On brink of World Surf League cancellation, Kelly Slater spotlights future with brand-new training academy!

Ultra Hard Surf Academy.

After Wave-Ki proved to be just as disappointing for me as 2022 was for Conner Coffin, I had nearly given up on my search for the magic bullet that would make me less mediocre without actually requiring me to surf more often.

And then, about three months back, I received a text message from an industry insider that absolutely blew my mind. Ladies and gentlemen, this is not a drill. For the last five years, Kelly Slater has been working in secret on a comprehensive interactive online surf instruction program!

Technically I am breaching the NDA I signed by even disclosing this. Derek and Chas also had some serious questions about the exposure that BeachGrit might face for publicly disclosing something that Kelly does not intend to roll out until he officially retires, which given his performances in the first three events this season, might be imminent if he cannot skate past the midyear cut. Nevertheless, this is sufficiently newsworthy that it has been deemed worth the risk.

The iSarf Program: $later $urf $chool
The Pro Surfer: Kelly Slater
Website: slatersurfschool.com

Kelly has been hinting for quite some time that something like the $later $urf $chool (hereinafter “$$$”) has been in the works, stating in interviews that he started writing down the things that he had learned about surfing as early as his first year on tour all the way back in the 20th century (yes, that’s what the kids are calling it these days). This is more than just a book though—it’s a book, an online membership portal with access to hundreds of instructional videos breaking down every Ke11y technique you’ve ever seen him perform on a wave, and even a Q&A portal in which Kelly personally responds to your questions.

You’ll learn about the five different types of waves and how Kelly’s approach to surfing maneuvers changes according to the wave type. I also had no idea that there were six different types of barrels and that your barrel riding stance, both front side and backside, needs to change according to each.

If that weren’t enough to get you to open your wallet and give all your hard-earned cash to Kelly, $$$ gives you an interactive mechanism to apply all this knowledge with a game changing immersive experience using a VR headset and hand controllers compatible with Oculus Quest 2, HTC Vive, and Valve Index VR headsets (sorry all you PlayStation VR owners, but Kelly thinks you are a bunch of worthless peasants and refuses to support Sony’s hardware).

The surf training potential here is virtually (pun intended) unparalleled in comparison with any other offering. The $$$ proprietary GOAT Vision VR software reliably models the waves at world renowned surf breaks Kelly has famously surfed such as Pipeline, Cloudbreak, G-Land, Snapper, Lowers, and the South Side of Seal Beach Pier (look, I didn’t blow that spot up—everyone else already did, and the surf almost always sucks there) so that you can have the experience of virtually surfing these breaks while also receiving real-time feedback to correct your wonky and inefficient surfing technique.

There is also a proprietary surfboard-shaped VR controller in the works tentatively called the “GOAT Stick” that will further enhance this VR experience. Though still in development, the GOAT Stick can reliably determine your foot placement, heel/toe and front foot/back foot pressure, and rail grab location. This is expected to cost upwards of $4,000, but you know you are going to buy one when they come market. I certainly will.

And, even without the benefit of the GOAT Stick (which I am absolutely buying), I can tell you that the combination of Kelly’s omniscient surf knowledge coupled with being able to virtually surf waves like Pipe I’d otherwise have no business paddling out at certainly works as advertised.

Without having to skate around soccer cones like a T-Rex as required by OMBE or perform surf katas as required by Wave Ki, my surfing started to improve almost right away. I immediately recognized why I was cutting my turns short and what I needed to do with my body positioning and hand/arm placement to rip some big arcing turns, just like Kelly! Whereas I hadn’t blown the tail at the apex of any of my turns since I was a teenager, I am now blowing it like an industrial-grade fan.

$$$’s offering is not just limited to surfing technique either. If you are an aspiring professional surfer or are one of those weirdo parents homeschooling your kid and harboring delusional expectations that your little grom will become the next Kelly Slater, $$$ also goes into detail about Kelly’s strategies for competitive surfing.

You’ll learn about time management in heats, cheeky priority exploitation, and influencing the judges both in and out of the water to ensure that you get consistently overscored and your opponents are underscored. Kelly’s famed “mind games” are also heavily featured, including baiting your opponent into give up priority via offering a high five and asking your opponent sitting in priority whether he is going left at a righthand pointbreak as he is paddling for a set wave.

