Victoria Feige, Vancouver and North Shore, Hawaii

Para surfer Victoria Feige, the winningest female adaptive surfer on record, unveils her inner nerd and offers us a breakthrough that will rock your world: a simple, visual explanation of the mechanics of the DUCK DIVE and WAVE MECHANICS. I promise, you will have an AHA moment! At heart, beyond her injury, Victoria is just a girl who LOVES to surf and has thought a LOT about it (and a lot of other things). Our convo touches on how hands make us human, how resilience informs grit, how neuroscience is sexy (isn’t it, though?) Trained as a physiotherapist who has been both a patient and a clinician, Victoria’s knowledge of the brain and body informs her mission to follow her joy.  Her observation that many of us are born with bodies or challenges we didn’t choose makes her approach to surfing, and life, universal. She also has fantastic advice for would-be adaptive surfers on equipment and wetsuits, available on her site, victoriafeigesurfing.com (I say it wrong in the podcast!) Listen to Victoria!

Love the podcast? Buy me a coffee! 💜💜💜

For more info on Victoria’s story, see these two articles.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/article-paralympic-surfer-victoria-feige-knows-how-to-be-strong-in-the-water/

https://www.buttermag.io/surf/victoria-feige/

🏄‍♀️💜 Never miss an episode! Stay up to date with Dropping In To Power Podcast and get a love poem from the ocean - Sign up for the Substack here.💜🏄‍♀️

🏄‍♀️💜 Never miss an episode! Stay up to date with Dropping In To Power Podcast and (when I finally get back in the swing-- a love poem from the ocean) - Sign up for the Substack here.💜🏄‍♀️

Follow the pod on IG: https://www.instagram.com/dropping_in_to_power/

Love the podcast? Buy me a coffee! 💜💜💜

Or drop a rating for free!

Transcript

[00:07] Sheila: Welcome to the Dropping Into Power podcast, where we'll be hearing stories about the transformational power of surfing from women surfers of all ages, all levels, and all over. We'll hear about courage, commitment, struggles, frustration, epiphany, and, of course, life formations, large and small. I'm your host, Sheila Galleon, and I am stoked to share these conversations full of so much passion with all of you. Aloha, and welcome to the dropping into Power podcast. I'm super excited to be talking today with Victoria Feige, who is an Isa World parasurfing Championship gold medalist. I just have to victoria, you have to just read off these. I wish I could just show a picture. Isa World parasurfing Championship 2022 gold Medalist abonca Panton Classic lisa Pro, Spain 22 gold Medalist English Open Adaptive Surf Championship 2022 Gold Medalist Hawaiian Adaptive Surf Championship that has to be intense. 2022 Gold Medalist isa World parasurfing Championship 2021 Gold Medalist. You get the picture? There's a lot of gold medalism going on here and just a little background on Victoria. We've been trying to connect for months now, actually, a year. I think a year is when I first emailed you. And finally we've nailed it down because she's been obviously running around doing all of these contests. But Victoria grew up in Vancouver in Canada, and learned to surf at the age of 16 in Tofino, where she's going very soon for a contest. She also loves snowboarding, skimboarding, skateboarding and soccer. And though she had years of experience snowboarding, at 18, she overshot a jump, landed badly from twelve to 15ft in the air, and sustained a spinal fracture and a low, incomplete spinal injury. Undeterred, Victoria returned to skiing and surfing a year later. That's amazing. And as a sit skier and adaptive surfer with partial paralysis, she trained hard to become an accomplished parasurfer and sit skier, becoming an adaptive instructor in both sports. And she found the adaptive surfing community and started competing in 2016. That was really soon after. Then, after only a few years on the competitive surf scene, she's become four time Isa World Champion and Guinness World Holder for the winningness female parasurfer. In addition to her surfing, victoria is also North America's first clinical physiotherapist, who uses a wheelchair, and she graduated with her master's in 2012 and worked as a specialized physiotherapist for a decade. I really want to talk to you about that. And she's taken a break to focus on her sport. Now, this is my favorite sentence. Victoria aspires to raise a level of parasurfing with airs and barrels, help grow the sport and surfer gold for the Paralympics. So welcome, Victoria.

[03:01] Victoria: Thank you so much. Thank you for that beautiful intro. Yeah, I just love to surf. I mean, the irony of all those crazy stories is that behind all of it, I just love the ocean and I love to surf. And yeah, I'm so excited to be here today and talk to you.

[03:17] Sheila: Well, I love it. I'm so happy. Part of what this whole podcast is really about is really the stories of how surfing has transformed us as we overcome and experience what we go through as surfers. And always there's the translation of what we experience, especially there's so much in the mind. So everything that we experience in the ocean, every single lesson we come across, how that translates to land. And I think that's why I know that people listen to the podcast that don't even surf, because there's so much inner dialogue for what we have to go through and experience. And a lot of the people I've talked to in the podcast are older women or women who have started as adults, which gives a very special set of challenges, and you have your own special set of challenges. So I actually want to start with the passion draw for you. So you're obviously just a sporty girl. I mean, you obviously had a lot of passions. You're very athletic. But what was it? I usually ask what the dividing line is for surfers, their lives before and after. You have a pretty big profound before and after. You have a bunch of befores and afters. But what I really want to ask is what drew you back specifically to surfing? And I know you do say that you do some skiing too, but specifically you came back to surfing in this really powerful way. So what was it that drew you back to the water and how has that transformed you?

[04:46] Victoria: Wow. Yeah. I always grew up active and outside, and I love the ocean. I love how it's ever changing, ever constant. It challenges you in so many ways. And I learned to ski when I was a toddler, and I learned to swim in the waves when I was also really young. In my family, sometimes we would skip presents for Christmas and just go to Hawaii from Canada, which was and so my dad taught me to dive beneath the waves and body surf and play in the shore break when I was little. And so the ocean, for as long as I can remember, has been this playground that is kind of wild and kind of dangerous and amazing and just gives you so much life and vibrancy and all these memories that you wouldn't necessarily have otherwise. And so I grew up, certainly skiing and snowboarding and playing soccer and all the things you can do in Canada. But I also wanted to surf and snowboarding in powder conditions, like fresh snow feels like surfing. It's really pretty remarkable. And I knew I would love surfing because there'sister sports, snowboarding and surfing. And then when I went tofino when I was 16, I kind of begged my mom to take me, and I was hooked from the first wave and kind of cool. In Tofino, there is a women's surf school called Surf Sister that's been around since the they've run so many lessons for women of all ages and all backgrounds that Tofino and British Columbia has become a hub for women surfing, and you often see as many women in the lineup in full wetsuits as men. But it changed. Growing kind of learning to surf there and that culture of it's normalized that women surf of all ages. It was a different perspective. And then when I got injured, certainly you have to relearn so many things. I did physical rehab, you have to learn. I just transferred my skateboarding skills to wheelchair skills. It's a lot of problem solving. Certainly there's the emotional pieces and there's certainly all the highs and all the lows and everything in between. But if you take away the emotion, it's problem solving. For me, it was like, how am I going to get over the sand? How am I going to get back in the ocean? I knew I could still swim. I'm not a good swimmer with my legs now because of the partial paralysis, so I cannot really just swim with my legs. But I'm such a strong swimmer with my arms that I knew I could swim independently and dive a little bit and paddle a surfboard. And so when I went back to surfing, my main thing is that I never thought I would surf at a high level. It was really cool to go back to surfing and with an instructor and on a giant soft top, and we went tandem to be safe. And then it was clear that I could paddle a board by myself, but I only really figured that I would go straight in the white long board kind of as a weekend, warrior, vacation, holiday type surfer. And that still gave me so much the acceleration, the feeling of freedom being outside and the wind and the sun and the taste of the salt water. I love all of it. And so that was kind of like, oh, yeah, that's great. But I never thought I could ever be a high level surfer until I really met the adaptive surfing community. So when you talk about what is it about surfing that transforming? It's hard to say because I feel like the ocean has always called me. The ocean is calling, always. I think it feeds you. I feel like if you spend some time in the water, it's grounding for me, it's calming, it's exhilaration, it's meditation. It's all these different aspects of myself that when you're busy in day to day, life can be hard to access. But when I'm out in the water, I feel the most myself. I feel free, I feel alive. And you have these moments of beauty and connection with the ocean or with your friends or out in the lineup that is actually difficult for me to put into words.

