When I created this blog I really wanted to to be centered around the things that inspire me and the drive behind the way I live my life. Cole Hardwick, one of my very best friends in Tallahassee, is giving me one of the greatest gifts anyone could ever give. Cole Hardwick is teaching me how to surf, and I am infinitely grateful to him for this because I don't think there's a better way to truly connect to the ocean. I asked him to be a guest blogger, and he happily complied! The way he talks about the ocean and surfing is infectious and I'm so excited to share his blog post with you guys!
I first connected with Cole when I was looking to join the surf team at Florida State, he ended up adopting me and taking me under his wing. The shots above are from our very first surf trip, followed by some of Cole's personal adventures both surfing and shaping. This guy is oozing with talent and love!
I decided to include some of Cole's artwork in this post, can't even describe how much this guy inspires me. He does what he wants, and he does it so well! I hope you can all be inspired by him, just like I am constantly!
"Having had grown up in St.
Augustine and living the greater part of my life in a home less than 2 miles
from the beach, surfing was kind of just a natural step to take. I was given my
first board for my ninth birthday, this little thruster with a colorful
airbrush pattern made by a well-liked local shaper. None of my family had ever
surfed, but they were always really supportive of anything I wanted to do, so
they drove me to the beach almost every day after school. Teaching yourself to
learn something is always really difficult, but I had this friend who was my
same age and lived right next door to me who was trying to learn too, so we
kind of always had this competitive drive with each other that probably helped
push us both into becoming better surfers. I think what also helped me was that
at the time the ASP World Champ was this local guy, CJ Hobgood, and I happened
to be able meet him at one of the surf shops around town one day, and after
that I pretty much idolized the guy and wanted to surf more to be like him.
My
views of surfing didn’t really change from seeing it as more than just a sport
or a fun past time though until about my Junior or Senior year of high school.
At that time I ended up getting this re-make of a classic “retro-styled” fish
that just completely changed everything I saw surfing as. As first that board
was completely impossible for me to ride, but after I got used to it and with
one or two really clean swells I started to see and feel surfing differently. I
realized it could be more than just throwing together whatever tricks you could
memorize from the magazines or films, and that you could actually bring style
and expression into the mix as well. I think at that point surfing began to
almost turn into this form of a release for me, emotionally and spiritually. I
became a lot more relaxed and started to realize just how amazing everything
was around me.
There isn’t really a whole lot of things out there that guys can
do and make to look beautiful, but when you bring surfing into this style-based
rhythm, it almost ends up carrying that same visually appealing aesthetic as
like a form of dancing almost. You read and understand the ocean better, and
the waves become this blank stretch of canvas ready for you to draw lines and
colors that are completely 100% unique to you. You will never ride the same
wave twice, and no one will ever ride a wave the same way as you, so there’s
just that endless opportunity of expressing yourself. Every new wave is a new
clean stretch of canvas, it’s pretty amazing. For me, this form of art has been
easiest to see and express with a longboard, where you can just walk the board
and locks trims and noseride, all really style based maneuvers. In longboarding
you can just really single out all the different styles people bring into
surfing through how fast or small those steps are, or what yoga-esque maneuvers
they can hold on the nose of the board. I always just see so much beauty and
rhythm in longboard surfing. With a nice noserider you’re really able to just
put everything out there in the open and just be you.
I
don’t really put much thought towards what kind of future I’d like for myself
or how surfing will play into it all, I kind of just put everything I am and
everything I want to be into today. Which, I guess if you keep living like
that, eventually today will be that future you were thinking about, and you’ll
be everything you wanted to be because you’ve been living every day to be like
that. Maybe it’s a bit cliché or just a twist on the “live everyday like it’s
your last” motif, but every day I get another day to live and to love I always
realize that I’m the happiest I’ve ever been, and every day is always better
than the last, so it works for me at least. I guess the ideal form of living or
“the dream” for me though is probably just living somewhere in the world,
really anywhere in the world, close to a coast where some waves break with a
wife (and eventually kids) who will surf with me. All the details and means of
achieving living that life don’t really matter that much to me, as long as I’ve
got my family and friends and the ocean close by.
I find the best piece of
advice from Chris McCandless quote he left by his deathbed stating that
“Happiness is only real if shared.” I feel like that applies well to life and
to surfing. The best days of surfing are usually always based around who you
were with rather than how good the waves are. Some people spend their whole
life trying to find the “perfect” wave and traveling to different desolate
corners of the world, tracking the “perfect” swells, having the “perfect”
boards, and all that jazz. But I feel like every wave can be the perfect wave
if you just surround yourself with the people you love. Those kinds of thoughts
and feelings come with the experiences though. After having been traveling for
about 12 or 13 years now ranging from surf trips to Costa Rica with college
friends, mission trips to Africa with my mother, or road tripping from one
coast to the other across the U.S. by myself I’ve started to learn that the experiences
that really stuck with me were the relationships I’ve started or strengthened
during those travels. So for me now it’s really all about spreading happiness
and positive vibes, and sharing the adventures. Watching your buddies get
barreled out of their mind, splitting a peak on some a-frame with a stranger,
or pushing a kid into their first wave, surfing to me is all about the shared
experiences and spreading the stoke."
Connect with Cole Hardwick on his Tumblr!
xoxo
Tori Ray
Keep Spreading the Stoke! <3
If you are interested in collaborations with Tori Ray Photography, contact Tori at toriray0613@yahoo.com
