Dreaming Of Making The Women's WCT Tour

FirstStoke.com talks to up and coming female surfer Kenzie about competing on the WQS and her dream of making the WCT tour.

So Kenzie, what are you up to these days?

Nothing much, just the usual; surfing, training, sleeping, and school. I am really excited for this year to be over cuz it’s my last year of high school and I am going to Baja for three months over the summer. Super stoked.

Growing up in Norcal, how did you get started surfing?

I actually leaned how to surf in Baja when I was four years old. My dad used to push me into waves until I was good enough to catch them by myself. I didn’t start surfing on a regular basis until I was fourteen. Before that I just used to surf when I went to Baja on vacations. I used to play a lot of other sports that didn’t allow me to surf as much as I wanted to, so I stopped those sports and just focused on surfing.

How do you balance going to school and surfing competitively?

It is definitely a challenge because I miss a lot of school traveling back and forth from contests. I try to keep the contests relatively local so I don’t have to drive a long ways, but sometimes I might have to go as a far as San Clemente and that’s an eight hour drive each way, so I might have to take a day off from school to drive down and back up. But my teachers understand that I surf competitively and they are totally supportive and sometimes give me a little extra time to do assignments.

Who has had the biggest influence on your style of surfing?

Melanie Bartels for sure, she has a really sick style. Her turns are so powerful and she boosts crazy airs. She has kind of a skate surf style, I really like it a lot. Parko is also a big influence, I like his style a lot too. He is super powerful and fluid. But also the girls that I compete against defiantly influence how I surf. Like if I see someone do a sick turn, I want to do that turn too, so in my next session I will work on it until I get it down.

What’s it like to be a teenage girl paddling out in the big, gnarly, and sometimes sharky break at Ocean Beach in San Francisco?

Surfing OB as a girl isn’t much different then a guy, except that I normally never see another girl when I am surfing. It doesn’t mean they don’t surf out there, because it’s a two-mile long beach, but there is probably one girl for every fifty guys that surf in San Francisco. It’s definitely nice to surf with girls cuz they are more fun, but I like to surf with guys a lot because they push me more. But OB can be pretty gnarly and a challenge for anyone. You definitely need to surf that spot a lot to get it down. Getting past the six foot shore break is challenge in itself, and so is the long paddle. And then you have to know how the current works out there to actually get to the line up. Even when it’s small, like six feet, there is a strong current. To get out to the lineup you have to catch current X that takes you to current Y that takes you to current Z, which takes you to the peak, and then you have to be constantly paddling to stay in the same place. If you sit on your board you can watch yourself drift down the beach. But on bigger days, OB can get pretty intense, it breaks really hard and hollow. I have had some nasty hold downs there.

What are you doing to get prepared for the WQS?

I have been doing a lot of training lately, like going to the gym and swimming a lot on a regular basis, I have been doing a lot of core work to get those abs in shape. But besides that I am just surfing a lot and working on new maneuvers and technical stuff. When I am in Baja this summer I am hoping to get into some bigger surf so I can practice surfing in some size. OB never got really big when I was there, so I didn’t get a lot of bigger wave surfing in these past six months. Every time OB was big, I was either in Baja or had a contest.

I hear you are known to rip it up at Scorpion Bay. How often do you make it down there?

I have been going down to Scorps since I was six months old and my parents have been going down there since the 70s, so its like my second home. I go down there about three or four times a year, so that is about four months out of the year. I love it down there, and once I am out of school, I plan to spend a lot of time down there.

What do you hope to be doing in 5 years?

Um…In five years I hopefully will be doing really well on the WQS and maybe eventually qualify for the WCT. I just want to be surfing professionally for a living in five years. I would be stoked on that.

What is one thing that most people would be surprised to learn about you?

I am very prone to accidents involving sharp things. I have been stung by two sting rays, stuck a Hawaiian spear all the way through my foot and back out, been stuck by a number of fishing hooks, fainted the last time I got a shot. There are too many incidents to remember, but you get the picture.

For more information about Kenzie check out her FirstStoke.com Profile Page.