August 26, 2024 • 27 mins
Today, on the Daily Bespoke Podcast, we talk to Matt Fromaston, a blind surfer taking on one of the biggest waves in the world!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Low energy.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Low energy.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
Lower the energy, lower the energy.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Come on, high energy.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
It's person. It is the twenty seventh of August, I believe,
in the year of Our Lord, twenty twenty four. I believe.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Just checking that, yes, it is.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
How I was down at the post office the other day, right,
I was at the post office and I was sending
a parcel overseas, and for some reason the post office,
when you've seen something of for seas, you've got to
fill out this really small form. It's as if, like
you know, computers hadn't been existed. You've got to fill
it out with your pen. And capitals love it. They
(00:58):
love a piece of paper. I mean that you couldn't
just fill out the details and then they printed out
and you sign it. Now you got to fill out
of those details and if you get anything wrong anyway,
I got right to the bloody end of it. Took
me freaking ages yet to find all these details about
the person you're sending to. It was only in the UK,
and bloody hell got to the end of it. You
know what I rape. I wrote the twenty sixth of
August twenty twenty five. Oh no, I got right to
(01:21):
the end and I put a five instead of four,
like an absolute helm mappet, and I had to do
the whole bloody thing again.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
May as well be twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Really, so just flick it over now?
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Why not? Because otherwise you just get this. I mean,
what happened to twenty twenty two didn't happen? Do you
remember twenty twenty two?
Speaker 3 (01:37):
There was something happened in twenty twenty two. I remember
there was something in twenty twenty two. I think like
at least one thing happened.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
It was ever moving to like there was six sixty
years and stuff like that that was in between the
lockdowns the start of twenty two. Was that in between
the lockdowns? And then had the big one at the
end of twenty twenty one.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
When I think so, maybe when was the Rugby World.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Gut twenty twenty hold on the Rugby Cup as it
was last year, wasn't it twenty twenty three? Yeah, twenty nineteen,
twenty twenty three, fifteen fifteen two thousand, nineteen twenty twenty.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Three selection and the matrix We've just skipped twenty twenty two.
Someone's fucked up because nothing happened in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
Did we have the woman's fooferable cup here or something
like that?
Speaker 3 (02:22):
That's twenty two times about that about I reckon people?
What happened in twenty twenty two? What happened in twenty
twenty two?
Speaker 4 (02:33):
The Beijing Winter Olympics?
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Turmoil rocks British politics, A tree of crisises buffeted Pakistan,
a humanity Ariian crisis deepened somewhere.
Speaker 4 (02:45):
Sure?
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Oh, and when did.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Russia invY into twenty twenty two?
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Russia's invasion of Ukraine focuses attention in the Ukraine's for
playing their homeland for security abroad, Latin America moves left
Iranians protein thing.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Really nothing eveened?
Speaker 4 (03:06):
You're reading the International one mate? You got to find
this Wikipedia pace it off here? Okay, Because January twenty three,
twenty third of January, COVID nineteen in New Zealand?
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Two?
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Were we still pretending to have COVID in twenty twenty two?
Would we move?
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (03:20):
We did apparently because on the twenty third of January, Yeah,
COVID nineteen years and the whole of new little moves
to read under the COVID nineteen Protection Framework at eleven
fifty nine penty Mission of multiple community cases of the
COVID nineteen according to Wikipedia.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
So do we shut down in twenty twenty two as well?
Speaker 1 (03:39):
We did do it?
Speaker 4 (03:41):
One that we did that we shut down heaps got
You got to remember that.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
We kept shutting down.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
I don't remember that. Oh my god. I shouldn't have
asked for.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
You know, the most depressing thing is that you know
that story that was out last week about kids that
hadn't been talked to. Oh god, it was of COVID
and COVID lockdowns and the effect of wearing masks in
public and then keeping them home and just putting in
front of TVs. And you've got all these kids starting
school now that were the COVID babies that can't speak.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Oh no, So I find it all depressed.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
That's so depressing that we It's so depressing that we
took away the lives of children for adults because children
were fine.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
It's never happened before in the history of the world.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
We need to You've got to recalibrate, so you you
protect the children and anyways, and always always got to
go for the children first. You always got to think
about the future, always always with the children, not the end.
But we did everything for the oldies, didn't we.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
Queen died o queeney.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
She blessed the queen. Did old Tans get coronated that
year as well.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
It was a year away that he got. It took
a year for the coronation last year.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
To get all that weird shit together out of storage
for the coronation last year.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
With the coronation, I don't know, took absolute helmets the
transmission gully. But the way opened up on the thirty
first of March.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
That was a good day.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
Yeah, I came moving on this. Look here. A eighth
of June, the Supreme Court overturnes the wrongful conviction of
Allen Hall. I don't know who that is.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Yep, it's good, Yep.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
Sure July anything happened near the first case of monkey
pox was deticted in Auckland on the ninth of July. Okay,
do you want to keep going or to.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Go to August? Just sort of pray see the.
Speaker 4 (05:19):
Bones when you part of me, the boiler bones.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Pray see the bones, like, just read it over and
then just give us the give us the bullet points.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
You might have to give me a sick then I
only mar Okay, the messon the remains of two children
are firm. Inness six point four magnitude earthquake occurs in
the Okay, not interested in that.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
One.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
Two restoration workers become the first people to enter that.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Okay, well I want to hear that one nah restraction
workers into the.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
World Crossius Cathedral since February two.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Thy did you see that the other day? Have morth
balled it? Yeah? They've spent like heat.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Yeah, But I mean that's that's the logical fallacy of
if you've spent stuff, you keep spending on it.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
I agree with mothballing it. But they but they're mothballing
it and they're putting a thing around it, they're making
it safe whatever that means. And then they're putting a
fence around it and it's just going to stay like that.
So that whole square, they've spent so much money on that,
And it was really interesting because there was I remember
the point where they went should we do this or
should we not do this? And they went, let's not
(06:28):
do this. Even the Anglican Church was like, let's not
do this. It's going to be too expensive.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
It was going to be one hundred and eighty million,
wasn't it.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Yeah, I think in the more two hundred and something.
And then they went, it's it's going to cost too much.
