ROBBY SWIFT
“I have 2 different feelings on motivation and both of them are probably equally strong. The first and most obvious one is that when it is epic, I can’t even sleep the night before because I am so excited to go sailing. When the conditions are firing, I can’t think about anything else and I think I have more fun now than I ever had. My wife Heidy always teases me because when I come back from an epic session I always say “that was the best session ever” but it’s really true as it’s normal that you improve as you gain more experience and the better I sail, the more fun I have so every epic session I have tends to be better than the last one as I have slightly better wave knowledge and have (hopefully) improved my technique since the last epic session I had!
The second form of motivation I have is a harder one, it is to really train, but it’s almost as strong as the first one now. I love training for the contests, so no matter how bad the conditions are, I try to find 1 or 2 things that are useful to work on in those conditions and that will give me a better chance of winning heats. That way, no matter how crap it is out there, I can always have something interesting and exciting to do that makes me feel like I am progressing. That one has been getting more and more fun for me since I have learned how useful it is! I love going to Gran Canaria every year. When the conditions are good here, it’s unlike anywhere else in the world. You can jump so high and get so many opportunities to do moves that you just dream about the rest of the year that it’s always exciting. Unfortunately, those epic days are quite few and far between. When I dream about going to Gran Canaria, it’s those half-mast to logo high days with wind for full power 3.7 that I think of but the reality is that every year we only get about 4 or 5 of those days from at least 6-8 weeks spent here. We are always able to sail almost every day though in some kind of semi-decent conditions and that’s when the second type of motivation comes in. I work on trying to do doubles off the tiniest ramps possible or on shakas and takas on the way in, doing 1 hand, 1 foot back loops off more difficult ramps and in more difficult wind conditions so that when the heat comes, I have more ammunition in the bag in a wider variety of conditions to hopefully give me the best possible chance of making it through my heats!”
When it is epic, I can’t even sleep the night before because I am so excited to go sailing.
