The Killing Time w/ John John Florence, Jordy Smith and more

Words by Morgan Williamson

Injuries suck. Plain and simple. If it keeps you out of the water, you end up left with thoughts of ‘what the hell do I do now?’ Whatever your ailment, hearing you’ll be without physical activity for months is like having your fingernails peeled back. You can do what makes the most sense, which is sit around, drink beer, watch TV and twiddle your thumbs (assuming you still can). The more you drink the slower you heal; bad blood. The pain pills are nice. They’ll leave you confused about what day it is, who you are and what you’re doing in this little world. Oh boy, it’s a big universe out there and you’re just a speck of matter. Space… man. We all get hurt, ’cause shit happens. When we do we’ve got to find ways to occupy our hands, stimulate our meandering minds. So, what’s the best way to kill time when you’re healing? We called on the recently maimed John John Florence, Jordy Smith, Parker Coffin and Wade Goodall for advice. Obviously we can’t all buy a sailing boat, but you get the idea…

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John’s injury: I did and alley-oop. The waves were kind of warbly. When I came down the whitewater hit my board as I was landing. My front foot landed first. My board tweaked up to the side and it twisted my ankle. I thought I broke it at first. Then it felt better… then slowly got worse. I ended up with a high left ankle sprain.

Downtime? Hopefully I’ll be good to go for J-Bay.

Killing time? I bought a sailboat, so I’ve been sailing. A lot. It’s sick, I love sailing. I got a 35-foot monohull and I’ve been taking it between the islands. I was so bummed being out of the Fiji Pro that I didn’t watch one heat.

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Jordy Smith, with the advantage of raw power. Photo: Ryan Miller/Redbull.com/surfing

Jordy’s injury: My meniscus is torn. They want to do surgery on it. But I can surf, just not at 100 percent. It definitely hurts more going left. I’m hoping it will be alright for J-Bay. If it doesn’t get better, I’m going to be fucked for Tahiti.

Killing time: I’ve been doing some remodelling for my house… And, a lot of thinking. I’m just thinking, like, all day, everyday. About anything and everything. About my shoe collection. About what I’m going to do about my knee. About whether or not I’m eating right. About my boards, the damn good waves they got in Fiji, Owen’s two 20s. Just… everything.

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Right where we wanna see Wade. Photo: Ryan Miller/Redbull.com/surfing

Wade’s injury: I landed an air as the backwash hit the wave. It snapped my shin. It got, like, compressed – which sucked… balls. I’ve broken both my legs but this time it’s a new area. Which is funny, you’d think if someone broke their leg a number of times it would be in a reoccurring spot. But it seems like I’m going through all my leg bones. I wouldn’t recommend it.

Downtime? It’s about a three-month heal, until the bones fuse back together. Everything’s healing perfectly so far, I think I’ll be cruising on the longboard in a couple weeks… hopefully.

Killing time? When you can’t surf anymore, you’ve got to stay focused on some interests that you don’t have time to pursue. I personally like to do a lot of drawing and painting which is not only soothing, but it’s constructive and keeps your mind going. I’ve also got a little girl now. She’s one and half. So, a lot my time is spent with her… I guess that’s a thing you can do when you’re injured, make babies. Ha, I mean, only if you feel inclined. That’s a nice, fun, time-consuming thing to do.
I’ve also been getting some tattoos removed. I’ve got some horrible ones that I got when I was like 14. So I got this area code tattooed on me, and skulls, my name, just dumb dumb stuff. Stuff like an area code, skulls, my name. So, I’m taking the time to be cleansed of the uncool past and umm… change my life.

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Parker’s injury: Shit, I pretty much destroyed my ankle. I did a straight air. When I kicked my board away, crazy air wind blew the board back underneath my feet, and I cannon balled straight into my board. I tore two major ligaments in my ankle and strained the main muscle that supports my ankle. The frustrating thing was not know what was wrong with it. I went and saw one doctor who told me just to rest it and that I’d be surfing again in two weeks. It didn’t get better. So, I asked him for an MRI and when the MRI came back he was like ‘fuck… you destroyed your ankle.’ He wanted to do surgery on it, just went from one extreme to another. It was heavy for me to hear. It’s enough to freak you out, hearing that you’ll never be able to do something 100 percent again. Yadin (Nicol) came to the rescue and gave me Warren Kramer’s number, who got me into a specialist.

Downtime? I didn’t surf for 67 days. I pretty much kept a scratch tally on my wall man (laughs), I was so fired up to surf again, I was counting down the minutes and seconds until I got the ‘O.K’.

Killing time? The really hard part was the time I couldn’t do anything. Where I just had my foot up, icing it. Those two weeks I basically didn’t get off the couch, just got some good TV going and did some binge watching. When I could get up and start moving around a bit, I did every little project I didn’t have time for around my house. I cleaned out my closet, cleaned out my car. I started doing a little bit of art too. Just kind of like weird little doodles. Then I shaped a board. When it got better I started swimming, a lot, which was actually pretty fun. I’d just go down to the pool and swim laps. I had a couple fun nights with friends too, even though I wasn’t supposed to while injured, but I definitely partook in some night time activities.

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