[08:54] Sheila: You actually put it into words really beautifully, that sense of feeling the most yourself. And I think something about that is a call so powerful. It's irresistible. And I think for those of us that have felt something like that, whether you however it is, you have to get across the sand or in our case here, across the rocks into the water, you're going to get there. I love that. That was beautiful. So obviously you had some athletic skill, a lot of athletic skill leading into this. And I definitely want to talk about your career because I think it's really interesting and I have a few specific questions to ask along the way, just because of how you might break things down. So I'm curious, along with your athleticism, obviously you have emotional and mental strength to persevere through things. But was there anything particular that you had to cultivate kind of beyond your athleticism? Was the process any different for you? Because before, as you were progressing in a sport, you still come up against obstacles. You kind of mentioned it in problem solving. Did you have to go back and take a different lens? And I'm thinking about this because a lot of people who listen to the podcast have other sort of challenges that have to sort of rethink and look at things a little bit differently in how they approached it. So is there another part of you that you cultivated, I guess is my question. To get to where you're at following the joy.

[10:26] Victoria: Yeah, I mean, there is so much joy, but to get to the joy, it also takes a lot of grit. And so there's a resiliency in there that I was determined to find ways to have this in my life in kind of crazy ways. I would drive 6 hours to go surf for the weekend and then come on back. Or I now try to spend as much time training in Hawaii as I can, but for me, the physical adaptations have been a lot of the major challenges. But in many ways, that's universal. Like, our bodies are changing through our lifetimes. Oftentimes we live in a body that we didn't totally choose, and there are aspects of it that we wish we could change. But for all intents and purposes, this is what we've got. And then this is what we've got to create. How can I create movement or how can I create the maneuvers of surfing that I want to with what I've got? And so when you talk about did I have to cultivate anything in particular? I became a really strong paddler because my first competition, frankly, I got schooled. I thought it would be a low level competition for people with disabilities and everyone would clap and that's that people from Australia were getting barreled and doing snaps and cutbacks like it was high level surfing. And I was not prepared. I came second. I also straight up, I struggled to catch the waves. So what I could control in my hometown of Vancouver, working full time, was becoming a more skilled paddler. So I would take my little surfboard in the swim lanes at night at university pool or kitsilano pool, and I would quite literally practice balancing on my board to create the most efficiency and then sprint paddles. And then I learned to duck dive by watching YouTube videos and then analyzing the physics and then breaking it down for my body. And so I duck dive the same kind of maneuver, but I use my knee instead of my foot. But then I have another way of being on a shorter board and kind of an escape route if the waves are huge. And the determination to really work at the physical skills of surfing so that I could have more fun and enjoy in the water. That was all the training and preparation. And I'm still doing that now. I'm doing that for turns. I'm working with a fabulous new coach. Part of it comes from me, that sense of grit and determination, but it also comes from the adaptive surf community, other competitors who were, frankly, way more skilled, who gave me some advice on boards and wave selection and then finding the people that help you grow and reach your potential. Because I think my story is not just like it's not me in a vacuum, doing all these things, doing them with other people. So for me, finding the people that help me reach my potential has been.

[13:26] Sheila: Instrumental well, in seeking that out. I mean, what I really hear from you too, is you're doing your own analysis. You're a full participant in your advancement for your joy and for all of this. And it's just this full responsibility of like, okay, I'm going to break down. And if you couldn't prioritize what you should work on first, you probably would have found someone to ask, what should I work on first? But then you really got creative and committed about what's? One part of the mechanics that you can break down and paddling, that's universal, and it is impossible, I believe. I don't know if you have another solution in a gym, but I don't think you can practice it anywhere but in the water. I don't think there's anything really I know there's this one friend of mine got this thing you're supposed to be able to put on the door and paddle it. And I tried it. I'm like, I don't think so. I mean, sure, you can get stronger in different ways, but it's just not the same thing. So all of those things you're talking about is focus the resilience. Do you have any wisdom to share on cultivating resilience? That would be or is that just an innate part of you, I don't know, cultivating resilience?

[14:38] Victoria: Do I have any wisdom? You'd think I do, but I don't know. It's okay if you don't.

[14:45] Sheila: Yeah, I do hear your prioritization. That's part of it. Is that grit? If you have anything to add, it's fine. If you don't.

[14:56] Victoria: I would say, actually I've thought about this because I have so much I want to accomplish in surfing. You're right. Barrels, errors, more challenging waves, better maneuvers. I feel like I still have so far to go and so what drives me is a sense of determination and chasing a goal and a sense of, I guess, self actualization as a surfer. But it's also playtime. It's the fun of it. It's not just rigidity to commit and do the task. For me, having a sense of humor with it and a sense of playfulness keeps it fun and interesting and avoids for me competition, burnout or overtraining. Because I have made something that I love as, frankly, a passion project and I feel like I've taken a crazy side quest of my life and it's become the main quest of becoming essentially a professional, adaptive surfer. I don't want to lose the love of it. Sometimes I have to remind myself, like, why am I doing this? When I focus on the love of it and what I really want to do, then the path is usually more clear and then the resilience comes from, I guess, that real deep desire of I love this and I want to do it. So the resilience is not always just a hardness, but it's a playfulness.

[16:33] Sheila: I think that's really profound. It's almost like, I don't know, this image came of like launching yourself as an arrow, but the arrow gets to go through the wind.

[16:45] Victoria: It's like a clown arrow. I love it. That's awesome.

[16:48] Sheila: Yeah. So it may not we don't know where it's going to land, but it was funny. So I'm going to ask you, I don't know if you'll be able to really explain this or not because I know you said you were studying the physics of the duck dive specifically for you, but is there a process you use to break it down? I mean oh, man, the duct dive, I am very hydrodynamically challenged. I can't picture it when someone describes how a board works in the water. Geometry is not my thing, so I can't really picture it. So everything for me is kinesthetic. Like, I have to just keep trying things and then eventually I kind of figure it out. But sometimes I don't. I mean, sometimes I just keep watching other people. I'm like how I saw a woman jack dive her longboard the other day and I'm like, how did it then I asked her, she's like, oh, well, this one's just kind of narrow. And I'm like, but I would see people punch through waves. Just in case there's anything you can communicate about how one might break that down. I'm curious if you have a trick. Sure.

