Would the course be nothing but bumper sticker
wisdom or would Koa offer something more serious?
It’s madness out there. People in protest
gluing themselves to things, strapping bombs to their chests, the
rest of us seeking to cope.
To whom can we turn in this twisting world?
Thankfully, Koa Smith is now offering a seven-day online course
to help us find our center. For less than forty dollars, Koa Smith
will sherpa us around our own heads in pursuit of peak mental
health.
If religion is considered to the be opiate of the masses, the
cult of mindfulness is a close over the counter second. And since
we are all drunk on finding ourselves right now, Koa Smith’s new
course could be the New Year’s hit we need.
Unsure if his aim was to calm the chaos or capitalize on it, I
wanted to know more.
The 4 advertised reviews on the
website certainly piqued my interest, especially this one:
“I didn’t realize how much of a muscle my mind actually is!”
It is not.
Koa Smith, the gifted big wave surfer-model with hope-colored
eyes, alabaster teeth and mahogany-glazed skin promises that after
only a few days, “You won’t even recognize yourself in the
mirror.”
A heavy claim.
The challenge is presented by Portalexp.com.
Here’s how they describe their expert:
“Koa Smith is a professional surfer, thirty-second famed barrel
rider, entrepreneur and true showman. While his life looks idyllic
from the outside; sunshine, nature, travel & nonstop adventure, he
struggles to balance it all just like the rest of us.
“Through a severe head injury that left him with crippling
depression, the pressure of competition and the bombardment of
business demands, he realized that something needed to change. He
wanted to take charge of his mental game. In turn, through
extensive research and support, he developed a mental exercise
routine, something that he commits to every morning.
“A routine that puts him in the driver seat before the chaos of
the world even has a chance to make an impression. His mental game
changed everything and now he wants to share his morning routine
with you. Are you ready to transform your mental game? $37.”
I was to connect with entrepreneur Koa Smith on the financial,
if not spiritual, plane. In truth, I was spiritually less ambitious
and more interested in having a good laugh but promised myself to
give it an honest go.
Meditation, from the Latin meditatum meaning “to ponder,” is
lauded by some and brushed aside by others, determined to be little
more than a guise for idleness; Its roots date to 1500 BC
and can be traced through the
Hindu’s Vedic texts to the Bible to Joe Dispenza.
I’m comforted in the direct line of influence from Christ to Koa
Smith.
But would the brilliant surfer from Kauai be out of his depth
here?
Would the course be nothing but bumper sticker wisdom and
silk-screened t-shirt platitudes?
Or would Koa offer something more
serious? Either way, his expertise in health and wellness would be
on display in front of trusting individuals like me who have
nothing better to do with their mornings, pre-surf.
Day 1: We are tasked to draft a list of 100
things we are grateful for. Number 1 on my list? Derek throwing 37
extra bones in my Paypal. Koa says that he will provide me tools
that will tap into my deepest power. “This isn’t just a seven-day
challenge: It’s a gateway to a whole new lifestyle,” he says. I
anticipate a gracious timeshare offer in Boca.
Day 2: No sales pitch. Instead, we gaze at
ourselves in the mirror for a round of positive self-talk. “I can
be whoever I want to be!” My mind wanders to Sartre then back as
Koa Smith relays the story of his own self-determinist talk every
morning during his Ultimate Surfer run. “I’m the best surfer here”
was his daily mantra and was he really?
He tells me that my mirror talk will be awkward at first but in
time I will “break through.”
It’s a crack in the alabaster; Koa’s faith in this kind of
messaging is rivaled only by Nathan Fletcher’s belief in
numerology. He doesn’t reveal any sturdy foundation for this
claim.
He says, “Just do it and it might just happen.”
Day 3: The cold shower. Koa throws up his hands
in prayer: “I’m doing this because it’s good for me. I’m going to
have a better day. BOOM! You get in the cold shower and you do not
regret it. The effects are setting yourself up for big wins the
rest of the day. That discipline, putting in the work.”
