The Result Of A Broken Leg, Some Psylocibin, A Winter In Maui, And Two Weeks Through Indo

Maui underground staple Braiden Maither is no stranger to lying in bed, waiting on the cells in his body to do their healing magic. 

In 2022, we posted one of his videos, which we playfully titled ‘If You’re Going To Hurt Yourself, At Least Look Good Doing It’ — referring to the meniscus he tore just after the filming of the video. 

This time around, after filming the above edit Scobey Hotel, he broke his leg doing an air reverse at his ‘local shitty beachbreak’.

“It was rough,” he tells me. “I’ve had a bunch of other injuries before, just ligament tears and stuff like that, but getting healthcare here is crazy. I rolled into the hospital at first, and they told me I was fine. I was like, “There’s no way, I’m in so much pain.” Then the ortho calls me and they’re like, “Yeah, you need surgery right now.” It was a rough two months in bed, I couldn’t move at all.”

Braiden has actually spent a significant portion of his surfing life battling physical ailments, as he was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis at 19 years old. 

Despite having a name which sounds like a Dr. Seuss villain, ankylosing spondylitis is actually a sort of arthritis located in the spine, which can sometimes cause the vertebrae to fuse, leading to immense pain.

“I had all these kind of weird symptoms right off the bat. My knee blew up and I couldn’t walk for five months and my shoulder stopped working and all this stuff started happening. I was going in and out of doctors for literally six months trying to figure out what it was, and then they finally diagnosed me. I was out of the water for a year and a half dealing with that. Then, I’ve had recurring injuries, I think partially because it was always hard to get back to a hundred percent. I still deal with it.”

“I’ve actually used psilocybin, just little microdoses, to keep my mind clear — because I definitely get gnarly anxiety here and there and depression with injuries. I’ve really noticed that stuff helps. It’s just a restart on the system a little bit, like a refresher.”

The undertones of this psychedelic dabbling are present in the above claymation scenes, which Braiden says he crafted during his most recent stint out of the water. As we’ve heard from many others, it was more difficult than expected.

“I’ve always been drawn to all the Volcom stuff, and then Dane put out that Andrew Doheny part a little bit ago, and they were playing with the claymation. I’ve always wanted to play with it and see. It’s a lot tougher than I thought,” he laughs.

“In total, I put in maybe 15 plus hours over time. At the start, it was like four hours of just complete learning and not doing anything, then another four hours to properly get it kind of framed up of how I wanted it, and then probably another four hours of doing it correctly.”

Last Friday, he premiered the film in the ballroom of the Royal Lahaina Resort — one of the only hotels in Maui who is housing strictly residents who have been displaced by the Lahaina fires. 

“150 plus people came out, and we raised almost five grand,” he says, proudly. “I grew up here, so I know a lot of people that got displaced and lost stuff. I know a lot of people aren’t seeing the money from a lot of these things, so I’ve just been divvying it up and sending it to families that I know.”

You can continue to donate here (fundraiser recommended by Braiden).

Enjoy the above edit, filmed at his windy home and in the far flung reaches of Indonesia.