[18:04] Victoria: One. I come from a skateboarding background and so I used to ollie my skateboard. It's weight shifting the board to create pressure in different areas at different times to then kind of move it in space and so I almost think of the duck dive as an underwater ollie. So it's like an underwater jump. Instead of jumping off the surface, you jump under the water. Okay, but how do you actually create that? You need speed. The paddling speed matters. So you kind of sprint this is how it's worked for me. And you sprint paddle towards the breaking wave or the whitewash. And then it's like a push up motion where I really force the rails of the board down as deep as I can. And I use the knee of my board. Everything is forward on the board. So the nose is diving down under the water, under the wave. And then I shift my weight back from my arms to usually my right knee to the tail of the board to tip the tail down under the water. So it's a nose down, and then it's a tail down. And the paddling speed gives you the forward momentum. And then there's the aspect of timing. Now, this is getting into the physics of fluid and water and wave mechanics because of the I guess it's kind of the torsion or the rotation of it. As the whitewash pushes down, the wave curls over the top. If you time it just right, you will go down underneath kind of all the whitewash, and then the wave itself will kind of pull you through the back in that kind of curvature, and then you resurface and then paddle away with a big smile. For me, it's practicing the balance of pressing the nose down. So I would quite literally be in the pool and practice pressing the nose down. And creating it actually required a lot of core stability, arm stability, for sure, strength. But then that moment of pushing the nose down and then shifting your weight to push the tail down, that's what creates the duct dive. If you're really skilled with it, then.

[20:31] Sheila: You can do it.

[20:31] Victoria: It's easier with shorter boards. It's way, way easier to practice with low volume boards. And so if someone is actually out there kind of struggling and a bit frustrated, if you use a high volume board to catch the waves, it is not the right tool to learn duck dives. The board that I practiced my duck dives with was, frankly, my Aspirational Dream board. This cute little low volume, like, oh, it looked awesome. But that's not the board that I would really surf to catch waves, but it was the board that I learned the movements of duck diving. And then when I became more skilled, then I can do it on different boards. Does that help at all?

[21:15] Sheila: Yeah, I think so. Absolutely. Yeah. I love that I have eventually, over time, on a shorter board. Most of the time, my duct eyes are successful, and I know exactly that feeling. And of course, in Hawaii, when you get to dive under and you see that beautiful aqua water and you have.

[21:31] Victoria: The foam ball moment. I love this, right?

[21:34] Sheila: You just live for it. You get underneath the foam ball, then it shoots you out the back. Oh, it's the best. And then if you time it wrong, then you get to get shot back with the foam ball and many other experiences as well. But no, I really like that. I like your focus on the core, too. I think that's really interesting. And most of the time I surf my shortboard. But I do notice that that's one of the things that makes me feel really activated. And I never thought about it until then or why I feel like I've had a workout. Because sometimes, frankly, I'm not catching that many waves, but I still feel like I've had a workout. And a lot of it is from the duck diving. Just that.

[22:12] Victoria: Totally.

[22:13] Sheila: Yeah. And that's in fact, a lot of times when I know I have to go in is when my duck dive is getting sloppy because I'm tired and I'm going to get injured. That's just one of the things I have to listen to. But I love how you broke that down. Go ahead.

[22:28] Victoria: Yeah.

[22:28] Sheila: Thank you.

[22:29] Victoria: So I'm just getting all excited about the duck dives. For me to talk about the mechanics of surfing is way more fun than telling my story. Although I recognize it's an interesting story. Talking about surfing and how other women break it down is so much more interesting than kind of I'm so used to my story that this is more fun. But the other thing about the duck dives is that there's a moment when the wave energy passes over me and I can feel it and essentially pulls my hair back. This moment I love, because if you weren't a surfer, you'd never feel this so mean, especially in Hawaii, the color of the water, the way it feels. I love this moment that, for me, as a surfer, I get as excited paddling out and duck diving as I do about if I really nail a duck dive.

[23:22] Sheila: I'm like, yeah, I have a huge nod going. Yeah.

[23:27] Victoria: But I love all of the parts. I love paddling out. I love duck diving. I love sitting out the back in addition to catching waves. And so for me, maybe that joy of not just riding waves, which is the best, but the joy of all the parts, helps keep me resilient and helps me keep me kind of committed.

[23:47] Sheila: I love that you're talking about paddling out, too, because there's in it, and I have a very different experience depending on which board I'm on. So if I'm my longer board, which is a 710, and the wind is in my hair because you're up higher, right, and you've got more speed probably in your paddle, and you go up over those first little waves and your hair blows, and you're probably keeping your hair dry for a little while as you're paddling out there's, that experience. And then there's being on the shortboard or even those smaller waves that come in. You get that first moment and I'm with you. I always have this huge smile paddling out because it just feels it's amazing. You're going from Earth to water and you're in it. So, yeah, thanks for pointing that out. Well, let me ask you another mechanics question then, because I love the way you talk about it. And although it's slightly different for everybody, so a lot of people, obviously there's pop ups, but what I don't hear spoken about very much is actually the takeoff. Like, not your body position, the wave. Like, where is the board going on the wave? So I'm going to pick your brain and let you talk about the placement of getting your board in the right place and the timing. And I know there's a million different kind of waves, but anything you want to share on that? It would be fun to hear that breakdown.

[25:04] Victoria: I mean, I'd love to share anything I've learned. I also have to recognize that I have a really bad habit of taking off on closeouts all the time. Like giant, impossible closeouts that I'm like, oh, I can make something good of this, and then I just get destroyed. I would say I'm still working on that. That's one of the arts and sciences of surfing that I find super boring, is that it's the positioning where on the wave. I used to think if I was a stronger paddler, I would have an easier time catching the waves, but really it's the takeoff position. And so I now on short boards, like to take off, I guess late, but still on the shoulder because I like the steepness of the drop. I like the feeling of I don't know if I'm going to make this. And my pop up is I pop up to my knees after stomach. And so it's a quick pop up. I am working on improving my pop up, certainly, but in a perfect world, my takeoff helps me be going down the line immediately. So I angle my surfboard, I try to be on the shoulder. I try to at least set myself up for success. But I also recognize that sometimes I get so excited when I'm surfing that I will paddle for waves and takeoffs that are absurd.

[26:40] Sheila: I can't resist it's.

[26:42] Victoria: Like, it's all the temptation. I would say, when I often see women paddling and taking off in the water, they're a little bit too cautious and so they're really too far on the shoulder or they're not really doing a full sprint paddle. They're beautiful paddlers and very elegant, but they're not really getting the acceleration they need to get down the wave. I often think of it as accelerating down the steepness of the wave.

[27:09] Sheila: I knew there would be something helpful in what you said. Yeah, that acceleration that I see people. I always thought of it as you just needed two more paddles, but that's not totally it. You're right. And there are definitely people who get there are people who have a finesse and I think this can be distracting. There's people that can do the no paddle takeoff because their timing and their placement, they understand the wave so well.

