Joe Rogan - Kelly Slater on Surfing in His 40's, Being Competitive

Do you have your absolute dream job? Between I mean you do a few things but like you you get to talk UFC. You're a black belt under Eddie Right. Yeah, and so like you've kind of found the perfect job for yourself Yeah, because you just I can tell when you talk about you just love it so much like I love surfing You know, I just I live eat and breathe surf every day I wake up and the first thing I do is look at where's the waves in the world? Where's how do you think when you retire you'll do commentary? Maybe a little bit. Yeah, maybe a little bit, but I don't want to I don't really want a job When I read that, you know, I've been like I've been I've been on a pro tour pretty much since I was 19 and 46 I took about three years off, but I would still compete a little bit those years What are the what it's the high end of the age limit in terms of like where I can really compete like right now No, I'm no one's ever been my age on tour. Really? Yeah No, I think the next oldest guy in tour is 38 and he's retiring this year Wow When I've got on tour the oldest guy was 28 years old, holy shit Yeah, it was like there was a real, you know that I would say in the 80s There wasn't like it didn't look like you could make some money and if you were top five guy But it didn't look like you could have like this crazy career. So guys weren't thinking longevity They're like, let's go have a freaking good time Right traveling around the world and get paid for it for a few years and then we'll figure out a job after or maybe we'll Have enough money to kind of live real humbly What is the difference between how you prepare and other guys is it your diet strength and conditioning? Like what is it? Um, I don't overexert myself very much. So my my training aside from surfing isn't a lot I retain I feel like I retain enough strength to be good at what I need to so Do I burn yourself out? I don't burn myself out, you know, cuz like The oldest people in the world world weren't athletes, you know They're kind of people who didn't burn themselves out too much So I my theory on longevity is like don't overdo it I don't need to necessarily be over trained for what I do a lot of the skill a lot of the The winning that I do competitively is from a skill It's not so much from being super strong having crazy cardio It's making a choice about which wave how I'm gonna approach and ride that wave and I have to get two scores every 30 minutes When I compete so it's like I got this 30 minute window. I need you ready for I don't need to be like in crazy crazy shape So what is it that held other guys back in the past? I think there's a number of factors I think you have to naturally be really competitive like in your when you were born in your home Somehow you had to maybe you needed something to prove, you know, I I was kind of like You know growing up I sort of look back at it and kind of laugh Like I maybe I couldn't get the girl I liked because she liked an older guy or you know I didn't have we didn't really have any money in my family. So I wanted to make some money I had an older brother who kind of picked on me But I hung out with him and played football with his friends that were all three years older than me So I had to be strong, you know, I had to be tough and fast. I had to be smart That's the case with a lot of guys older brothers Yeah, the brothers that they couldn't really compete with like this motherfucker and so every night I would just eat away at yeah Yeah, I think it I think it did and there was always that you know My brother and I have I think we have a pretty good relationship now and I don't think he would Disagree with me that we kind of didn't get along for 20 years or more We sort of hate each other. It's a long time. Yeah, but you know from time we're teenagers We kind of grew apart, you know, I I sort of started doing real well competing on the world stage and he sort of stagnated and We just you know people and families have different dynamics, you know Each child has a different dynamic whether the first and I'm in the middle of three all boys Our younger brother was three six years younger than me. So he was kind of out of the loop when we're teenagers He's still a little kid. So we were really competing with him but he saw us competing against each other and in maybe a few ways and It kind of turned him off to surfing. So he didn't start surfing till he was a teenager Oh and when he did he rode long boards and we're all we're both short boarders like, you know more Competition kind of guys and he loved Kind of the old throwback the 60s and 70 surfers on long boards or on single fins Which is like not a modern board at all. And um, why would someone choose one or the other? Long boards are short words. Yeah, it's a it's a real different skill Long boards are kind of easier to just get up and ride a wave But the the skill you have on a long board is more it's it's more ballet than it is Gym or something, you know, it's not like big maneuvers. It's more like gliding on the wave looking like