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Ever Wondered What Makes Mark Mathews Tick?

Surfing World by Surfing World
4 years ago
in On The Blower
0
Ever Wondered What Makes Mark Mathews Tick?

This year Chalky returned to surfing from one of the gnarliest leg injuries imaginable, and proceeded to get funnelled off his face during the Cyclone Gita swell last month! And if this shot of him at Cape Solander is any kind of yard stick, it's safe to say he hasn't got his fix yet. Watch this space. (Bailey Jones)

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Hey Mark, tell us about the moment you...

…surfed over a reef for the first time? Y’know the work experience you did when you were at school? I went and did mine with Sunny Abberton, Koby’s older brother, and he was starting up PSA, the clothing company. I thought I’d hang out and surf the whole time, instead I just mowed his lawns and shit. But one day that week he took me to this reef break near Maroubra. It was nuts, six-foot, super shallow, and my first introduction to surfing a reef break. I was shitting myself, I barely took off. This wave is ridiculously shallow on the take off and I can remember paddling into it and it being about a foot deep, the image of seeing reef below the water for the first time like that, it was pretty gnarly.

…obsessed over a surf movie? North Shore. I had it recorded on a video cassette and I used to watch it every morning, I just thought it was amazing, surfing Pipe and Waimea and shit, I thought it was the best thing ever. There are the funniest shots in it, like a dude pulling in on a shortboard and kicking out on a mal. At the time I was just like, “YES, this is the best thing ever!” That, and I remember my dad showing me Endless Summer and that scene of them walking over the hill to Cape St. Francis is scarred into my brain. As a kid you were just like, “That is the ultimate, that wave.”

…thought you might die? The wave I rode at Cyclops is the most terrifying experience I’ve had. It’s the most scared I’ve ever been while riding a wave, I remember coming from behind it and it went below sea-level, and it was like a ten-12 foot wave. It was freaking bare rock. I went off a ledge in front of the bare rock and I remember thinking I was going to die. But somehow it managed to suck me up and I made it out to the shoulder. I’ve never been there ever again, and I never want to surf it ever again!

…started public speaking? The talks I do are motivational kind of talks about fear and dealing with stress and I basically tell the story of my career. I show them video footage of the first time I surfed Shipsterns, what happened when I wiped out and hurt my neck, my leg injury, coming back from that, and different stuff I’ve learnt along the way. I did a course once and one of the techniques that they put you through was to get up in front of the group and tell a story with as over exaggerated gestures as possible. I’d never spoken in front of anyone in my life before and it was so embarrassing, I figured I was being ridiculous but everyone said, “Nah, that looked pretty normal.” That put the whole thing in perspective for me, how you feel in front of people is not how you come across all the time. It completely changed the way I feel about that stuff.

…had a confrontation with a shark? There was one down in South Oz that was crazy spooky. I was sitting in the line-up with Ryan Hipwood when my eyes flashed out to the horizon and I saw the white belly of a thing the size of a bus. It was 100m out from us and it was absolutely terrifying. I screamed at Hippo and we were just sprinting in, Richie Vas saw us as he was paddling back out and he freaked out as well. The wave we were surfing was on the most jagged rocks ever and the three of us threw ourselves on them. Tim Bonython was standing there filming and was like, “Nah, it was a seal.” It was pumping and I think he wanted us to keep surfing. A local guy said later, “I can’t believe you guys kept surfing.” We went back out and then saw the biggest fin ever. I guess Tim saw something else.

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  • From SW417… “You Can’t Kill An Idea… and the floods started our minds flowing” by @jedaum_smith.

“When compassion is your compass, everything is so simple. The only question is how can I help? And the answer always comes swiftly. There is no room for ego in a mass upwelling of service and selflessness. When everyone pulls in the same direction, it becomes an unstoppable force of its own and you realise beyond any doubt, feel in every cell of your body, what the true meaning of life is, what is really possible, and what governments the world over are so desperate to keep secret. That they are little more than an obstruction to the people’s potential to build utopia. That compassion and community are the currency, not cash. That the best outfit is the one caked in mud. That the best gift is love and kindness. That the best job is the most meaningful one. And the most meaningful one is that which has an immediate and tangible benefit for those around you. That materialism is no match for mateship. That consumerism is nothing compared to community. That contentment is camaraderie and shared experience. That the people united will never be defeated. That people power is the world’s greatest resource. That politicians are parasites, centralised government is an abject failure, and revolution is simply communities taking responsibility for themselves. Don’t wait for someone to the job for you. Change comes from the grassroots and moves up, not the other way round.”