[27:31] Victoria: Perfect.

[27:31] Sheila: Most of us aren't going to get there, so they're not the ones to model after. My daughter kind of intuitively could do that even after surfing for like a week. It's in her blood. But not a week, but literally a year. But here in Hawai, the level of surfing is so incredible. But that's actually a really good point. That it's not just the continue of the paddle, it's the acceleration of the paddle. And that burst. And especially in places where the wave stands up really fast and it takes a lot of practice to learn how to read what the wave is going to do because there's a good chance you'll sprint and suddenly the wave is sucking up and you're going over with it. But I think you're right. Overall, I think women, because we foresee consequences, we tend to be more on the cautious side and getting those couple of feelings when you finally get that timing right and a little more risk. Well, I started wearing a helmet. I have a helmet now because I had a really bad injury in January and I love it.

[28:34] Victoria: I think that's smart. Actually, after this defino contest, I'm going to surf in the Waco wave pool and I've been looking into buying a helmet because honestly, the rates of head injuries or concussions and surfing is really high. And I've spent so long trying to make my brain full of knowledge, it would really be ashamed.

[28:56] Sheila: Same with me. So I had a bad injury where somebody sliced my head open. I was basically scalped. It was pretty crazy. Had 36 I'm sorry, 16 staples. You can't see it. But really, I mean, literally my head was fillet open and then maybe a few months ago, my own board hit me, the rail hit me and it basically punched me like a prize fighter and split my eye and cheek. Now the helmet may probably wouldn't have helped for that, but then I was on my long board the other day. I've been surfing a long time. I don't know why all of a sudden this is happening, but I've had concussions before from boards and my board just went right up and over my head. And I'm like, you know, how many times does the universe have to suggest that you do that? And I really need my brain. I need all of it. So I do recommend it for anybody that has thinking about a helmet. So a couple of things I'd say I was worried that it would fill with water or pull my neck back. I have a. Gath helmet. It fits perfectly. I had to try on like seven different ones to get the right fit, even though they were the same sizes. I love that it keeps my hair out of my face. So when you take off and you take off in a foam ball and the foam comes over your head and your hair goes in your face and you're blind like a sheepdog and you don't know what's happening, so that's over and it actually gives you a little flotation and a little buffer. Like when you duck dive under. Like when a set is going to fall on your head. And basically there's nothing you can do about the impact, really, except try. It gives you a buffer. It kind of dissipates the pressure on your head.

[30:32] Victoria: That's great.

[30:33] Sheila: Those are the pluses. And there's a little extra flotation. So when you get held down, it does kind of seem to sort of pull you up a little bit. I have noticed, and you can't see it in this light, but I have little bruises on the front of my forehead, so I'm not sure what that's about. Maybe just the snugness of it. And then I do sometimes think that depending on the kind of thrashing I take now, I'm someone that falls a lot because I go for things.

[30:57] Victoria: Yeah, me too.

[31:01] Sheila: I'm doing the rag doll a lot, so I think that sometimes maybe the helmet might make the rag dolling ever so slightly more intense. And one thing I'll say, when I first started with the helmet and I was on my shortboard and I went off front side for some reason, my balance is so I usually don't lean forward enough anyways. But the helmet made the tiniest shift so that I kept falling backwards off my board going front side, which was so weird. It was that subtle. But if your head weighs what, 13 pounds and then you add this little.

[31:39] Victoria: Extra may I ask, does it cover your ears?

[31:43] Sheila: You can. There's ear flaps if you want your.

[31:46] Victoria: Ears covered because your balance systems of equilibrium live in your inner ears. Anything that covers your ears. I do not love wearing a hood when it's cold. I mean, I will if it's brutal, but because I feel like it changes my hearing. But it's not the hearing that really changes, it's my balance. But I really want to get a Gap helmet, actually, but I wanted to cover my ears because I want to keep my balance as dialed in as possible.

[32:16] Sheila: Those pieces are removable, so I don't surf with it covering my ears. I can't you it was just a little weight issue with the helmet, but yeah, it is. I'm seeing more people with it and I'm definitely recognizable with my candy apple red helmet when I paddle out. So I would actually love to hear a little bit about your career, specifically the way it's worded in one of the articles that I read. And I'm going to post the articles about you in the show notes for anyone that wants to read more of your story and just you're so articulate and they're really interesting articles, but I was really taken by the idea of neurophysiology and curious how you have adapted. You talk about being the only person doing this career in a wheelchair, which is really kind of fascinating, but you're also a woman, and I don't know how many women are in that field. And I'm just curious, what have you discovered? And you also talked about dealing with marginalized people, period, in your capacity. So yeah, I'm just curious about how that career has developed and who you're working with these days.

[33:31] Victoria: Okay. There's like a lot in there to unpack.

[33:33] Sheila: I know. Sorry. You can start it here.

[33:37] Victoria: I would say underrepresented communities and then also neurophysiology and then the power dynamics of healthcare. Here we go.

[33:47] Sheila: Okay.

[33:48] Victoria: Starting strong out of the gates. Okay. It should be said that I am a trained physiotherapist, and I have a specialization in orthopedics and hand therapy. But I came to hand therapy by working in stroke rehab and neurorehabilitation for four or five years as a clinician, but I lived it by going through a spinal cord injury. I always loved neuroscience as much as I love the ocean. I'm a science girl. I love learning. It's so fascinating and amazing. Straight up. I know this sounds crazy, but I think neuroscience is sexy. There's so much capacity for change and changing different parts of yourself and how you view the world and how you move through it. And also you can actually change the structure and function of your brain and body, which shapes your whole experience as a human. I mean, for me, it's really cool. And so I was fascinated in the subject before I was injured. And then, of course, as a person with a spinal cord injury, I did as much learning as I can. And everything they give you as a patient is written at a fourth grade reading level, and that's a good thing because it means people who may not have the background, the education is there. But for me, being a straight up nerd, I just wanted all of the academic high level. The more complexity and nuance, the better. And so I learned so much in rehab. I was reading, like, academic papers already. And then when I worked with an incredibly highly skilled neurophysiotherapist as an outpatient, when I was kind of discharged from the hospital. So you do your physical rehab, and then I like to call it like you're released back into the wild, you're out there in the world. But I still felt like I had some capacity for my body to recover, and I wanted to not put everything in my life on hold for the potential of recovery, but at least try to ride the momentum of my recovery whatever I could get, I wanted to try to get, but not pursue it at all costs. I was doing physical rehab with this outpatient, amazing neurophysio. But I also was getting my undergraduate degree and going to university and having road trips with my friends. Some people just do rehab after an injury, and there's nothing wrong with that. But for me, I needed more balance in my life. But going back to the neuroscience thing and the clinician, okay, so I worked with this Australian neurophysiotherapist who is a professor, and she loves to teach and I love to ask questions. And I learned so much from her about the neurophysiology of movement and walking and anticipatory postural adjustments and what actually creates movement, and then how do you shape that and influence it? That I began to do gait analysis or walking analysis on people walking in front of my car when I was driving. I drive with hand controls. So I was already like a baby physio nerd. And then when I eventually told my physios and people in my life that I was thinking about doing this as a career, even though it was groundbreaking and never hadn't been done, and frankly, it's like, why do I always choose the hard way? I kind of knew it was my people. I kind of already knew it was a good fit. And then it was figuring out the physical skills where I could make someone else safe and also figuring out the treatment skills so I could be an effective clinician. But I still love neuroscience. But working with people post stroke for me was not as much about walking, although that's very important, but reach and grasp. So regaining hand function and arm function and how we use our hands is so much of what makes us human and how we live through the world. So I could talk about this, and even small injuries in the wrist and hand can have really massive effects on quality of life.

