How Can Surfing Change Your Life?

WORDS: John McJannett PHOTOGRAPHY John McJannett and Supplied

It’s the perfect way to achieve work/life balance

Surfing is very much a sport for the individual and deep inside the mind of most surfers is that sense of self-satisfaction derived from overcoming every challenge the ocean presents to them.

Surfing is both a lifestyle and a lifetime dedication to seeking self-satisfaction in achieving personal goals and levels of performance. It can be very personal!

At twenty-two years of age, Shaye Leeuwendal has reached a stage in her personal life where she has re-aligned both her work goals and those of the high-performance athlete that she is.

This vivacious, outgoing, warm and friendly Gold Coaster is currently setting out to carve a career in the world of marketing. First, though, she is sacrificing several years of high-level competitive surfing at an elite level and returning to her grassroots enjoyment of catching a wave combined with a solid career path.

Born in Tweed Heads, Shaye has lived all her life on the beachfront at Currumbin.  Her mum Kate is an ex-Sydney woman and her dad, Guy, of Dutch-Indonesian origin, was born and bred in Brisbane.

Shaye and her younger brother Joel still live with mum and dad in Currumbin.

“Dad is a super dedicated surfer and Mum was a gun swimmer back in the days, so my athleticism has been passed down from my parents.”

After completing Primary School at the Currumbin State School, Shaye attended Palm Beach-Currumbin High, and she is yet another highly skilled graduate of their Surfing School of Excellence.

“I had the best experience that I could ask for and it was all thanks to that programme.  It was the best school to go to as it allowed me to develop my natural surfing ability in a well-planned and amazing environment.  The level of coaching that we all received during the entire programme was fantastic.”

After high school, Shaye completed a Yoga teaching course but then switched her priorities and completed a Diploma in Marketing through TAFE.

“All my friends had embarked upon pretty solid career paths and I hadn’t so completing the Diploma allowed me to do something similar.”

She subsequently secured her current role in a start-up marketing business based in Coolangatta.

“I don’t think I was the most experienced applicant but my boss froths out on surfing so that may have given me a bit of a leg-up!”

“Even though this is my first full-time role in marketing, it was a big advantage that I had so much social media experience in partnership with my surfing sponsors.  I don’t consider myself an ‘influencer’ on the social media scene but I do enjoy posting photos and videos of myself and my friends.”

“Nine months into my new role I believe that I have progressed well and I am looking forward to developing a long-term career in the field.  I have so much to learn and I am so excited to be given this opportunity in today’s world of digital marketing.”

Living on the beachfront as a youngster it was a no-brainer that Shaye would eventually end up on a surfboard and her natural athletic ability saw her progress very quickly to become an outstanding surfer at a very early age.  She joined the Snapper Rocks Boardriders Club when she was eleven.

“The standard and variety of coaching that I have experienced through that club is incredible and there is no way that I could have improved as much as I have if I hadn’t been a member.

I got to surf against all of my idols in the yearly Open Rounds.  At fifteen I competed against Stephanie Gilmour and will never forget that experience. In other years both Mark Occhilupo and Joel Parkinson were in my heats and it was such fun to surf against ex-world champions.”

Through her teenage years, Shaye started competing in regional contests.  She quickly tasted success and she ultimately moved into state and national competitions.

“That part of my life was really exciting at the time.  It was so much fun to travel to new places, surf new breaks and compete against the best in the country.  I got to meet so many other girls and make so many friends.

I was lucky enough to surf in several rounds of the Nationals and won the MR Shield when I was sixteen.”

“However, competition at that level is such a grind.  It is emotionally draining and I admire the girls that are battling it out on the world circuit. Also, without major sponsorship, it is very expensive.”

“At nineteen I had a bit of a shift in my outlook.  I was just not enjoying the twenty-minute heats of competition and it was becoming more and more expensive to get to events.  I would go for a free surf back here at home and I found myself timing myself in twenty-minute heats and I would tell myself – you know what – if that was a heat you would have lost!”

“So, for me, the serious competition thing had taken much of the enjoyment out of my surfing.  I realised that it was just not for me to pursue any further.

I returned to where it all started and re-discovered my love of waves and went back to surfing in my own style and not the way to score points and win heats.

So I just had a shift in what I wanted to do.”

“And I think my surfing has improved as a result and I am enjoying myself so much more!”

These days Shaye “would rather surf good waves on a holiday!”

I am happier, say, going on a trip to the Mentawis, making a video and putting that out on Instagram”.

Shaye still has two major sponsors – RVCA and she has just recently linked up with The Board Lab.  So she is well-equipped with quality gear.

She believes that there has been a major shift in the way sponsors view their athletes.

“In today’s world winning contests does not necessarily sell a volume of bikinis, board shorts, surf wear and/or any other product.  Today it can also be more about social media content and being a presence on several platforms with a variety of videos, even movies and still shots.”

“I was very nervous that the people at RVCA would drop my sponsorship when I gave up serious competition. However, they just told me to go do whatever I wanted to do and that they would support me no matter what.  That’s a unique characteristic to RVCA – they are more of an arty, creative brand.  I am very spoilt by them!”

“Having The Board Lab with me gives me a lot more variety in my selection of boards.  I am not limited to the one shaper and I get to be a bit more experimental with the types of boards I surf.”

This is one young lady who is making waves in new directions.

Surfing has given Shaye so much opportunity to travel overseas.  In her younger days, she and her dad would travel to Bali regularly and she has had the chance to surf a variety of breaks in Australia, the Maldives and the Mentawis.

“The trip to the Mentawis with a boat load of thirteen other girls was such an enjoyable highlight last year.  I did not know any of them before that trip but we all got on so well and surfed heaps of cool breaks and had such a good time together.  I have made some really good friends from that experience.”

In many ways, it is true to say that Shaye has carved the way for the next generation of girls and women to feel at ease in taking up surfing.

It is common knowledge that there has been an enormous boom in the number of females now surfing.

As Shaye says, “When I first started surfing seriously I would often be the only girl in the water.  At one stage there was a bunch of us girls here on the Coast who would often text each other to see where we would be surfing and we would then meet up.

Nowadays there are heaps of girls in the water all the time!”

“That is so good to see as the ocean can give so many people many different levels of happiness no matter how young or how old they are.”

There is a serious side to this young lady when the subject of the environment is raised.  She was part of the movement that paddled from Coolangatta to Burleigh to establish the area as a World Surfing Reserve.

“I don’t believe that we (my generation) need to be too critical of earlier generations with regard to some aspects of the environment.  They were making reasonable decisions based on what information and knowledge was available to them at the time.  What we need to focus on now is using our more advanced knowledge to protect the ocean from any further serious damage”.

In many ways, Shaye exhibits many of the common characteristics of her generation of twenty-something surfing women.  She is high-spirited, full of life and positive energy and places a high priority on being loyal to her friends and making the most out of her talent and abilities.

Her love of the ocean and her enjoyment of surfing is contagious and she is destined to achieve prolonged success in her career and life if she continues to apply her passion for life and living in the way she currently does.

Author’s Bio: After a career of over 30 years in senior management in the Australian Hospitality Industry, John McJannett has returned to where it all started on the Gold Coast.  In semi-retirement, he now has time to pursue his interest in photography and writing.  Visit www.twohandsphotography.com.au or Instagram @johnomcj