And then some guys got together, some dudes got together
and went, n man, we've got to do it. We've
got to save it. And then a whole lot of
people put their money into it, and then they started
and then they've gone, it's actually way more expensive than
what we thought. And they've spent years. I mean Jamandersen
(06:56):
and Philip Burden, they really wanted it, and so a
whole lot of people. I mean, imagine if you were
one of the donors that's given like half a million dollars. Yeah,
and because you thought, oh, yeah, this is something I
want to do. And now, oh man, they should have
at the start. And I don't have any connection to
christ Juturek, so it's easy for me to say something,
(07:17):
and who gives a shit when I say but I
would have thought that from the start they could have gone, oh,
you know what what will be cool is if we
keep some of the facade of it and then we
create this brand new building. And so when we look
at this, we'll go look at the old and the new,
melded together. There's heaps of really cool examples overseas. Yeah,
and we'll make it into this cool looking thing that
(07:39):
could be a feature for the old and the new.
And it's a marx A moment in time in christ
Church's history. And it would have been it would have
cost like eighty million bucks, would have been done. It
would have been done like six years ago.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Put a earthquake museum out hanging it with quat museum
out there of it.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Just something cool.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
I think any chance in this country have got to
hold onto the old, mate, I think we should prefer
that over then. I you see, I mean, look at
you what you've done in your own city, Like Auckland's
just you started having up ugly buildings about thirty years
ago and got rid of all the old.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Did you see the old buildings that were there before?
Though the shit?
Speaker 4 (08:09):
They look good.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Half of them was shit, but they look good good Aucklands.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
Why don't they just do your theory Aukland.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
The suburban houses are good, but Auckland is really fucked
up its old buildings in the city.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
There were a lot that was shit.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
I said, this is the attitude.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
It's a lot though, but you've got to keep building, mate,
You've got to keep going. You got to keep you
got to keep yeah, keep going.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
I would have thought you'd be an advocate for keeping
them any kind of history, and we've got no history. Yeah,
any kind of history. We've got to get.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Okay, what about buildings like the fay Rich White Building
for example, which is a beautiful building that's done on Questreat.
Now there was an old building that was there, that
was built in the eighteen hundreds. That's not there anymore.
But now there's an amazing building there is better than
the one that was there.
Speaker 4 (08:52):
Is it the Strip Club?
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Sometimes the new buildings are better than the old ones.
But they've just got to be good buildings.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Really, Because I'm looking about Auckland and going, there's a
lot of shitty buildings.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
Is that the Strip Club? And all serious? Is that
that white big one on Queen Street?
Speaker 1 (09:05):
The White House?
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (09:06):
The White House?
Speaker 1 (09:06):
No, it's down is that Queen Street? But pobs And
Street for example, you know where though those horrific apartments are,
there were heaps of really shitty buildings up there. I
remember as a kid shitty. So they placed some yeah,
but at least they were apartment buildings. And now they
leak and you know, there's a bit of a bit
(09:27):
of industry going like people people are employed to build them.
It was something you.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
Guys, see what you've done down there, and with the
train station looks really good. Yeah, train station is good.
The train station looks great. Good example, I kind of
got a front when I walked down there for the
first time.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
My mate had an apartment. We made some terrible stision.
My mate had an apartment and it looked out over
the harbor and that's down at the bottom of Simon Street.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
I know that I went in this apartment. Yeah, kind
of had a stage, had a raised bit of a
better yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Yeah. And then they just built the shittest cheap wall
of buildings across that front there and the best place
in Auckland whoever made those? And there the shiittest apartments
that are right along that wall there where they could
have built something good.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Is it c Yeah, something good if you're on the
other side of it. It's not good if you but
a few where your mate was, Yeah, you get a
good view on the other side.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
We've got a podcast, guests, we have to go.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
I reckon he was punished by Karma because he stole
We went to France and he stole ahead from the
catacombs a skull, and he brought it back and he
put it into a cabinet in his library in that apartment,
and the next thing you know, the cea view is
going up.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Do you think it was a skull of an architect.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
I think was the skull of an ark and he
designed the building under the catacombs in Paris. He brought
him back and that and that that, that skull used
its magic to build.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
He was a ship architect. He was terrible ship architect
in the ageing hundreds in Paris and.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
Sod all show this guy for stealing my skull from
my rightful burial spot.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Hey were they all people that were killed in best
steel and stuff and the revolution all the way back
to the Crimean War? Mate, Oh, Crimean War. They bought
all the skulls back. Yeah, yeah, don't bury them on
They didn't bury them when they.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
It was everyone everyone? Everyone? Mate?
Speaker 1 (11:20):
What everyone?
Speaker 3 (11:21):
What everyone from?
Speaker 1 (11:22):
And what from?
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Lots of different times the catacams.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Oh okay, why didn't they bury them where they were?
Speaker 3 (11:26):
But they did? But then they dig them up, they
did them?
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Why they dig them up.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
I don't know. I don't know why it is, some
many of them from the Crimean War. But I guess
that you brought a lot of people back, a lot
of plague, A lot of plague people in there.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
You bury them whence they are from. Okay, we're going
to take a break and we're going to come back
with Matt Formstone and he's involved in a new documentary
called The Blind Sea.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
He's a champion blind surfer.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Yeah, and we're back and Thormston joins us. Now, good morning, man,
how are you.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
I'm excellent. How are you?
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Yeah? Good? And I'm just reading about this new doco,
The Blind Sea. It's about you and your attempt to
surf the monster waves and Portugal.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Ye had a cracked nazar.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
So we take it back a few steps, and so
how does blind surfing work?
Speaker 2 (12:25):
It's funny everyone says thinks about surfing and thinks about
blind and their brain can't put the two things together.
But it's actually like you, I walked through a car pike.
I've got I saw me a little bit. I go
about three percent vision in my right eye and one
percent in my left eye. So it's sween. It's the
technical term, but it's I can't see a lot. So
when I'm walking for a car park or across a
(12:47):
footy field, like there's just everything's you know, you can step,
trip over a ball, or all your ankle in a
hole here the toe ball. There's just so many things
that are trying to hurt you, Whereas in the ocean
you fall off and it's just a safe right. So
I can I feel the wave. So on the on
the land is a cane sometimes like a white cane
to feel the grounds on on the land on the
In the ocean, my surfboard becomes my cane, so I
(13:08):
can sort of feel.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
So you can feel what kind of wave is coming.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Well, that's different, so I'm like the ocean sort of
does it. So just a feel in the ocean. So
when I wave is about to break, it actually sucks
the water because of the way the water breaking. The
water in the wave out the back is not the
white water that hits the shore, right, It's just kinnetic
energy that's traveling through the ocean. And so if you
can feel the water just before the wave gets to you,
(13:35):
it sucks the water back towards it. The water actually
goes backwards and then before it goes forward, so you
can feel that, and then you get your bobbing up
and down. So there's the whole bunch of fuel going
on the ocean and you can tap into.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Wow and so what exacts? So you're talking about three
percent and one percent? So when you're locking, what is it?