[38:13] Sheila: Unpack that one comment for a second. That how we use our hands is part of what makes us human.

[38:18] Victoria: One, it's straight up the opposable thumbs. But it's not just that. It's how we greet each other. It's how we touch each other. It's how we explore the world in nature. It's like touching the bark of a tree, putting your hands into the sand. There's all these experiences. Hands are sensory, incredibly dense sensory information, and they're also particularly complex in terms of the movements. Mechanically, they're fascinating. But we all have habits of movement with our hands in our bodies. Like, I talk with my hands, I have certain ways of all of that matters, and that's neuroscience. Like, you can shape the movement, you can shape the patterns. But if you have a neuro injury or either a peripheral nerve, say, carpal tunnel, something, or something more significant like a stroke, it will change how you use your hands. And so it also changes how you go through the world. Think of how much we touch our phones. We do a task in the kitchen, how much we drive. We use our hands for everything. And so when I say that's how we move through the world as a human, yes, it's the opposable thumbs, but it also is so much more than that.

[39:39] Sheila: That's really fascinating. Yeah, thank you for elaborating on that.

[39:43] Victoria: That was straight up the nerdiest thing I've ever said on a podcast.

[39:47] Sheila: I'm a fellow nerd, so here we go. Well, honestly, I just am studying hypnotherapy, so I'm studying to be a clinical hypnotherapist. So I'm just beginning this journey. I've always been fascinated by the brain, but I really been so busy doing whatever that I haven't burrowed into it very much. And I do remember I'm just starting to and in part of us talking about Ericksonian hypnosis. Do you know who Milton Erickson is?

[40:14] Victoria: No, I don't.

[40:15] Sheila: So it's a whole story, but Milton Erickson was paralyzed. Different. It's not a spinal cord injury, but he got polio as a child, and he was supposed to die overnight. He didn't. He was completely paralyzed from the neck down, and he literally his family put him in the middle of the room. He grew up in a farm, and he just watched everybody all day long. And he watched his baby sister learn to walk. And from visualizing it and walking her and visualizing and watching her, and visualizing and watching her, and imagining, imagining he taught himself to walk again and all of the neuro movements and could eventually navigate through life with a cane. And he developed a whole process about suggestions and how he spoke, doing hypnosis, not just through like, you were getting very sleepy, but just through language. And anyways, he talks about how our memories are associated with our eye patterns. And I imagine with stroke, like, you have things that how you associate your world is how your eyes move through. If your eyes can't move that way anymore, if your hands can't move that way anymore, it would be based on just listening to what you're saying. So disorienting you literally couldn't retrieve certain sort of patterns. So I don't know if that makes any sense, but that was just where my mind, my nerdy mind went when you were talking about that.

[41:40] Victoria: Yeah, it is interesting. Visualization. There's like a neuroscience podcast that I like, and they were just talking about visualization. And it is true that if you make the movement very specific and short and you visualize that movement, say, for this person, I guess, walking or the mechanics of walking, it activates the same movement or motor patterns in your central nervous system as actually doing it. But it's not as profound as a change or a practice tool as actually doing it. But if you have no other options or visualization is so much evidence to show that has power. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Yeah, I'm a big neuroscience person.

[42:26] Sheila: Yeah, I will have to find out.

[42:30] Victoria: When I go on a surfing podcast. I so rarely get to talk about neuroscience.

[42:37] Sheila: Yeah.

[42:37] Victoria: But I also think my background in becoming a physio helps, without a doubt, helps the problem solving of figuring out and adapting the movements. And I can do a lot on my own, but that's where having other people in my life's, physios and other athletes and coaches like that is so valuable.

[42:56] Sheila: I know it was a big time. We got off on that. But that's what we do here. That's what we do here. I do want to touch a little bit on the marginalized community because I thought that was really interesting, the little bit that I read about that. So when you're talking about that, do you mean who has access to the kind of work that you do or who even has a concept that they have the ability to improve their mobility? Maybe we can leave some of the public. Well, I love all of it, but what were you really targeting when you were talking about that?

[43:30] Victoria: I think you're talking about the Butter magazine.

[43:32] Sheila: I am talking about the Butter magazine.

[43:34] Victoria: And that's a magazine for women or people in action sports who may be underrepresented that discussion. For me, in healthcare, it's so rare for a person as a wheelchair user become a physiotherapist because of the physical mechanics and requirements of the job. And without a doubt, there's a lot I can do. But I also don't walk people down a hallway. I now do a job that is geared towards hand therapy and upper extremity. And I sort of play to my strengths, if you will, but I don't believe it's all or nothing, but many people did have this view that it is all or nothing, or that I would say most people mean well, but they have no idea what I'm capable of. And so the assumptions that are put onto me as I move through the world are either so people perceive me in a world wheelchair first and then maybe judge me on the way I look like hair, makeup, clothes, what have you, and then the way I speak. And I do wish it was different, but I also recognize that when I go into a room or an elevator or a grocery store, people have no idea what to expect. And so there are assumptions that people put onto me about either quality of life or capacity. And it can be these little things of like, can you reach that? Do you need help? Oftentimes it's coming from a place of wanting to help. It's not necessarily a place of marginalization, but it's also true that people sometimes are genuinely surprised that I drive or work or have a career or date or have a full and active life. And the expectation is that I have a sad little life in a wheelchair. And that's that kind of classic tragedy story. And then there's this other side that is, I would say, equally stereotypical and dumb. Is that an inspirational figure who can overcome anything and never has a bad day? Or it's a cautionary tale of women in action sports or all of these assumptions lack nuance. And so when I move to the world, yes, I navigate the physical environment, but I also navigate the social assumptions. And so when I talk about marginalized communities, I would say in healthcare there is so much history that women's pain is dismissed or people of a different skin color are not treated very well, or people who have even just age, oftentimes it can be very young or very old. People are often dismissed. And so what I was talking about is that it was my experience both as a patient and as a clinician, is that people are sometimes written off too quickly instead of really being given chance to communicate or to connect about who they are or what the issue is. And the part of that, the connection and all that, that takes time. And so it's time with people, time with patients, time with clients, time with the doctor. And then finding it's not rocket science. Anybody who sees a healthcare professional, all you really want is someone who knows their stuff and who cares. It's not asking too much. But sometimes either the healthcare system is set up in a way that it's so busy as working within it that you don't have the time to spend with people. And so you can't develop those things or people some of it. It's not necessarily just like people mean well in healthcare. I would say the structure of the system and the institutions of it sometimes in Canada at least, everything is stretched so thinly that there can be really subpar healthcare, both working within it, certainly during the pandemic and also as a patient. So that's really what I can speak to about that comment, is that it's just like all of us at some level didn't choose the body. You didn't choose where you're born. You don't necessarily choose the body you have. Yes, we can do things in our life to be more fit or less fit, but I guess it's just having a little bit more empathy for other people's experience.

