Taylor Knox’s Second Act

Digging into the deep recesses of the mind, many aspects about Taylor Knox – the Californian power surfer and one-time World Title threat – materialize from his lengthy career. Things like handlebar mustaches, mullets and mohawks, the Momentum Generation, and that inimitable, ferocious forehand hack.

Those turns, especially. The style, the force, the torrent of displaced liquid. In a word, timeless.

And while Knox’s searing carves continue to be his signature mark engraved on the surf world following his Championship Tour departure, and one that lives rent free in any surfer’s brain born in the ‘90s and before, the man is much more than a turn. He’s a father; he’s an avid meditator; he once rode the $50,000 wave at Todos Santos; and he still rips, well into his 50s.

So, ahead of his new film in collaboration with ridiculously comfortable San Diego athleisure brand, Vuori, we caught up with Knox to talk about his career, his influence on power surfing, his secrets for longevity, the current state of pro surfing, and more. Keep scrolling for our chat.

Hey Taylor, what’s your surfing life look like these days? Looked like you hit the Maldives recently. How was that?

Yeah, I just got home from the Maldives. We got two swells over 10 days, and that gave us some surf that was a couple feet overhead. It’s so beautiful there. I’ve never seen sea life, and coral reefs, like that anywhere in the world. And I’ve been a lot of places. [Laughs.] The water isn’t even blue; it’s clear. It’s literally like a swimming pool.

And you were testing the new “Knox” boardshorts while you were there?

I was. I was putting them to a pretty good test by leaving them out in the sun, thrashing in ‘em, surfing in ‘em as much as I could over super shallow reef. The comfortability is insane. It feels like you’re wearing nothing. That’s what you want with surf trunks – the ones you don’t even know are there. Let’s just say this…no chafing. You don’t want that where the sun don’t shine.

You’ve got this new documentary with Vuori, too; tell us about that.

It really focuses on three pillars of my life, which are meditation, DNS [Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization], and surfing. There is no way I would be here if I hadn’t found these things. I was in a kind of rocky place when I started. Back in the year 2000, I had a friend suggesting this stuff to me, but I turned it down. I wasn’t into that new-age, woo-woo shit. I liked yoga back then, but I wasn’t getting anything out of it on a spiritual side. I was focusing on what was outside of me, not what was inside. And that’s the big difference with this meditation – it’s all about looking within.

That’s interesting, ‘cos when you were on Tour, the program was to party all night, then wake up, and surf your heat. Nowadays, everyone’s on the meditation train.

People would laugh at you back in my day for doing things like meditating. And today, you look at what Griffin [Colapinto] is doing, and I love it. You see guys sitting there before their heats with their eyes closed, centering themselves. They’re looking within, which is great. We’re told to look outside ourselves, like a belief system, or a coping mechanism, or say this three times and throw salt over your left shoulder. It’s crazy what people believe. Why not believe in yourself?

Throughout your career, you’ve regularly been touted as a “power surfer.” What drew you to surfing hard on the rail, as opposed to going above the lip like a lot of your peers?

My main influence in my surfing was Tom Curren. If Tom did more airs, maybe I would’ve done more airs. [Laughs.] I just always wanted to be a power surfer. Occy, Tom Curren, and Tom Carroll were the guys I wanted to surf like. I just love the technical side of surfing, and I wanted to add power to it. Sometimes surfers have one or the other, but not both. In the nineties, everyone was riding those super narrow, super rockered-out boards – that was worst case scenario for my surfing. I wasted so much time on such a bad design. A really good design will stand the test of time. Do you see anyone riding those boards these days? No.

Although airs are pretty dominant in the pro surfing scene today, there seems to be a resurgence of power surfing. Guys like John John, Ethan Ewing, Griffin come to mind. How does it feel knowing you probably influenced these guys?

I don’t know if they’re looking to me and my surfing. I’m old now. But I do think there is a lineage there. You had the generation before me, then my generation, then you had Mick and Joel and Dingo…and now you have Griff and John and Ethan. They’re really taking it to the next level.

It’s so cool to see the power surfing rewarded on Tour. That’s the basis of surfing. There’s something about that style of surfing that’ll never get old. It’s where we come from. And you don’t see the 12-year-olds at Lowers doing rail turns; you can watch them do air reverses all day long. You wanna watch surfing that’s pleasing to the eye, right? You need to learn the foundations first. Then you can go to the air.

