Stab Interview: Surfing’s Pre-eminent Tube Theorist (And Practitioner) Mike Stewart
And why he took one of the wildest Teahupo’o drops in history — at 62 years young
It’s 1992, I’m 18 and terrified — accidentally out alone at Pipeline in a swell that has stepladdered from a manageable 6-8’ to a solid 10-12’ in the past hour.
Everyone has long since caught a wave or been washed in. The sun is setting over Second Reef wash-throughs, the new North swell mostly closing out with occasional West mountains offering giant, rough diamonds.
As I duck and weave for my life, I notice a lone figure kicking out to the lineup with chirpy urgency. I scramble to get clear of a sky-blocking roll-in, the whitewater from Second Reef spinning slowly into a giant snowball. The wall tightens the foam’s edge against the terrifying, thickening concave of the peak. I look to my inside and see the lone paddler is now beside me, headed towards the apex of the unthinkable.
Mike Stewart slows his kicking, drifts casually up the face of a bending building, glances quickly right, down the line; left; to the foamball beside him, and then, at the very moment he passes the vertical transition into the lip itself, simply turns and, without so much as a kick, flexes his leashless bodyboard down the face, dropping in weightlessly to the inverting maw of a rogue cathedral.
I already knew that Mike possessed a freakish ability, creating a sport and waveriding paradigm around himself. I already knew that in that era, his act at Pipeline was at a craft-independent, incomprehensible level. But when he paddled happily back out, eyes like blue fractals above a goofy, snaggle-toothed grin, and happily remarked: “Wow, it’s pretty fun out here, huh?” I learned that people like Mike exist in a set of limitations and possibilities far beyond what the rest of us can conceive.
It’s 2025, and Mike, at 62 years old, 40 years after discovering the break, has just sent a giant west bowl at Teahupo’o, in one of the biggest paddle attempts on any craft in recent memory. Nine Pipeline Bodyboard titles, 10 Pipeline bodysurf titles, multigenerational Pipeline royalty, multiple party waves with JOB on Second Reef bombs. If, in the pantheon of tuberiding greats, the title ‘Shaman’ and ‘Wizard’ are bestowed, Mike Stewart basically wrote the sacred texts from which they, the exalted, read. In July, he won his second Shark Island Invitational (his first was in 2000), defeating a field whose youngest competitor was a full 45 years younger than him.
While recuperating from the aforementioned Teahupo’o attempt at an Indonesian slab, waiting for ribs to heal, we caught up with Mike for a chat. Because without so much as popping up, he’s one of the greatest surfers who’s ever lived.
Stab: You discovered Teahupo’o. How has your relationship with the wave evolved and changed over the years?
In the last 10-15 years I’ve spent less time there, but I used to go a lot. In the mid 90s I started surfing it big — like when it’s 15-foot (Hawaiian) and mutating and doing its thing. It’s a completely different wave once it gets past 10-to-12 feet, it becomes a special wave. Not that it’s not a great smaller wave, it’s wonderful, but it just gets thicker and thicker as it gets bigger.
The first day I surfed it was like four-to-six feet, just perfect and beautiful. I just thought it was like paradise on earth, which it was.
Some years later, I went out when it was huge just to take a look at it. After peering over the edge a few times I ended up paddling into a couple. It took a while to figure out how to catch it and ride it—a lot of waves just went under me — but finally I caught a few and that was my first experience in real Teahupo’o.
I’ve also been bodysurfing it ever since I’ve been going down there, at least since the early 90s. It’s a pretty darn good bodysurfing wave: I would say 70% of waves are makeable. The problem is the ones you don’t make. I haven’t bodysurfed it bigger than eight feet, but I kinda wanna see if it’s possible at 10-to-12 feet. Some of those big end bowls on the right ones look really makeable.
That wave last week… you held on, tucked the outside elbow, spread the knees, braced for the landing, it looked like total belief until the moment of impact, care to elaborate?
I’d had a lot of waves that day, maybe not as big, but I was making everything, so I felt confident, maybe overconfident. On that set I shoulda known, “Its not gonna break here, its gonna suck there,” but it looked pretty big, so at first I thought, “Oh shit, I’d better get out.” Everyone paddled out to it, including myself, that was a mistake. I shoulda just angled in toward shore. But it was just so perfect so I thought I could still do it.
I paddled as hard as I could and tried to scoop and that started going good, until it didn’t….
The bottom of the wave was now at the top, and next thing you know I’m part of the lip of this thick mutant, then there’s a bunch of air under me. I figured I might just be able to, y’know, flying squirrel it, maybe land on the face somewhere and project forward and have a shot at making it. I was pretty optimistic, until I got smashed.
So now I’ve pretty much got a broken rib: it’s clicking but I haven’t had an X-ray yet. There’s not much I can do, just wait it out. I’ve seen a Portuguese doctor here who looked at it and pretty much said, “Yep, it’s broken.”
It’s the only bone you’ve ever broken right? After what, 45 years of crazy charging. How’s the body holding up?
The body’s doing great. I’m pretty disciplined about keeping a good stretching routine and workout program from Paul Chek; eating according to a metabolic diet, really conscious of water and sleep. I really try to keep as well as I can, so that I’m able to engage at a really high level and it’s paying off. I mean, even this injury could have been a lot more significant if my core wasn’t as strong.