[48:07] Sheila: Empathy and openness. I mean, I really like, just like you said, selling people short. I think empathy is like the opener. And then just raising the bar for everyone really is raising the bar for everyone that they're all capable, everybody's capable of know, no matter what vessel they're in. I really love that, Victoria. That's really important concept. And I'm positive I've been guilty know any number of those things over time in different ways.

[48:39] Victoria: Although I do try. I do try, but I also recognize that the only way okay, I do think this and I don't know if this is like, how everybody thinks, but if you want to learn about a demographic, just go Google it, look it up on the Internet. But if you want to learn about a person and connect with them, ask them about themselves and actually listen. Yeah, it's that openness. I certainly don't have all the perfect language or all the answers, hardly, but I am at least willing to try to figure it out.

[49:11] Sheila: Yeah. And it is definitely a time right now where people are afraid to ask, afraid to be, for lack of a better word, canceled for even asking a question, even on a private conversation or all being so careful. So there's a way to come to it with curiosity. And then all of us probably need to take a deep breath and be a little bit less triggered sometimes about different things, but easier for some people. Obviously, some people are facing more explicit challenges, more visible ones. But yeah, this is probably a slight aside, but the great huge political divides that are going on right now, there's something about learning how to just be present with a person, too. I know for sure that I surf with people that have, in my opinion, completely crazy views on life, but I love seeing them. And we talk about surfing, and I ask you I know about their partners and I know about where they had lunch and I know about what kind of equipment they're writing and I don't know, one of their kind of different things in a way. But at the same time, it's just allowing people to be whole, I guess, and it's not easy. I do want to ask you about the adaptive community because it's kind of a fascinating culture and I love I would never have thought either when you talk about I guess we just have images, to be honest, more like Special Olympics. And even those people are amazing. But we're not really I'm going to correct you there.

[50:56] Victoria: That's actually not correct for our community. The Special Olympics is for people with a mental impairment.

[51:02] Sheila: Thank you for Olympics.

[51:03] Victoria: The Paralympics is different and for people with only a physical impairment. So Special Olympics for impairment and Paralympics or parasurfing or adaptive surfing is for people with limb loss or spinal cord injury, paralysis or vision loss or impairment.

[51:24] Sheila: Okay, so I'm sorry, but thank you because again, it's just a lack of understanding.

[51:33] Victoria: Yeah, people don't know, and that's okay. It's not a big deal. But that does change your perception of the community, though.

[51:42] Sheila: Yeah, for sure. And I guess I hadn't even really categorized. Yeah, you're right. It definitely does change. And now that I think about it, if I sort of play out the pictures, I get it, but I just hadn't thought that all the way through. But you talk about going to your first event and imagining everybody's just on foamies rolling in, and you've got these rippers. And I love just a little bit that you talked about one of the articles about that maybe this grew a little bit out of adaptive skiing. And I had a relationship with a friend of mine when I was in college who had been a motocross rider, and then he had a spinal cord injury and he became really active in designing racing wheelchairs, and still, I believe, is involved in that. So I knew that there was, like, a world that and he was always tinkering and nerding out and coming up with amazing things, but I guess. Yeah. Just until you find out about a world you don't know anything about it.

[52:44] Victoria: I had no idea until I met all these crazy people. That's kind of the fun of traveling and trying new things and I've tried so many different adaptive sports and every sport, adaptive or not, has its own kind of vibe and attracts a certain type of person. And I love skiing. And I love adaptive skiing. And it's a lot of similar type of very do it yourself ethic, which is a lot of adaptive sports, but a lot of women's in sports as well. For a long time, there was no women's custom uniforms for soccer or custom wetsuits for cuts for women. A lot of times you just sort of make it work for you and it's like making stuff in your garage and then going out into the ocean or the mountains and trying it out. Yeah, but I really like the community it connected to. I mentioned that I go through the world and I deal with many people's assumptions about me. I've gotten used to that oftentimes. I don't mind, but it's really refreshing to be around people who understand me as a person and I can sort of just relax and be myself. It's also people who've had pretty catastrophic injuries like skydiving limb loss from a shark or motorcycle accidents or car accidents or skiing or snowboarding or these crazy vision loss stories and everybody is still planning adventures and surf trips and cracking jokes and living life and finding a community of people who are as crazy as I am has been like it's half the fun of surfing. Sounds amazing. Yeah, they're crazy. And it's not like I would say we're definitely an Ohana. And just like any family, it's not perfect all the time. But of course, they're my people and I do believe that the quality of surfing is rising every year and for men and women adapt to surfing and we are an excellent fit for the Paralympics, both in terms of showcasing surfing at the highest level with amazing maneuvers, but also these amazing stories. And so I think we find out if we get the Paralympics in December and we have our adaptive worlds in November. November 4 to 11th in Huntington Beach.

[55:12] Sheila: Are the Paralympics parallel with the Olympics?

[55:15] Victoria: Yes, that's exactly.

[55:19] Sheila: So it happens all at the same time. So you would go to Tahiti.

[55:22] Victoria: It does not actually happen at the same time.

[55:25] Sheila: Okay.

[55:25] Victoria: I wish it did.

[55:26] Sheila: I know.

[55:27] Victoria: Happens three weeks later, which is a bit of a bummer. So the Summer Paralympics has many of the same sports as the Summer Olympics, but not everything. So we are not yet in the Paralympics. We find out about Paralympic inclusion in December, but hopefully it's either parasurfing or Para rock climbing. So I'm hoping that if we get enough awareness and momentum, we'll get the Paralympics.

[55:52] Sheila: Oh, come on. Paralympics.

[55:54] Victoria: It would be for because of the logistics and everything moves slowly, change slow to create. It would be for 2028, the La Paralympics. For 2028. We have an adaptive world tour. The association of Adaptive Surfing professionals like the AASP. It's like our WSL. We have professional contests with priority and prize money and world titles on the line. And we also have the Isas, which is a different organization that runs the Olympic and Paralympic, hopefully Paralympic streams. Does that make sense?

[56:35] Sheila: Yeah, totally. No, that makes sense. No, that's exciting. I mean, as we know well, not everybody knows, but surfing actually just joined the Olympics in the last Olympics and are happening again, so after a very long fight of 100 years or so. So we definitely don't want it to take 100 years for you guys. Why they can't do both Para rock climbing and parasurfing, I don't really know, but you'd have to ask them. I'm not in charge. These things, those seem like they should both be in, but that's what do I know? I'm sure they have their own matrix, whatever that might be.

[57:20] Victoria: My understanding is that now this is my understanding, but I don't know how accurate that is. I know my stuff. In terms of what's going to happen with the parallel, I don't know, but because it is a contest that just like any contest, takes some money to run, my understanding is that there's not the funding or to create both of those things. It can be one.

[57:49] Sheila: I understand what it must put on to televise and know just the whole thing, making everybody safe, everything that needs to be built and sustained to make such a thing happen. Yeah.

[57:59] Victoria: But I do wish we were going to Tahiti.

