Paralyzed at 19: Rebuilding Life and Finding Purpose Through Adaptive Surfing with Charles Webb

But all of a sudden, that moment happened.

That event, that single instant when a motorcycle accident would leave him paralyzed from his chest down.

But his story isn't one of those where you hear the accident and then we jump to today, and you hear about all the good stuff, the amazing stuff he's doing, which, by the way, he's doing some incredible stuff.

But where today's episode really takes you is all the years in between.

The over two decades spent trying to find himself again, going through hard times in life, drugs and arrest, and ultimately just feeling lost in life until all of a sudden one phone call came through.

One sentence was spoken, and it would change everything.

That sentence, you can get back in the water.

This sentence, this mindset, it wouldn't just change his life, it would ultimately change the world.

Because today, Charles Webb is the founder of Stoke for Life Foundation, a foundation leading the way in adaptive sports, getting people back in the water.

My friend, this is an interview that is going to inspire you.

It's going to motivate you.

But more than anything else, if you're somebody who you feel lost in the in-between, it's going to connect with you.

It's going to be with you.

And you're going to walk away understanding that you're not alone and feeling like that.

My friend, in case you're new here, I am your host, Kevin Lowe, a guy on a mission to use my own story of becoming blind back when I was just 17 years old.

So we're looking at almost 23 years ago, I awoke to find a world gone dark.

My life changed forever.

And yet my goal is to just use what I've gone through to be a help to you.

And that's why I produce this very podcast each and every week.

So, my friend, if you listen to today's episode, maybe you're new here, maybe it's the first time you've ever heard this podcast, and say you like it.

Well, then, my friend, please consider hitting the little follow button wherever you're listening to it at, so that you get notified next week when a new episode drops.

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Last little announcement before I turn it over to my interview with Charles Webb, my friend, my custom music production agency called Kalo Music took the story you're about to hear and turned it into a custom song called Back in the Water.

I've attached it to the end of today's conversation.

So if you want a little musical payoff just because you were awesome enough to stay till the very end, well, just realize that you have that to look forward to.

How in the world can I take a big conversation like this and shrink it down into just a single song?

Whoo, it's not always easy, but we did it.

And I hope you enjoy both.

So with that said, this is episode 462 of Grit Grace and Inspiration.

This is my interview with Charles Webb.

What's going on, my friend?

And welcome back to Grit Grace and Inspiration.

Today I have the pleasure of being in the studio by Charles Webb.

My man Charles, welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Kevin.

I appreciate it.

We're uh super stoked to be here.

So thank you for the invite.

SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, dude.

Well, well, man, I'm excited to get to to dive into your story.

And I what I honestly would love to begin is just kind of getting a better understanding of you know, kind of like where you come from, where I guess kind of specifically I'm interested to know is where surfing kind of entered the picture for you.

I'm assuming that was in childhood, but but would love for you to just kind of unpack that little journey, just where you come from, where you grew up, how surfing entered the scene for you.

SPEAKER_00: I'm from San Diego County, East County, specifically when I was young, which is more inland.

But when you live in San Diego, what it regardless of whether you live in South County, East County, or North County, the ocean is a part of your existence.

Uh San Diego's pretty much a water-based community, whether it's in any of the numerous lakes that are in San Diego County or specifically the ocean.

So as a child, I had a relationship with the ocean, with the water, not surfing-wise, because East County more, you know, you went to the went to the ocean only a few times.

You're, you know, maybe 40, 40 minutes away from the ocean, 30 minutes away.

So it was a journey to get to the to the water.

But when I was going into high school, we moved up to North County, which is a coastal community.

And it's Oceanside and you know, Carlsbad, uh Acadia, Incinitas, there's you know, Tri-City.

There's some inland portions of North County, but a majority of North County is is on the coast.

So going into high school, we we moved to North County, and that's when I really developed a great relationship with the water and and with the ocean and surfing, and that that was the culture when I stepped out.

We we didn't live, we lived on the the west side of the railroad tracks, which means you could hear the ocean from your from your house.

So wow, you know, having that experience and being able to just grab my board, walk to the beach.

And in the in the 80s, surfing was very territorial and very localized.

So it wasn't if you were from a different town and you tried to surf a local break in a different town, you needed to know somebody, otherwise there would be there would be words or and exchanged, or worse than that, you know, people fight a lot.

So in the 80s, you really had to earn your spot in the lineup.

You couldn't just paddle out and be like, hey, I'm here.

Like you go to breaks now and there's you know 80 people out on the break and nobody knows each other.

It wasn't like that back in the day.

It was, you know, so you kind of had to earn your way into the lineup.

So there was a pecking order, and so you know, I had to earn my stripes coming up, and so that was a whole process.

And luckily, you know, the the people around me that were influential, you know, the Joey Brands and the the Bar Brothers, and you know, just the guys, you know, the Scott Chandlers, the guys when I opened up magazines, I saw guys that I saw in my classroom and in school.

So it was, you know, so that that's kind of where I grew up.

You know, Breakout magazine was a pretty popular magazine in the 80s, and it was, you know, originated from Carlsbad.

So so there was a lot of influences on me that were just local guys that were just ripping surfers that I got to surf with and walk the halls of my high school with.

And, you know, sometimes I'd get roused by them, but most of them were pretty cool to me as a as a young guy growing up.

You know, I got hazed by everybody because that was kind of the the way back then, but it wasn't in a terrible way.

I saw a lot of worst-case scenarios where kids were, you know, far worse off than me.

But it also had to do with ability.

If you couldn't surf, you know, they didn't see progress in your surfing and they didn't see ability to not waste a wave at the good local break when it was pumping.

That was the main factor of like, okay, if they see progress from month to month, from year to year, and then all of a sudden you're ripping and you know, doing big turns, and you know, so that was kind of it.

Me and my brother kind of grew up around a lot of influential guys that could really surf, and we we had the good fortune of having some of those guys kind of invest time in us and say, hey, come paddle out here, come paddle out here.

When you paddle out with somebody that's well known, and you know, then you get less grief and you get a couple waves.

So so that you know, that that whole culture in the 80s was a big thing and was a big influence on me.

You know, that was the really the revolution of surfing uh as far as board shaping, you know, went from long boards in the 60s to the 70s to to the really aggressive pipeliners, you know, the the big wave boards, the big single fins to the twin fin revolution and then to the thruster.

And so being able to be a part of that and see that and see the guys that that made that happen, watching, you know, Mark Richards ripping on twin fins and giant surf and and then you know, watching the you know, the Gary Andersons and the thruster revolution come in and really change the game of surfing.

And then the quads came in too, you know, and and they they still have their place in surfing, you know, a lot of people still use the quad fins and stuff like that.

So being a part of that whole evolution and seeing the surfers that really made those boards and those those shapes popular, and you know, having guys like Michael Barron and Gary Linden in this community and the Dick Brewers and the Rusty Priesendorfers kind of in this community in California, and specifically in Carlsbad, having Mike Barron for offshore and and having Gary Linden, um, those guys were super influential on the shapes and the kind of boards that I rode and what I

had access to, you know.

Normally you can only surf on what you have access to at that time, you know, in the 80s it was a lot different than it is now.

There was no soft tops, and you couldn't go to Target and buy a surf.

You had to you had to actually go to a mom and pop surf shop and get one shaped, and and hopefully that shaper saw you surf a little bit, maybe, and and saw you growing up as a Grom and would do something really nice for you.

I got lucky and and had guys like Paul Barr and and you know, Augie Costantino and Cleet Hamilton's and these guys that surfed for big name shapers.

And when they didn't, a board didn't work out for them, you know, maybe I got that board at a discounted price and I got to surf on a really ripping shredding board that you know, maybe at the time I probably had no business surfing on, but it really helped evolve my surfing, you know, it helped me as a surfer be able to surf at a higher level, you know.

SPEAKER_01: So yeah, yeah, that's very cool.

And I mean, I can't help but think like how how freaking cool is it that like you just kind of you know pop into the scene not knowing, I'm sure, until later on, looking back of like, oh my gosh, like the people I'm immediately surrounded with could be such influential, you know, big people in the surfing scene.

I mean, you just kind of like appreciate the way life works like that.

SPEAKER_00: You know, it was definitely a gift from you know for me, a gift from God, man.

A lot of things that happened in my life are just a blessing.

And so being able to see guys like Sonny Miller, who was a great filmmaker back in the day and unfortunately is no longer with us, but to be able to see Sonny walking out in the surf at my local break and filming guys that you know that we knew, and then seeing them at a local house party where it was like, hey, Sunny's kicking back and rapping, and and everybody's kind of talking about the day surf, and you know, I didn't know any better.

So it didn't hit me like, oh my god, you know, Sonny Miller, he was like one of the guys.

You know, it didn't hit me like, oh, there's Paul Barr, you know, there's Scott Chandler, you know, those guys were guys that went to my high school and would, you know, would cut me off at the local break when I was surfing, you know, and they were just dudes that I surfed with.

So I didn't really like know any better as far as you know what was out there.

