Imagine Sizing Up These Death Pillars And Thinking You’ll Win

Mason Ho is more than just a great surfer—he’s a thought leader. 

Before Mason, nobody even thought to look at this dry reef closeout—which happens to be the most visible wave from the Kam Highway between Waimea and Sunset—let alone surf it. (Cue some angry haole in the comments telling me how they surfed it all the time in the ’70s).

Nowadays there’s a genuine crowd out there, which is terrifying considering half of the people don’t seem to know what the fuck they’re doing. And those lava rocks? They’re not just for show. Ask Mason: they’ll take skin, fins, and any other solid object that happens to wash by. 

Which brings us to Mason’s rock avoidance strategy: be like water. 

Mason, as you might know, is life-long student of Bruce Lee, who said: 

Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; You put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle; You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.

Watch how Mason uses the flow of the wave to ride over once-submerged rocks. It’s…genius.