[58:02] Sheila: I know. Oh, my gosh. I personally would not ever like to surf that wave, but I would like to watch it.

[58:10] Victoria: That's the thing, is that I now spend a lot of time training on the north shore of Oahu, and without a doubt, there are days in the north shore that are too big for me to manage. Just like ten foot macking pipe. No, I'm not at that level. But there are, I would say, the in between days, highly skilled as an adaptive surfer in competition and in my division. And without a doubt, I'm leading the women's movement in many ways for adaptive surfing. And I'm trying to raise the level. But for the North Shore, when I just surf, I think I'm solid intermediate. But the barrels, north Shore barrels is the goal that's going to take a little bit of time and they're not going to be huge barrels to start with. But I mean, that's the thing is if you pick the day and the conditions tahiti or mean, there are days that are manageable or then you can learn and then you can get more experience and build a foundation upon.

[59:08] Sheila: And how do you fit in at the North Shore? I mean, how are you?

[59:18] Victoria: I like surf the have you seen the Yang and Yang of Jerry Lopez?

[59:24] Sheila: Yes, I loved it. Yes.

[59:26] Victoria: There's a moment where he goes to G land and he's like, oh, weird, I'm at home. And that was my because I thought I'd live in Honolulu and then work as a clinic. And I did work like I was working near full time and surfing in the morning. But as soon as when I first got to Hawaii, I had friends and a community and a job lined up, but I didn't have a place to live because housing is very tricky. There's only so many rental places and so I house it for a friend of mine. And then I lived with kind of a different family in a different part of the island. But I managed to get this little place that's on the North Shore and it's like, I don't know, two blocks, maybe a kilometer from the beach. You can walk. Some people go to a new place. Certainly so many people go to Hawaii and they struggle. They have difficulty making friends. It can be transient. It is expensive. It's not a paradise for everyone. But for me, when I went to the North Shore, it was like that moment, that story where he's like, oh my. I got there and I was like, oh, my home. It was actually quite profound for me. And the North Shore has opened for me in a way that I didn't expect. I friends, people surf with the North Shore lifeguards know me by name. And sometimes I'll check in with them and be like, hey, this swell is rising. Do you think I can handle it? One of them was, yeah, if you get sucked out to sea, I got the jet ski today. I'll just go get like they sort of look out for me and then quite literally they help me over the sand. Sometimes I'll ride on the back of the ATV with my board and I'll get dropped off at a certain place at sunset or Haliba or even sandbar. I'm not really surfing pipe, but I'm pipe adjacent.

[01:01:26] Sheila: Yeah, right.

[01:01:30] Victoria: I feel so lucky to have the support of such an amazing surf community. I feel that I kind of fit in there and I love it. I never thought it would be such a good fit. Until I moved. I moved to tofino and Euclid in Canada for surfing. And I love the people and I made great friends even though I was only there for like three or four months. But it's not a great fit. The water is so cold that I can manage it. But then there was so much sand to get across. Some of the beaches are accessible, but not with the tide swings. Sometimes it was like 200 yards of sand to crawl over to, then go. And I can do that, just like pushing my board next to me. But that's a lot of cross training. Then it was cold and wet all the time. In a way that being in the warm water of Hawaii, it's easy to surf in a bikini in like a little tiny rashgar. It's so much easier in warm water. It's also that, yes, I have to climb across the rocks and have to wear some neoprene to protect from the reef. But as an adaptive surfer, warm water and for me personally, with my level of function where I can kind of scamper across the rocks and sand, hawaii is way easier.

[01:02:54] Sheila: And I remember reading in one of the articles just the challenge of the wetsuit. Obviously, like, you have tricks. And I do want to point out to everybody that on your website, which it's Victoriafeggesurf.com, you have a whole page about equipment, which I think is really interesting. Just things if you've done trial and error for people working, surfing is an adaptive surfer from wetsuits to equipment to just lots of tips.

[01:03:21] Victoria: Totally. And I would say, like@victoriafeigesurfing.com, which I frankly need to update. But the surf tips about the wetsuit is that many surfers, and I'd say surf instructors who are not that maybe well intentioned, but not that aware of adaptive surf challenges, don't realize that for them to get in a wetsuit is like 30 seconds. They're practiced at it, they're skilled at it. They've got all their function. For someone with paralysis getting into a wetsuit, quite literally, there are times that it took me 2030 minutes and I'm like full sweat, like drip wet. That's like surfing an entire heat. And then you nothing in the gas tank. When you actually go into water, if you have such a brutal experience at the beginning, it is going to color your experience of the sport. And so having a wetsuit, that one, I never get in a wet wetsuit, like straight up. Granted, now I am sponsored by Rip Curl for Gear, but that's partly why the wetsuit has to be dry. There's like a fuzzy lining for the flash bomb that helps generate heat but also dries quickly. So keeps me warm and I never get in the wet wetsuit. And I use little plastic baggies to help reduce the friction to slide my little feet in there. But it's still a challenge as wetsuit technology improves. When I surf a heat, I actually use a much thinner wetsuit. In California, it's like even one mil tops bottoms, and then sometimes a two, three. And then here in Tofino, if I was surfing a long session, it would be realistically five four with a hood. But if I only surf this weekend a 20 minutes or 15 minutes heat, I'm going to be in a four three. So having less neoprene means it's so much easier to move and be flexible. But that's taken years to figure out that what I presurf in is different than what I surf heat in. And then also figuring out even the sizing. Like, for a long time I was a size six, and then I realized I would wonder why it flushed. No, I just had to get more skilled at getting into the wetsuit. So now I can fit a size four. I am petite. I'm pretty small. I'm like five one. I'm like Coco. Coco size. Okay.

[01:05:42] Sheila: To find a surfer that you fit with. Yeah, because they have heights and weights on the WSL.

[01:05:48] Victoria: Rochelle Ballard, coco Ho. It's true. It's not just for wetsuits. It's also for volume, for surfboards. Often, many times women are smaller and lighter. And so if you can be on a smaller, lighter board or that for me, I'm kind of narrow across the chest in some areas, like being on a board that is easier for me to paddle a little bit narrower. A board that fits your body as a woman is going to be easier to surf than something that is not made for you.

[01:06:19] Sheila: Yeah, that's right. That is really good advice. And it's hard to figure out sometimes trial and error, and I sort of go by, I just hold the board and then if it talks to me I don't get new boards very often, so we have to have a long talk. We have to have a date where we communicate with each other. What are you feeling? I don't know. You're? $1,000. Let's see. We got to really fit. But oh, gosh. I mean, boards, I love them.

[01:06:49] Victoria: I love looking at them. I do have a rule now that one in and one out. Otherwise same thing with guitars. It's deadly. I really like.

[01:07:03] Sheila: Oh, right, I saw it on your Instagram. You're amazing guitar player, too. I just love to play.

[01:07:09] Victoria: It's just fun. Love it. But yeah, finding a good board, finding something that helps you feel more free and alive in the water, whether that be a wetsuit or equipment or people or whatever, that's the best.

