DOING TIME

JORDY SMITH

I bought a house in Hawaii for a few reasons. Firstly, the place is just incredible. There aren’t too many surf spots like this in the world, and it’s US soil so it’s a pretty safe investment. Secondly, I felt my weakness was backside heavy tube waves… lefts. Hollow left-handers were definitely something I could work on. It’s not to say I was bad at it, but I’m competing against guys who are the very best in the world at it. Guys who have grown up on the sand here. Just to get any sort of percentage better at it, that’s what I wanted to do.

I think the back half of my career entails heavy waves. A lot more heavy waves. And learning the experiences out there at those places. Throughout my career, I’ve focused on certain elements, for three- to five-year periods… and then, just kinda seeing where that takes me. And I've felt like I've improved a lot.

Being South African, we grew up on right point breaks our whole lives. Before I got on tour, the only lefts I ever had were the New Pier and the North Beach bowls.

If there’s any advice I can give to a South African: just try and put in as much time on lefts as you can. Especially if you’re natural footed. It’s hard to find those left locations in our country. But just do the best you can, because in the big leagues there are