For the first time in a long while pro surfing has two leading surfers paired off against each other. There are 32 surfers on the CT but any world title talk includes just two names: Gabby and John John.

These are the surfers who've wrested the baton from Kelly Slater and are hurling it way into the future. Thing is, neither of them are great - how would you say it? - communicators.

Gabs comes across as terminally dispassionate. Sure, he's ESL but then so is the effusive Filipe Toledo. While John John's post-heat interviews kinda feel like not much signal is getting through.

But then maybe, at least for John, this is just a ploy; a response to an overly-connected world that clamors for his celebrity. Because in the little scraps of private life we're privy too it's apparent a rich and clear transmission is being received. John is much more engaged with the world around him then his perfunctory interviews suggest.

Recently John contributed to US pro sport website, The Players Tribune, and in one moment and he gave up more of himself then five seasons worth of post-heat speeches.

Following are some excerpts. You can read the whole thing here.

My Mom:

She surfs every day. Always has. When I was growing up, she was on the water any chance she got. And to this day, when she’s not working or surfing, my mom is at the skatepark. She loves skating almost as much as she loves surfing.

I remember these times when I was super young, like eight or so, and the waves were pretty big … and I was a little bit scared to go out on my board. My mom wouldn’t make me go, or pressure me, or anything like that. She’d just look at me and kind of shrug her shoulders and say, “O.K., well I’m going out.”

It was like … O.K., bye.

And I’d just kind of look at her like, Wait … what? You’re going out?

This is at Pipeline, mind you, right in front of our house on the beach on the North Shore. There are really big waves in the winter. Serious stuff. And, this is my mom.

Just ready to paddle out on her longboard and have fun and see what happens.

I could’ve stayed back, for sure.

But what was I gonna do … sit around on the beach and watch my mom surf? No way.

So I’d follow her out into the ocean.

And every single time I did that, I’d have so much fun. I never regretted it.

So, yeah, that’s my first inspiration. Definitely. My mom. She’s classic.

The North Shore:

This winter, after wrapping up the WSL season back home on the North Shore with the world title, I’ve been thinking a lot about what growing up here has meant to me over the years….

And how great it is to be from this place.

I love pretty much everything about it, but there are two main things that really define where I come from:

First, the ocean is everything here.

My life has revolved around the ocean since the beginning, and it’s like that with everyone in this community. The North Shore kind of has a small town feeling to it. Everyone knows everyone, and it seems like everybody here has something to do with the ocean.

That love for the ocean is just inside of you if you grow up here — whether you’re fishing, or surfing, or bodysurfing, or a million other things, you can always find something fun to do in the ocean. So it’s a really cool center point that we all have here.

Second, where I’m from everyone looks out for one another.

It’s like one big family here, for sure. And one of the things about being from Hawaii is that you grow up learning to respect your elders, and to have a lot of respect for other people around you. So that’s what this community is all about. The young kids respect the adults, and the adults are always looking out for the kids. Especially in the water. And that was a big deal for me, because I started surfing at Pipe when I was super young.

Because of the sense of community that exists on the North Shore, I always felt like I was being watched over by a lot of the older guys when I was in the water. It was just a really, really cool feeling, for sure.

More experienced surfers would check on me all the time and just make sure everything was O.K. This one time when I was 12 or so, I remember things were getting pretty interesting, some big waves. I was way out in the channel at Pipe, and kind of out of nowhere Nathan Fletcher — who’s a great surfer and waterman — paddles by and says, “Hey, John! You all good?”

I’m just this little kid sitting out there on his board. I probably looked terrified to him at the time. But there we were, you know?

I was like, “Yeah … I’m doing good.”

It was like we were passing each other in the supermarket aisle.

And then right after I said that, I remember watching him pull into one of the biggest barrels I’ve ever seen. Just this massive barrel … right in front of me.

He checked on me, and then he locked in and got his wave.

Learning to compete:

I think a lot of people assume surfing came easy for me. But that’s definitely not the case.

I started competing in events when I was really young. One result of that is you end up losing a lot.

At first, that was fine. As a super young kid, I loved traveling around to different islands for little surfing events because I met so many friends that way. It was just a fun way to spend your weekends. We’d all pack up and go to Kauai or Maui, and the contest would be on and you would just be hanging out with your friends all day.

Everything about that was fun.

But when I decided to compete in the Qualifying Series for a spot on the World Surf League Championship Tour, the losing part became, I don’t know … less fun.

I just kept losing and losing and losing. I was nowhere near qualifying. I’d make one heat, and then I would lose again. And it just continued like that for two or three years.

At one point I considered giving it up and doing something else.

I remember thinking to myself, What’s the plan here? Do I really want to keep doing this? Maybe it would be more fun to go in a different direction.

I was just too young. I’m glad, now, that I did jump in at a young age. But it was rough.

Right around the time when I was thinking about taking another path is when I broke my back surfing at Pipe.

I was 18, and it was the type of wave I’d ridden a million times. But the ocean is unpredictable, especially at Pipeline … and for whatever reason this wave decided that, instead of barreling, it was going to rise up and then slam down right on my back.

I was out for four months, which was brutal.

But because of that injury, my whole mindset shifted. I was so excited to get back in the water and surf again, and within a year I qualified for the Championship Tour.

At that point I sort of realized what had been holding me back for so long in competitions.

It was all about my approach.

Basically, what I love most about surfing is being out on the ocean with my friends. Just laughing and having fun and enjoying whatever the waves bring our way.

Even in rough times, you know, it’s still fun. You can be getting just completely beat up by the ocean, and when you’re out there with your friends or your brothers, and everyone’s in it together, all of a sudden you find yourself laughing and joking with each other and being like, “That was so sick.” Something that would be scary, somehow … it’s funny. And if you love surfing, you enjoy doing it every chance you get. My brother Nathan and I have had days when it’s really big and really bad and really messy, and we’re just like, “O.K., let’s just see if we can get out there and get one wave in.” It would be super easy to just pack it in and do something else. But we don’t want to do something else, you know? We want to surf … just for the love of it.

And there’s something, I don’t know … not competitive … about that. Surfing, for me, has always been this grounded-in-the-moment, fun thing that is so far from “competition” — just being out on the water with your friends, a million miles away from everyone, enjoying that moment and that place. You’re just looking to have fun and laugh and free surf and … just sort of go with it.   

Which, of course … is not how you do well in competitions.

So, yeah, a few years ago I realized that I’d basically been free surfing during events since I started competing. And that had been fine when I was younger and not trying to qualify.

But after all that losing, and after I broke my back, I came to a realization that competitions are actually a really unique opportunity to get to know yourself better, because you have all of these ups and downs and you have to figure out how to deal with those emotions.

I started to see competitions as a chance to learn about myself. And that’s when I really started improving. Now, as weird as it is to say, I almost think that competitions are more mentally gratifying for me than free-surfing sessions.

I love the challenge of it. You have to find that space you find when you’re free surfing with maybe another friend in the water and no one else around … but you have to find it with a few thousand people watching and announcers and pressure and all of these other factors.

I feel like I’ve been learning a lot about how to find that space, and about myself, and that’s made competitions something that I really, really look forward to.

I just needed to dig in and make it about learning.

Wanna read more?