Kai Garcia - The SURFER Interview

Big men need big barrels. Kai Garcia and Backdoor, a match made in Hawaii.

With the outside world so focused on all the talent that’s emanating from Kauai, it seems that could have a pretty big affect on a small little community. Does any of this threaten the hierarchy there?
Well, when you’re that young, getting so much, of course it’s going to give them a different perspective of things, maybe a bit of an attitude, but hopefully they stay grounded. That’s sort of what I do, you know, keep everyone around me grounded. I sort of let them know that life’s fast. You got 10 years, maybe more if you’re lucky. Then there’s no more checks, no more free stuff coming in, no free ride. I’ve watched some of the best surfers in the entire world crumble because they didn’t see the end coming. They thought the cake would always be on the table. So when we see a kid coming up, we say to some of them, “When it’s gone, what you gonna do?” These days it’s almost worse, because these kids can easily end up with no skills for life; they won’t even be able to wait tables.

One side of Hawaii we don’t mention enough is the darker one: the poverty, the huge drug problem, the local people being displaced by newcomers with more money. Growing up there is no picnic is it?
Let me put it this way: from my era, my generation, I have two friends left on Kauai. Two friends. They still surf and they still pass it on, but everybody else is on drugs or in jail or both. I don’t know them anymore. In some ways it’s like we’re a lost generation. I live on Oahu now. That’s been my home base for the last six or so years because the bottom line is Kauai isn’t going to pay the bills. But I go back there all the time and I was just there with my one friends—a really good surfer, a water guy. He went through the whole drug thing and came out of it and he’s got two kids and job. When we were talking about it, he looked at me and he goes, “Look at the percentage here. We are like the 3 percent of our generation.” The thing is, I’ve never, ever done drugs. I’ve never touched any of that hard stuff. Organics is a little different, but I never got caught up in the serious stuff, not even in high school when everybody was doing it. People from the outside don’t understand that when the ice epidemic came in here, it took everything over. Everything started falling apart all over Hawaii. It’s still that bad. I’m not even hanging out with guys from my era anymore; I’m hanging out with guys 10 years younger than me, or 10 years older than me. Like I said, it’s a lost generation.

So surfing is a legitimate way out.
Yeah, it’s just like the basketball court and the kids shootin’ hoops thinking of making the NBA. These kids that go to the beach every day are thinking of Andy and Bruce and Parko.

You escaped a lot of the pitfalls by getting involved in the martial arts, namely Jujitsu. How did that come about?
I really don’t know. It was just meant to be. I think it found me; I didn’t find it. I met this guy and we were talking and he just started showing me a couple things. I was pretty impressed with it. He sort of hooked me up, and the next thing you know I’m flying to Brazil to train every day. That’s when it was like, “Whoa, I like this.”

But you’ve accomplished some pretty huge things, too, right? What’s your biggest claim to fame in the Jujitsu world?
Well, uh, in 1997 I was the first foreigner to win the worlds in Brazil. But for me, it’s really become a lifestyle, just like surfing. Like surfing, you’re constantly learning, and there’s no end to it, so it’s easy to stay motivated and it’s another perfect outlet.