Watch: Kai Hing’s Hazy Moroccan Knee Rehab Program

Last time I tapped tins with Kai Hing he was on crutches.

It was at his local watering hole, on the Sunshine Coast, during the crescendo of one of our Summer Sessions tours. Not long before he’d blown his knee out surfing and was keeping fluid levels up during the arduous rehabilitation process.

Recently however, a handful of teasers surfaced on his Instagram. A montage of super 8 footage, camels, deserts and a strange title overlaid at the end. Curious.

Then my phone lit up.

We covered the ground between now and that last evening at the Sunshine Beach Surf Club then planned the release of this grainy Moroccan short film on Stab (plus a new creative venture with filmmaker friend Luka Raubenheimer).

Stab: Kai! What have you been doing with yourself, man?

Kai: We had the premiere for the film the other night at Thomas’s (Bexon) out at Noosaville. That was a hell night. There was like 250, 300 people there or something. His setup is so sick.

Have I told you about our website that we’re doing?

No, please tell. 

Ok, I’m going to grab a seat and roll a cigarette and then we can have a chat.

[Laughs] Ok, sweet.

So Luka and I, you met him yeah? He plays in the Cloacas, you know the band Jakey Vincent’s in? Anyway, Luka’s the one who filmed the Morocco clip, he and I are putting the website together, called SUL. It stands for See You Later. 

It’s pretty much going to be a platform for us to use to put clips up every couple months, from little trips over the year – Morocco is the first one for that.

I noticed on the gram that you guys have been doing your own art around it all?

On the website, the artwork we’ve done is this painting. It’s real simple, it’s just that and the clip goes over it. As soon as there’s going to be a new clip, it’s gonna slide down and the art is going to come down and the fresh clip will be on top of that – a new page comes down. 

I guess the whole thought of it is, you post a clip and in a day it’s lost in amongst the other clips that just got dropped, you know?

Definitely.

That way the site will be a platform for having the clip right there, you don’t have to search too far, and I guess it’s something for us to chip away at.

Keeps you motivated to work on something, yeah?

Exactly. Especially being a free surfer.

When you’re doing comps, you’re always working towards your next event, then you come to free surfing and you’re like not really working towards anything. You’re doing clips and stuff, but I feel like with this website, it’s now more ‘I want to do this, for this.’ It’s given me something to work towards.

So what’s the story with this clip?

It’s called ‘Six Dimensions, Hash Realm Nine”.

Woah!

Yeah. There’s a bit of a backstory. We were listening to a lot of OM and Sleep Over there [in Morocco]. The clip is actually just eight minutes of OM – like in the realm. So we added the hash in there and made a little cryptic name for it [laughs].

So is that you and some of the other boys, or just you?

In the clip there’s me, Jakey Vincent and Izac. For each clip I’m going to try to get Jakey on a lot of the trips. It’ll be myself and a filmer and I’ll try to get some other rad people along.

How were the waves for this trip? Where were you?

We were posted up in the town of Taghazout, for the whole month of February. I went there like two years ago and only got to surf for ten days and I knew I had to go back for longer. It was kind of a boys trip, all my best mates, like Jack Staley taking photos, Luka, Jakey, Isaac and another buddy Jesse.

We did little road trips from there. The first couple of weeks we got there the waves were pretty fun, then it went flat for a week, then pretty much for the rest of the time – like two weeks – it was just non stop waves.

There were like 15 points in the middle of it all. You’d just be driving along and look to see which was the funnest at the time and just pull over, climb down the side of the cliff and go surf.

It was so fucking raw and sick. 

They’re just like these long points but they can go from being the dredgiest barrels, to turns and to ramps. Just depends on the swell I guess. We were there for a while so we had a mix of everything. 

Ramps as well?

Yeah, a couple. But remember my knee injury? When I tore my MCL? Well, my first surf was pretty much in Morocco. The points were so long, I was just rehabbing my knee, by the end of the trip I was trying airs and shit again. Got a couple in the clip. 

They were real leg burners, it was so good for my knee. 

During the middle of the trip my body just broke down, cos I hadn’t been surfing for so long. I was in bed for two days with back spasms. 

That sounds, well, unpleasant. 

Yeah, so I just stretched and chilled out, drank heaps of water, then got back into the water and had heaps of fun. 

Any etchy vibes over there? Localism?

They’re pretty staunch, but you make friends with them. Being there for a month you have time to get to know them a bit. You’re just friendly to them, let them take whatever wave they want and get the ones in between. Sometimes they think you’re looking their way and they’ll come over and blow up at you. But whatever, you’re catching sick waves so you just cop it, just brush it off.

Anything wild go down?

In the town, there’s not much drinking, but there’s one night a week where they pop off. There’s like the most people you’ve seen at one time in one place. You’re thinking ‘where have all these babes been hiding this whole time?’ (laughs).

So, there’s ladies getting about?

Dude, there’s chicks, but only for this one night of the week. This party happens and they just come out of nowhere [laughs]. Someone asked us if we’d been to the Soul House [on Thursdays] and we were like ‘ah, nup’ so we went and it turned out to be popping off.

And what about the local substance, there’s a bit of that around yeah? Off the record?

Oh yeah, on the record, off the record, whatever. Everywhere. You’d go and have lunch or check the surf and someone would just come up to you ‘do you want some hash?’ There were cakes of all different flavours and strengths. People were just walking around all realm-ed [laughs]. 

So, what are you planning next?

Well, we’re planning on going to Tasmania for Dark Mofo and do a surf trip around there also. Then planning on going to Nicaragua, do a little Central American trip. 

Oh, sick and the website?

Yep. So our website, we couldn’t get a domain that was .com or anything, so it’s www.sul.ninja. 

Dot Ninja? 

Dot Ninja, dude how cryptic is that?