you're not trying hard it's it's more of a dance if you will and then it is like a Some kind of an athletic skill and you know short boarding is just you know You're going for aerials and lots of different sort of fast maneuvers Really riding in the pocket of the wave whereas longboarding you're looking for a different kind of you you ride a different kind of wave altogether You really don't most of the waves we ride For modern shortboarding and competition aren't waves you would ride a longboard because they're too hollow They're too quick and fast and you can't fit a longboard in the same way So your brother just kind of took it up more for the fun of it and yes, yeah I come in he literally was at the beach one day his story He was about 14 or 15 and we always try to get him to surf and When he was about 8 or 10, I took him surfing one day at our local Break at Sebastian in Florida and and I pushed him on this wave and he he ate it was underwater a long time It kind of freaked him out Not a long time. I mean long time for an eight-year-old like maybe 10 seconds or eight seconds, you know when you're out of breath a Little freaky like you don't know which way is up and he kind of quit surfing and then when he was like 14 or 15 He's at the beach and this guy he He really respected this kind of older guys like hey, I'm gonna run somewhere. We watch my board I had a longboard and he said we watch my board and and Steven said oh, yeah I'll watch it and the guy said you can go use it if you want he paddled out and caught a few waves and he just sort of fell in love with that minute with surfing and It was something unique for him because we didn't longboard So it was like it was that beach life and thing we love but it was different, you know, right? He got his own thing. Yeah. Yeah, and then me and my brother we you know I got more and more into competition and getting sponsored and stuff and and he sort of he he just kind of started fading out of doing competition full-time and stuff and and and then When I was a teenager when I was in a freshman in high school this guy moved into town His kidney him drew and he had sort of got kicked out of a couple schools elsewhere and Got himself in some trouble and when he came to came over to the beach, he was kind of in these inland schools But he was good at football good at baseball. He was kind of a really good athlete He became the quarterback on our football team. He was a baseball player all this kind of stuff So he was he was a total jock not a surfer at all and somehow he and I became best buddies And you know, I liked I liked all the sports. I grew up playing football basketball baseball a little bit tennis and and he and I Ultimately where we got to was he sort of became my big brother competitively and we used to battle and it didn't matter whose feelings got hurt, you know, like We competed at absolutely everything from horseshoes to bowling to pool On my birthday every year on my birthday We made it a pact where we'd go play every kind of game we could possibly and we keep a tally of who won What it was mini. It was putt putt golf. It was go-karts. It was basketball. It was shuffleboard it was like literally everything air hot, you know everything we could think of and We just keep a tally and we used to bet in the millions of dollars Really? Yeah. Well, yeah, of course. So, you know at some point somebody owed somebody hundreds of millions of dollars But you never paid no, of course, I mean when it came down to like actual money and then it was like five bucks, you know and you know at one point he he was uh He got really into horseshoes and he called me out one day. He's like you meet me at the beach We're gonna play some horseshoes. I'm like, all right I'm like, but I'm not playing you unless we're betting some money like some real money He's like, all right bring some money and at the end of the day. He ended up on me about 160 bucks He's like you fucking tell my wife I owe you I'll fucking kill you now. I'll never pay you I don't have the money. I can't pay you that he's like so I'll pay you like 20 bucks here and there as we go But drew used to he beat me at everything. He was better than me at basically everything And so it was like that at ping-pong to on my 18th birthday that I like to call it the night of upsets because it was a night that Mike Tyson lost to Buster Douglas and It was it was the night of February 10th my birthday's in the 11th on the 11th, but they were in Tokyo So they were on the 11th fighting Tyson lost Drew shows up in my house with a ping-pong table and he says It was like my birthday gift all my friends bought me this ping-pong table my mom my three buddies and drew beat me 17 straight games in a row and I started crying And I think he ended up letting me finally win the last game so we could go to bed It was like two in the morning and man I've never been I've really honestly never been so frustrated and just outright beaten by somebody at anything and he just owned I just knew he owned me and he would just tell me where he's gonna hit the ball on the table and beat me