How To Change The Way You View Surfing 

If you’re here, on Stab, it’s unlikely that your lifetime wave count is hovering in the hundreds. 

Somewhere north of 10k is probably more like it. Which is nice. That means surfing has become a commitment, a life. But it also means that you’re probably prone to repeating the same patterns. 

Patterns such as refusing to warm up. Or putting your stupid arm in the same stupid place every turn. Or letting yourself get frustrated by day-to-day slights. Or, as my esteemed colleague Ethan Davis recently wrote of his own habits, ‘Surfing as if you’re late to a Jet Star flight.’ 

Sometimes a new board will make you see surfing differently. Or a trip to a new wave. Or, conversely, maybe it’s some time out of water. 

But if you want a guaranteed way to change your view of surfing, you can simply fucking smash your eye with your board. I would know, as I have personally used this method when I copped a Jordy Smith L fin (big fins = more drive) in my optic nerve in 2012. 

The loss of vision in my right eye has completely changed the way I see surfing. 

Which brings us to this profile of a 21-year-old man from the Outer Banks, Kai Wescoat. It’s a name you mightn’t have heard of, created by a YouTube channel that’s likely seeping its way onto your radar, Erratic Nerve. 

Kai also copped a board to the face. It popped his eye out and shattered some bone. As you’ll see in the vid, Kai’s road to recovery was long, costly, and uncertain. However, with the help of family and friends, he got through it — and came out the other side a different man. “My perspective on surfing has changed 100%,” he says.

I feel you bruh.

Hit play for a portrait of life in a sleepy surf town quickly falling into the sea.