What are you? What are you seeing?
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Uh So, if you look, if you're looking through you,
if you're driving in your car and you're looking through
your windscreen, if you get white spray paint and just
spray paint basically all the middle of the wind screen octual,
you can't see anything. And then and then get sandpaper
and scratch all the outsides out until you've only got
three percent of the clarity left. You can sort of
see shapes and a few blurs and lines and the
(14:17):
bit of color.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
And that's what I say, Okay, And has it always
been like that for you?
Speaker 2 (14:23):
I hopeful vision until I was five, and then I
lost about ninety five percent of my vision and then
I've lost a few more percent in the last couple
of years. I had about five percent vision for most
of my life until the last couple of years.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
And when did you start surfing when I was five.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
So I grew up a Narrawben in Norman Beaches of Sydney.
It's a surf town, you know. I used to deliver
the paper in the morning for Damian Hardman who was
a world champion, and catch the bus with the Nathan
Heads who went on to become a world tour surfer.
And it was just surfing everywhere. So we all surfed
and there was no different. I just had to do
it a bit differently.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Did you grow up in a place it was a
little bit like some summer bay from home and away.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Not too far from some of the Palm Beach about
six beaches north of Narraba.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Oh that makes it very easy for New Zealanders to
pitch picture.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Yeah, but yeah, slightly different in the in the drama
and what's going to say?
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Yeah, there always were there, always people splitting up with
people and you know, cheating on people and just dramas everywhere.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
I'm sure there was, what I was aware of it.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
So when you're out on the water, do you knowing
which day you want to go out on and all
that sort of stuff? How do you how do you
work all of that?
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Well, like I mean I've got accessibility technology. These days,
everyone's got access to wave forecasting apps and tools, and
I can just I can listen to them to know
what's going on. In fact, like most of my mates
call me to see what's going on because I can interpret.
I've got a very good memory, so I can interpret
the data probably better than most them and know where
it's going to be good. And then we just go
(16:03):
out like I used to, I surf by myself forever,
like I just been. I was. Probably most people with
disabilities could probably relate. So you're just over over independent
and want to do everything at well and don't accept
help from people. So that was me for most of
my life. And then I started competing, like we started
a world tour for parasurfing in twenty sixteen. And when
I did that, I realized that getting help was going
(16:23):
to make me a better athlete. So I started asking
for help for that, and then I realized, hey, this
is heaps easier. So I now surfing with a spot up.
We call it a spotter in the water. They basically
tell me when the waves coming in, which direction to go,
and even what type of wave it is. And that's
how I compete as well. And I'm competing and then
I've won comps all over the world or a four
time world champion, and I've won everything like the Hawaii
(16:46):
US Open and everything about four or five times, and
then I'm you know, big wave surfing is a bit different.
So when I'm on the when I'm coming in to
really big waves, like I actually said it in that's
where I actually said again the world records. So the
biggest wave I caught fifty one feet, You're crazy, which
is a better five story building.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Wow, are you crazy?
Speaker 2 (17:06):
And catching waves that big? You can't paddle, so you're
towed into the waves. The boys are towing me behind
jet ski to match the speed of the wave, and
then they blow a whistle so they know, yep, this
is the time they blow whistle. And I was just
trust that that's the right time and just pull the
rope and surfing.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Man, Firstly, you're crazy, you're crazy surfing those waves anyway.
The fact that you can't is you've got one percent
through one eye and three percent through another and you
can't see what's going on. That That is, man, that
must be scary at times.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Look it was. The surfing part was never scary because
you just focus. You're just having fun, right, You're just
doing what you do. But just before we went to Nazaree,
we went to the we're making a doco, right, making
a film, so I didn't I just wanted to go
and do it. I'm gonna do it. I just wanted
to go and do the surfing. But the director, he's
making a movie, so he wants to get media, so
he went to the media and told them, we go, Hey,
that's gonna the blind guy's going to surf Nazaree. And
(17:56):
of course the narrative from the media is they're going
to kill the blind guy. He can't do this, which
is not different to the rest of my world. Like
grew up playing forby Union, played ice hockey, you played
rugby league, all too representative levels. But before I started
playing and everyone said he can't play, he's blind, he can't,
he can't. But but hearing about Nazaree saying he can't
and he's going to die, it was a bit different
(18:19):
because IVE got three little kids. Now, I don't want
to come home to my kids. So the first before
my first wave out there, I was just laying in
the water, going Are they right or am I right?
Like me and my team are the best in the
world at what we do, Like I've got the best
big wave surfers in the world as my as my
safety team, and like we know what we're doing. But
you know, you're just a second guessing yourself because you've
heard this narrative for sort of weeks from the media.
(18:39):
So that was that was what I did, have a
bit of nerves, but then once we caught the first wave,
we just we just surf for three days and had
the best fun ever.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
So the risks when I guess there are risks as
when the when the wave crashes, Yeah, and and and
I guess you've got You've got it. You know you're
not out there with with you know, hundreds of other people.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
No, so I've got Well, I had a team of
four safety four jet skis as my safety team. So
my toe driver tows me in and then I've got
a jet ski driver either side of me, so they
basically watch my wash. They travel behind the wave and
watch my board wash fin wash in the back of
the way to see where I am. And they've got
a spot on land that tells them where I am
(19:24):
and they said, meant, obviously you train for when the
training you do is for when things go wrong, right,
That's that's the part where the certain parts all fun.
But when things go wrong, that's when you need to
get you get it right, because I mean, the real
risk over there is that people lose their life. Like
six weeks after I was there, a man lost his
life in smaller conditions than what wheel surfing. So it's
a real risk. But there's a lot of perceiver risks
(19:46):
as well, so he's got to I suppose work out
what they are and get rid of them out of
your brain because otherwise they're just noise, and then work
out what the real risks are. But the trawling is
the main risk. So I trained to a crazy level
with my breath holding. So if your audience can think
about how long is a long time time hold your breath?
And boys, if you want to think about what's a
very long time to hold your breath, well, longest breath,
I'll just perform nazaree. Whereas did you all have a
(20:07):
guess what's too long time?
Speaker 3 (20:08):
Two minutes seems like a long time to me, then.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Five forty five minutes and forty eight seconds.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
What okay, how do you train to do that? Man?
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Well, it's like anything, it's just capacity, right. You don't
just go I'm going to do a six minute breath
hold one day. You would just work. You start at
three minutes, you know, for me as a surfer, as
an elite surfer, like it was already around that three
minute mark. But then you just build up to it.
