No Bad Waves: Talking Story with Mickey Munoz

"Most surfers, and especially the ones who shape their own boards, are redesigning, refining the board they are riding, trying to better understand how to dance with this partner as they follow the music that is the wave. That wave, like music, is always changing, so the challenge is to connect yourself with a flow that smoothly brings all three together. With a surfboard, it’s the most simple—yet, ironically, perhaps the most difficult. With stand-up paddle boarding, you add the paddle and more board. Windsurf… board and sail. Kiteboarding may be the easiest but with the most consequences when you lose the flow. Snowboarding is easier yet because it all holds still for you while you ride it. Mickey has kept paddling with more enthusiasm and energy than anyone else his age in my lifetime of surfing… and I mean this in a literal as well as figurative way. Surfing to Mickey Munoz is all about having fun and if, as Duke Kahanamoku said, the best surfer is the one having the most fun, then Mickey is the best and has been for the 50 years we’ve been friends."