Right now, the greatest surfer of all time might be surfing his last event ever as a full-time Championship Tour competitor — the Billabong Pipe Masters — which he’s won a record seven times since 1992. And being such a dominant force out there, in and out of the jersey, ever since – what could Kelly possibly learn when preparing for the 2019 event?
Plenty, apparently. Slater enlisted Australian big-wave surfer Mark Visser and his Ocean Warrior Course to get prepped for what could be his final event (but only if he wins). Surfline chatted with Mark to find out exactly what kind of work they’ve done together.
Surfline: How did you and Kelly end up working together to prep for this Pipe Masters?
Mark Visser: We actually started working together back in 2018 before the Surf Ranch event. Shane Dorian had connected us and for a solid week in the lead up to the 2018 Pipe event, we planned out a good training block for all the physical training from the course. We also worked on some mindset stuff beforehand. This year, we started before the tour started on the Goldy. Kelly has become really good at the physical drills, as well as the mental process, but before Pipe this year we had a slightly bigger training block than last year. Kelly actually really loves doing it, which is awesome when you’re there to help.
So what did the course entail this time around?
At the start, each session went for over an hour. In Hawaii in 2018 we had a seven-day training block, and on the Goldy in 2019 we would do a few weekly sessions. We worked a lot on getting the breaths right. The correct breath to use when you come up from when you’re underwater, the correct breath to use to recover fast if you need it, as well as the right breath to use when we wanted to drop the heart rate right down when needed. We started off doing a lot of land drills to really perfect those breaths, and also so he knew the importance of which muscle groups to use and which ones to shut off when it mattered. The drills in the course really spell it out, and even if I just told him, he wouldn’t have realized how important it was for himself until he actually did it. This year, it was a ten-day block, but with all the new elite mindset stuff added to the advanced drills, as well as breath relaxation stuff. He is very good at getting himself back to being calm and relaxed really fast in all of the drills, which was awesome to see.
Many believe your course is all about big-wave survival and breath holding, but isn’t it more complex and deeper than just being underwater?
Yeah, it’s funny, because for so many people the worse hold-downs can actually be on a three-foot day, and that’s happened to me, too. The course was designed for people dealing with waves and water, but it has actually been really helpful for people dealing with anything that causes stress. The more the course has gotten out there, the more feedback we are getting that it is relatable for everyday life. When you go through the elite mindset program that you use to apply to the other stages in the course, you start to see that it can be used in any area of your life. The process of how our mind connects to our body and the programs we run around fear are the same.
Mark and Kelly train in the pool in the lead up to the 2019 Billabong Pipe Masters, as the crew from HBO watches on.
What were you able to help him with that he didn’t already have in his incredibly deep arsenal?
When we chatted about it back in 2018, I realized there were a few areas that would be new to him. It’s also something I’ve spent a large section of my own life studying, researching, and looking for all the answers on how to perfect. I’ve worked with so many different types of professionals in so many fields, from an 18-time freediving world champion to neurology experts, kinesiologists, energy workers, sports scientists and psychologists, along with my own constant trial-and-error from big-wave beltings. I would constantly experience a heavy situation and go back and try to figure out how I could reverse the psychology of what was happening when I experienced stress and fear — to the point where I became confident enough to jump off the back of a jet-ski in front of sets at Jaws to test it. It works.
Was Olympic qualification another factor in his preparation, or even on his mind at all?
No, not at all, that’s what I think makes Kelly so good. If you live life too far in the future, you start trying to predict outcomes, outcomes that you can’t control. That’s what causes us all stress, and that’s one thing I’ve noticed with him, that he is often very present in the moment. For sure, he might’ve planned it, but when that’s done he seems to be back on to whatever is going on at that moment.
Was there any specific preparation for Pipeline? How does your ethos and approach directly relate to that wave?
Yes, it was more the back end of the advanced stages in the realistic sections of the course. They are the hardest, and what make you super confident for any heavy wave that’s going to dish out a longer hold-down than normal. We also focus a lot on reducing stress before it builds up, by doing the breath work before we started. We really worked a lot on the ability to feel versus think. That’s what it’s all about. The technical term for that is “Transient Hypofrontality.” Basically, we shut down the pre-frontal cortex of our brain. This is really important because this is the part of our brain that keeps track of time and consistently references past, present and future. When we can do this we are in the “now,” where any individual is at their absolute best.
You’ve done this course with many different surfers, do you ever come away learning from them, too? What did you learn from Kelly Slater?
For sure, I’m always learning and always discovering new and better ways to teach and help people. The biggest thing I learned from Kelly is that he’s a real guy like everyone else who deals with good days and shit days. But for him, when he is focused on what’s going on and he really zeros down in that exact moment, he is super efficient and so good at doing the exact task that needs to be done. Sounds simple, but it’s hard to do when your world is upside down and the pressure is on.
We heard the HBO crew was there with you guys, filming their documentary, which aired a couple weeks ago. What was that like?
Yeah, that was pretty funny. The first morning I woke up, walked out of my room, and there were about 13 people sitting in the living room at 6am with boom mics and a heap of cameras. They were a really cool crew, though, very respectful of everyone’s space, but also on to everything to get the best story for the viewers. Most of their team was from NYC and had no idea how lucky they were to get perfect days at Pipe and good weather while they were there. It didn’t seem to faze Kelly during his training sessions that he had a big crew watching his every move — he is just so used to that — but we did do a few sneaky sessions to practice some of the mindset stuff. It was a super productive trip, and it looks like he has gotten off to a good start.
For a limited time, Mark Visser’s Ocean Warrior Course 2.0 – with the new Elite Mindset Program – is available for 60% off. Find out more info or sign up here.
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