It was, you know, I live, you know, it it was I was very fortunate that we went from total inland to just like right into the mecca of like North County, California surfing.

So it was, you know, it was it was pretty cool, still doesn't go unaccounted on me, you know, and unappreciated that that's where we ended up.

SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.

Now, was was back then was it like a big battle even between like whole like East Coast versus West Coast surfing and surfers and competition?

SPEAKER_00: I mean, if we had a huge migration of Floridians that came to North County and you know, had a huge influx of Brazilians that came at a certain time, and surfing surfing, you know, even though it is localized, if you could surf, you you know, people recognize that you could surf and you know, you would you would get your spot.

You know, I I wouldn't say that there's there was more of a local town rivalry than anything, you know.

Um if you were from Oceanside and you were trying to surf warm water jetties, if you didn't know somebody and you were, you know, there yeah, but it was back in the day, you know, and vice versa.

If you tried to surf Oceanside Harbor and you didn't know somebody, it was good luck, man.

You were gonna catch a lot of waves.

So, but that's how it was anywhere.

Pretty much, you know, we were fortunate back then that there was probably one-third of the population of surfing that there is now.

You know, when you paddled out at a local break, you know, maybe there was 10 guys out.

Now there's probably 40 or 50 people out at that break.

You know, you knew every one of those 10 guys, and there was a pecking order of like, okay, these three guys are the elders, these three guys are the mediums, and these three guys are what's left.

So, you know, now it's just you know, the just the upper echelon of the guys, and then every other person that wants to take off, you know, and doesn't have any surf etiquette of like that that's one thing that's really gone out the window is just etiquette of surfing.

You know, there's uh not a lot of it.

Yeah, when you go out to big surf breaks, and you know, if you go to Waikiki and you know, you surf canoes, there's no etiquette, it's just every man for himself.

But you know, you can still go to local breaks, and you know, if you surf Malibu too, you know, there's there's an upper echelon of people that surf that break, but at the same time, there's also no etiquette, you know, there's just people that don't know what to do and they're not in the right place and they don't know where to be, and and so that's kind of like how it is, you know.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, absolutely incredible.

Well, so for you in your kind of personal story, so so you get moved to this new area, high school age, you get involved in surfing.

Does surfing become something?

I mean, obviously it does just listening to you talk, but I mean, become a big part of your teenage years?

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, it was everything.

If there was a swell, we didn't go to school.

If there was yeah, you know, like yeah, you know, yeah, it became everything and it became my life, and it became my brother's life.

You know, my brother's a big part of what we do, and he's been influential my whole life.

But he got hired to do uh to be the assistant contest coordinator for the Bud Surf Tour with Ian Carnes.

And Ian Carnes is a you know, I think 1977 or 76 champ, uh, somewhere in there, 78.

I'm not exactly sure what year he won, but he did win a world championship.

He was very influential in creating what is now the WSL, the ASP, the Association of Surfing Professionals.

Ian Carnes was directly responsible for creating that.

The ASP World Tour became the mainstream of professional surfing, and then that mutated into the WSL, what is now the WSL.

So, yeah, firsthand, you know, the Bud Surf Tour really helped mutate surfing into a bigger payday.

You know, the the Bud Surf Tour was sponsored obviously by Hann Heiser Busch and Budweiser.

So the money, there was money behind it.

So surfers got big checks, and that kind of catapulted the ASP as well into getting bigger sponsorships and and surfers getting bigger paychecks until finally you had you know your first millionaire surfer, and then you got guys like Kelly Slater and that are you know soon to be billionaires, I guess, you know.

So yeah, the industry really blossomed, and you know, back in the day, the 70s and the 80s, surfers were bums, you know, they're could make a living at surfing, you know.

It was just like, hey, it was like you're a surfer, and but then it became very respectable and became surfing is a is a really arduous sport that you have to have.

Can you be out of shape and go surfing?

Sure.

You can surf casually and you can surf longboard, you can surf small waves, you can surf big waves.

But if you're gonna surf competitively at any level, there's a grind to it, and you have to be somewhat prepared and you have to have some knowledge.

You know, the more surfing knowledge that you have, that can kind of get you by, as far as you know, maybe you're not in great physical shape, but you have this super immense knowledge of the ocean and where to be, where not to be, and how to you know just read the ocean.

That if you can do that, it it's a big advantage over people that maybe don't have that ability to really read what's happening in the water.

So yeah, it's it's you know, it's all relative.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.

So for you coming up to the point of like your accident, which I believe was in '86, kind of where were you at in life at that point?

Like what age were you?

What was the kind of your trajectory, dreams that you had had at that point?

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was, you know, I was out of the house, I was living on my own.

I was working uh full-time job.

I was working construction, doing piecework.

I had been doing construction work for about four years.

So when I was, you know, 15, I ditching school, and one of my buddies picked me up and put me to work.

And, you know, school, I didn't graduate, you know, I went to part school part-time and I worked.

So by the time I was 19, I was on my own.

You know, me and another guy were just doing piecework, making great money.

Yeah, I was living on my own and surfing and just grinding out a life, and that's everyday life.

I, you know, was just living and had an errand to run on a motorcycle, on my on my roommate's motorcycle.

And literally, I don't know, maybe a mile away from our house, I hit a patch of dirt and slid out.

The bike washed out, and um, it was around an S turn going down a hill.

And yeah, I slid into oncoming traffic and a car.

Uh, slid underneath a car, and yeah, it got uh 67 Buick Skylark.

I got pinned underneath it.

The back tire was on my back, and it didn't break, you know, it didn't break my back, it gave me a hairline fracture and pinched my spinal cord.

It didn't tear my spinal cord.

I'm an incomplete paraplegic at the T78 level.

It was life-changing to say the least.

You know, it was yeah, being 19 and thinking that possibly still surfing was, you know, professional surfing was still a dream of mine.

You know, my brother's on the bud surf tour, of course.

I'm like, yeah, you know, I can I can be still become a professional surfer.

And so that was kind of my dream was you know, work, make enough money to maybe enter a couple contests and and get some points.

And so that was kind of my goal.

But you know, at 19 that that accident happens and it changes everything.

And and so that that's kind of how it happened.

And um, yeah, you know, the impact that it had was huge.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

Wow.

So, you know, I I can't help but but think every day in life is is ordinary until something happens that makes it memorable.

For you, for the for that day of your accident, I mean, you you kind of gave me a rundown of it, but I mean, when you talk about the accident itself and the injury you sustained, for somebody like me who doesn't have a clue from a T7 to a T14, like what exactly happened?

I mean, you you slid, you went under a car, but what exactly went down that caught like that caused you to become, as you call it, an incomplete paraplegic?

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, having uh the the weight of a you know 67 Buick Skylark American-made steel car, you know, tire across my back, it it cracked my spine.

So it didn't break it, but it it hairline fractured it.

And the weight of that and a few bone spurs, you know, or chips of bone went into my went into my spinal column uh and pinched my spinal cord and bruised it.

So, you know, the doctor couldn't tell me that I was never gonna walk again.

He, you know, in fact, he walked in the room and said, Look, I can't tell you you're never gonna walk again because your spinal cord's not.

Severed, it's not torn, it's bruised, and it's pinched.

So that could change at any time.

And, you know, here we are 40 years later.

I celebrated 40 years in February on February 6th.

And look, I'm not one of those guys that's incredibly traumatized by my accident, or sometimes you see people that have an accident and they go by their accident site and it's very traumatic for them.

And you know, I understand that to a certain extent, but I literally had to drive the same exact piece of road that I crashed on for seven years to drive to my job.

So every day to go to work, I'd drive across my accident site, and then coming home, I'd drive across it again.

You know, so I didn't have realistically, I didn't have time to be traumatized by, you know, this is my accident site.

And I can't, you know, it's just it is what it is, a piece of road that wasn't, you know, as fortunate.

So yeah, I mean, once I I crashed, and there was a time where obviously surfing was not an option because in 1986 there was no Life Rolls On or Stoke for Life or Access or High Fives Foundation, or there was none of it, you know.

So being in the hospital for as long as I was, I was in the hospital for 11 months almost about 10 minutes.

Wow.

Um, it wasn't, you know, I meet people with the same injury that I have right now, and and literally they're from accident surgery to rehab, they're in the hospital less than a month, and then they're at home, and then so it's the technology is vastly different than it than it was back then.

And so it took me a long time to get out of the hospital, and then when I was got out of the hospital, I was still in a kydex jacket for six months and still had a process to go through to even learn like what this whole new existence was about.

And you know, my mom says, you know, your friends just accepted you and you just went back to your life.

And and look, I you know, that's when I was working carpentry.

I didn't know anything about computers, I didn't know anything about anything else other than building with my hands, and I couldn't do that anymore at the level that I was doing it.

Now, could I have made a better decision and went to school and been a contractor or something like that with the knowledge I had?

The streets were a little closer to me than school, you know.

