel, linking turn to turn to the channel.
Back and forth beauty.
The crowd was on Taj’s side, but Florence was amazing.
Last heat of Burrow’s career, and it was the kind of heat that’s worth waiting for. The kind that salves the sting of the countless hours wasted. A magnificent display of wave riding ability. 18.76 for Florence to 18.6 for the guy with the bad haircut who’s probably shit-can hammer wasted right now.
I had to do a radio show so I missed the next two heats. I got to talk about illegal TVRs and how people can screw over the landlords!
Ace Buchan beat Pupo, which is great for my languishing fantasy team. Then Wilko beat Muniz to hang on to his ugly yellow jersey.
But JJ and Taj! Amazing! Magic! Sensual! Velvet! Goodbye sweet man! Fare thee well!
That’s it for the day. If anyone on Namotu is reading this, I got a $50 bounty on a picture of him passed out at the bar.