📷 @nataliegrono
  • Something special to open SW417. @deandampney spent the day with the legendary Ray ‘Gus’ Ardler, one of the original local Wreck Bay surfers. Ray recalls the early days of his mob paddling out and surfing Aussie Pipe. 

“It’s just Pipe. It was a dream come true for a lot of us. Because, you know, we’d see all these other guys come out, come down and go out, surfers. And we’d just sit down and dream of surfing the spot and having enough guts to get out there and try it. We lost a few brothers along the way. Every time I go out there, I sit in the cemetery, and I sit beside my mum and just look across the point. Because every time I look across the point I can see us all in the water enjoying ourselves. We’d laugh out there and carry on like lunatics.”

SW417 opens with “This is us. This is our spot. Why wouldn’t we wanna surf it!” with photos by the equally legendary @mick_mccormack 

SW417 on sale now, link in bio.
  • Antediluvian: we had to divide SW417 into two halves… before the floods and after the floods. Half the mag is green, half is brown. This was @mikeywright69 before the floods at Kirra, shot by @joshbystrom. The mag’s on sale now… get out and support independent surf culture.
  • From SW417, “Whatever You Want, Your Way: Life With Noa Deane.” by Nick Gibbs @mrfunpig 

@ilovetables: “I’m riding a lot of waves that are kind of boog waves so I see a lot of what they’re doing – mostly just surfing five hours until they’re so torched, eating a can of tuna and bolting to the next spot. They go ‘til they can’t, just living on tinned tuna. They’re nuts. I’m looking at the lines they take, the low lines into the pit, and especially the ‘one line’ approach to hitting huge sections. They sit and wait off the takeoff until there’s that one speed line to the giant ramp, and that what I’ve learned. To do the biggest airs, there’s no messing around with little turns before it. Wait, set that line, and hit it.” 📷 @philgallagherphoto @maguirejay_ 

SW417 on sale now, link in bio.
  • Starting out as a surf band on Sydney’s Northern Beaches, Midnight Oil changed Australia for the better and became the social conscience of not one generation here in Australia, but two or three. By the time you’ve read this however, Midnight Oil will have just about played their last live show. It’s a significant moment for a lot of people, least of them Peter Garrett. But the Oils aren’t going quietly. Their new album, Resist deals with issues of today – climate, Adani, Takayna – and is an acknowledgement that the fight never ends. @brettburcher interviews @peterrgarrett in SW417, on sale now, link in bio. 📷 Tony Mott
  • Is the lucky country running out of luck? We pulled Surfing World 417 together at a time when you had to seriously ask yourself the question. With the east coast underwater for much of summer – just two years after it had burned during the Black Summer fires – it felt like we were getting a glimpse into our future. Midnight Oil lyrics as prophecy. Mad Max as a documentary. Leadership has not only been absent, it’s felt like we’re being led back to the Stone Age. So for SW417 we talk the state of the nation. We’ve got longform interviews with @peterrgarrett, @otishopecarey, @nikkivandijk and @scottie.marsh. We’ve got definitive pieces on the Northern Rivers floods from @andysummons, @jedaum_smith and Pete Bowes. We’ve got the story of the original Wreck Bay surfing mob and we track down @ilovetables, who’s been living quietly and surfing large. SW417 is a statement piece and a mag for the time. On sale now, on the street or online, link in bio. @maxime.rayer 📷 @lucasalisburyphoto @childsphotos
  • From SW417, definitive longform coverage of the Northern Rivers floods by @andysummons: “I got a message from a mate, Simon, on Wednesday when he could finally get through floodwaters in Ocean Shores to get to the top of a hill and into phone reception. He said, “A few of us are heading out to Lismore to help some people do a bit of a clean-up. We have some spare seats if you’re free.” It doesn’t sound like much. A carload of mates with a trailer of shovels, brooms, rakes, gumboots, gloves, a wheelbarrow, some buckets and fresh water. No one really knew it at the time, but the same thing was happening with thousands of other people up and down the coast and across the Northern Rivers. The result was a people’s army – the Mud Army.” 📷 @childsphotos @nataliegrono @andysummons
  • SW417 goes on sale today and asks just how lucky the Lucky Country really is. With the east coast underwater for much of summer, we check out the state of the nation and ask some big questions. We’ve got interviews with @peterrgarrett, @otishopecarey @nikkivandijk and @scottie.marsh. We’ve got a Mud Army special on the Northern River floods by @andysummons, and open the mag with a special piece on the original Wreck Bay surfing mob, written by the legendary Ray Ardler. It’s 180 pages of raw Australian surfing… and possibly the brownest surf mag ever published. Check it out and support independent Australian surf print. @maxime.rayer on the cover, photo by @lucasalisburyphoto
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