So at that point, when I kind of got my bearing of being in a chair and life at that time here in North County, San Diego, it was very fast moving and it was a lot of drugs, and it was a lot of so I you know, I made a lot of bad decisions as far as what I wanted to do and where I where I put myself and where I ended up for a lot of years.

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: So with your accent, so just in like basic terms, you so did you become paralyzed, just like waist down?

It's like mid-chest.

Mid-chest.

Okay.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's like mid-chest.

SPEAKER_01: Okay.

SPEAKER_00: So it's a little bit of a higher higher level injury.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.

Wow.

So I have two two questions that I that I want to ask you is first, how is it for you mindset-wise, to even begin the process of of moving on with life, given the fact that you've have a doctor who says, you know, can't guarantee that you won't walk again.

So to me, in that situation, I say, okay, so that means there's a possibility that I do walk again.

So how do I then proceed to move on with life without just being stuck in this thing of, well, I'm just gonna wait till I'm all better?

SPEAKER_00: So there was a process in the hospital when, you know, I really thought that I was gonna walk.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: So that, you know, as a teenage kid, I'm like, as soon as they put me in a different position and I get out of this bed, and I'm able to sit up.

And there were things that I had to learn how to do.

I had to learn how to sit up again.

It took months.

And, you know, and then they were like, hey, we're gonna sit you up, and then after that, we're gonna put you in a standing machine and we're gonna stand you up.

And so I thought, well, geez, man, as soon as they stand me up, I'm gonna walk.

You know, that realistically, I that's what I thought.

And knowing what I know now, it's like only one percent of spinal cord injury patients make a full recovery.

So that's a super small percentage.

So of course I didn't know that then, and and you know, I attacked my rehab pretty, pretty arduously.

I I lifted a lot of weights and I did I did what I could for sure to try to strengthen myself and be able to try to try to walk again.

But at the same time, it was just, you know, when they put me in the walk in the standing machine, that's when I just I just knew.

I just said, okay, well, I'm I'm obviously I'm not gonna walk again.

So uh reality hit me as a teenage kid, and I just said, you know, I'm not I'm not gonna walk.

So I I really was like, I need to get my my stuff together and and figure this out, like figure out how to live in this chair.

Because that's what's gonna happen.

I'm not I'm not walking out of this, I'm gonna have to live in this thing.

So and you know, there was a time when you know, I probably scared the crap out of my mom pretty bad because I was literally sitting in my room on the floor and I had taken apart the wheelchair completely, every piece of it, and had it all laid out on the floor and just had taken it apart.

And my mom walked in and um kind of freaked out, and she started crying, like, what's the matter with you?

What are you doing?

You know, and I said, Well, um, if I have to live in this thing, I'm gonna learn how to take it apart, and I'm gonna learn how to, you know, and that's funny because I did that a couple times.

I took the chair apart, but now my chairs are in such bad shape, I don't take them apart.

I never take care of them.

I just get the crap beat out of them all the time.

So um it's kind of ironic that you know I she told me my mom told me it that day, you know, you're scaring me, you're scared of me.

Don't be scared.

I'm just and and I remember kind of freaking out that day, just going, you know what, this basically F this chair, you know, like climbed out of it and I tipped it over, and I just said, you know what, I'm gonna take you apart and I'm gonna gut you right now.

Yeah.

That was kind of my mindset, was just like, all right, how do you work?

You know, you kind of know how I work.

How do you work?

So it was just kind of a weird process for me, as far as it took me a really long time to find my place, you know, and I and I don't mean like in life I found a purpose working in a corporate world, and I, you know, I became I was even today in the corporate world, I could, you know, hold my own at a certain point, you know, because I was forced to say, you know, okay, at some point I'm gonna have to survive and I have to get a job because the government at that time definitely was not

giving me enough to live in California.

I think they were giving me like $400 a month or something like that.

And it was just I was living with my mom, but at that time I'm I'm older, I'm getting into my twenties.

I I wanted to live on my own.

I wanted to find out what life was about.

So so I went and got a job, you know, and got a corporate job and figured that out and kind of moved up the corporate ladder.

So, but still in that time, there was still a long process of making a lot of bad decisions, surrounding myself with uh the wrong people still at that point, even though I was doing good in my life and I was making money and I was, you know, had my own place and was driving my own car and doing stuff, you know, still making really bad decisions and surrounding myself with wrong people and you know, putting myself at risk.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

I'm curious, kind of looking back, having this accident happen back in in the 80s.

How have you seen?

And I'm curious to know if it's been for the better, the worse, the same, as far as just general, not even accessibility, but more so even just maybe acceptance by people for being disabled.

How has that kind of evolution been in your eyes?

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's funny.

Because I mean, even though living in California and I got injured in '86, and that was right around the time the a lot of the disability laws were taking place, and people were fighting for that kind of thing at that point.

And I became the beneficiary of that, you know what I mean, for all the work that the people put in before me, the disabled community that were fighting for accessibility in the streets and in the stores and in the restaurants.

And, you know, there was a long time in the 80s and the probably in the 90s, where in the community, you know, I had to I had to sue people to get access.

unknown: Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: Restaurants and bars and places that, you know, I would I would let's say we're gonna go out with the family, you know, and there's 10 of us in 1991.

We go to this bar, or not a bar, we went to a restaurant, uh, very nice restaurant, and you know, the bill ends up being, I don't know, 500 bucks or something like that.

And I go to use the bathroom, and the bathroom door's too small.

So you we're giving this establishment a whole family experience and letting them give us an experience, but yet I still got to go pee in the parking lot.

So, you know, there was a lot of that in the in the 80s and you know, in the early 90s, but but now the accessibility's great.

And you know, the the acceptance back then wasn't wasn't so much that there wasn't any acceptance, you know, it was seeing a a kid like me at you know, let's say I was around 22 or 23 when I really started thriving and going out in the community and you know, wheeling 20 miles a day and doing different stuff on the beach and exercising and just seeing a kid out grinding on the beach, wheeling up the biggest hills he could find, you know, uh vertical heels, and just people were like tripping on me.

They would see me and be like, What the heck?

So, yeah, and there was a you know, there was a rebellious part of me that was like, What are you looking at?

SPEAKER_03: You know, what are you, you know?

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I don't know how many times in my 20s I said that to people, like, what are you looking at?

You know, because they were just like, Whoa, what is this?

You know, it's a it's a disabled kid that's grinding like he's and they weren't looking at me like anything other than you know, probably like wow, yeah, look at this guy living life, you know, because uh it wasn't so much in view back then, you know.

Yeah, uh now you see, you know, now it's there's a uh large, you know, disabled community wherever you go, and there's people at disabled sports and uh you know adaptive sports everywhere and the Paralympics and just so many things that that we have access to now, you know, there's so many foundations that will take you surfing or take you skiing or you know, take your fishing or doing things that learning how to fish in a wheelchair in the early 90s was not an easy thing to do, you know.

But having people that were very versed in sports fishing and stuff just go, you know what, we're gonna take you out, we're gonna put you on the back of the boat and you're gonna catch fish.

You know, I was lucky that I had friends that I grew up with that they didn't see the disability, they knew me before.

So they were like, Look, even though your your disability is there, your physical body changes, but your soul doesn't.

Like it your soul only changes if you become angry and you let it change.

You know, realistically, if you still love life and you still are welcome to new experiences and and energy, and you know, life is just a whole bunch of energy, man.

And if you got negative energy the whole time and that's what you're gonna do, then that's what you're that's what you'll be.

You know, if you surround yourself with negative energy, that's what's gonna happen to you, you know.

And I learned this firsthand, you know, by surrounding myself with the wrong people and going through experiences and ending up in jail in a wheelchair, you know, it's like there's a whole bunch of uh things, you know, that that uh that happened in my life.

It's you know, and and seeing people that have gone through the same, like not the same exact thing as me, but the same, close to the same experience as me, and making way different choices and ending up in such different places in such more positive way, really is like, okay, there's a lot to be said about just you know, surrounding yourself with the good people and and positive energy and and different things like that.

It's it's a it's real, you know, and some people might might be like, oh, you sound like a hippie or whatever, you know what I mean?

But living, having the experience of saying, you know what, I I made a lot of bad decisions, and it put me in very bad compromising positions and and then making different decisions and surrounding yourself with different people like-mindedness of of just wanting to make positive change and impact and just different stuff like that.

It's you know, experiencing it and seeing it and um living it, I can attest to it and go, yeah, it's it's a real deal, man.

It's a real thing, and it really makes a difference.

SPEAKER_01: So yeah, you know, man, uh listening to you talk, you know, I was just hit by this kind of obvious thing of your story, but but at the same point, it kind of hit me was the simple fact of, you know, you kind of mentioned this this highlight reel, or or maybe we'll call it a low light reel, mentioning prison and and and all these kind of aspects of life, you know, you flip out the thing.

You know, despite the fact that you're in a wheelchair, you're actually still just this young kid in his 20s trying to trying to do life, you know, just just trying to figure out life and still literally you you've got your mind, you're still the same person, your legs just don't work, you know, and and you're just trying to figure stuff out.

