Surf Legend Shane Dorian Talks Surfing and Surviving Big Waves on REI Podcast (Listen)

Shane Dorian is a true surf legend.

He spent over a decade on the World Championship Tour, appeared in surf movies, and established himself as a big wave surfer a long time ago.

These days, when he's not chasing huge swells Jaws, he's hunting at home on the Big Island or going on surf trips with his son, ripper Jackson Dorian.

Now, we get to catch up with Dorian thanks to author and podcast host, Shelby Stanger, who spoke to him recently on her "Wild Ideas Worth Living" podcast with REI.

According to Stanger's post above, the podcast was recorded live in Laguna Beach, California.

In the interview, Dorian gets pretty deep with his thoughts about surfing—and surviving—really big waves. Here's a few of the highlights, but do yourself a favor and press play in the link above.

• An employee from his parents' restaurant in Kona taught him how to surf.

• After his first wave at five years old, he remembers thinking, "Hey, this is me. This is who I am."

• Prepping to surf big waves is a lot of "breathing and visualization to kind of visualize how I want the session to go, how it'll start and how I'll approach it."

• He's blacked out twice while surfing big waves: "Once I blacked out underwater because I couldn't hold my breath long enough. And the other time I basically was blacking out as I resurfaced."

• Dorian plans ahead of time what to think about when he "eats shit" underwater. And "that plan is to think about all the other times I've been held down."

In fact, he relies on those experiences and thinks: "I've lived through this before. I know what this feels like. I'm getting pounded by a huge wave, just like all the other huge waves. And I'm going to come up just like all the other times. And people have lived through way gnarlier things than this. I'm not going to be the one to drown right now, and I got this."

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