Watch: Michael Ho Catches The Best Backdoor Wave Of His Life…At 64 Years Old

There just aren’t many vigorous activities one can do at a high level for 65 years. There are very few people — if any — redeeming senior discounts/Roth IRAs and still skating backyard bowls. Soccer players’ knees blow out, rugby players turn to mush, and underwater basket weavers are prone to arthritis. You get the idea. At some point, our bodies stop making new cells and the old ones get tired. We become brittle.

And yet, many surfers can expect to enjoy waveriding of some sort well into their geriatric years. Maybe it’s the forgiveness of a liquid playing field, or maybe it’s some other voodoo saltwater magic we’ll never understand. 

One guy who’s undeniably tapped into that magic is Mike Ho. Father to Mason and Coco Ho and brother to the late Derek Ho, Mike is the keystone of a North Shore dynasty. His surfing still speaks for itself, even on his 65th birthday.  

The Backdoor wave he gets in Mason’s recent edit is mind-melting, especially after the beating he cops just before. You can almost see in his hand gestures, both after the initial wipeout and the subsequent shack, that signify the relationship he has with Mother Pipeline. There seems to be no sense of performance, no claiming. Merely a communication between him and a submerged rock slab that he understands better than just about anyone.

Mason’s infamous dry reef wave is also featured and is terrifying, per usual. Pretty bad exchange rate here on chunks of skin to barrel time. Personally, we’d tap out, but Mike casually hucks a few closeouts. He makes the wave at 2:27 looks deceivingly fun, though the empty lineup says otherwise.

Happy Birthday Mike. We’ll be looking forward to another clip this winter.