And yeah, it's like, yeah, why wouldn't you get involved in stupid stuff?

You know, it's like you you're just trying to do what you can, and in that age, we make a lot of stupid decisions, you know.

SPEAKER_00: Um and you know, the I didn't go to prison, I did go to county jail, but I you know, and I avoided prison very luckily.

Like I I was facing good prison time, but I luckily avoided that.

And but you are who you surround yourself with, man.

And if you want more, you have to go out and make more, you know, and so in that kind of that whole process of like, all right, I went to jail and it had a huge impact on me.

And I and and that's when I realized, look, man, I can't be a gangster in a wheelchair.

Like, even though I lived my life like that for a long time and I carried guns and just did stupid stuff, that was a point in my life where I said, you know what, I can't be a gangster in a wheelchair, man.

I have to be, I have to live a normal life.

You know, sitting in jail in a wheelchair was really sombering moment of you need to make some really life changes.

And and I did, you know, when I got out, I just I told myself, like, I have to, there's some things I have to do in my life, and I have to, you know, have conviction in my decisions and what I do, and I have to have more character and more belief in myself and things that I can do in a positive way.

At that point in my life, I just kind of stopped with anything that I thought extracurricular activity that could make me extra money.

And I just said, you know what, if I'm gonna make money, I just kind of got to go grind.

I really put my nose down in the corporate world and just started working and just trying to make my own way honestly and without any sidebars of, you know, oh, I can I can get a quick come up of a couple grand here if I do that.

And then I had to surround myself with different people.

And that's when I told a lot of people in my life, like, hey, you're a threat to everything I'm trying to work for.

And if you can't help yourself, then I can't help you.

And I'm at the survival mode right now for myself.

So I have to really take care of me.

And if you're not in that same realm and you're still doing the things you're doing, then I can't do it with you no more, you know.

And I really had to distance myself from some people in my life that I still love, and you know, all these years later we're reconnected because of course they had to make different decisions in their life, too.

You know, it's either prison or the grave, you know, and that's you know, and there's a lot of my friends that aren't with us anymore, and there's some of my friends are in prison for the rest of their life.

So, you know, I've seen it so close up, I've lived it, I've seen it happen to people around me.

And you can continue to make the same decisions if you want, you know, which I know a lot of people have, and I just chose not to, you know, I value the people in my life, I value my life and my self-worth and and the people that doing those things affects more than just yourself.

So what I realized, you know, A, my accident, you know, really affected my family.

Seeing my aunt was a strong woman, and I've never seen her cry a day in her life coming out of the ICU or whatever I was in, I you know, surgery and seeing my aunt crying, bawling her eyes out, you know.

Uh, this here's this strong, strong woman that I've never seen shed a tear.

And here she is, just bawling like a baby.

And you know, my first question was, I, you know, what's why is Auntie crying?

You know, why is she crying?

I didn't, you know, at that point, I'm just literally drugged up coming out of surgery, and and you know, I don't know what's going on.

So making those decisions to say, you know what, I'm gonna live a better life, I'm gonna put myself in better positions.

And at the beginning of that was was really great.

You know, I was living a good life and I, you know, surrounded myself with a lot better people, and and then getting out of my car one day, uh, I snapped uh upper bicep in my left arm or my right arm, the right upper bicep.

Because I I'd gotten injured in the accident, I had gotten two rotator cuff tears because of the tire across my back, it was resting on my shoulders as well.

So I had two rotator cuff tears, two on my left shoulder and one on my right.

They were moderate tears, and they didn't require surgery, but they were there and I needed to do stuff about it.

But through the years of kind of living an independent life, I started to tear that bicep and one day getting in my car, it came completely detached.

So, through that process of doing that, at that time, my brother met a guy named Kavika Watt that was on the beach, and he was touting a prototype paddle board that he had made that one of our friends had shaped, a guy that I mentioned a couple times, Scott Chandler.

Uh, he's a big wave surfer in our community and and a really pretty good shaper.

And so he had helped this guy kind of shape this paddleboard with outriggers on it, and that you could put a wheelchair on top of it, and that people could do like actual paddleboarding on the water.

When he met my brother on the beach, they didn't know each other.

They just he was talking about it and said, Hey, I can't find anybody in a wheelchair that's kind of crazy enough to ride this thing.

And my brother's like, you know, I think I got, I think I have somebody that might be dumb enough to ride that thing.

And, you know, at this time I'm very injured.

I'm, you know, on Percocets and I'm laying in bed.

You know, it's probably two, maybe a week and a half, two weeks after I tore my right bicep, and my brother calls me really early in the morning on a Sunday at probably like 6 a.m.

These guys had been talking for an hour on the beach, old guys watching the surf at 5 a.m., you know, and said, Hey man, you got to get up and you got to meet this guy.

And I was just like, bro, somebody like I was somebody better be dead.

You're calling me right now.

I could never sleep for a week, you know.

I was just like in the miserable pain.

And I, you know, I've never been a person that liked painkillers.

So being on painkillers was really something that was not that I wanted to be.

I didn't want to, you know, be in that position where I was on pharmaceutical drugs.

So so yeah, I was in a really bad spot, and I just kind of barked at him a little bit, but he got his message across like, hey, this guy's got this thing and you can get on the water.

And I said, I'll call you back later, and I hung up.

But that phrase that he said was ringing in my head when I tried to go back to sleep.

Uh basically, just the phrase was, you could get back in the water, you could get back in the water, you could get back in the water, and that's all I heard when I laid down and I said, Shit, I could get back in the water.

So I just wow 10 minutes later, I called my brother back and said, What do I need to do?

And what do I need to meet this guy?

And so I met him, Kavika, I don't know, about three days later, and saw the board.

And that couple days after that, I was I was paddling, and so paddled at uh Carl's Bad Lagoon for a little bit.

And I mean, it it took literally just a like four weeks before it helped me get my strength back in my shoulder, like it had an immediate impact on me, and it had an immediate impact on on my condition on my shoulder.

SPEAKER_01: How long was this after your initial accident?

SPEAKER_00: Uh, yeah, so it's literally 19, uh 2013 when all this was taking place.

So this was a lot of years later.

It was I was out of the water for many, many years.

I, you know, I did sports fishing, so I stayed connected with the ocean.

I swam.

I had a a house for I don't know, eight years that had a pool, so I was swimming all the time.

Time and I kept my relationship with the water and with the ocean through fishing and through through swimming mainly.

Yeah.

And then so when I got the opportunity all these years later, you know, and that's why my shoulder was all grinded down because here you are, you know, all these years later, doing all this manual physical, you know, I was very physical.

I'd wheeled 20 miles a day for probably, I don't know, I did that for about 10 years.

And I would just, my workouts were climbing the biggest hills that I could find.

The longest, biggest, gnarliest hills in the in the town, I would just go climb them.

You know, if they were short and steep, if they were long and drawn out, if they were, you know, I would just go climb these gnarly hills.

And so that had a big toll on my shoulders.

So my shoulders broke down after a lot of those years.

And so it ended up with this tear, and that's kind of, you know, meeting Kavika was a big giant, you know, defining moment.

You have these defining moments in your life where meeting him was a defining moment.

We are both praying for something.

You know, he's praying to God that, hey, let me change somebody's life with this thing.

And I'm praying to God saying, please let me get back to my normal life, or I can get in and out of my car and go to work, and I can, you know, use my arm again, let me get back there.

And we meet, and this contraption that he came up with, and and here we are, you know, four weeks later, I'm I'm able to lift myself back in my car and I'm able to start living my life again.

And then I don't know, three months later I do a paddleboard race, which was Battle of the Paddle, which, you know, I had no idea about any of it.

Somebody emailed me and said, Hey, you should think about doing this paddleboard race.

And and so, you know, I thought in my mind of minds like paddleboarding, you know, at that time in 2013.

Little did I know at that time was the was the peak of paddleboarding and racing and and the sport.

And the sport is a great sport and people in the community, it's just amazing.

But I thought, you know, oh, this is gonna be 50 people, you know, that's what I thought.

Yeah, I had no idea.

I just emailed Rainbow Sandals and said, hey, I'm gonna do your race.

Because at the time, by that time, three months later, I was paddling about five miles a day.

Oh wow.

And then I thought, you know, hey, I could paddle with this thing without the outriggers.

So I took the outriggers off and I could paddle flat water without it.

And then I got the crazy idea that I could surf on it.

And I was like, hey, I told my brother and and Kavik, I said, I could surf on this thing.

They're like, dude, you're crazy.

It was an 11-6 touring board, was what they would call that round nose touring board, kind of like a longboard, but really wide, and it had a wheelchair on top of it that would lock on the top of the deck.

So I told them, no, man, I want to try to surf on this thing.

So we took it to Duheny Beach and I surfed on it.

I caught five waves.

I caught one wave all the way to the beach.

And so, little do I know, like about a month later, this battle of the paddle race is at Duheny Beach.

So I'm like, hey, I could actually do this.

I look at the short course, which is five miles, and I say, I paddle five miles every day.

