On his generation: Twenty years ago, Slater, Machado, and the Momentum Generation of surfers were in their youth, they probably thought that the level of progression could not get any higher, that the level of surfing they were putting out was monumental, but I don’t think that they could have even imagined what was coming in the next few years. The sport’s progressed so much. Nowadays, if you want to call yourself someone who progresses the sport, you have to have a flip-trick on lock. You have guys who don’t do the contest scene at all and just practice these crazy tricks, which really adds more excitement to our sport. When these guys finally do pull these innovative maneuvers, everyone stops whatever they are doing, blows it up in the videos, and then that becomes the benchmark for modern, progressive surfing. That’s just one way our generation is changing the sport.

On kids being marketed at an early age: Because of our sponsors we, “live the dream” and it is our job to keep ripping and represent our sponsors proudly. Sometimes a hot young ripper comes onto the scene and sponsors might push too hard. On the other hand sponsors make it possible for surfers to excel in their sport. I think the guys that make it the furthest in surfing do so because they love it. Didn’t we all start surfing in the first place because it was fun? 

On the trend to attend home school: When it comes to home school I prefer regular school. I’ve had the opportunity to do both and quite frankly, home school is way too boring for me. It works well when you want to go on a trip, you can just get up and leave; but when you’re sitting at home bored out of your mind, real school isn’t such a bad place to be. That’s my take on school, but in the end the key is to get a good education and surf as much as possible.