Perfect timing

Everything in life is about the perfect timing, I’m beginning to understand this more and more and although it seems a lot of these elements are out of your hands and a lot of luck is involved it’s just not the case and to a degree you can control this yourself. The key is waiting, planning and knowing when the time is right to be on top of your game, peak to early you’re spent when the time comes and too late, well you’ve missed your chance to shine.
I’m the sort of human that generally peaks to early, I get so excited, have so much energy I just find it hard to control and wait for the right moment to release. It’s been a problem all my life but realising and admitting that is the first step, isn’t it? I’ve been working on it for some time and on the odd occasion I’ve nailed it like my first wave at Mullaghmore back in March but I haven’t perfected it yet.
So the waves were pretty big last week, possibly the biggest and most perfect I’ve ever seen but the problem was I peaked to early, got my bones rattled and when it was my time to shine I just couldn’t perform.
It’s all work in progress. But If you feel the need to follow it more closely LIKE my new Facebook page which I’ll update as much as humanly possible or I think appropriate which of course is a blurry bendy line.

Twice as long as half

Look at that face, how can someone so handsome be so talented? I’m a marketing dream if only someone out there could just see that.
So the reason for the serious face and concentration is I’ve been doing this FII Waterman Survival course down in Nazare, Portugal with World free diving champion Martin Stepanek. Although I do get quite into my training I’ve never been one to do breath holding or anything like that and I usually approach any wipe out scenario just by relaxing and going with the flow and knowing at some point I’ll surface and everything will be just the same as it was before. It’s worked until now so I must be doing something right but I did jump at the chance to do this course and see how the pros do it and get myself more confidence when in the mixer.
The result is I have increased my breath hold big time with a water static of 4.05 minutes and I’ve learned some great training techniques which I can apply in the pool and on dry land, this over time should increase that even more. I’d recommend anyone looking to gain confidence in the sea to do this course as it was a real eye opener.
Thanks Martin and Ryan for passing on your knowledge but also Garrett for getting me involved, really stoked. Thanks.

Open windows

Cold Feat from Mikey on Vimeo.

‘Dear Katie, please pass this message to Andrew, It’s from the sound of music!!! WHEN THE LORD CLOSES A DOOR HE OPENS A WINDOW!! Xx’
This is the text my mother in law sent Katie late last week. It did touch a little nerve and a tear came to my eye as I did 100 press ups then downed a can of larger to prove real men can get emotional too.
So the reason she sent me this message was I had a bit of bad news last week as my long term sponsor Analog announced they were heading back to the hills and leaving me at the beach. It’s a bit of a scenario really as it seemed to be going so well. That’s life I suppose and times are tough, it was an amazing 7 or so years with the brand and I owe a lot to them in believing in me and giving me that extra bit of help in getting me where I wanted to go. So a special thanks to all involved over the years.
On a brighter note check my new clip out that Mikey edited for me. Anyone fancy sponsoring the best looking big wave surfer in the business? (not including Mark Vissor of course). It’s an opportunity not to be missed.