So I think I could do this race.

Like, so I approached my coach, Kabika, and say, hey, we could do this.

Like, we could do this race.

And he's like, okay, let's go.

Let's, you know, you know, if you're down for it, let's do it.

So I emailed Rainbow Sandals and a guy named Barrett Tester, and and Barrett was a big proponent to adaptive paddling after I entered the race because Rainbow really had to fight for me to to paddle because the parks and wrecks and the insurance said, hey man, you can't do this.

It's called Battle of the Paddle.

I didn't know all this, but there was 484 people in my class alone.

So when I show up to the race, there's 5,000 people on the beach.

I thought there were 50 people on the beach.

There's 5,000 people on the beach, and there's almost 500 people in my class, which was just the open group class.

So yeah, it was it.

So when I'm seeing this on the beach, I'm like, holy shit, like what did I do?

SPEAKER_01: Like no, no, when you say in your class, you don't mean other people who are also in wheelchairs, do you?

SPEAKER_00: No, no, that's just the open group class.

So that's just paddlers.

I'm the only paraplegic to ever do an open water paddleboard race, to my knowledge.

And that was the first time that I'd ever done one.

So Ryan Levinson is actually the first disabled person to do an open water paddleboard race.

He did the very first battle of the paddle, and he's got muscular dystrophy.

So wow.

Yeah.

So he was like somebody that I drew a lot of inspiration from like, all right, let's, you know, but I didn't know that he did BOP until after, and I met Ryan after I did the race.

And, you know, that's another story, but but doing that race, it changed everything.

Yeah, it um it changed everything for me.

And that's the reason why I'm we have Stoke for Life now, is because of doing BOP and and the sub-community embracing a disabled paddler and not vibing them out and like, what are you doing here?

And why are you here?

You know, they were like, paddle, bro, paddle, paddle.

You know, one guy named Brennan Rose, who I, you know, we're good friends now, but I didn't know him from anybody the day of the race, and I'm on the starting line watching 300 paddle boarders paddle out before me, you know, and really questioning, like, what am I doing here?

When I have this kid jump in the water, and you know, he's an elite big wave surfer and distance paddler, true waterman, you know, fisherman.

He does does all kinds of different disciplines, and jumped in the water and said, Hey man, I want to paddle this race with you.

And I was like, Oh, he looked like Zach from Saved by the Bell.

I was like, Zach, Saved by the Bell, want to paddle with me?

I was like, Yeah, dude, whatever.

Like, if you want to paddle with me, paddle.

You know, I'm at the I'm at the starting line, the race is about to start, and there's 500 people, you know, on the starting line.

So it was a real crazy moment.

And there's a picture in a magazine.

Uh, I think it's uh Stand-Up Paddle magazine, or you know, one of the stand-up paddle magazines that came out at that time, and it's me on the starting line with Brennan and my coach.

And, you know, the look on my face is just so, you know, I have sunglasses on, so you can't really see, and I have a helmet on, but like I'm just staring at all these people that are paddling before me, and and I know exactly what I was thinking, which is like, what am I doing here?

Like I'm getting way over my head with my first thought, you know, and that's you know, somebody asked me, you know, like, what are you thinking right there?

And I'm thinking, I'm in deep shit right now.

You know, that's what I was thinking.

But having Brennan there and having Kavika there to, you know, really it was crazy because every single paddler really encouraged me to paddle, you know, to and they, you know, being on the water with 500 people, it's not easy.

The water's very churned up, and there's you know, you gotta go around a buoy, and you got there's a whole course you have to navigate, and it was difficult and it was scary, and I fell over coming out of the surf.

So the the first part of the race, I don't know, I got out about 100 yards over three waves, and then the fourth wave knocked me over.

And so the lifeguards wanted to take me back to the shore.

And I'm like, if I go back to the shore, I'm never gonna make it.

So, you know, the option was we need to flip this board over.

I need to get on the board out here in the deep water where nobody could touch the bottom.

And so me and Kavika had practiced some deep water loading on the board in the harbor where I did some some training, and we were able to get me back on the board within about a minute.

And you got to understand, there's hundreds of paddlers paddling around me, and they're falling, and their boards are falling, and their paddles, and it's all that there's just debris in the water, and there's people, and it's surf, and it's it's chaotic.

It's not like, oh, I'm just getting on a board, it's it's like straight chaos, you know, and people and boards, and you know, it's just madness.

And that's when I realized this is why they call it Battle of the Paddle.

Like it's truly, you know, it was the most elite paddle board race on the planet at that time.

And so seeing that and experiencing that and being in the surf and then finally getting on the board and going, let's go, let's go, and and then paddling, and then you know, hearing people go, go, go, and you know, going into a buoy with probably 80 or 90 people at the same time, very intimidating.

So, yeah, I mean, that whole race changed everything in my life.

And coming out of that race, the people that embraced me and the community that embraced me was, you know, it was amazing.

They were just, you know, Larry Hamilton and Candace Appleby and these icons of water sports, you know, came up to me and and said, you know, yeah, Laird told me I was an inspiration.

And you know, Candace just has always been a big supporter, you know, ever since that day, you know, just coming up and giving me a big hug and just going, wow, you know, awesome.

You know, people of that caliber, those caliber of water people, you know, Laird is the quintessential waterman of our time, you know, and and Candace is the exact same thing, but on the female version of that, you know, the probably the most decorated woman paddleboarder and the most like just grindy surfer.

And, you know, she just does amazing work and coaching people and the ocean academy that she's a part of, and all that kind of stuff that she's accomplished.

That that caliber of person coming up to me and just giving me love and giving me stoke and just saying, yeah, that was awesome and good job, you know, to me it was life-changing.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's honestly pretty powerful because when listening to you, I can't help but think like not only did did you find this this new sport, but you really kind of found a family again, like you have in surfing.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, the uh stand-up paddle community embraced me so quickly and with such a a big hug.

And even though I don't paddle right now because due to injuries and surgeries, and I just haven't found my way back to paddling.

For years and years I paddled many races, and and just that community just was always there.

And if I get back there and I get my board back in the water and I start paddling again and I do another race, I guarantee you they'll they'll just embrace me again and and it'll be like, hey, where have you been?

Like we missed you.

Yeah, and that's just how that community is, and that's and it and it gave me the ability, you know.

Steve Bainey from Infinity Surfboards makes paddle boards, and Candace Appleby actually is an infinity speed freak.

She's been paddling for them for years.

So Steve is a is like an integral cog to the how I found my way back to surfing because he makes what's called a wave ski, and a wave ski is a surf sit-on-top surfboard for people with disabilities.

So he started shaping those boards.

Freddie Carrillo was the first guy he shaped a board for 1998 or 99.

And so Steve was at that race, and Steve saw me and and reached out to me and said, Hey man, you're gonna kill yourself on that thing.

Um, I actually make surfboards for people with disabilities, and I can make you a surfboard.

And so Steve reached out to me and and yeah, I went to Sano and met, you know, all the boys, uh, met all the adaptive wave skiers and Chris Oberly and some of the other guys, and went surfing with Steve.

And yeah, he he just uh changed everything for me at that point.

It was it was game on.

Once I was like, Oh, I got a I got it, I got a surfboard and yeah, and somebody that wants to help me shred.

It was on after that.

Happened really quick after that.

I started surfing.

I was already paddling and doing a lot of paddleboard races, and but I started doing surf contests, uh adaptive surf contests, the dukes, and and the WSA contests, and started doing those, and then it just took off.

I was surfing and paddling.

I was doing surf contests and paddle races in the same month, doing you know, one or two surf contests and at least one paddle race every month, and that's you know, a lot of publications were taking pictures of me and found social media and you know, through Facebook and uh Instagram and all that kind of stuff.

People started reaching out to me more, people dis with disabilities were asking, like, how can I do that?

How can I get on one of those boards?

How can they start asking a lot of questions, you know?

And so from that point, it kind of became an obligation to me.

Like, somebody gave this to me, somebody gave me the auditability board, somebody gave me the ability to do this.

They didn't charge me money or say, hey, pay me and I'll help you.

You know, it was like, look at what what we found, look at what we could do, you know.

Hey, do you want to do this?

And so it became really apparent to me that I needed to pass this on.

And this was an obligation for me to have to give it to somebody else, you know, and that became the mission was like, how can I how can I help somebody else get on the water?

How can I help somebody find surfing?

How can I help somebody find paddling?

How can I get these people to to where I'm at right now, you know?

Yeah.

Um so that's you know, that kind of became, you know, a lot of people reached out to me from different countries, and that was the thing was, you know, I was getting people from Japan and Brazil and Colombia and all kinds of different places of like, hey, how can I do this?

Where can I do it?

How can I get one?

And so that was that's where it was like, okay, we need to help these people, we need to figure out a way to help them.

And that's when we were like, well, you know, we could start a nonprofit.

So that's where Stoke for Life kind of came in in 2015.

Took me a couple of years to kind of be able to go, okay, you know what?

I need to figure out the way to do this.