Some of these techniques can also be used to great effect even outside of competition to ensure that you get more waves and that the other surfers in the lineup are positively tickled by your humor. For instance, the gentlemen sitting at the top of the point at Steamer Lane were genuinely appreciative of my use of the aforementioned “going left” question the last time I spent a weekend up in Santa Cruz. I made a lot of friends that day.

The pricing for the $$$ program is TBD, but there’ve been rumblings of a one-time initiation fee of $10,000 USD and then $250 per month thereafter. All totally worth it.

For years, I had assumed that my surfing ability had plateaued and that the commitments and rigors of staying gainfully employed would not permit me to spend the kind of time in the ocean that would be required to actually reach that elusive next level. But I am here to tell you that the magic bullet exists.

It might be a lifetime before we truly grasp the impact that Kelly has had on surfing. In the 90s, he convinced the world that something like a 6’3”x17”x2.25” board that only Kelly was capable of riding was the best possible equipment you could buy. In the 00s, he convinced the world that a stubby 5’11” quad was the equipment to be using at Pipe. In the 2010s, he convinced the world that Adriano de Souza didn’t exist by unveiling his wave pool mere days after de Souza was crowned world champion and thereby making everyone forget about poor Adriano. All of these things, obviously, were never true, but we believed them anyway.

And as you likely have surmised unless you are just hopelessly dense, none of the foregoing is true either. But since I’ve attached Kelly’s name to it, you’re going to believe it anyway on some level. And that’s because you want to believe it, even though you understand full well that this is a complete and utter fabrication. Hell, even I want to believe that $$$ is actually a thing.

Because ultimately, everyone wants to believe in the snake oil, even when they know it isn’t real.

It is for this reason that peddling the snake oil will always be a lucrative business opportunity provided that you can manage to stay away from outright embezzlement and avoid administrative scrutiny over the false representations that you make to your investors.

I will therefore conclude with one final proposition: Ultra Hard Surf Academy?

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World Surf League delivers ultimate April Fools’ prank, officially releases Surf Ranch Pro tickets for sale to public!

Much mirth.

Tickets for Surf Ranch Pro presented by 805 Beer are now on sale! Watch the WSL Championship Tour while experiencing a festival atmosphere packed with live music, food and drink, exclusive shopping, and lake activities.

Along with the excitement of watching the world’s best surfers, you’ll have access to a variety of food trucks, live music performances, and on-site shopping to keep you entertained throughout the event. And when it’s time to rest and recharge, there are plenty of comfortable places to stay nearby. Don’t miss out on this incredible experience – grab your tickets now!

Whether you’re making the trip from Los Angeles, San Francisco, or beyond, find out the easiest way to get to Lemoore, California. Plan your trip today.

We offer a wide range of on-site accommodations from the amazing airstreams to luxe glamping tents to RV parking. If you choose to stay off-site there are plenty of options nearby.

Sip on some cold 805 beer inside the wave basin, grab a bite to eat at the food trucks, watch headline musical act Tropa Magica perform live.

There’s something for everyone!

(And there, ladies and germs, is funny.)

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Haz Hollmer-Cross, saved by his Daddy, big-wave shredder James, a man who ain't no stranger to existential wipeouts.

Teenager Harry Hollmer-Cross brought back to life by big-wave surfer Dad after horror wipeout at Tasmania’s notorious Shipstern Bluff, “They’ve crossed over…it’s your worst nightmare as a parent”

Deaf in one ear, loss of motor skill functions, head trauma, ongoing chest issues.

A nineteen-year-old surfer is real lucky his old boy, the big-wave legend James Hollmer-Cross, was watching him shred from the channel at Shipstern Bluff last Sunday. 

After Harry Hollmer-Cross wiped out and hit the bottom he was knocked unconscious and “rag dolled down the point under water though all the rocks.”

James found his kid face down and not breathing, dragged him onto the jetski, and took him to a nearby boat where he and a pal took turns hitting the kid with CPR until he drew breath. 

An emergency chopper got Haz to Royal Hobart hospital. 

“As soon as I got the breaths in, I knew straight away that his body was reacting to that,” James told ABC. “That’s the scariest thing, I think … basically you’re bringing them back, aren’t you? They’ve crossed over for a little bit there. It’s your worst nightmare, especially as a parent. I’m just thankful I was there.”

