What Does It Cost The Mind To Go To War With Something That Could Kill You?

The latest documentary from Red Bull Surfing focuses on Floridian surfer Izzi Gomez’s relationship with big waves.

Gomez grew up on Florida’s Gulf Coast in Holmes Beach, never far from surfing thanks to her grandparents’ West Coast Surf Shop, she entered her first SUP competition at 12 and went on to win five world titles before turning her attention to big-wave surfing in 2019. It’s here that Chrysalis picks up the story.

Gomez is candid about her struggles with self-doubt, acknowledging that fear and hesitation had reached a point where she no longer felt safe in the water. Despite her enduring love for surfing, she eventually accepted that she needed to step away from big waves. Sometimes you can love something and still know the relationship has become a little abusive.

So perhaps the best way to recalibrate is to leave the problem alone for a while, take some time apart.

In that sense, a road trip through Salina Cruz with Bella Kenworthy, Brisa Hennessy and Sawyer Lindblad followed by a cold-water wave hunt through Tofino with Canadian rising star Sanoa Olia makes for a pretty compelling intervention.

The montages of these trips are some of the most cinematic parts of the film. The shots of Tofino are especially striking, Gomez clad from head to toe in neoprene, pink board flashing as she surfs amongst the wildlife of the Clayoquot Sound. Later, standing in a Dryrobe with a broad smile, taking in one of the most beautiful stretches of Vancouver Island’s West Coast, the voiceover confirms that it had been almost two years since she had ridden a big wave.

Then came Mavericks, and the Robert Frost moment. Gomez had been surfing well all day under the watchful eye of Chuck Patterson when she misread the last wave, took the wrong line and came away with fractured ribs to show for it. No doubt it was a considerable blow to her confidence. Yet rather than answering the call of the wild a second time and seeking out an Alaskan bus to live in (albeit one with a Taurean bumper sticker, flames down the side and Travis Pastrana doing backflips over it) she threw herself instead into rehabilitation. Then, as though in answer to her prayers, Jaws turned on in January.

Supported by Patterson, the Lenny brothers and Ian Walsh, Gomez works through the initial apprehension by, in her words, “shut[ting] off [her] brain”. What follows is a montage of her on some spectacular waves. That return to form has continued into this year, including a session at Teahupo’o that earned her a nomination for the 2026 Big Wave Challenge Women’s Ride of the Year, to be decided on 19 September at Newport Beach.

The story itself isn’t novel. Surfers from Slater to Big Z have stepped away, only to return to form after a period of soul-searching. What makes Gomez’s story powerful is the candour with which she articulates her doubts. She acknowledges her struggles and is open with those she turns to for help. The result is a corner filled with people who genuinely want to see her succeed, people who, in her words, never diminished what she was feeling and simply wanted to see her thrive.

Watch the latest documentary from Red Bull Surfing above.