And through some mentors and people that still are donors and still support us, they like to stay anonymous, so I'm not gonna say his name, but he was a huge part of everything that I did and helping me create a nonprofit and what it looks like and how to, you know, how to conduct it.

So there was a few people that were very integral.

Uh, another guy, Wesley Stewart, from uh he was the founder of Urban Surfer Kids, um, even though I think he's no longer involved as far as like being on the board or anything, but he was a very integral part of helping me see what a nonprofit can look like and how much impact it can have.

And so yeah, just through the whole process of of the journey, you can't keep these awesome things to yourself that are gifts that were given to you.

You got to pass them on, man.

And it's you know, the pay it forward type thing.

Or so that that that's where Stoke for Life came from.

And through that, through competitive surfing and through seeing, hearing sitting at a table, you know, with five legendary, six legendary, you know, old school adaptive surfers and hearing what's wrong with adaptive surfing at that point, you know, what was wrong, what we needed to do, what what how could we change it?

How could we do this well, you know, better?

You know, and that just hearing those guys, and uh, you know, I took all of that in, and a few years later, we 2017 we started the U.S.

Open Adaptive Surfing Championships.

And um, 2018, we implemented the classification with Dr.

Mo Johnson, and that classification is now uh what will be recognized if and when adaptive surfing gets in to the Paralympics, they will be using that classification that was done here at the US Open.

And so yeah, it's been a it's been a fun journey and being the first adaptive surf contest professionally to offer money.

And it's kind of a big deal for adaptive surfers to travel the world.

And and you know, our paychecks aren't that huge, but to just be able to get a paycheck to show up and say, you know what, I can at least get entry fee and and some food money and you know, or enough to cover my hotel room or my plane flight to get to the next stop.

It's been a really fun journey to be able to be a part of a really growing sport that's it's probably the fastest growing adaptive sport on the planet, as far as you know, structurally wise people getting introduced to it.

There's always new people in the sport every year.

I'll get, I don't know, I've seen probably five or six new names on the list of registration for the US Open.

And so yeah, it's it's always interesting to see new people and and uh everybody's getting involved, and it's a it's a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, without a doubt, man.

That's so incredible.

And and I want to ask you a little bit more about it, but but if you don't mind, I want to go back real quick because I read something in I don't know what what exactly is there, if if the question will will go anywhere, but back that first battle of the paddle that that you did, that first race, which sounded just, I mean, it sounded brutal, but it also sounded extremely empowering and epic.

I read that afterwards you had just got in your car and kind of broke down.

I was hoping you could maybe unpack that a little bit.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so coming off the beach, getting to shore, being carried King's chair, fireman carry, whatever they call it, up the beach, and you know, having 5,000 people cheering for you was something that I never experienced.

And then throughout that time, I kind of talked about Candace and Laird, you know, so many people were coming up to me and giving me hugs and you know, spa just people were handing me stuff like here's it was just really overwhelming.

And then to have somebody like Candace come up and give me a hug, and then have Laird come up to me and give me a hug and just say, that's the most inspiring thing I've ever seen, is what he said to me.

And Laird's, you know, he's the first guy to toe in at chokes and you know, develop toe-win surfing and bring back stand-up paddle from kind of the graves, you know, of the ancient Hawaiians that used to and Tahitians that used to stand-up paddle, that crew of guys, the strap crew, and just that whole genre of cats, you know, is are so legendary, you know.

And through for me, just to have Laird come up to me and say that, you know, knowing that he's what he's done at Chopu and just what he's done for surfing and surfing, not for surfing, but just the things that he's done and accomplished and and just being the waterman that he is, just talking to him, it just was so overwhelming for me.

And so, yeah, I literally wheeled off to my car after about 15 minutes, and I just I cried and I drove off.

And little did I know, Rainbow Sandals honored me with most inspirational paddler award at the race.

I didn't find that out until like three weeks later at another race where somebody was like, where actually uh Chuck Glenn, who I think is you know related to Laird through marriage.

Chuck Glenn is a you know a guy that gets invited to do the ultimate waterman's challenge.

So, I mean, he is a true waterman of many levels, foiling and surfing and stand-up paddle, and just through all these genres, fishing and all these disciplines.

And I met Chuck at this next race a couple weeks after Battle of the Paddle, and he said, Hey man, my uncle loves you.

And I said, Who's your uncle?

He said, Laird.

And he goes, Where'd you go?

And I go, What do you mean?

Well, your uncle talked to me.

I started crying, I laughed.

You know, I was so overwhelmed.

He said, Well, they they honored you with this with this amazing award, this awesome paddle award.

And I said, Oh, so uh then I went back to Sparky and Rainbow Sandals and Barrett Tester, and they honored me with that paddle.

And that that uh I went to their headquarters rainbow in in San Clemente and they they honored me with that.

And and Rainbow Sandals sponsored me, and Sparky sponsored me for many years and paid for my races.

And and I just want to send out a big shout out to Rainbow Sandals and the love that they gave me for so many years, and they supported me for so many years.

And unfortunately, through a donation or something like that, it I had to step off their team.

And but, you know, I just want to always say that Sparky gave me so much love and so much stoke, and and you know, through being a professional athlete, you find out and you make mistakes, and leaving rainbow is one of the biggest mistakes I ever made as a as an adaptive athlete for sponsorship and just support.

So that, you know, just want to always give them homage and that they were there for me and that they supported adaptive paddling and an adaptive athlete, they pay for my surf contests and they pay all my entry fees every year for for whatever I was doing.

Uh, they did that for I don't know, five or six years.

So I just always want to give Sparky Love and Rainbow Sandals so much love and and what they did.

SPEAKER_01: Whoa.

Dude, I I love that.

And I mean, first and foremost, Rainbow Sandals, if it weren't for them, I would have been barefoot my entire high school.

Um, so I mean, I I have that respect for Rainbow Sandals by far were the best flip flops ever made.

So I love that.

But what I love about your story, and when when I was listening to you talk about that experience coming out of the water, what I love about that is, you know, we we talked earlier about, you know, accessibility and stuff.

And and so many times when we have a disability of any kind, we can't help but so many times feel like isolated, like like we're the ones that are having to have these things done for, these exceptions made for it.

And and you can feel like you're separate from everybody.

And what I love about this story is the fact that to me, true accessibility is when it just makes you united with everybody else.

You know, and in the and the fact is, is that yeah, it is inspirational, it is incredible, but at the same point, you are also just a paddler out there on the water like everybody else.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, a lot of people with disabilities, and you can attest to this.

Uh, you've probably come across some people that just say, Look, I I don't want to be called an inspiration.

And I've heard that.

And for me, it's a little different.

So, the first person to ever call me an inspiration, I was probably a month into the on and ability board experience, and I was paddling on Carlsbad Lagoon, the Back Lagoon, Flatwater, and I got off the beach and and I was changing my clothes in my car, and I just got my shorts on and and I was putting my shoes on, and I saw a lady that was probably 75, she might have been 80, she was she's up there in age, and she was walking on the pathway and she was crying, she was sobbing.

And I thought she had fallen or something.

And I was like, Are you okay?

Are you okay?

You know, and she said, she said, Yeah, me and my husband were following you in our kayaks while you were paddling on the lagoon.

And she said, You're such an inspiration.

And I, you know, and I said, you know, I in passing, I just said, Yeah, thank you, you know, blah blah blah blah blah blah.

But then I start thinking about it on the way home, and I'm thinking, this lady has seen World War One, two, Vietnam.

She's seen the radio turn into, you know, the TV, black and white to turn into colors.

She's seen the eight-track to cassette to DVD.

She's seen this lady seen so much in her life, and she sees me and and I'm what inspires her.

You know, so I embraced that because of the experience and and just the emotion that she had that of all the things that she's seen in her life that that seeing me can pull that out of her and just make her sob.

I was like, okay, well, I guess that's awesome.

And yeah later, you know, I heard people when I started because mind you, I didn't know any disabled people for 25 years.

I just hung out with my regular life and my job, and and I didn't really get involved in the disabled community until I did BOP, and then people started reaching out to me, and then you know, we started hanging around some adaptive surfers that Steve Bainey introduced me to, and then kind of getting into the community.

Then I was like, these are my people.

Like I have a whole tribe of people that I never I was lost.

I just, you know, I was like a little kid that wandered off in the got raised by wolves, and then came back years later and was like, Hey, these are my people, you know, and I was this rabid animal that had only been hanging out with able-bodied people for all these years.

So it took a little bit of adjusting, but you know, I had found my place, you know, finally, of like, okay, I guess this is where I belong and this is where I'm supposed to be.

And so, you know, finding Stoke for Life and finding these people, you know, these Steve Baineys and these, you know, these people that were helping me that were find my place find back in the water.

You know, Steve has helped so many people in the water and helped so many people just find happiness in the water.

You know, it's it's been a real pleasure to to be around people like that and to honor people like that and to have people like that believe in me, you know.

Getting a call from Steve Bainey saying, Hey, can you come in and kind of help me with this kid?

