Joel Tudor, 41

Longboard Icon. San Diego, California

- Todd Prodanovich

Study your elders. Listen to everything they say because you’re gonna be in the same place one day. Twenty years go by like that [snaps fingers]. I remember seeing Woody Brown at Mala when he was in his 90s. I was going to surf and he was on the beach. I ran over and said, “Woody! Let’s go!” and he goes, “You go! I’ll just watch.” I didn’t get it then, but I get it now. He physically couldn’t do it, but mentally he was right there with me. He’d already been there a million times, and he was just enjoying it through other people at that point. Later I thought, “Alright, so that’s what it’s going to be like.”

Your body has a number and your body has a time constraint. No matter how many yoga classes you do or how many crossfit things you do, you’re going to run into that shit. But I’m still young, dude. Forty ain’t shit. I was competing against Nat [Young] when he was 47 and he was whooping my ass.

Self-promotion used to be such a no-no and now it’s kind of everything. With a lot of sponsors it all comes down to how many people follow you. I don’t agree with it, but I do understand it. If you’re going to be a pro surfer, which is basically asking somebody for free money, sponsors want you to have an audience. But I’ve always had a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of who would cut a paycheck for surfing because it’s not a normal sport. Pro football players get paid, but they wouldn’t be playing football and training everyday just for shits. As surfers, we’d be doing this shit no matter what.