Soul Surfing

BY BEN JHOTY

Photography Dan Smith

“Everything happens for a reason.”

If there’s one phrase that sums up Mick Fanning’s career, it’s this hopeful, if slightly nebulous response to the randomness of life. If he didn’t believe it, it’s unlikely he’d still be a professional surfer, let alone a dual world title-holder.

Try these out for setbacks. Your older brother, who you idolise, dies in a car crash when you’re 16, just as you’re starting to break into the big time of professional surfing. Then your back becomes as stiff as an ironing board, putting your fledgling career in jeopardy. The diagnosis: scoliosis. A few years later, you rip your hamstring clean off the bone in another potentially career-ending injury. Rather than succumbing to the repeated blows, though, you go on to be the world champion. Twice. Life’s funny like that.

“If those things didn’t happen to me,” says Fanning, fresh from a dip in the surf at Sydney’s Freshwater Beach, “my career might have ended a lot earlier.” The powerfully built blond-haired board rider is one of those blokes who’s able to find a positive in almost any situation. It’s the kind of advice prescribed by countless self-help books. Fanning lives it. Whether you’re trying to avoid potential pitfalls as you tentatively plot a career path or you’ve found yourself treading water after being dumped by the recent wave of economic turmoil, his story provides both hope and practical wisdom you can apply to help you find your way back.

Fanning’s latest challenge shaped up as one of his most difficult personally: competing with his mate Joel Parkinson for the ultimate prize in surfing. Fortunately, it was one he learnt to deal with a long time ago.

Growing up in Coolangatta on the Gold Coast, Fanning and Parkinson, along with fellow top-10 tour surfer Dean Morrison, were known as the “Cooly Kids”, a trio of ridiculously talented grommets who dominated the junior ranks. You can almost picture them in the water at their local breaks Duranbah or Kirra back in the late Nineties, dreaming about one day competing for the world title as they waited for a set to roll in.

Fast-forward 10 years and what was once a dream now sounds like a movie script. After Parkinson raced out to a seemingly insurmountable lead early on in the tour last year, Fanning came storming home with three out of four first-place finishes in the US, France and Portugal, to set up a winner-takes-all showdown at Hawaii’s Pipeline Masters.

In the movie, their friendship would have been tested, they may even have had a blue. Somebody would have had to play the villain and Kelly Slater would have played himself. In reality, the pair remained friends while each tried his hardest to prevail. After Parkinson was eliminated by Hawaiian Gavin Gillette in the third round, handing Fanning the title, he made a point of swimming out to congratulate his mate. “When you’re growing up, you learn how to deal with competing against each other and you learn that you just leave it out in the water,” says Fanning.

Fanning may have triumphed over his laid-back mate, but their ability to draw a line between their professional and personal lives is a skill most of us could use.

Maybe you have to lock horns with a colleague in a business meeting. It doesn’t mean you can’t have a beer with him afterwards. Similarly, if you’re competing with a mate for a promotion, you each owe it to yourselves to give it your best shot, with the understanding that you won’t let it come between you. It’s what’s known in sporting circles as having a healthy rivalry.

Back in 2001, a world title looked a long way off for the kid with the deep voice and confident, masculine air. While attempting to qualify for the world tour, his back started stiffening up, making surfing about as pleasant as a mouthful of salt water.
Desperate to keep competing, he sought the help of a chiropractor, started doing yoga and began to monitor what he ate. Out of necessity he also began a rigorous stretching routine before heats. The result? Fanning started winning. The structured routine helped silence the mental chatter that filled his head before performing and, by focusing on his back, it took the pressure off the contest.

It’s a great example of how an obstacle can prove to be a valuable learning opportunity. Whether you start furiously networking as a result of job uncertainty or enrol in an assertiveness course after melting down in a meeting, the habits you employ to combat setbacks can help make you a more resourceful, versatile performer down the track.

Fanning’s purposeful response to his back condition and his subsequent form, which saw him qualify for the tour the next year, also marked the beginnings of a habit he’s employed throughout his career. He took note of what he did right. “Usually you don’t really look at a performance unless something’s gone wrong,” he says. But as Fanning found, your victories can be as illuminating as your losses.

Fanning again made mileage out of misfortune in 2004 when he “did the splits” on his board – ripping his hamstring from his pelvic bone – after coming down off a floater while surfing in Indonesia. After an agonising journey home, a metal grappling hook was drilled into his hipbone to reattach the muscle. The doctor said he’d be lucky to surf again, let alone compete. As it turned out, it was a case of what doesn’t kill you makes you Batman.