 

A crowd-funding account has been set up for Haz, who’s still in hospital with “head trauma and ear damage”. Looks like he’s gonna need a hearing aid in the left speaker and he’s gonna have ongoing chest issues. 

“The concussion is looking at loss of motor skill functions and will also have muscle deterioration and away from work with out income and worst of all for him, no surfing, The road to recovery is going to be a slow process,” writes his pal Danny Griffiths, who set up the account. “The funds raised will go towards Harry’s rehabilitation, loss of income and medical costs and help get his life back on track. Lets get this young charger back in the ocean.” 

His Dad ain’t a stranger to existential wipeouts.

In 2014, after a wipeout at Pedra Branca, a wild open-sea zombie sixteen miles south of Tassie, he said, “It’s the heaviest thing that has ever happened to me. I thought I was going to die. I thought I’d broken my back. I almost passed out, but I fought it, and then I came through. It was pretty euphoric.”

Donate here. 

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Sydney Sweeney, as Cassie Howard in Euphoria, main photo, and brave and daring and honey coloured Kai Lenny, inset.

Daring Hawaiian big-wave surfer Kai Lenny immortalised alongside erotic TV temptress Sydney Sweeney and BIPOC stunt driver Dee Bryant in new “Built Ford Proud” campaign!

“Big wave surfing is like stepping into a ring with a monster,” says Lenny

The surfing phenomenon Kai Lenny, a daring multi-discipline surfer who has carved an oasis in the surfing world with guts and with blood, has been immortalised alongside the inspirational BIPOC stunt driver Dee Bryant and Euphoria star Sydney Sweeney in a new advertising campaign for Ford. 

Lenny is a twenty-nine-year-old married daddy with twin baby girls and is a long-time fan of the American icon, using their antiquated gas powered trucks to cart around his flotilla of jet skis and his myriad accessories, including paddle boards and kite surfing paraphernalia.  

“Big wave surfing is like stepping into a ring with a monster,” says Lenny, although if there’s even one squirt of testosterone left in your body, you’ll be here for the cameo of Ms Sweeney.

Her character in Euphoria, Cassie Howard, is a people pleaser, as they say, who “doesn’t know how to communicate without showing her body”.

Sweeney, whose “bosoms speak of butter, milk, carnal abundance and the firepower of hard-prowed gunboats”, wishes to enjoy the same erotic privileges as her male counterparts but is foiled by the usual male double-standards, the old he-stud/she-slut thing, and her inability to accept man’s sad and and maddening submission to the phallus, an organ that requires regular strangulation or at least a brisk tug, daily.

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Hamilton (pictured) facing fear. Photo: Instagram
Hamilton (pictured) facing fear. Photo: Instagram

Race darling Lewis Hamilton terrorized by shark during surf at “new favorite place” Byron Bay ahead of Australian Grand Prix!

"Australians are really kind of crazy, huh?"

Oh what happy times for Australia’s sporting fans. In three days’ time, the Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach will bring with it the world’s greatest surfers including, but not limited to, Kelly Slater. Exciting times and even moreover considering that Formula 1’s third stop will act as a delectable appetizer.

Yes, the gentlemen, including, but not limited to, Lewis Hamilton will start their engines tomorrow morning, very near Bells Beach in Melbourne and zoom hither and thither.

Beyond exciting.

Hamilton, a noted surfer, has been enjoying the early autumn weather with a fencing pal but also becoming terrorized by a rude shark.

He happened to be in Byron Bay, a place he appears to have just discovered and fallen deeply in love with when he decided to go surfing. Well, a shark circled him the whole time, he said, though he didn’t paddle straight straight back to the beach with shows much improvement in spine.

In 2019, you see, Hamilton refused to paddle out at Port Phillip Bay due shark fear even though his great friend Kelly Slater was in the water.

“I wanted to do it here but I couldn’t find a netted area to go to. I just can’t go where there are sharks, man,” he told the international press. “Every Australian I meet they’re like ‘nah, nah, you’ll be alright. If a shark comes up to you, punch it in the face.’ Australians are really kind of crazy, huh?”

They sure are.

Back to Byron, though. Do you think there is room in that quaint little town if Hamilton decides to purchase a little plot and settle down?

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