The Time Tony Hawk Went Surfing with Laird Hamilton | Joe Rogan

So when we're talking about San Diego being like very fit place, do you do any sort of strength and conditioning or anything for skateboarding? Is that something that people do? Some people do it. I never found it to help my skating. And I always felt like skating kept me fit. So I never really did it. I mean, outside of swimming and surfing, which is more upper body than skating, obviously. But I do feel like that would have benefited me later in life. I just got stuck in my mode. And then just skating was it. And you stay there. You're in your mode now. You don't do anything? I don't do anything else. I do make an effort to swim some laps. Because my mom lived until her 90s and she swore by swimming. Swimming is amazing. She would go through... I mean, I remember all as a kid, she would definitely... She had to get her 20 laps in every day. And where I live, the residential area had a community swimming pool that was like Olympic size. So that was a good thing. We were talking before about surfing. And I was saying that I think that surfing, at least partially, would kind of mimic some of the muscles that you use in skateboarding. And then you were telling me about getting towed in by Larry Hamilton. While you drink his coffee. Wow. Yeah, so, well, my brother, my older brother was a surfer. And he got me into skating. Because he skated in the 70s when that was the thing, they were trying to emulate surfing with skateboards. And so he actually gave me one of his old boards. That was my first skateboard. And then he would drive me to the skate park once a week, like come home from college and take me to the park. And then I just got hooked. That was my home away from home from that point on. And so I surf pretty regularly. I would say less now, but it was hard not to with my brother's influence. And we were in Hawaii. My brother actually used to be the editor of Surfer magazine. So he knows all the surfers. Oh, wow. Because he's a journalist, really good writer. Teaches at Stanford now, actually. And so we went to Hawaii, we went to Maui, and he said, hey, Laird said he'd take us out towing surfing if you want to go. We're going to go towing surfing with Laird Hamilton. I don't think his level of what is mellow is something that is what we would consider. And I go, but we got to go. Like, it's once in a lifetime. So they took us out to Spreckles, which is near Jaws, which is their big spot. This is like early 2000s. So towing surfing was just starting to come into play. I'll never forget Dave Kalama, who's one of the surfers, one of his homies. He was trying out the first foil board there. Oh, wow. And he had he was wearing ski boots attached to the foil board. That's how he was riding it. I was like, these guys are out of their minds. And so... Does it detach like a ski boot if you fall? I never saw it detach. Oh, my God. Yeah. So you have to recover and swim to the surface while you're permanently connected. I was too focused on trying to survive myself to worry about what he was doing. But yeah, so Rush Randall, who's another windsurfer there, he was towing me and Laird is towing my brother. And I'll never forget them being outside. And then, you know, they're saying it's a small day and they're like, oh, I think there might be like some 10 or 12 foot sets. And I know what 10 or 12 foot in Hawaiian measurement means. And I was like, just don't tell me into one of those. Okay. And then I'll never forget looking out and Rush said, here comes one. Where? Because you're so far out. Right. And he's like, get ready. Okay. And so then I got ready and I'm getting towed and all of a sudden this thing, this mountain just swells up underneath me. And before I know it, I'm just in the pit of this move this way that was like double overhead. And it's like, I'm getting overridden for sure. And for me, it's backside. So when you're going backside, you're just sort of looking down the line. You're not looking back at the barrel. What does that mean by backside? So the wave is breaking this way. And my back is to the face of the wave. Okay. Right. And it backside is a little more challenging just because of the turning and the way you're facing. So when you go in front side, you're facing the wave. You can really see down the line. You can move back easily. So I'm going backside. And I remember looking at the wall thinking like I've ridden 20 foot skate ramps and I'm like, that looks like about a 20 foot skate ramp. So I was going and I was cruising and then I did a little cutback. So I started going back towards the barrel and I looked at the barrel and it was like the most frightening thing I've ever seen in my life. Because it was like a massive hollow wave that you see in movies that you see Larry just dancing around in. And I'm like, I can't. I'm not getting near that thing. And I