Why New Zealand? This is a question I often get when people visit this site or I tell them about my trip and aside from my general fondness for sheep and hobbits, the answer — like so many things — has its roots back in the days when I was still surfing.

When it made its early appearances in Surfer or Surfing magazine back in the 70’s, New Zealand had this otherworldly allure — a lush, green place with perfect, hollow waves kissed by offshore winds and empty lineups. Invariably the shots were of a break called Raglan and I’m guessing it gets epic like the photos we were drooling over maybe four or five times a year. Whether this is true or not is hardly important as it represented an idea and a point of reference by which we could compare those rare classic days at El Morro, the River Jetties, and Big Corona. Days when all the elements came together — swell, tide, wind and crowd.

Describing such days to those who weren’t there was almost as important as being there. More often than not superlatives — even surf lingo superlatives — wouldn’t do such a session justice. For us, those mysto breaks of New Zealand had caught our imaginations and if you wanted to really sell your story say it looked like one of those breaks.

“Talking Story”, as the Hawaiians call it, is an art form and because surfing seems especially vulnerable to the “Rashomon effect” (more so for those surfing inconsistent or mediocre breaks), most story talkers rely on comparisons rather than superlatives to describe what went down. Compare your session to Pipeline, Burleigh Heads or Raglan and everybody knew exactly what you were talking about. No ambiguity, no room for subjective interpretation — the pictures were in the mags.

But New Zealand also represented adventure and for us — more specifically — the surf adventure. It was on the other side of the world and we didn’t know anybody who had been there yet. The waves we imagined — aside from a few locals — were probably pretty empty (or at least that’s how the mags made it seem) and if you surfed in a Newport lineup every day that was enough to get you dreaming of airplane flights.

Keep in mind also this is before surf travel as we know it today. There were no chartered boats to the Maldives or the Mentawais and the idea of surf resorts in the South Pacific or El Salvador would’ve seemed preposterous and maybe even a little wrong. In the mid 70’s places like Uluwatu and Nias, for all intents and purposes, had only a few years earlier been discovered and ridden. The world in terms of surf travel discoveries was pretty much wide open and we, with our grom imaginations, wanted to be part of this new frontier.

So we began by fantasizing how it would go down and then by loosely planning our route. It would be a year long trip between graduating from high school and starting college. We’d start in NZ, head over to Oz and then finish things off in Bali and the North Shore of Oahu. We were 16 at the time and so anything could happen (ultimately it did), but for me it was pretty much a done deal. I began putting the money I made from life guarding into a savings account and started plastering my walls with pictures of Raglan, G-land, and Pipe.

Life, however, in its miraculous unfolding, isn’t concerned with plans. Things change. Breaking my neck when I did is a perfect example. The trip, at least for me, was off, and while my friends could’ve gone on without me, for whatever reason, they never did. That said, the trip has never left my heart.

In the hospital, it was a motivating force that helped me move through a physically painful and difficult rehabilitation. Friends and strangers alike, who knew of the trip, in a show of support surrounded me with pictures and artifacts from the places we were going to go. My hospital room started looking like the U.S. wing of the Australian and New Zealand tourist bureaus. If you needed info on either of these places, I was your man.

So that’s why NZ; it’s beautiful, on the other side of the world and in a weird way, a part of who I am.

If you’re gonna wear red shoes — in this case Adidas SL 72’s — then you better be prepared to come correct — do something extra. With red, there are no ordinary efforts. On the track, red means go — go real far — and that’s something you gotta take seriously. These days, if I’m anything, it’s that, serious… seriously committed to distance.

When I began planning for this trip, I knew above all else I’d want to get in shape before it happened. I figured there’d be a lot things out of my hands, but my physical conditioning wouldn’t be one of them. At the very least, it would be something I could do on a near daily basis that would always feel like progress. My regiment would be a split between pushing in my acoustic chair* and lifting weights (neither of which I’ve done with any seriousness in close to 20 years). The chair for my endurance and the weights for my strength.

In doing this I’ve noticed a couple of things; first, my body finds the commitment, routine and strain of working out very familiar. Before my injury, intense workouts for water polo, surfing and swimming were an everyday gig, as commonplace as eating or sleeping. If you wanted to be better than your competition, then you needed to put in the extra work — go a little bit further than the other guy (which, in my past, is another way of saying, I spent many voluntary hours in water temps that were less than comfortable for certain parts of the anatomy).

This kind of work ethic/routine served me well after I broke my neck. The familiarity of pushing beyond what was comfortable became a way — not for me to better “the competition” — but a way for me to better myself. The beauty of this being, that in my very essence I never felt my potential had limits. Exclusively using my acoustic chair and committing to a weight training program, allowed me to see endless improvements where my disability was concerned. Improvements which would carry me beyond my level of injury.

Neurologists will say, in reference to post injury paralysis, that you’re only going to get back (in terms of movement) what the unaffected neural pathways will allow. And while I won’t disagree with this physiological fact, I will say that strengthening the muscles that are receiving the neural signals, will create a surprising situation where it feels like the level of injury has dropped below the affected neural pathways. In other words, strength will compensate for paralysis. The trick, of course, is actually committing to the strength exercises, which are both time-consuming and painful. Even though this isn’t new information — its the philosophy behind physical therapy — it’s nice to reflect on how influential it is my life right now and, even more specifically, how it’s motivating me.

The other thing I’ve noticed is I tend to be a tad bit impatient when it comes to seeing visible results. I generally want to go from point A to point Z very quickly; I want to see muscles bulging on my arms and time ticking off those laps. Don’t get me wrong, I’m well aware of the fact I’m a C 4 - 5 quadriplegic who’s been on a 20-year “vacation” from exercise and who’s become a little less efficient in the pushing department (okay a lot less efficient), and, well, a little more Olive Oil-ish looking in the limbs (yes, Popeye’s wife). But c’mon, already, isn’t two months a sufficient amount of time to see the changes I’m looking for? You know, speedy on the track, thick in the arms.

Generally, I don’t have a problem with this kind of impatience — in fact, it’s probably beneficial to this whole process — but no sooner than when I was checking myself, did I see the results I was looking for. All I had to do was put on those SL 72’s, and with a little added effort on my part, instead of the 1 mile routine I usually do, I pushed 2. Oh, it was tough, a little painful, even a little slower going than I would’ve liked, but in the end it was like crashing through a wall. And on the other side of that wall, certainty.

As I said, it feels natural to go beyond what feels comfortable and to test my limits. In doing this, I not only gauge my progress, but it also functions as a reward — a way for me to internalize the vastness of my potential and nurture my goal. Putting a finer head on it, it simply means; a). I’m approaching where I want to be and b). there’s a gun show coming to town and it looks to be something long-term.

*acoustic chair = manual chair; as in there are electric guitars and acoustic guitars. An expression originally coined by my buddy J. As musicians it seemed the natural way to go. Fellow musician’s seem to be the only folks who get the joke.