A Digital Letter From Jordan Smith

The phone coverage in Rio ain’t always great. Terrible, sometimes, in fact, depending on where you are. Which sometimes makes talking to people in Rio difficult if you’re not in Rio. Skype? Nope, Internet connection ain’t always good enough. The last resort – email. And what’s the golden rule of email? Short n’ sweet. Before he walked away from the Billabong Pro, Rio with a 13th place this morning, Jordy Smith was good enough to bang out some quick responses for Stab.

Stab: Do the lay-days freak you out, waiting around, or is it cool ’cause you let yourself adapt to the surroundings more? 
Jordy Smith: I wouldn’t say they freak me out, they just piss me off. Especially if there’s swell and they don’t run, and then run us at a two foot left. Then on the other hand, if there are any lil’ spots that you can go for a surf, you get to try your boards out a lil’ more before competing. But, generally, laydays suck.

Is this really the dream tour? Small(ish) choppy lefts? My idea of the dream tour was always the world’s best waves, but does Rio have some of the world’s best waves? Then again, seeing good flair on a beachie is awesome. At times it can be dreamy, but lately? No, not the dream tour at all. Besides J-bay, Chopes, Pipe, Trestles and Snapper, the rest of them are pretty bad. So on average it’s 60/40 bad. But whatever, we can’t always have good waves, I guess.

You said you were surfing carefully in round two – now you’ve had some time to think about it, what do you think it was that felt weird in the heat? I’m still not sure. The day before, I had a really upset stomach, so I was in the bathroom all day and throwing up. Not cool!

You also said yesterday that you usually go out in heats and just let loose – is that as hard to do in a WT event, as say, going out and trying really hard and focusing? I imagine both would be difficult. It’s hard to hold back and just hit the lip. I find that I fall 80 percent of the time if I do that, so I’ve got to stop that and just go mad and enjoy myself. If it calls for a chop hop, then hell yeah! Do one!