So there's just different training. We do like we did
did you like did you did? To underwater with two
guys on me, and I'm going to fight my way
to the surface and they would know basically what's They'd
(20:41):
have timers on the surface telling them how long it's been,
so they they just keep pushing me and then I
do like swimming, I'd be like single breaths. Don't anyone
at home try this, because I'm doing this with the
best trainers in the world. But we'd be like swimming
underwater with one breath, like two laps of twenty five
minute of paul and come up, have one breath, go
back down and go and do it again, and just
multiples all these reps of just getting more and more
(21:01):
comfortable underwater and then just walking on land holding my
breath and then laying in my bed in the morning,
like just holding to mydly my breath for like five
minute breath hold and just different stuff. And then you're
one day you wake up and you can do crazy.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Stuff that's amazing. So man, when I think of surfing,
I think it's and the experience of surfing. I feel
obviously there's a there's a feeling to it, but there's
a big visual component to it. I would have thought,
like you know, when you're on a massive wave, I
guess part of the freaking thing would be looking back
and seeing this giant wall of water that's chasing you.
(21:35):
But but for you it must be something slightly different.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Well, wne, you don't look back, right, It's like anything
in life. You don't. If you look back, you're just
waiting to get swamped. So you look you're always looking
forward to the analogy and life right to skip with
him where you're going, not where you've come from. But
it's it's fair. Yeah, it definitely feels for me when
the boys, I could feel the way over the boys
by the whistle when I let go the rope they
blow it to get the second time because I'm going
so fast and hard if you're a the bottom of
(21:59):
the So they blow the whistle the second time, they
watch me, and then I steer, and then they blow
the whistle the third time and I kick out of
the wave, and doing that we successfully surf there. For
you know, I caught about twenty five waves, and look,
my last wave was the biggest one that I actually
got done. On that wave that was the beginnest for the
record wave. I didn't make that one and got right
at the end of it. It got me and dragged me
(22:20):
so far I had, you know, the four jet skis
I talked about in the water plus camera skis had
two jet skis with cameras on them are drown up,
four cameras on land there's like a thousand, over a
thousand people watching from the headland. I'm in an orange
wet suit and no one could find me.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Jeez.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
It's it's different, yeah, I mean visually, it's I think
people think of surfing as a visual thing, and it
is definitely like I could serf definitely better if I
could see. But I've learned over thousands of hours of
getting smashed and trying things differently and doing things, I'm
able to surf. Now when people watch me surf, don't
I look like I can see because I just practiced
that for that long thing.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
I'm seeing this movie, The Blind Sea. It's out in
New Zealand cinemas from September twelfth. So you're in an
interesting situation where there's a film being made about you
and that's a visual thing. How have the premiere has
been for you sitting in the theater?
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Look, they've been really good. Just listening to the audience,
Like the engagement we've had, we've had, We've sold out
all our premierees so far. Like the audience is like,
you know, you get your's in your eyes. We're actually
getting people like there's a lot of there's a lot
of comedy in the film, and the audience is laughing
and then there's like clapping at certain parts as well.
Or I've achieved certain things like I was a world
champion cyclist and world record holder in that sport as well.
(23:38):
So there's just different moments where people are sort of
going through that journey. But it's also audio described, so
people that are low vision can listen to that. So
I've done that once or twice as well, And that
explains what's happening in each scene, and then it obviously
there's a bit of international dialect, so it translates the
dialect with audio description, so that that's a different way.
But the director knew that he was making a film
(23:59):
about a one person, so a lot of the audio
is designed for someone to be able to consume the
film without having to see the screen. Like the sound
stage is just the women are at Nazaree and the
waves were exploding. That, like the bass and stuff in
the cinema is just it's amazing, and that the sound
to the audio, everything's great. And he sort of talks
about it. He doesn't to Daniel the director, he didn't
have too many characters. You're not jumping from one to
(24:21):
the next to the next thing, you get lost in them.
There's sort of it's obviously a fair few characters, but
you only have a couple of times so that you're
able to just know who's talking and whether they're doing
so it is. Yeah, he's done a great job as
far as being able to consume it for for any audience.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Okay, Matte, so you've surfed successfully Nazaree and Portugal. One
of the biggest waves in the world. I've got your
sight set on something else. Now.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
I don't know if you boys were primed for this,
but I'm thinking, you know, with that six minute breath hold,
maybe I should just push that a bit further and
take one big breathence from the far dowmination as a
count instead of world record free.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Oh yeah, Well, you're an amazing person. So for you
is just looking around at like, what what's the most
difficult thing I could possibly do?
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Just increidibly that's possible for me and most possible for humanity.
So I just just like training really hard and learning
new things, and and you know, like reality is I
like inspiring people like it's it's pretty cool. People say
that you're pretty cool. You've done this, and you inspire
me to do something different. So if I can inspire
some people and I can get some sponsors to pay
me in travel to some pretty cool locations and do
some crazy stuff, and I'm all up for it.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
Well, you definitely are inspiring. That's fantastic. The Blind Sea
It's in New Zealand Cinemas from September twelfth.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Thanks very much, Matt, great to talk to you. Best
of luck with everything so much appreciate. Great to talk
to your see mate, put things in perspective, isn't it. Wow?
One an amazing person. I the foll on thing to do?
Have you seen those the size of that wave?
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Na, yeah, I am. I'm looking at a picture of
him on it mas.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
That's insane.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
Yeah, it's it's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Yeah, an amazing guy.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
Yeah wow, I mean it really puts your perspective and
in terms of positivity in what people complain about, you know,
people complaining about their and their given days and the
problems that they have in their life. And then you
have someone who's got one percent and one eye three
percent of the other and then it's just doing amazing
things and not complaining about it at all when he's
(26:31):
got every right to, you know.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
So what a good man. So the Blind Sea, it's
great seeing that, Matt foremuston, it's amazing.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
All right, all right, game, okay, see yeah, hello, I'm
Matt Heath. You have been listening to the Matt and
Jerry Daily Bespoke podcast. Right now you can listen to
our Radio Highlights podcast, which you will absolutely get barred
up about anyway. Sit to download, like subscribe, right review
all those great things it really helps myself and Jerry
(27:01):
and to a lesser extent, mansion Ruder. If you want
to discuss anything raised in this pod, check out the Conclave,
a Matt and Jerry Facebook discussion group. And while I'm
plugging stuff, my book A Lifeless Punishing Thirteen Ways to
Love the Life You've Got is out now get it
wherever you get your books, or just google the bastard.