I'm gonna I'm gonna make him a wave ski, and I'd like your input.

I'm like, dude, you've been making wave skis for people with disabilities for 20 years or something like that.

You know, like what do you need me for?

Like, but if that call was so honoring and so I just I was like, yeah, I'll be right there.

Like, I'm on my way, you know, and and being able, and and the guy we were shaping the board for his name's Brad Parks, and Brad is an influential presence in adaptive tennis playing.

So Brad Parks is like one of those guys that like really helped develop the sport of adaptive tennis, and so knowing that and meeting Brad and getting able to surf with so it's all like super relative.

Like you meet one person, they introduce you to another person, that has a ripple effect on you, and that person, and that person knows this person, and then it's just it's all web together.

And I didn't know that being, you know, like until I met these people, and then I go, Oh, like okay, I get it now.

You know, going to Hawaii and doing my first Duke's Ocean Fest and surfing in that first event in Hawaii and meeting Richard Julian and knowing what kind of impact Rich has had on the sport and on just you know, talk about tennis, that's an international tennis player, talk about adaptive paddling.

This guy's canoe paddling all the time.

He's been doing it for you know 20 years.

And you know, for me as an open water paddler, to meet another guy that like I paddle open water in a different way on a canoe, but to have a Tahitian paddle to kind of know that technique, to kind of it's a kindred spirit.

It's like, oh, this this guy's my freaking brother from another mother, you know, and so to be introduced to those people and to have those people in my life now and to be able to lean on them for advice about competitions or you know, anything, you know, development of the sport, us developing a world tour to have those guys to lean on as a voice, you know, and as more experience than me, you know.

Have I been as disabled super long?

Yeah, since 1986.

But I've only been involved with adaptive water sports, you know, for you know, about 15 years, you know, 13, 14 years.

So there's other guys that came way before me.

Now, have I had a pretty big impact because of what I've been able to do?

Okay, you could say that maybe, but but I always want to honor the people that came before me and laid the path for me because I wouldn't be where I'm at.

I wouldn't have figured this out if there wasn't a Freddie Carrillo or Richard Julian or you know, guys that came before me, the the you know, the Anthony Smice, the Mark Mono Stewart's, the the Mark Thorntons.

Me and Mark don't see eye to eye anymore, but he's a guy that came before me and and really laid the path for me and and other people.

So, you know, and I always want to give homage to those guys and you know let them know that, you know, yeah, I wouldn't be where I'm at without their input and their their work and their however they did it, you know.

But we're we're we're here now and we're a little bit farther down the road.

And if if that's from my contribution, then great.

But you know, I I can't say all of these things I did all by myself, or I've had a tremendous amount of help and teamwork, and people that believe in the sport and believe in Stoke for Life and mentors that have guided me and said, hey, don't do that, do this, and do it this way, and be more well spoken and don't be so abrasive.

And there's just so many things because I wasn't always this nice, Kevin.

You know, there's people and there's people that can remember even five or six years ago that you know I've had a I've had to learn a lot, you know, to be in a better place, to be a better business person, to be a better representative of the sport, to be a better husband, a better friend, a better brother, you know, and it's taken the willingness to take criticism, to want to grow from it, to understand your mistakes and and say, Yeah, I made a mistake and and can I grow from that

mistake?

Can I learn from that?

Can I anything?

Can I make sure that somebody else learns from that mistake?

And there was a time when I thought maybe I was a finished product, you know, in my 30s where I was like, ah, what you see is what you get.

You know, and there couldn't be a worse phrase for somebody to say, uh, you know, what you see is what you get, you know, because that just shows a limitation of wanting to grow and change and mutate and be something better, be something more beautiful, be something more important, be something more encouraging, you know, that's it's very limiting to just be like, ah, what you see is what you get, you know.

I'm a finished product, you know, like phrases like that are to me are just, you know, and I've I've I've been guilty of saying stuff like that.

But through meeting different people and through the opportunity to grow and to learn, you know, it's it's been great to be able to say, I'm not a finished product, man.

I got a lot to learn and and I I want to learn and I'm willing to learn.

And there's people that are willing to teach me, so I have to honor them, you know, what they're willing to put forward and um not just be so one-sided to say, hey, I'm a finished product, and what you see is what you get.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, dude.

Well, man, I think I think your story is incredible, the evolution in as you just said, of this idea of continuing to evolve.

And, you know, earlier, you know, a little bit ago, we were we were talking about this idea of inspiration and and whether it's a good thing or it's a bad thing.

And and me personally, I feel like all the things that we do in life, we we have to find inspiration.

We have to be inspired to even get motivated.

It all starts with the inspiration.

And so to see you finding ways to find inspiration for yourself, to then inspire others, I think it has indeed created an amazing ecosystem that that you've been able to create with with your foundation, with all that you guys are doing.

And I know that this episode is coming out literally coming up the last stop of the world tour.

How many different disabilities or classes do you guys represent at each of these stops?

SPEAKER_00: So there's nine divisions straight up, and then you go both ways, male, female.

So you that you know, the tree would be 18 divisions, but it's realistically it's it's nine divisions, and some of the divisions are are I don't want to say they're disabled based.

You know, there's division called baloney stand.

So you're a baloney amputee or you have a baloney disability or impairment, then yeah, you would fall under that upper limb stand.

Yeah, if you have an upper limb impairment or uh, you know, upper limb amputation, then you would fall under that.

Uh, but there's also like my division, wave ski, which is just that's the kind of board you surf on.

It's a sit-on-top surfboard.

A majority of the people that surf in that division have a spinal cord injury.

So yeah, there's nine divisions.

The U.S.

Open is September 10th through the 13th.

So we are happening right before the, which is which is awesome because you know, some people will be able to listen to this and maybe draw some eyes.

Maybe they haven't seen adaptive surfing, maybe they haven't experienced it.

And and they'll be able to get on a live stream and go to YouTube and get on the High Fives Foundation YouTube page, maybe the Stoke for Life Facebook page uh we're gonna be launching from, I believe, this year, and and check out the the event.

It's live streaming.

We'll have some awesome special guests this year, hopefully some really mainstream surfers, and you'll meet a lot of adaptive special guest surfers that are competing and they're gonna come into the booth and talk with us for a little bit and talk about the sport and talk about different aspects of the sport and possibly how the sport's going.

And maybe, you know, down the road in 2032 or 2030, you know, they get acceptance in into the Paralympics in 2032, and and maybe that's the the next possibility of of growth for the sport.

There's a lot that goes behind that too, though, as well.

You know, the the Paralympics, it's the framework of it, they're not gonna accept nine new divisions.

So there's a lot of a lot of work that has to be done there as far as to get that sport accepted and to get it over the hump and what it's gonna look like and what divisions are gonna be accepted and how many medals they're gonna have.

And so that's a whole different thing.

And that's kind of for me, I want to help the Paralympic movement.

And I started that in 2015 with the ISA and being on their committee and doing uh you know as much work with them as possible that I could do and try to try to help the format, and we're still trying to help the format get accepted in 2032, and but what it's gonna look like is we don't know that.

So, what I want for adaptive surfing is I want them to always have a place to go.

So let's say they get accepted in 2032 and and only three or four divisions get accepted.

Well, what happens to the other five divisions?

Where do they go?

You know, now their Paralympic dream is non-existent.

We want to have a place for them to go.

So that's where the ASP comes in, adaptive surfing professionals, the association of adaptive surfing professionals will have all those nine divisions, and we'll continue to help in whatever way we can with the Paralympic push, uh, getting more countries involved, traveling to different countries.

So far, the tour has gone to we start in Australia in March, we go to Hawaii in May.

Two years ago, we went to Costa Rica and then back to Oceanside.

Next year we'll go to Japan and back to Oceanside.

So we'll have four stops on the tour.

So far, we've gone to Australia, Hawaii, we'll be going to Japan, we've gone to Costa Rica.

So we're trying to help grow the sport in different regions of the sport where people can get introduced to it, can see what it looks like, want to get involved, and then represent their countries, you know, if if they can get to a national event, get on their national team, get on the ISA and be able to do that.

The ISA's event is at the uh the desert wave pool this year, which is going to be another great opportunity for adaptive surfers, kind of show their moxie in a wave pool and show what they can do on a pretty high-level wave and see uh different disciplines of adaptive surfing and and kind of show what they got.

So there's still a lot.

This sport is still mutating, man.

It's very young, it's it's in its you know infancy, and and we're still trying to figure a lot of stuff out with the classification, with structure, with infrastructure.

So it's not perfect, and we've made a lot of mistakes.

We learn from those mistakes, we listen to the community.

What we like to say about the association of adaptive surfing professionals, it's built by adaptive surfers for adaptive surfers.

So we have a competition committee.

There's adaptive surfers from each region, each event that are on that committee that help say the structure of this sport.

So it's it's not one voice that says, hey, we're gonna go this way.

It's a whole bunch of voices.

It's Mark Mono Stewart, it's Richard Julian, it's me, it's Roy Tuscany from High Fives Foundation.