Where are you mentally with surfing? Is the desire still there compared to 20 years ago, are there waves you’re looking at now where you thing, “I don’t know if I want that anymore?”
Ah, no I don’t really subscribe to all of that. If I’m in a situation and maybe not too comfortable, then I’m not gonna do anything, but if I’m gonna try and do something then I’m gonna try and do it. I don’t get caught up in the whole thought process of this, that or the other. It’s just prepare yourself the best you can, put yourself in situations, and let things unfold as they may.
There’s a side of me that’s been there since I was young that just pushes myself to go on these things.
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Before steering the conversation into more theoretical territory, it would do both Stewart and the reader a great disservice to not mention his formative relationship with Tom Morey, inventor of the bodyboard, Jazz genius, 60s shaper, Greenough-esque inventor and innovator, and Mike’s childhood neighbour and mentor in Kona, on the Big Island of Hawaii.
“With Tom, I saw a man who was unaffected by paradigms, unaffected by boundaries,” Mike explains. “His ideas and thought processes gave me latitude, showed me a way to not be so confined. One thing I learned from him was having an open mind. I got highly into observation which served me very well. From him it was always an open playing field on ideas, no boundaries per se: you just have to go for it and see where it leads. That creative impetus is so key. I used that for my wave-riding, developing new moves and trying to do all kinds of different stuff in that same spirit.”
Talking to Mike, it’s sometimes seems like his imagination can’t keep up with his intellect, or his intellect can’t keep up with his imagination. Analytical, intensely curious and driven, he asks probing questions and drives conceptual thought trains that can take conversation from the dry to the metaphysical. His approach to understanding is somewhere between scientific and spiritual, drawing analytical connections applied with the freewheeling thought of a savant.
The effect is a cloud of static electricity, a constant buzzing with regular zaps of ideas and information from all directions. Often, it’s clear that his understanding of waves exists on a level beyond where language can clearly explain. To this end, the following comments have been slightly edited for brevity and clarity.
Stab: Can you elaborate on your theories about waves, soft spots, and how to fall properly?
Mike Stewart: During covid I started filming waves in shorebreaks, and I’d seen some things that weren’t adding up based on what I thought was happening. It took me on an odyssey of re-exploring the wave and the tube and what it looks like as all this energy expires.
Essentially, wave energy converges when it’s hollow: the critical point is when the lip disconnects from the face and lands. This whole series of events occurs, which you know, but there’s points where there’s high pressure, intense water flow, and other parts around it that are not as affected.
So I identified and learned a lot about how the barrel hits the surface and bounces, and how to avoid certain aspects of the intensity of the wave. I worked with a scientist Katelin Schutz at MIT who works on Dark Matter, who was excited about this, and I started presenting with her boss, Alan Adams, who is this String Theory guy, then we brought in Kelly (Slater) and Dr Cliff Kapono to compare notes.
What are some common mistakes you see surfers make while barrel riding?
Trying to get out of the tube too soon. Getting caught at the high point of energy and going over at the worst point. Falling at a bad time and not penetrating, then going over in a bad spot.
What are some tips you’d give to surfers on tuberiding?
Keep the front of your board loose so you can navigate easier, turn easier, control easier. Don’t get sucked up or slide down. Stay low in the barrel.
When falling, focus on avoiding the trench (it’s the shallowest part of the wave) and avoid the shockwave off the landing lip. Slide into the trench at an angle after staying in the tube as long as you can, then stay inside for longer so energy dissipates. If you hit that shockwave straight on, you’ll fly, but if you hit it at an angle, your speed is deflected, a lot of the energy is dissipated, and you can fall in behind that shockwave and have less chance of going over.
Going over on the outside of the lip seems more gnarly, but it’s not as gnarly, it’s sometimes better than going over on the inside of it. I’ve been sucked over at Teahupo’o, going for a wave, not getting into it, and when I’ve got to the bottom, I’ve just been deflected outward with the energy.
In all reality, there’s not that many hazards from the wave itself, it’s the speed of travel that leads to the greater opportunity for injury because you’re hitting harder. I’ve had black eyes and torn ligaments and a totally dislocated arm just from a bodyboard, so on a surfboard, you’ve got fins and hectic lacerations and contusions.
What are the biggest lessons you’ve learned in terms of board design, is there an overarching ethos or guiding principle that applies?
What’s interesting to me is just the nature of water and how it adheres to surfaces moving through it. There’s a name for it: the Coanda Effect. So this property of water is quite fascinating and most crucial when designing surf craft. Some shapers know that better than others.
Bodyboards are skegless, but you can add them in the moment with your legs and your swimfins, and you can add speed by lifting and releasing your legs and fins. That’s why the bevelled rail is so important in assisting with that transition.
Is there any element of bodyboard design that you think could be applied to surfing that isn’t currently?
There’s a bunch of stuff: air lubrication, surfaces with microgrooves to mitigate the whole boundary layer and the Coanda effect come to mind.
I’m just realising that the new materials are way less forgiving. If I was riding one of the PE (polyethylene) boards from back in the day, I mighta made that thing the other day. On those softer boards I remember doing giant rolls at Pipe, no problem. If I’d just been on one of those old boards, it would have absorbed some of that. I might not have bounced off that thing and frickin’ broke my rib.
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And again, Mike’s mind is racing off, linking ideas and integrating experiences, looking forward and back, imagining possibilities. As he remarked following his Shark Island win, “Never give up on the guy who doesn’t give up.”