[01:07:21] Sheila: It's that fine line, like you really want enough volume to make sure you can get into waves, and then there's a whole high dome mechanic to all of that. I just happen to find the board. I have a Pizzell Phantom and that board for whatever. I finally know why it actually has more volume in the front of it. So when I switched from my other shortbread where I was really struggling to just get up and get speed. The Phantom felt like a platform to me. So suddenly it's holding the stability and it gives me that extra split second that I was able to get in a better position. So they really are so different. And even if you think you don't have the skill level to quote unquote, deserve another board or that it's not going to make that big of a difference, it really does. And maybe identifying your weak spot, like in my case, since I didn't start surfing until I was 36 and I've always struggled with my pop up, the speed of it, I will never be that fluid minotaur that some people are so that my daughter is that I see people that have surf their whole lives. It's just different. So anyways, I also do think just.

[01:08:33] Victoria: Like an adaptive surfer, we're kind of learning our bodies through our life change over time. And certainly things are different as an adaptive surfer. But if you're surfing with a knee injury, if you've gained weight or lost weight or if you just have coming back from an injury or a shoulder or something, having a board that helps make things fun and easy in the water, that's valuable. And the one thing I have learned along the way is I can do all the research in the world. And I love the research. I'm looking up boards on the Internet, but there's nothing like actually trying it. And that's one of the cool things about the North Shore is that you can just demo really high quality boards because there's so many times that I've gotten something and I thought theoretically it's going to work and that it's not a good fit like I thought it would be. And other times I try something almost on a whim and it's great. And so little I have almost like this is nerdy, but I have almost like a list of all the different boards I've tried and what I liked about them and what I didn't like. It's quite literally been trial and error all these years of competing to try to figure out what's been a good fit. And for the first time I really had a great custom board made for me. I was hoping to work with John Pizell, which one day hopefully will, but I was also working with Nat and Eric Alkawa on the now I ride a knee board which is shaped for me. So it's five four and by 19 and maybe 30 liters of volume. And the fins are moved up quite a bit because my center interesting.

[01:10:19] Sheila: Okay.

[01:10:20] Victoria: My knees. That makes sense. Like, I'm not surfing off my back foot, I'm surfing off my knees. And a lot of the rotation comes from my trunk and my arms. So the fins are moved up by about six inches or so. And so if you look at from the front it looks like a regular surfboard but if you look at the fin placement it's really different and it.

[01:10:41] Sheila: Feels different and how is it working for you?

[01:10:45] Victoria: I love it. Yeah, it's easier paddle, I can duck dive. It is great. People talk about magic boards and I don't know if it is but it's just been the best fit so far.

[01:11:01] Sheila: It's pretty magic.

[01:11:02] Victoria: Yeah. So I'm excited to see how far I can go with it.

[01:11:14] Sheila: So I'll end with one last question which is you probably have many of these but do you have one wave that you remember? Like one favorite moment?

[01:11:28] Victoria: For me this is a difficult question because I have so many moments.

[01:11:32] Sheila: Yeah, it can be a group of moments or it can be a feeling.

[01:11:36] Victoria: Okay, I'll talk about one because it surprised me so much. It was so unexpected in our Hawaii adaptive surfing competition for the last few years happens at Queens in the summertime or in May and it's great wave, great surf break and if the waves know on, it can actually I'm just like everybody. You watch clips on Instagram or YouTube of beautiful skeleton bay, like the vision from the water. But I was in a surf heat and I took off on this wave and I saw the wall. Stack up and I was, oh, I think it's going to barrel. And without a doubt that vision I swear that time moved more slowly seeing the beauty of the water that aquamarine the blue and the diamond head and I want this moment again and again and again. And having a barrel over top of me for the first time was like just it almost gives me chills, actually. And I never would have had that moment if I didn't start adaptive surfing in competition. I was on a friend's borrowed board and I'm the kind of girl that I'll pull in even if I don't make it and frankly I almost never make the barrels. It was this moment of beauty before just getting rag dolled. There's that moment where I thought like oh my God, the vision is so beautiful that I just want this more and more and I don't even remember what happened really with the competition but that moment was oh, that's great.

[01:13:25] Sheila: This is the only time, I'm sorry that the podcast isn't like visual because to see your smile and my smile as I'm living through your moment so good.

[01:13:36] Victoria: There is one other moment that I astounded really. I started competing in 2016 and without a doubt I was terrible and I'm slowly getting better but the first competition I took a few extra days off work, I was working full time. I went to Huntington Beach for this adaptive surf contest and it was one of the contests where we kind of surf against all of the different disabilities which is now unusual. So it was kind of fun. And then there was kind of two tiers the kind of like high, high level adaptive pros and then more like the amateur. I ended up winning that contest at Huntington in 2018 and iconic Huntington Beach. I've watched so many competitions. There's so much history there's, all these stories. You've watched your heroes there. And when I won that competition, it was the first time that I thought, like, maybe I could be great at this. Maybe I can become a better surfer, maybe I can compete at the highest level. And it was really the first time I thought maybe I'll take a break from my regular job to pursue surfing because I never thought I'd surf at a high level after I got and it has been absolutely one of the joys of my life to pursue this in a way that I never thought I could. And so while I am young and strong and I can do it, I'm going to keep going. And that contest was in 2018, in November, and I have for my women's division. This sounds like a crazy flex, but I've won everything in my division since then.

[01:15:16] Sheila: That's amazing.

[01:15:17] Victoria: But it's not coming from like you can actually hear it in my voice. It's not coming from like, oh, I'm going to wait. I just want to surf. I want those moments of seeing the wall stack up in the barrel. That's what I look for.

[01:15:31] Sheila: You're kind of inspiring. I'm like, I wonder if there's any heats I can surf so I can be alone at bowls.

[01:15:37] Victoria: Right? You have, like, yourself at these iconic.

[01:15:43] Sheila: Spots, like Grandmaster Amateur. I don't care if I lose. I just want to take off on one of those waves.

[01:15:49] Victoria: Yeah, you should do it. I mean, that's the cool thing. This weekend, there's a women's major women's surfing competition in Tofino. It's like 150 women from across Canada or the world who come for it's called Queen of the Peak, and it's one of the largest women's surf competitions in the world. Certainly Tofino has a hub of women's surfing, but it's my first time surfing in a regular conventional surf competition and I have no idea how it's going to go.

[01:16:17] Sheila: I love that you're just in the fully integrated yeah. Just going to go kick some ***, I'm sure.

[01:16:24] Victoria: I don't know about that, but I think it's going to be such a really good time. Certainly there's a great community up there of women surfers and yeah, it'll be cold, but everyone's so fun and warm that they'll make up. Oh, I love that.

[01:16:38] Sheila: Yeah. It's definitely my dream to travel around and get to be present for those contests, too, and just talk to the women while they're doing it. And I'll just put it out there to the universe, because one of my dreams is to use hypnotherapy for women surfers to help overcome whatever obstacles are happening in sports and whatever. That's going to be one of my focuses. So I hope to be there at the contest in a little tent, helping people through things and maybe pass went out in the heat.

[01:17:06] Victoria: Cool. That's awesome. Hey, thank you so much for your time today. It's been.

[01:17:09] Sheila: Thank you, Victoria. Thank you so much for I really just appreciate all the nerdiness and wisdom and just everything that you've had to offer. It's been a super blast.