THE REAL MEANING OF THE RIP CURL CUP PADANG PADANG 2024 - A TRUE STORY
Photography by Nate Lawrence • Text by Matt George
Kalani Ryan, fifteen years old, tall for his age, smooth skinned and handsome and graceful in his movements despite of all this, bobs in the channel of Padang Padang on Mason Ho’s favorite board. He has been asked by Mason to be his board caddie for the duration of the Rip Curl Cup contest and, surrounded by all boats and the ski’s and the grown-ups and the fans and the noise in the channel, his private thoughts are divided. On one side it’s cool to be helping out Mason and to be in the heart of all the action, but on the other hand there is an agitation. On the cliff’s edge of manhood and as one of Bali’s most talented up and coming juniors, he believes he is good enough to be in the heat with Mason and not off to the side. And standing at 182cm and courageous and already have developed a relationship with this rare wave, he is good enough. But he has to eat all the words he hears. All the torturous words of teenhood from the grown-ups. Your turn will come, you haven’t earned it yet, all good things come to those who wait. You can be sure he’s heard them all, but he still doesn’t give a damn. The fire of youth is beating jungle drums in his chest on this day and all those words are doing is making him hungrier for the very thing that will make the words stop.
Outside Mason Ho takes off on a bomb, makes an impossible drop and swings into that creative act of his. Such masterful surfing that Kalani actually feels a second of doubt. But as Mason kicks out and the channel crowd roars and the PA from the shorts out and Mason looks him directly in the eye and smiles that Hawaiian smile, Kalani’s confidence soars again. Here he is, with the elite, not just a fan or in the audience, but on the front line. A participant. And some day someone is going to my caddy.
Kalani hasn’t had much time to think about fame. And that isn’t it anyway. It’s something else he wants. He wants himself. He, the son of a single mother that had to become the man of the family at 12 years old, manning up and caring for his mom and toddler sister with the limited resources available to any 12-year-old. Then the challenges of being in Bali as a mixed-race kid with the loss of his American father in a tragic car accident still a memory that haunts. It hasn’t been easy. But he’s never bitched about it and he can look himself in the mirror with a sense of pride about that. Finding himself working at the famed White Monkey surf shop was sheer luck of circumstance. That international crossroads of global surfing. In many ways becoming a ward to all the elite surfers that walked through its doors. Them being at least some manner of men to look up to, to listen to, to learn from and most of all to surf with. As he often sat on the surf shop floor cutting stickers for all the custom board orders, he would think in many ways he had a dozen father figures. Not the real thing, but at least something, anything to dull the ache of a fatherless life. More luck came when the trips to the Mentawai ensued, his mom’s new boyfriend being an owner of a small resort there. Then his friendship with all the other juniors and the free rides to all the local contests and the outer island adventures. All in all, his was an exciting surfing life.
If it weren’t for his innate ambition, it might be perfect. What was it gnawing at him? The need to prove himself to what exactly? Maybe to his mom, a kind of thanks for her always being there? Or all the pro’s he has surfed with, or all the girls who have caught his eye? Proof of himself? Maybe. But still there was something more for him at the Rip Curl Cup. After years of watching the stars in the sky visit his home break and hoist the cup on that wild podium, there was something more for him here at Padang Padang. A lesson to be put into action. The lesson of not how strong he had had to have been in the past, but about how strong he needed to be right now and tomorrow and the day after that. This contest had become the measure of his strength. The instrument of inspiration to persevere and prevail. And as he sat in the channel and watched and listened and learned and waited for his time to come, this is what the meaning of the Rip Curl Cup held for him. This he knew. And someday, dammit, it would be his. Come hell or waters high, it would be his.
Kalani Ryan, fifteen years old, tall for his age, smooth skinned and handsome and graceful in his movements despite of all this, bobs in the channel of Padang Padang on Mason Ho’s favorite board. He has been asked by Mason to be his board caddie for the duration of the Rip Curl Cup contest and, surrounded by all boats and the ski’s and the grown-ups and the fans and the noise in the channel, his private thoughts are divided. On one side it’s cool to be helping out Mason and to be in the heart of all the action, but on the other hand there is an agitation. On the cliff’s edge of manhood and as one of Bali’s most talented up and coming juniors, he believes he is good enough to be in the heat with Mason and not off to the side. And standing at 182cm and courageous and already have developed a relationship with this rare wave, he is good enough. But he has to eat all the words he hears. All the torturous words of teenhood from the grown-ups. Your turn will come, you haven’t earned it yet, all good things come to those who wait. You can be sure he’s heard them all, but he still doesn’t give a damn. The fire of youth is beating jungle drums in his chest on this day and all those words are doing is making him hungrier for the very thing that will make the words stop.
Outside Mason Ho takes off on a bomb, makes an impossible drop and swings into that creative act of his. Such masterful surfing that Kalani actually feels a second of doubt. But as Mason kicks out and the channel crowd roars and the PA from the shorts out and Mason looks him directly in the eye and smiles that Hawaiian smile, Kalani’s confidence soars again. Here he is, with the elite, not just a fan or in the audience, but on the front line. A participant. And some day someone is going to my caddy.
Kalani hasn’t had much time to think about fame. And that isn’t it anyway. It’s something else he wants. He wants himself. He, the son of a single mother that had to become the man of the family at 12 years old, manning up and caring for his mom and toddler sister with the limited resources available to any 12-year-old. Then the challenges of being in Bali as a mixed-race kid with the loss of his American father in a tragic car accident still a memory that haunts. It hasn’t been easy. But he’s never bitched about it and he can look himself in the mirror with a sense of pride about that. Finding himself working at the famed White Monkey surf shop was sheer luck of circumstance. That international crossroads of global surfing. In many ways becoming a ward to all the elite surfers that walked through its doors. Them being at least some manner of men to look up to, to listen to, to learn from and most of all to surf with. As he often sat on the surf shop floor cutting stickers for all the custom board orders, he would think in many ways he had a dozen father figures. Not the real thing, but at least something, anything to dull the ache of a fatherless life. More luck came when the trips to the Mentawai ensued, his mom’s new boyfriend being an owner of a small resort there. Then his friendship with all the other juniors and the free rides to all the local contests and the outer island adventures. All in all, his was an exciting surfing life.
If it weren’t for his innate ambition, it might be perfect. What was it gnawing at him? The need to prove himself to what exactly? Maybe to his mom, a kind of thanks for her always being there? Or all the pro’s he has surfed with, or all the girls who have caught his eye? Proof of himself? Maybe. But still there was something more for him at the Rip Curl Cup. After years of watching the stars in the sky visit his home break and hoist the cup on that wild podium, there was something more for him here at Padang Padang. A lesson to be put into action. The lesson of not how strong he had had to have been in the past, but about how strong he needed to be right now and tomorrow and the day after that. This contest had become the measure of his strength. The instrument of inspiration to persevere and prevail. And as he sat in the channel and watched and listened and learned and waited for his time to come, this is what the meaning of the Rip Curl Cup held for him. This he knew. And someday, dammit, it would be his. Come hell or waters high, it would be his.
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