I just do it. Boom! I’m freezing.
And irony hits considering that in a half-hour, I’d be iced over
wrapped in my Hyperflex bobbing in 46 degrees.
Day 4: After the gratitude, the mirror talk,
and the cold shower, we run through four series of movements to
loosen our bodies. As we roll our hips and shoulders, Koa tells us
to continue the peptalk, this time speaking specifically to each of
our joints and muscles, but I feel silly telling my quads how
gorgeous they are. My wife squishes her face in disgust, and I tell
her it’s science?
Overall, I appreciate the warmup. It’s the only time in the
course when Mr. Smith mentions surfing, too. He says when he goes
out for a surf, he doesn’t need to get ready: He is ready. Good
point.
Day 5: Things go crooked fast. I listen to Koa
talk through a 12-minute “recentering” meditation. There’s a
sustain placed on Koa’s vocals intended to fool us that Koa has
somehow breeched our heads. It’s accompanied by the most angelic,
beautiful Buddhist-like music I’ve ever heard. Like in a Thai
takeout with massage in the back.
His words glide into the mind:
“Picture a tub of warm honey getting poured on top of your head
slowly dripping down your head your eyes your nose everywhere, it’s
touching it’s relaxing that space, slowly dripping down your chin
your neck, relaxing your throat your shoulders your chest your
upper back relaxing your heart…
“Picturing that honey dripping past your quads…”
Oh, you’re a little sickie, Koa, aren’t cha?
As I reenter the shower I wonder if Koa Smith shouldn’t be
paying me the 37 smacks.
Day 6: Nail the gratitude, the shower, the
stretching, skip the sex talk. Today we journal. Identifying our
daily “intention” is critical, whatever that intention may be. I
grow tired of the whole course and paddle out without any
intentions yet somehow snag a few snappy lefts.
Day 7: The final step: “Grab a jug of
high-quality water, get into nature and the sun in your eyes. You
don’t need to stare directly into the sun.”
And with that counsel, it was over. A week of Koa Smith.
I appreciated a few aspects of the challenge: the stretching and
cold showers are smart for the bod. And I’m anticipating some
positive downstream effects assuming I keep it up. But the rest—
the gratitude, the mirror talk, the honey drip, etc.— are soft on
the hard science.
Just because Koa Smith earned a certificate of completion from Joe
Dispenza and read a couple of wellness books, does it give him
the chops to act as a paid cognitive behavioral
therapist/physiologist? I just finished David McCullough’s book
about the building of the Brooklyn Bridge. It didn’t make me a
civil engineer.
Koa Smith seems to suffer from what’s called the “illusion of
explanatory depth” where we think we know something but in fact do
not; we only know about it. There’s a big difference.
Hubris, baby.
The online hosting outfit, PortalEXP out of Carlsbad, provides
support links for those wanting to kick habits or throw themselves
off bridges and this is fantastic. They also sell 88-dollar
hoodies.
To boot, they advertise that 10% of proceeds go to something
called H347P. It’s unclear what the charity is, however; H347P is
Portal’s podcast is led by “The Misfits of Consciousness.” Along
with Koa Smith, Portal promotes a half-dozen other D-list
twenty-somethings with expensive haircuts and tattooed
knuckles.
Koa Smith is a genuinely likeable character who is passionate
about helping people get right in the head. Maybe a grain of salt
is needed to digest Koa’s program, all in good fun, etc.
I truly hope his course helps people in need (or who think they
are in need). But to charge money for ideas that are already spread
free and wide across the internet? Couldn’t he just post his advice
on his celebrated Insta account— gratis?
Watching the daily videos, one can’t help but wonder who we are
viewing: Koa Smith the beneficent or Koa Smith the
entrepreneur.
Would you take non-surfing advice from Koa?
Or are you more likely to get your life coaching from DLS and
Chas on The Grit?