In the six months he was off the tour, he discovered CHEK (Corrective Holistic Exercise Kinesiology), a fitness program that focuses on strengthening your core and building better body symmetry.

Looking back, Fanning believes the injury, and the time off it gave him to reassess the direction his career was heading, were instrumental in laying the foundation for his 2007 world title. With the extra core strength he gained from CHEK, he found he could carve for longer, paddle all day and recover faster. Being away from the tour also made him realise just how much he enjoyed it.

“I’d almost taken my career for granted,” he says, twisting a blade of grass between his fingers. “Everything was going really well, but I almost got a little burnt out trying to take that next step.”

Although a powerful trigger, you shouldn’t wait for a setback to engage in career evaluation. Perhaps there’s something holding you back from promotion? Maybe you need to widen your skill set or evaluate the path you’re pursuing? If you don’t, you’ll either end up in a rut or a job you don’t want. Fanning’s advice? Don’t wait for fate’s cruel hand to smash you into a reef. Get in first.

One thing Fanning sought to address was his alcohol consumption. A renowned party boy with an alter ego named “Eugene” who comes out when he’s on the booze, since the injury he’s stayed off the grog during competition. “I looked back at footage and thought I lost certain events because I wasn’t feeling 100 per cent,” he admits. “I just kicked myself. You work, then you play.”

By the time he returned from injury, Fanning was doing a serious impression of being an elite athlete, setting new standards for professionalism on the ASP (Association of Surfing Professionals) World Tour. With a structured, holistic approach to his surfing and fitness, and a team that at different times included a coach, manager, trainer and chiropractor, he was almost unstoppable in 2007, winning three events and finishing runner-up once to clinch his first world title.

Fanning had found a formula that worked for him, but it didn’t stop him looking for new ways to improve. Drained by the all-consuming effort and focus the title run required, last year he sought a more relaxed approach. After looking at his results, Fanning worked out that he surfs best when he’s having fun.

“Sometimes people think you’ve got to be super-focused or almost pissed off to compete well,” he says. “But a lot of the time it’s when you’re really happy that you’ve got the most energy and you can use that.”

Last year, Fanning worked on switching on the intensity when he needed it. Now, instead of letting his training and business commitments hang over his head all day, he’ll aim to get them done early so that he can enjoy his down time and fully devote himself to family and friends. Similarly, in order to maintain motivation, Fanning tries to avoid surfing every day in the lead up to a competition. “Sometimes I need to totally switch off from it all and just get that excitement back,” he says. “I’ll have three or four days where I just leave the boards in the garage. I come back more excited than when I left.”

Maintaining intensity and motivation is a challenge in any career. Both are finite, interdependent resources. The more motivated you are, the more focused you’ll be when you need to be. It’s why “leaving your boards in the garage” from time to time, either by taking your annual leave, seizing opportunities to get out of the office or, if you can, looking for new ways to approach your core tasks, may help to reinvigorate and possibly prolong your career.

Fanning admits the roll he found himself on during the second half of the tour last year caught him a little bit by surprise. “I actually thought I was out of the race,” he says. “I was just trying to work on getting a good routine down for the next year.”

But now, as he basks in the glory of his triumph, you can bet he’s already looking back on his victory for lessons for the future. Why? Because it’s by going back and examining your podium finishes and inevitable pitfalls that you shape a career. As Fanning likes to say, it happened for a reason.

Mick Fanning: Surf For Your Life, by Tim Baker, is published by Random House Australia ($34.95).

FANNING’S FIVE SECRETS TO STAYING ON TOP

I only use my bodyweight when I’m exercising and never, ever let myself wake up in pain. You want to feel electric and loose when you’re in the water.

The first thing I pack when I travel is my fitness ball. It’s like my pillow. I’ll do a high-intensity 20-minute session once a day when I’m away. For surfing, I focus on doing stomach crunches, elevated push-ups, lower-back extensions and lunges for the hip flexors.

Each time you’re in the water, try to focus on one aspect you want to improve. This could be turns or even the basics like duck diving. You should feel you have improved every time you leave the beach.

If the conditions are fairly safe, try not wearing a leg rope. It will help you to focus a lot more on not falling off, while the extra swimming involved if you do makes for a good cardio workout.

Paddle on a surfboard any chance you get. When the surf is flat, or even in a river or a lake, I’ll do 10 sets of 50-metre sprints, then a warm-down paddle back to where I started. Then repeat it all again.