Anyway you seem busy, I'll let you go. Bless Blessed, blessed.
(27:22):
Give them a taste of key we from me
Low energy.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Low energy.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
Lower the energy, lower the energy.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Come on, high energy.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
It's person. It is the twenty seventh of August, I believe,
in the year of Our Lord, twenty twenty four. I believe.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Just checking that, yes, it is.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
How I was down at the post office the other day, right,
I was at the post office and I was sending
a parcel overseas, and for some reason the post office,
when you've seen something of for seas, you've got to
fill out this really small form. It's as if, like
you know, computers hadn't been existed. You've got to fill
it out with your pen. And capitals love it. They
(00:58):
love a piece of paper. I mean that you couldn't
just fill out the details and then they printed out
and you sign it. Now you got to fill out
of those details and if you get anything wrong anyway,
I got right to the bloody end of it. Took
me freaking ages yet to find all these details about
the person you're sending to. It was only in the UK,
and bloody hell got to the end of it. You
know what I rape. I wrote the twenty sixth of
August twenty twenty five. Oh no, I got right to
(01:21):
the end and I put a five instead of four,
like an absolute helm mappet, and I had to do
the whole bloody thing again.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
May as well be twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Really, so just flick it over now?
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Why not? Because otherwise you just get this. I mean,
what happened to twenty twenty two didn't happen? Do you
remember twenty twenty two?
Speaker 3 (01:37):
There was something happened in twenty twenty two. I remember
there was something in twenty twenty two. I think like
at least one thing happened.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
It was ever moving to like there was six sixty
years and stuff like that that was in between the
lockdowns the start of twenty two. Was that in between
the lockdowns? And then had the big one at the
end of twenty twenty one.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
When I think so, maybe when was the Rugby World.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Gut twenty twenty hold on the Rugby Cup as it
was last year, wasn't it twenty twenty three? Yeah, twenty nineteen,
twenty twenty three, fifteen fifteen two thousand, nineteen twenty twenty.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Three selection and the matrix We've just skipped twenty twenty two.
Someone's fucked up because nothing happened in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
Did we have the woman's fooferable cup here or something
like that?
Speaker 3 (02:22):
That's twenty two times about that about I reckon people?
What happened in twenty twenty two? What happened in twenty
twenty two?
Speaker 4 (02:33):
The Beijing Winter Olympics?
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Turmoil rocks British politics, A tree of crisises buffeted Pakistan,
a humanity Ariian crisis deepened somewhere.
Speaker 4 (02:45):
Sure?
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Oh, and when did.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Russia invY into twenty twenty two?
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Russia's invasion of Ukraine focuses attention in the Ukraine's for
playing their homeland for security abroad, Latin America moves left
Iranians protein thing.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Really nothing eveened?
Speaker 4 (03:06):
You're reading the International one mate? You got to find
this Wikipedia pace it off here? Okay, Because January twenty three,
twenty third of January, COVID nineteen in New Zealand?
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Two?
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Were we still pretending to have COVID in twenty twenty two?
Would we move?
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (03:20):
We did apparently because on the twenty third of January, Yeah,
COVID nineteen years and the whole of new little moves
to read under the COVID nineteen Protection Framework at eleven
fifty nine penty Mission of multiple community cases of the
COVID nineteen according to Wikipedia.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
So do we shut down in twenty twenty two as well?
Speaker 1 (03:39):
We did do it?
Speaker 4 (03:41):
One that we did that we shut down heaps got
You got to remember that.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
We kept shutting down.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
I don't remember that. Oh my god. I shouldn't have
asked for.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
You know, the most depressing thing is that you know
that story that was out last week about kids that
hadn't been talked to. Oh god, it was of COVID
and COVID lockdowns and the effect of wearing masks in
public and then keeping them home and just putting in
front of TVs. And you've got all these kids starting
school now that were the COVID babies that can't speak.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Oh no, So I find it all depressed.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
That's so depressing that we It's so depressing that we
took away the lives of children for adults because children
were fine.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
It's never happened before in the history of the world.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
We need to You've got to recalibrate, so you you
protect the children and anyways, and always always got to
go for the children first. You always got to think
about the future, always always with the children, not the end.
But we did everything for the oldies, didn't we.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
Queen died o queeney.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
She blessed the queen. Did old Tans get coronated that
year as well.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
It was a year away that he got. It took
a year for the coronation last year.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
To get all that weird shit together out of storage
for the coronation last year.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
With the coronation, I don't know, took absolute helmets the
transmission gully. But the way opened up on the thirty
first of March.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
That was a good day.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
Yeah, I came moving on this. Look here. A eighth
of June, the Supreme Court overturnes the wrongful conviction of
Allen Hall. I don't know who that is.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Yep, it's good, Yep.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
Sure July anything happened near the first case of monkey
pox was deticted in Auckland on the ninth of July. Okay,
do you want to keep going or to.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Go to August? Just sort of pray see the.
Speaker 4 (05:19):
Bones when you part of me, the boiler bones.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Pray see the bones, like, just read it over and
then just give us the give us the bullet points.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
You might have to give me a sick then I
only mar Okay, the messon the remains of two children
are firm. Inness six point four magnitude earthquake occurs in
the Okay, not interested in that.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
One.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
Two restoration workers become the first people to enter that.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Okay, well I want to hear that one nah restraction
workers into the.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
World Crossius Cathedral since February two.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Thy did you see that the other day? Have morth
balled it? Yeah? They've spent like heat.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Yeah, But I mean that's that's the logical fallacy of
if you've spent stuff, you keep spending on it.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
I agree with mothballing it. But they but they're mothballing
it and they're putting a thing around it, they're making
it safe whatever that means. And then they're putting a
fence around it and it's just going to stay like that.
So that whole square, they've spent so much money on that,
And it was really interesting because there was I remember
the point where they went should we do this or
should we not do this? And they went, let's not
(06:28):
do this. Even the Anglican Church was like, let's not
do this. It's going to be too expensive.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
It was going to be one hundred and eighty million,
wasn't it.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Yeah, I think in the more two hundred and something.
And then they went, it's it's going to cost too much.
And then some guys got together, some dudes got together
and went, n man, we've got to do it. We've
got to save it. And then a whole lot of
people put their money into it, and then they started
and then they've gone, it's actually way more expensive than
what we thought. And they've spent years. I mean Jamandersen
(06:56):
and Philip Burden, they really wanted it, and so a
whole lot of people. I mean, imagine if you were
one of the donors that's given like half a million dollars. Yeah,
and because you thought, oh, yeah, this is something I
want to do. And now, oh man, they should have
at the start. And I don't have any connection to
christ Juturek, so it's easy for me to say something,
(07:17):
and who gives a shit when I say but I
would have thought that from the start they could have gone, oh,
you know what what will be cool is if we
keep some of the facade of it and then we
create this brand new building. And so when we look
at this, we'll go look at the old and the new,
melded together. There's heaps of really cool examples overseas. Yeah,
and we'll make it into this cool looking thing that
(07:39):
could be a feature for the old and the new.