immediately just turned back and went down the line even further to get ahead of it. And then I did find myself after a few waves getting cocky and I tried to pull into the barrel and it just clobbered me in the head. And then I, you know, you were in a life vest. And then I went down, I'll never forget, like I felt myself going down one shelf and, you know, trying to swim up to the top. And then I felt to go down another shelf and I was like, oh, this is bad. And then finally made it up to the surface and Rush is like three feet from me. Oh, wow. Because he's just been chasing me. Those guys are, they're the masters. Experts and recovering people that get clobbered. Yeah. Fuck. And I was just like, how long were you down for? I, you know, it wasn't it wasn't like a crazy hold down, but in my inexperience and not conditioned body, it felt like a long time. And I and I told Rush, I was like, oh, that was so scary. I've never been held down that much. He's like, yeah, I've had my worst hold downs out here. Cool. Thanks. I was telling you, you know, I get in the sauna every day and I said something to Larry and he sent me a picture of his sauna. Pull it up here. He's at two hundred and fifty fucking degrees in his sauna. I mean, I don't even understand why he would do that, but he's like, I'm pissed that this thing doesn't go any hotter. Let me. Yeah, he lives on a different plane. He gets in there with oven mitts at two hundred and fifty degrees with. Here it is. Look at this crazy motherfucker. Look at that. So does he wear oven mitts so his skin won't melt off? Yeah, because he rides his fucking air dine bike. So the metal of the air dine bike would literally cook him. I mean, I cook a steak at two hundred and fifty degrees and the smoker. This is crazy. And it's two hundred. It's actually like probably it's pinned at two fifty because that's as hot as this thermostat gets. Oh, yeah. Right. Like it's probably hotter than two fifty. He's out of his fucking right. He's fascinating. It's always better is his quote to me. I just there's got to be a point. I did it once here. I was trying to after he came on the podcast, I was trying to copy him. So I was doing it like two ten and I did once a two twenty. I was burning like the inside of my throat from breathing in the air. I was like, oh, yeah, cooking myself because I was in there for like twenty minutes. I was like, and then I'd get out and it was as tired as I've ever been in my life. I would just collapse on the mats after I got out of the sauna. And I was like, I got to stop doing this. And I'd come in and do podcasts. And like I was having a hard time talking. I was like, like my throat was cooked. It was basically getting cooked. Yeah, I never did well with that stuff. We we got one actually. We got one of the infrared ones. Those are different. Yeah, he doesn't like the infrared ones. Laird said that they gave him a real bad skin condition and that like there's something about as particularly the temperatures he's putting them at. Yeah. Well, I got to start somewhere. Well, I think the dry heat, it's like that's where the studies have been done on them. And I'm sure there's some benefits to the infrared one. But according to him, he's not into it. Yeah. Well, I don't like I said, I don't really do it anyway. My wife and my kids, they like going in there. But I usually go in for a little bit and like we'll watch one episode of something. I'm like, OK, I'm done. Have you done his crazy water workouts? No way. No, I would never survive that. Not at this. No. I have a bunch of friends that have gone up there and train with them. And then they just text me afterwards. What the fuck? Yeah, because he's just not no one. No one can can go easy. No, he's not. There's no easy with Larry. Yeah, there's only two speeds. I was telling you about his ankle. People, he came in here and showed me his ankle. He has an ankle that broke that he never did anything to. He never bothered getting a cast. He never bothered getting surgery. And it's like the root of a tree. It's this fucked up, thick ass knee of an ankle. It's so weird. And like, wow, that's next level. He's just a next level human. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I I respect him and admire him, but I don't want him to train me. Well, his workouts are so crazy. Like they take a 75 pound dumbbell and they swim with it like the whole 75 pound dumbbell. And then you're swimming across the pool with one arm while holding the 75 pound dumbbell while trying to pop your head up and breathe. Oh, OK. Yeah, whatever. Yeah, so not not my conditioning. But I like that there's a guy like that out there out for sure. I think it's important leading the charge. Yeah, just some fucking maniac. Exactly. Who's just so he's so psycho about everything. The guy sends you a 250 degree sauna that he's mad that doesn't get any higher. Just so interesting.