Gabrielle Reece on Laird Hamilton's Obesession with Surfing | Joe Rogan

It's so populated. Oh, yeah. And it's also like so, it's so LA, it's so Beverly Hills. I lived there for 13 years with Laird. Did you? Yeah, there was a wave there that Laird was having a love affair with for many years. So we lived there with, you know, so he could be close to his girlfriend for sure. That sounds strange. No, every boy needs their girlfriend. Every boy needs a wave. They do. Well, you know, just something, that's what I always think is kind of natural is, at least for my experience is like, I don't know if you ever go through this when you go home. Laird will go out and surf for many hours. Like he can go out for five hours at a time and if they're surfed and he comes home and I see how happy he is, like to see us. Like he loves us. He's like, oh my girls, you know? And then about, I don't know, seven and a half, eight minutes in, he starts to get this look on his face like, oh yeah, I'm in the house, like with the family, you know? I wanted to do a book years ago called Death by Domestication because it's like, how does he manage both of those sides? Like I need to go, I need to be free, I need to, you know, chase things and like scare myself and do all this stuff and then, you know, comes home and is like, you know, on the floor laying, you know, with one of my daughters and being attentive and a great husband and all these things. But I always get amused a little bit by the push-pull. Yeah, well, especially I think with the big wave surfer mindset, like a type of person, those are like some of the freest, wildest humans on the planet. It's a very unusual group of people that rides giant waves of water on the top of the ocean. I mean, that's a crazy thing to do out of here at your time too. You really stop and think about it? I try not to think too much about it because I did marry him, but there's some stuff. I mean, and weirdly, you know, he's been doing this so long that you realize he's actually even more different than some of the other guys because if you think about it, he's sustained doing this for right now 40 years. So he's a guy who he has both. So what he wants to do is ride a huge wave during the day and then be with his family at night. And sometimes, you know, it would take going, you know, halfway around the globe or whatever. And so I think the pursuit and they have to wait a lot. That's the other thing. These things don't come around that often. Right. It's very interesting to live with because there's a little bit of suffering that goes on. And sometimes later it'll say to me, because he's aware of time going by, he'll be like, you know, I have a lot more waves I need to ride. And I'm like, I know. Like it's a pretty deep calling. And now that I mean, he's been foiling for 25 years, but now that they are getting that equipment better, it's sort of like now we can ride places that we couldn't ride that were not really attractive for riding on top of the surface of the water, even if you towed it. So now it's opened up a whole other pursuit for him. Yeah, it's very I don't know why you would go towards that. Like, Laird has put me on a ski in front of a wave that's like 60 feet. Right. And like being on the back of a ski with him driving, there's a moment where you go, okay, I actually, and I'm sure you've experienced this with other friends that take you maybe on a flying or something. He is, this is what he does, right? So I'm like, okay, I trust him more than I'm afraid. That's fine. I can do that. And I'm going to surrender to that. I'm not going to torture myself the whole time. I'm just going to trust him. And you turn and there's a six story building behind you moving. And you just think, who would, who, like, well, how is that fun? You know, like, how is saying like, I'm going to actively ride that. But now with the foils, because they're actually catching the energy below the surface of the water. What are the foils? I'm not familiar with them. So they have these things called hydrofoils. So originally there was a guy named Mike Murphy who created something called the air chair and they they've been putting foils on like water skis in different funky ways, like even in the fifties. So Laird and his friends got an air chair and cut the chair off and put a snowboard boots, bindings, quick release. So you'd stand on it, you're booted in and below is this basically a mini airplane with a strut. So for example, yeah, there's a shot of one and this is a smaller one. Jamie, do you have any ones of the big with the boots? I think this is what people are using the binaries. Do you know what about this? Wow. He knows about everything. What are you talking about? He's plugged in. It's plugged in. Look at him. Do you have a girlfriend? Well, what happened to this dude's head? Oh yeah. So there's Laird on the left, obviously. So you see how they're in the boots and also he, the reason he looks so puffy is he has flotation underneath his, uh, wetsuit. So if you hit your head or what have you. But it's basically a miniature airplane underneath the surface. And if he gets into trouble, if they wiped out, um, they have a quick release, but now they've gotten this developed so that he can do it, uh, without the boots. Cause that adds an element of danger that. Cause you're strapped in. You're strapped in and your strut is, you know, four feet long. Uh, you know, that's so strange looking. Yeah. But it's, what's going on below the surface? So there's a miniature airplane. Do you have Jamie, do you have any pictures of it flipped up? I'm sure if you look on Laird stuff, you can see the bottom. It's like a miniature airplane because water is denser than air. So it's sort of like a miniature plane and it is like the, um, Oracle guys that do those boats do have made foils for Laird. Um, it's, so that's what it looks like. Yeah. So those are kind of more, uh, low performance ones. When you see the high performance, they, I mean, you know, it's aerodynamics, hydrodynamics, it's all of that. So now what you're doing is cause there's energy below the surface moving. So we think of a wave like pushing and dropping, but there's actually the energy, circular energy below. So now you've got the foil that can ride that, but you're not, you don't have drag. So like they can go, there's a wave on Kauai where they're going over 50. They go about 50. They can go get up to 52 miles an hour. So imagine if you did something, well you've, you know, dedicated yourself to martial arts. It's like, but then there's like a new way to do it. And so he's been doing the big stuff for 25 years, but now they're getting the equipment right that he can ride ways that actually wouldn't be that great. But now they're super fun. Oh, wow. So he gets, it makes him excited and he still pursues it. And, uh, that's, that's on Kauai right there and see how it's not even breaking where he rides it. Yeah. So it can't, correct. And it's, it's actually riding the energy below the surface, which. You know, for him, he's just interested in what's the most efficient way. I mean, look at that. You'd never in, um, regular surfing, be able to, um, ride that. So it enables them. So much fun. You're flying. That's what they say. Incredible. That's what it's the difference, right? So they're flying. So that's, I think he kept him interested, but you know, his, his pursuit of this is, it's pretty, it's pretty, it's a pretty interesting relationship to watch. I think it's important. I mean, as a female, for me, I think playing volleyball helped me understand like having a pursuit, you know, like something like you, I gotta go do that. And I think it's something about living with a person who has a pursuit other than, um, like I need a bigger war chest or whatever that's can be really cool.