And it's a marx A moment in time in christ
Church's history. And it would have been it would have
cost like eighty million bucks, would have been done. It
would have been done like six years ago.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Put a earthquake museum out hanging it with quat museum
out there of it.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Just something cool.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
I think any chance in this country have got to
hold onto the old, mate, I think we should prefer
that over then. I you see, I mean, look at
you what you've done in your own city, Like Auckland's
just you started having up ugly buildings about thirty years
ago and got rid of all the old.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Did you see the old buildings that were there before?
Though the shit?
Speaker 4 (08:09):
They look good.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Half of them was shit, but they look good good Aucklands.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
Why don't they just do your theory Aukland.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
The suburban houses are good, but Auckland is really fucked
up its old buildings in the city.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
There were a lot that was shit.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
I said, this is the attitude.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
It's a lot though, but you've got to keep building, mate,
You've got to keep going. You got to keep you
got to keep yeah, keep going.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
I would have thought you'd be an advocate for keeping
them any kind of history, and we've got no history. Yeah,
any kind of history. We've got to get.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Okay, what about buildings like the fay Rich White Building
for example, which is a beautiful building that's done on Questreat.
Now there was an old building that was there, that
was built in the eighteen hundreds. That's not there anymore.
But now there's an amazing building there is better than
the one that was there.
Speaker 4 (08:52):
Is it the Strip Club?
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Sometimes the new buildings are better than the old ones.
But they've just got to be good buildings.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Really, Because I'm looking about Auckland and going, there's a
lot of shitty buildings.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
Is that the Strip Club? And all serious? Is that
that white big one on Queen Street?
Speaker 1 (09:05):
The White House?
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (09:06):
The White House?
Speaker 1 (09:06):
No, it's down is that Queen Street? But pobs And
Street for example, you know where though those horrific apartments are,
there were heaps of really shitty buildings up there. I
remember as a kid shitty. So they placed some yeah,
but at least they were apartment buildings. And now they
leak and you know, there's a bit of a bit
(09:27):
of industry going like people people are employed to build them.
It was something you.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
Guys, see what you've done down there, and with the
train station looks really good. Yeah, train station is good.
The train station looks great. Good example, I kind of
got a front when I walked down there for the
first time.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
My mate had an apartment. We made some terrible stision.
My mate had an apartment and it looked out over
the harbor and that's down at the bottom of Simon Street.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
I know that I went in this apartment. Yeah, kind
of had a stage, had a raised bit of a
better yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Yeah. And then they just built the shittest cheap wall
of buildings across that front there and the best place
in Auckland whoever made those? And there the shiittest apartments
that are right along that wall there where they could
have built something good.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Is it c Yeah, something good if you're on the
other side of it. It's not good if you but
a few where your mate was, Yeah, you get a
good view on the other side.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
We've got a podcast, guests, we have to go.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
I reckon he was punished by Karma because he stole
We went to France and he stole ahead from the
catacombs a skull, and he brought it back and he
put it into a cabinet in his library in that apartment,
and the next thing you know, the cea view is
going up.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Do you think it was a skull of an architect.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
I think was the skull of an ark and he
designed the building under the catacombs in Paris. He brought
him back and that and that that, that skull used
its magic to build.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
He was a ship architect. He was terrible ship architect
in the ageing hundreds in Paris and.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
Sod all show this guy for stealing my skull from
my rightful burial spot.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Hey were they all people that were killed in best
steel and stuff and the revolution all the way back
to the Crimean War? Mate, Oh, Crimean War. They bought
all the skulls back. Yeah, yeah, don't bury them on
They didn't bury them when they.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
It was everyone everyone? Everyone? Mate?
Speaker 1 (11:20):
What everyone?
Speaker 3 (11:21):
What everyone from?
Speaker 1 (11:22):
And what from?
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Lots of different times the catacams.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Oh okay, why didn't they bury them where they were?
Speaker 3 (11:26):
But they did? But then they dig them up, they
did them?
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Why they dig them up.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
I don't know. I don't know why it is, some
many of them from the Crimean War. But I guess
that you brought a lot of people back, a lot
of plague, A lot of plague people in there.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
You bury them whence they are from. Okay, we're going
to take a break and we're going to come back
with Matt Formstone and he's involved in a new documentary
called The Blind Sea.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
He's a champion blind surfer.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Yeah, and we're back and Thormston joins us. Now, good morning, man,
how are you.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
I'm excellent. How are you?
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Yeah? Good? And I'm just reading about this new doco,
The Blind Sea. It's about you and your attempt to
surf the monster waves and Portugal.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Ye had a cracked nazar.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
So we take it back a few steps, and so
how does blind surfing work?
Speaker 2 (12:25):
It's funny everyone says thinks about surfing and thinks about
blind and their brain can't put the two things together.
But it's actually like you, I walked through a car pike.
I've got I saw me a little bit. I go
about three percent vision in my right eye and one
percent in my left eye. So it's sween. It's the
technical term, but it's I can't see a lot. So
when I'm walking for a car park or across a
(12:47):
footy field, like there's just everything's you know, you can step,
trip over a ball, or all your ankle in a
hole here the toe ball. There's just so many things
that are trying to hurt you, Whereas in the ocean
you fall off and it's just a safe right. So
I can I feel the wave. So on the on
the land is a cane sometimes like a white cane
to feel the grounds on on the land on the
In the ocean, my surfboard becomes my cane, so I
(13:08):
can sort of feel.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
So you can feel what kind of wave is coming.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Well, that's different, so I'm like the ocean sort of
does it. So just a feel in the ocean. So
when I wave is about to break, it actually sucks
the water because of the way the water breaking. The
water in the wave out the back is not the
white water that hits the shore, right, It's just kinnetic
energy that's traveling through the ocean. And so if you
can feel the water just before the wave gets to you,
(13:35):
it sucks the water back towards it. The water actually
goes backwards and then before it goes forward, so you
can feel that, and then you get your bobbing up
and down. So there's the whole bunch of fuel going
on the ocean and you can tap into.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Wow and so what exacts? So you're talking about three
percent and one percent? So when you're locking, what is it?
