Kai Lenny’s Life Is Still As Wild As You’d Think

We sat on the couch, me and my non-surfer friend, after one too many non-surfing-related activities. 

To kill some time, I queued up edit after edit of some of surfing’s best and brightest, hoping one would fuse with the psyche of my non-surfer friend, and lead him on a path to become as obsessed with surfing as I was.  

The videos included the usual suspects, but his responses didn’t yield what I hoped for. There was Craig (“pretty smooth”) Anderson, Mason (“looks fun”) Ho, Dane (“feels raw”) Reynolds. No dice. Even John John (“damn”) Florence didn’t strike the right chord. Picky picky. No, it wasn’t until I played Season 1 of the Life of Kai that my friend stood up a little straighter. 

It says something that the guy doing the most unrelatable big-wave surfing/foiling/supping in the world is the one who connects most with people, inside the surf world and out. He comes across as an openly dedicated athlete, paired with a well-spoken and humble demeanor. The combo has led the Spreckelsville native to push big-wave surfing to previously unimaginable realms and earned him multiple successful business ventures. (Hello, Metaverse) 

More than a year since the first iteration, Season 2 of the docu-series following all things Kai premiered last week. You can binge-watch all five episodes here. The Red Bull production kicks off with Episode 1: “The Beast Awakens,” featuring the biggest Nazaré beating of Kai’s life to start the 2020-2021 winter. To make things even more interesting, he had to jump through a few hoops to clear Covid-19 protocols just to get there.  

“I went from surfing knee-high waves on the south shore of Maui to going 50 miles per hour down an 80-foot wave,” Kai says in the clip above. Like I said, relatable. 

It’s weird to think of Kai as uncomfortable. He seems unflappable. Yet you do get glimpses of it on occasion. The Covid-19 scare, the carnage at Nazaré. Kai gives a couple of insights into his mindset throughout the episode, and I think this one says a lot: 

“Being calm when waves want to tear you into pieces, that’s when you’re going to get the best performance.”

Strap in, tune in, and watch Kai go to work.