Graham Ezzy in “Some Days”

The Maui season is about to start again during these days and the Aloha Classic is around the corner. The waiting for waves and wind is over. Graham will be back in business at his home break and push the level in modern wave windsurfing. And pushing hard means crashing hard, too. Trying out something new is closely connected with falling. Graham experienced that again again when preparing for the European summer competing on the World Tour.

“Some days on the water, the world is out of focus. These are days of falling on everything and struggling in the current. Windsurfing becomes as frustrating as it used to be fun. There is no brute force solution. Trying harder only makes the day worse – the crashes harder. My method for these situations is to pull back and focus on the fundamentals. I forget about hitting big lips or busting tricks. Instead I focus on getting just one carving cutback on a wave. If I’m lucky, finding a good cutback will set me up in a rhythm and the session can improve.

Trying to salvage a bad session is the inspiration for “SOME DAYS” because this spring on Maui was unlike the past springs because instead of focusing on collecting footage, I was training for the world tour. In short: I did not get a lot of good footage, just bits and pieces from an hour here or there. Jamie, Kevin, and Chris all managed to capture a gem or two of my waves, but by coincidence, the days they were filming were off-days and so instead of a lot of jazzy footage that makes me look better than I am, I have a lot of reminders of how hard the struggle is to get better. A reminder that some days are hard. And a reminder that there is a way out too.” Graham Ezzy

Graham Ezzy at Ho’okipa during spring 2015

Filmed by Kevin Pritchard, Jamie Hancock and Christopher Friis