What are you? What are you seeing?
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Uh So, if you look, if you're looking through you,
if you're driving in your car and you're looking through
your windscreen, if you get white spray paint and just
spray paint basically all the middle of the wind screen octual,
you can't see anything. And then and then get sandpaper
and scratch all the outsides out until you've only got
three percent of the clarity left. You can sort of
see shapes and a few blurs and lines and the
(14:17):
bit of color.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
And that's what I say, Okay, And has it always
been like that for you?
Speaker 2 (14:23):
I hopeful vision until I was five, and then I
lost about ninety five percent of my vision and then
I've lost a few more percent in the last couple
of years. I had about five percent vision for most
of my life until the last couple of years.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
And when did you start surfing when I was five.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
So I grew up a Narrawben in Norman Beaches of Sydney.
It's a surf town, you know. I used to deliver
the paper in the morning for Damian Hardman who was
a world champion, and catch the bus with the Nathan
Heads who went on to become a world tour surfer.
And it was just surfing everywhere. So we all surfed
and there was no different. I just had to do
it a bit differently.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Did you grow up in a place it was a
little bit like some summer bay from home and away.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Not too far from some of the Palm Beach about
six beaches north of Narraba.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Oh that makes it very easy for New Zealanders to
pitch picture.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Yeah, but yeah, slightly different in the in the drama
and what's going to say?
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Yeah, there always were there, always people splitting up with
people and you know, cheating on people and just dramas everywhere.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
I'm sure there was, what I was aware of it.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
So when you're out on the water, do you knowing
which day you want to go out on and all
that sort of stuff? How do you how do you
work all of that?
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Well, like I mean I've got accessibility technology. These days,
everyone's got access to wave forecasting apps and tools, and
I can just I can listen to them to know
what's going on. In fact, like most of my mates
call me to see what's going on because I can interpret.
I've got a very good memory, so I can interpret
the data probably better than most them and know where
it's going to be good. And then we just go
(16:03):
out like I used to, I surf by myself forever,
like I just been. I was. Probably most people with
disabilities could probably relate. So you're just over over independent
and want to do everything at well and don't accept
help from people. So that was me for most of
my life. And then I started competing, like we started
a world tour for parasurfing in twenty sixteen. And when
I did that, I realized that getting help was going
(16:23):
to make me a better athlete. So I started asking
for help for that, and then I realized, hey, this
is heaps easier. So I now surfing with a spot up.
We call it a spotter in the water. They basically
tell me when the waves coming in, which direction to go,
and even what type of wave it is. And that's
how I compete as well. And I'm competing and then
I've won comps all over the world or a four
time world champion, and I've won everything like the Hawaii
(16:46):
US Open and everything about four or five times, and
then I'm you know, big wave surfing is a bit different.
So when I'm on the when I'm coming in to
really big waves, like I actually said it in that's
where I actually said again the world records. So the
biggest wave I caught fifty one feet, You're crazy, which
is a better five story building.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Wow, are you crazy?
Speaker 2 (17:06):
And catching waves that big? You can't paddle, so you're
towed into the waves. The boys are towing me behind
jet ski to match the speed of the wave, and
then they blow a whistle so they know, yep, this
is the time they blow whistle. And I was just
trust that that's the right time and just pull the
rope and surfing.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Man, Firstly, you're crazy, you're crazy surfing those waves anyway.
The fact that you can't is you've got one percent
through one eye and three percent through another and you
can't see what's going on. That That is, man, that
must be scary at times.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Look it was. The surfing part was never scary because
you just focus. You're just having fun, right, You're just
doing what you do. But just before we went to Nazaree,
we went to the we're making a doco, right, making
a film, so I didn't I just wanted to go
and do it. I'm gonna do it. I just wanted
to go and do the surfing. But the director, he's
making a movie, so he wants to get media, so
he went to the media and told them, we go, Hey,
that's gonna the blind guy's going to surf Nazaree. And
(17:56):
of course the narrative from the media is they're going
to kill the blind guy. He can't do this, which
is not different to the rest of my world. Like
grew up playing forby Union, played ice hockey, you played
rugby league, all too representative levels. But before I started
playing and everyone said he can't play, he's blind, he can't,
he can't. But but hearing about Nazaree saying he can't
and he's going to die, it was a bit different
(18:19):
because IVE got three little kids. Now, I don't want
to come home to my kids. So the first before
my first wave out there, I was just laying in
the water, going Are they right or am I right?
Like me and my team are the best in the
world at what we do, Like I've got the best
big wave surfers in the world as my as my
safety team, and like we know what we're doing. But
you know, you're just a second guessing yourself because you've
heard this narrative for sort of weeks from the media.
(18:39):
So that was that was what I did, have a
bit of nerves, but then once we caught the first wave,
we just we just surf for three days and had
the best fun ever.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
So the risks when I guess there are risks as
when the when the wave crashes, Yeah, and and and
I guess you've got You've got it. You know you're
not out there with with you know, hundreds of other people.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
No, so I've got Well, I had a team of
four safety four jet skis as my safety team. So
my toe driver tows me in and then I've got
a jet ski driver either side of me, so they
basically watch my wash. They travel behind the wave and
watch my board wash fin wash in the back of
the way to see where I am. And they've got
a spot on land that tells them where I am
(19:24):
and they said, meant, obviously you train for when the
training you do is for when things go wrong, right,
That's that's the part where the certain parts all fun.
But when things go wrong, that's when you need to
get you get it right, because I mean, the real
risk over there is that people lose their life. Like
six weeks after I was there, a man lost his
life in smaller conditions than what wheel surfing. So it's
a real risk. But there's a lot of perceiver risks
(19:46):
as well, so he's got to I suppose work out
what they are and get rid of them out of
your brain because otherwise they're just noise, and then work
out what the real risks are. But the trawling is
the main risk. So I trained to a crazy level
with my breath holding. So if your audience can think
about how long is a long time time hold your breath?
And boys, if you want to think about what's a
very long time to hold your breath, well, longest breath,
I'll just perform nazaree. Whereas did you all have a
(20:07):
guess what's too long time?
Speaker 3 (20:08):
Two minutes seems like a long time to me, then.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Five forty five minutes and forty eight seconds.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
What okay, how do you train to do that? Man?
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Well, it's like anything, it's just capacity, right. You don't
just go I'm going to do a six minute breath
hold one day. You would just work. You start at
three minutes, you know, for me as a surfer, as
an elite surfer, like it was already around that three
minute mark. But then you just build up to it.
