Introducing Your New Favorite 15-Year-Old Surfer, Jai Glindeman

Stab recently completed its inaugural youth-based project, taking six of the world’s best sixteen-and-under surfers to the [redacted] Islands with surf icon and “mentor,” Craig Anderson. 

The Stab Innocents Project, as we’ve come to call it, showcased international talent from a fledgling class including Al Cleland Jr. (Mexico), Levi Slawson (USA), and Winter Vincent, Jarvis Earle, Kobi Clements, and Jai Glindeman (Australia).

Over the course of ten days, and living in excruciatingly close quarters, we got to see how these kids operate, from their consumption (no veggies, mostly candy and juice boxes) to their non-internet entertainment protocols (a whole lot of Uno) and their approach to a variety of lineups. 

Each kid had their own way of doing this or that, but no one surprised us as much as the quiet, confident 15-year-old from Lennox Head, Jai Glindeman. 

A few days before our Innocents trip, Jai was at Cloudbreak for the second time in six months, attempting to wrangle a few final bombs for his first true edit, Pup (which you can see above). On the first day of the trip, Jai found himself in a precarious position in the tube, leading to a fall which his left big toe rolled under his foot and fractured. 

Jai’s foot, which is surprisingly large for a boy of his size, hinting at a substantial growth spurt in the coming months, blew up to cartoonish proportions, his toe turning fifty shades of purple. 

Hardly able to walk, let alone surf, Jai flew home to visit his physio and see if the Innocents trip was still a possibility. The doc, who was known for his work with professional footy players, showed Jai how to wrap his toe to make it stable enough to surf, albeit gingerly. 

For those ten days, every time the kids hopped off the boat to go paddle out, Jai could be found meticulously taping his big toe and trying to convince our film crew that it was fine, that it didn’t really hurt. 

“Jai’s a super tough kid,” Craig Anderson would say of the Lennox teen. “You could see how inflamed his tow was, and how much it affected parts of his surfing. But I don’t think I heard him complain once.”

The video streaming above, Pup, which was primarily filmed and directed by Mikey Mallalieu, shows the potential of young Jai in waves of varying impact.

After watching him for a week in Indo, even with the broken toe, it’s clear that Jai has something special. The way he moves through the water, reads a wave, and even how he looks on a surfboard is well beyond his years. Would it be fair to say that there are shades of Jack Robbo, Craig Ando, and most pointedly the late, great AI in Jai’s classically radical approach?

We think yes. So we want to introduce you to your new favorite teenaged surfer, and someone who will have a significant presence on our channels. 

Say hello to Jai Glindeman, AKA Pup.