Brave little boy robbed at gunpoint, stabbed etc, ascends to heights of pro surfing tree!
Isn’t it a bolt of the freshest air to watch a straight-up documentary profile. No faux Super 8 or tortured scenics or whatever histrionics a so-called auteur might employ to make up for a deficiency of technique, an inability to tell a story.
This ten-minute documentary, produced by the WSL, weaves a compelling tale of how Jordy Smith grew up in a Durban ghetto (we visit his childhood house, we see the playground where “a lot of bad things happened”), how he blew onto the scene as an unknown teenage wildcard at J-Bay in 2006 (he finished third), his back-to-back-back injuries, his two runner-up years (including as a twenty two year old in 2010) and we conclude, appropriately, at this year’s J-Bay contest where he surfed a perfect twenty-point heat.
All the ghetto talk reminded me of an old interview where Jordy told me he’d been robbed “multiple times” by gunpoint and even knifed stabbed in the kidney!
“I was walking home, I got mugged and stabbed on my right side at the bottom of the kidney. They rattled my pockets, put a gun to my head and that was it. They just thought, this is a kid, that was it. It happened so fast. I was bleeding as I got up. I was crying at the same time, ran and went to the hospital and got stitched up.”
Didn’t they ask first before sticking the knife in?
“They don’t ask, hey. They stuck the knife in and took. It’s not like, ‘Hey can I have your money?’ It’s more so, ‘Get on the fucking floor, we’re robbing you.’”
I might faint!
“It has its fricken moments, f’sure,” says Jordy. “Another time was a bunch of young kids. I wasn’t going to put up a fight. I was 15. It was pretty gnarly.”
And what does it feel like to be stabbed?
“I didn’t feel it. It didn’t go too deep. Sliced more than deep. It was a burning pain. I got such an adrenalin hit and then I started running and as I was running I felt my side and I realised what had happened.”
Does the spectre of death scare Jordy?
“I’m not afraid of death but it’s crosses your mind, like, ‘Oh my god, there’s a gun and if he pulls the trigger I’m dead.’ To be in a situation like that, you don’t think about the physical act of dying, you think about how you’re not going to live and you’re not going to see your family.”
Crazy as anything, no?
Now watch this fabulous little documentary.
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Joel Tudor kicked his knees and called him a kook when he was a teen and that motivated him to take it to the next level.
Durban is more dangerous than sao paolo or Rio. at least jordy doesn’t whine about his shitty neighborhoods like Sunny and all brazos
Not to mention…. https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
They were just robbing his sneakers
Such a dick comment
It would have been more impressive if Jordy had been rhinoceros horned stabbed in the kidney.
In America, we’re already using a new term to replace “ghetto”. Webster Dictionary has officially defined ” Suburbia” as the ghetto. Noun. Adjective. À suburban landscape is reminiscent of the original WWII usage of ghetto but instead of Jews it’s hipsters and millenials. Unlike WWII, there’s no semblence of control of population cause we couldn’t build a damn wall fast enough.
That is why Jordy is miles ahead of any other Saffa surfer. Trial by fire. Go big or go home. Explains the Brazilian storm. Go manbearpig, go!
Other than the fucking WSL bullshit spin on it – not bad highlighting the injury road and expectations placed early days. You cant just go at it 100% without recovery and guess pressure is placed by sponsors to do just that, especially if hyped from an early age.
Like him other than his claim act!!!!