As a seasoned veteran in the industry, what do you think is going well in pro surfing currently, and what do you think needs to change?

I like that Snapper is back on Tour, it’s great they have Cloudbreak, J-Bay should be every year, and it’s a mistake that they’re still ending at Lowers. Can’t believe they’re going to run that again; such a bummer. But at the same time, there’s no way that Lowers shouldn’t be on Tour. It has to be a stop. Everyone wants to watch that contest, but they don’t want to see the World Title decided at chest-high Lowers. There’s no replacing the North Shore of Oahu. When you’ve got heavy water moving, it makes things exciting. And we’re gonna see that – hopefully – in the Olympics.

Speaking of the Olympics…thoughts?

I think it’s great that it’s at Teahupo’o. But I wonder if all the competitors, from all the different countries, are ready for it. Some surfers are probably really happy about this contest, and some might be a little scared. I’m sure they’ll have some great water safety, let’s just say that.

Imagine if they got swell, like they just had recently. I’m not sure they even want that. I don’t know if I want that for them. [Laughs.] It would be great for guys like John John and the Tahitians, but I’m thinking about the safety of others. Let’s hope they come home in one piece.

Anything else in pro surfing?

Yeah, the Mid-Season Cut. I don’t like it. I wanna be on the record saying that. I know how hard it is to make the Tour, and I feel like the guys who grind it out, and put the time in, they deserve a shot at the whole year. The QS isn’t easy; it’s stressful. The reason I say that is, I’ve been in the position of not making it on Tour until the last event of the season. And that creates this other narrative in Hawaii. You’ve got the guys who are trying to make it on Tour, then you have the guys going for a World Title. The guys trying to make the Tour is maybe not as exciting as the Title, but it’s pretty damn exciting. I feel like they earn it. They should get a full year.

There’s a lot going on in the big wave world, too, these days. A lot’s changed, and a lot’s stayed the same. For instance, your $50k Todos wave is still talked about. What’re you seeing in big waves today that’s exciting you?

That whole movement, several years ago, with guys like Greg Long who made an effort to go back to paddle surfing big waves. That’s cool to me. Less rope. My favorite big wave surfer is Shane Dorian – what he’s done at Jaws is insane. Then you’ve got guys like Nathan Florence. I don’t think anyone’s had a better year than he did last year. It’s so fun to watch. That dude is on another level. That’s “fun” for Nate; for other guys, not so much.

Longevity is another aspect, perhaps often overlooked, of your career. You competed for 20 years on the CT, and finally retired at 41. How did you maintain that mental and physical endurance?

The easy part was the physical side. And that’s despite all the injuries, which I had a lot. I was like Humpty Dumpty – but luckily I had all the right people in my corner to put me back together.

But the mental side was a much bigger factor. You go through the hills and valleys of winning and losing, feeling guilty for not being home more…all that stuff weighs on you. It’s all good when you’re winning. But when you’re losing, and you’re missing time at home, it hits you twice as hard. That year that I got second to Andy [Irons] at Barra [de la Cruz; 2006’s Rip Curl Pro Search], I was ready to retire then. I was pretty burnt out.

Then I resigned with Rip Curl, and I started getting close with Mick, and I got rejuvenated to be on Tour. By that time, a lot of my friends had retired – Ross [Williams], Shane [Dorian], Rob [Machado], they were all gone. Kelly was doing Kelly things. Then all of a sudden, I was like the oldest guy on Tour. I wanted to show those guys that were thinking they were too old or had injuries – like my three fused vertebrae and a couple knee surgeries – that we can still rip.

Any advice for surfers out there who might be losing steam?

Don’t make excuses. You don’t have to surf every day, but a couple days a week. And on the days you’re not surfing, try to get some good movement in. And things will change as you age. I’m not throwing tires around like I used to do in my early 30s. I’m more into strength and flexibility, these days, not so much how I look walking down the beach with my shirt off. [Laughs.] I haven’t lifted a weight in like six years, and the funny thing is, I feel like I’m way fitter now.

Then, there’s the mental aspect. When I started Kelee Meditation, I used it to get a competitive advantage. I thought it would help my surfing career. But in the end, it helped with the rest of my life so much more. I just turned 53, and I never thought I’d still be riding 5’11”s and surfing the way I am. It was all about going inside, and removing those mental blocks. Everyone can do that. And all it takes is five minutes of sitting down, centering yourself, and looking within.