It's there's a lot of voices to say, okay, how are we gonna guide the sport?

What's it gonna look like?

There's not one person that's in charge and says, uh, you know, just because I'm the founder of the AASP doesn't mean that I just say, oh, this is what we're doing and this is where we're going.

I've implored the the voices in the sport that I think have the most depth and have the most experience and that can help us uh do the right thing and get to the right place and and uh all that kind of stuff.

So I I, you know, I didn't want to create it and say, oh, I created this awesome thing and I'm gonna, you know, drive it into the ground.

You know, I need the community to help me guide it.

I need people with more experience, more voice to to help uh make this sport be all it can be, you know.

Yeah, uh so that's I tried to do it, you know, the best way possible as far as you know, how can how can we do this where it's not uh doesn't hurt the community, it only helps the community.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.

Well, you know, man, what I was sitting here thinking was at the end of this this interview today, I come back to your personal story, and then let's talk about adaptive surfing, this this entire ecosystem, this world that we've been talking about.

And I can't help but think of the inspiration to me that that this story is for anybody who's living in the in-between, because we all get focused on the event that maybe happened that changed our life, and then where we want to go, and we feel lost in that season in between.

And what I love about your story is the fact that we see where you started, we see the accident that changed your life, but then there was this long period of time where you're trying to figure life out again, and you went through a lot of hard times, and you experienced the the good times and the bad times of life, and yet you made it through.

You found yourself back on the war water.

Water gave you back life again, and I feel like it gave you this zest for life again.

And now I'm watching you with what you're building through the foundation, with through the all the stuff with surfing, literally touching people all over the world.

And I can't help but think, like, yeah, right now, who knows where it's gonna be?

Right now, for any of us interested in getting involved in if nothing more than just spreading the word, you can play a role in the dash in between where it started and where it's going right now.

And I can't help but think, man, it all starts by tuning in to the final stop.

You know, I I think this is absolutely incredible.

I applaud you for what what you've been doing, man.

SPEAKER_00: Well, I appreciate that a lot, Kevin.

It means a lot coming from you.

And you know, you've seen a lot, and in obviously your podcast, you talk to a lot of people, influential people in in the disabled community.

And it's people like you that that shine the light, you know, that says, hey, look at these guys, look at what they're doing, look at this community, look how it's thriving.

You know, and without your voice, you know, a lot of people wouldn't be heard.

So I'm I'm super grateful, A, just for the opportunity to come on here.

And we got to give a big shout out to my guy Shawnee Whitaker, who made the connection between me and you.

And we're all trying to just get back to some kind of normalcy of what it was like, where it was before, you know, and as mundane as that might sound to somebody that that hasn't experienced it, to a whole bunch of other people that have experienced, they're gonna say, I get it, you know.

Yeah, I'm trying to get back to there too.

I'm trying to get back to, and look, it doesn't have to be a physical disability, man.

It can be it can be just everyday life, you know.

Like so many people don't understand that the struggle is real for everyone, you know.

Yes, and the people that lose sight of the, you know, and I I don't want to be, you gotta be empathetic to to people's struggles, just in life in general, just makes you a better human.

You know, it doesn't mean that you have to have a political stance or do anything, it just means that that A, you have possibly experienced some loss or some difficulty, and that you can you can sympathize or empathize or relate to other people's struggles, you know, and and so I think that in the big scheme of things and in the big picture, you know, there's kindness that doesn't really cost you anything.

And I didn't know this for a long time.

And still sometimes, you know, look, you're getting one side of me right now, and and that, you know, sometimes I'm just a person and everybody makes mistakes, and everybody can be guilty of saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing at the wrong time.

And and I've done that a lot.

I I said the wrong thing and I did a lot of you know talking when I should have just done a lot of listening.

And that's the thing, man, is that I really appreciate you giving people the opportunity to be heard and giving people the opportunity to to talk and and show their experiences and talk about their experiences.

And you know, without that, it can be difficult, you know, to to really make positive change and and uh uh because ultimately that's what everybody wants to do.

Everybody wants to make a positive change, and everybody wants to um you know have the opportunity to make an impact, you know, on somebody, on themselves, on people that they love, on for me, it's it's uh it's you know, you're an awesome guy for creating the format that you've created and sticking with it for as long as you have, and you know, how many episodes you have, and just what you're doing is great.

So I really appreciate uh the time and and the effort to talk about surfing and you know shine light on what we're doing at the US Open in Stoke for Life.

SPEAKER_01: Oh man, well, well, first and foremost, dude, thank you tremendously for for that.

And it does, man.

It it it means it means the world to me, and what lights me up is is just getting the opportunity to sit down with people like you who, you know, we just get to, as you said, shine a little light on the aspects of life, you know.

As you said, we're all dealing with something.

Life certainly ain't easy, but I feel like the only way that we're gonna get through it is if.

We just lean on each other and find inspiration in each other and we'll we'll get through it together.

And I think that's the whole purpose of life is to get through it together.

SPEAKER_00: So yeah, and you know, surrounding yourself with like-minded people.

And I I said that a few times during this, and I can't stress it enough.

You are who you surround yourself with, and if you surround yourself with like-minded people that that want certain things and that want change and that are going a certain direction, that have a certain frequency, energy level or frequency, then you have to take advantage of that.

And it's never too late, rather.

If if I could make the change, I went from having my house raided by the you know NTF and iconic task force and the FBI to to where I am right now, you know, all these years later.

It's all about just conviction and and you know what your heart tells you and what your faith guides you to and and where you put yourself, you know.

And if you put yourself in bad situations, you're gonna find bad outcomes.

And if you put yourself in better situations, you'll find different outcomes and better outcomes.

And that and that's what I learned throughout my process of just being where I'm supposed to be, and in your heart know what you want to accomplish is is good.

And um kind of that's kind of where I'm at right now, and it you know, it took a long time to get there.

And I've been super fortunate just uh I I want to thank all the people that support Stoke for Life Foundation and all the sponsors, and I can't name you guys one by one, but we all know who you are, and you know, all my close friends and family, my mom, my brother, all my brothers and sisters, and you know, the people that really believe in what we're doing, it gets you to where you want to go.

And that that means that people are lifting you up, not tearing you down.

So you know, and I I just want to you know, if I can say one thing with this podcast, man, and if it touches one person that's just believing in yourself, you can't accomplish anything if you don't have any belief in yourself.

It's really easy to look around you and see a lot of people that believe in you.

It's really hard to look in the mirror and see somebody that believes in themselves.

So, you know, if that's one thing that I can just tell anybody uh that's listening that can hear this in your shot, just believe, man, believe you can do it, believe in yourself and you can make greatness happen.

SPEAKER_01: Amen to that, my man Charles Webb, dude.

It's been an absolute honor.

Thank you so much.

And for you listening today, I hope that what you are leaving today's conversation with is probably way different than why you tuned in in the first place.

You probably came for the surfing, the inspiration, the motivation, the adaptive surfing, all the things, and yet you're leaving with what this guy just busted out with.

I mean, my goodness, Charles Webb, my man, you're incredible.

For anybody interested, please check out the episode show notes where I have links where you can watch live, can get tuned in to the broadcast, and also just to get tuned in to everything happening with Stoke for Life.

I'm telling you, if you're not on board, you might as well get on board because they are going places.

So, my name is Kevin Lowe.

This was Grit Grace and Inspiration.

Get out there, crush the day, enjoy the day, and don't forget to check out those show notes for all the links mentioned.

SPEAKER_02: He found his people out beyond the sand.

North County kids with boards in their hands, salt in the air, Pacific at their feet.

If the swell was up, that's where they'd meet.

You learn real young, you earn your place.

Wait your turn and catch your way.

Every day was measured by the waves, and every dream he had was pulling it that way.

Do one wrong turn on an ordinary day.

But some things don't leave when everything changes, and the ocean never let 'em go.

Get me back in the water.

Back where I know who I am.

Back where the waves keep 'em rollin'.

Whether I can walk or I can.

But there's still a whole lot of living.

Wait a storm where I'll be on the break.

Back in the water.

Years rolled on, you learned a different lie.

Some roads went wrong before they went aright.

Wrong crowds, hard lessons.

County jail.

Sometimes finding your way means losing the trail.

Then on Sunday morning, the telephone, right?

This brother had a few words that changed everything.

He hung up for one thought.

Wouldn't leave him alone.

You could get back in the water, kept calling him home.

Get me back in the water.

Back where I know who I am.

Back where the waves keep rollin'.

Whether I can walk or I can't.

Yeah, life can break your friends wide open.

Leave it somewhere you never thought you'd be.

Win again when he finally came through that break and tide.

The whole damn beach had come alive.

He slipped away when the cheering was done.

Sat in his car and let the tears come.

Back in the water, back where he came alive.

Back where the waves keep rolling.

No matter how hard the tide locked in and give him back what it took.

It gave him something more.

Sometimes you'll find a whole new life when you make it back to shore.

The tide brought something back to him.

Bigger than the life he left behind.

So he turned around and passed it on.

That stoke for life.