So there's just different training. We do like we did
did you like did you did? To underwater with two
guys on me, and I'm going to fight my way
to the surface and they would know basically what's They'd
(20:41):
have timers on the surface telling them how long it's been,
so they they just keep pushing me and then I
do like swimming, I'd be like single breaths. Don't anyone
at home try this, because I'm doing this with the
best trainers in the world. But we'd be like swimming
underwater with one breath, like two laps of twenty five
minute of paul and come up, have one breath, go
back down and go and do it again, and just
multiples all these reps of just getting more and more
(21:01):
comfortable underwater and then just walking on land holding my
breath and then laying in my bed in the morning,
like just holding to mydly my breath for like five
minute breath hold and just different stuff. And then you're
one day you wake up and you can do crazy.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Stuff that's amazing. So man, when I think of surfing,
I think it's and the experience of surfing. I feel
obviously there's a there's a feeling to it, but there's
a big visual component to it. I would have thought,
like you know, when you're on a massive wave, I
guess part of the freaking thing would be looking back
and seeing this giant wall of water that's chasing you.
(21:35):
But but for you it must be something slightly different.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Well, wne, you don't look back, right, It's like anything
in life. You don't. If you look back, you're just
waiting to get swamped. So you look you're always looking
forward to the analogy and life right to skip with
him where you're going, not where you've come from. But
it's it's fair. Yeah, it definitely feels for me when
the boys, I could feel the way over the boys
by the whistle when I let go the rope they
blow it to get the second time because I'm going
so fast and hard if you're a the bottom of
(21:59):
the So they blow the whistle the second time, they
watch me, and then I steer, and then they blow
the whistle the third time and I kick out of
the wave, and doing that we successfully surf there. For
you know, I caught about twenty five waves, and look,
my last wave was the biggest one that I actually
got done. On that wave that was the beginnest for the
record wave. I didn't make that one and got right
at the end of it. It got me and dragged me
(22:20):
so far I had, you know, the four jet skis
I talked about in the water plus camera skis had
two jet skis with cameras on them are drown up,
four cameras on land there's like a thousand, over a
thousand people watching from the headland. I'm in an orange
wet suit and no one could find me.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Jeez.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
It's it's different, yeah, I mean visually, it's I think
people think of surfing as a visual thing, and it
is definitely like I could serf definitely better if I
could see. But I've learned over thousands of hours of
getting smashed and trying things differently and doing things, I'm
able to surf. Now when people watch me surf, don't
I look like I can see because I just practiced
that for that long thing.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
I'm seeing this movie, The Blind Sea. It's out in
New Zealand cinemas from September twelfth. So you're in an
interesting situation where there's a film being made about you
and that's a visual thing. How have the premiere has
been for you sitting in the theater?
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Look, they've been really good. Just listening to the audience,
Like the engagement we've had, we've had, We've sold out
all our premierees so far. Like the audience is like,
you know, you get your's in your eyes. We're actually
getting people like there's a lot of there's a lot
of comedy in the film, and the audience is laughing
and then there's like clapping at certain parts as well.
Or I've achieved certain things like I was a world
champion cyclist and world record holder in that sport as well.
(23:38):
So there's just different moments where people are sort of
going through that journey. But it's also audio described, so
people that are low vision can listen to that. So
I've done that once or twice as well, And that
explains what's happening in each scene, and then it obviously
there's a bit of international dialect, so it translates the
dialect with audio description, so that that's a different way.
But the director knew that he was making a film
(23:59):
about a one person, so a lot of the audio
is designed for someone to be able to consume the
film without having to see the screen. Like the sound
stage is just the women are at Nazaree and the
waves were exploding. That, like the bass and stuff in
the cinema is just it's amazing, and that the sound
to the audio, everything's great. And he sort of talks
about it. He doesn't to Daniel the director, he didn't
have too many characters. You're not jumping from one to
(24:21):
the next to the next thing, you get lost in them.
There's sort of it's obviously a fair few characters, but
you only have a couple of times so that you're
able to just know who's talking and whether they're doing
so it is. Yeah, he's done a great job as
far as being able to consume it for for any audience.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Okay, Matte, so you've surfed successfully Nazaree and Portugal. One
of the biggest waves in the world. I've got your
sight set on something else. Now.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
I don't know if you boys were primed for this,
but I'm thinking, you know, with that six minute breath hold,
maybe I should just push that a bit further and
take one big breathence from the far dowmination as a
count instead of world record free.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Oh yeah, Well, you're an amazing person. So for you
is just looking around at like, what what's the most
difficult thing I could possibly do?
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Just increidibly that's possible for me and most possible for humanity.
So I just just like training really hard and learning
new things, and and you know, like reality is I
like inspiring people like it's it's pretty cool. People say
that you're pretty cool. You've done this, and you inspire
me to do something different. So if I can inspire
some people and I can get some sponsors to pay
me in travel to some pretty cool locations and do
some crazy stuff, and I'm all up for it.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
Well, you definitely are inspiring. That's fantastic. The Blind Sea
It's in New Zealand Cinemas from September twelfth.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Thanks very much, Matt, great to talk to you. Best
of luck with everything so much appreciate. Great to talk
to your see mate, put things in perspective, isn't it. Wow?
One an amazing person. I the foll on thing to do?
Have you seen those the size of that wave?
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Na, yeah, I am. I'm looking at a picture of
him on it mas.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
That's insane.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
Yeah, it's it's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Yeah, an amazing guy.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
Yeah wow, I mean it really puts your perspective and
in terms of positivity in what people complain about, you know,
people complaining about their and their given days and the
problems that they have in their life. And then you
have someone who's got one percent and one eye three
percent of the other and then it's just doing amazing
things and not complaining about it at all when he's
(26:31):
got every right to, you know.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
So what a good man. So the Blind Sea, it's
great seeing that, Matt foremuston, it's amazing.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
All right, all right, game, okay, see yeah, hello, I'm
Matt Heath. You have been listening to the Matt and
Jerry Daily Bespoke podcast. Right now you can listen to
our Radio Highlights podcast, which you will absolutely get barred
up about anyway. Sit to download, like subscribe, right review
all those great things it really helps myself and Jerry
(27:01):
and to a lesser extent, mansion Ruder. If you want
to discuss anything raised in this pod, check out the Conclave,
a Matt and Jerry Facebook discussion group. And while I'm
plugging stuff, my book A Lifeless Punishing Thirteen Ways to
Love the Life You've Got is out now get it
wherever you get your books, or just google the bastard.
Anyway you seem busy, I'll let you go. Bless Blessed, blessed.
(27:22):
Give them a taste of key we from me
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.