I get are you bloody champions? Welcome to another Installing the Year project. It's Fatty Harps Craig Anthony Harper for about the millionth time with Matt Formston, who's a fucking gun. I've been reading about him, watching a little bit of him. He wouldn't call himself that. I'll call him that. Goody, Matt, how are you?
I'm good mate and thank you. I definitely wouldn't call myself.
That you're a gun son? You're a gun? Hey?
Where do we find you? Where you at?
I'm Matt Formston everywhere at Mattformston dot com.
Cool?
But where are you at geographically?
Oh? Today, I'm home, which is one Brall on the Central Coast, just north of Sydney.
And I see you've got looks like a dozen surfboards behind you. Is that an actual? Are they actual? Is that an actual room that you're in or is that a graphic?
Yeah? Now it's a room there my boards? Move on to wow, yeah.
That's real. Wow. How many boards do you have?
I've got about fifteen boards at any one time. I've sort of had a rule at one point with my wife that I could have ten. But that's just you know, we've got a few bags with boards in different places, and I don't really know the number, not to know the number that I don't have to count it.
Of course, what's the what's the thinking behind so many? Like I mean, I could understand three or four short board, long board, a couple of I mean, what's the Is it just that you're greedy? What is that about.
Each board? See, there's three main characteristics the board. Obviously you got your length and with and thickness are the three main things that people would know about. But then also you've got your rocker and your tail shape, and you know shape, so like I might have, I've got probably about five boards that are all six foot long, but they all work very very differently, and I'll use
them for different things. And then you got different so I'm more pulled into Like a narrower tail will will manage speed better, so I will wash off speed in more powerful waves, whereas a wider tail will generate more speed. So won't you probably use that in smaller waves or
fatter waves to generate speed rather than controlling speed. And then more thickness up under the under the chest will let your paddle better, but you might might catch as well and more faster, more critical parts of all waves. So you'd have it for like barrels and steeper waves, probably ever more pulled in nose which will be harder to paddle. And then for smaller waves, I have a wider nose which is easy to paddle and get that
entry speed for a small board. And then construction that you'll have a POxy boards which are lighter, which once work better in smaller waves, but then all use peu with probly ethane for more windy or choppy days because it'll cut through the chop. And then for big waves surfing, when I'm towing in on really big stuff, We've actually got lead in the board, so like most strain board's got five kilo of lead in it, and my board for nazarree is probably got ten kilos of lead in it.
What what is the what's the I mean?
Is it is it?
Is the attraction just that it's awesome and it's fun? Or is it for you? Is it therapy? Is it spiritual? Is it social because you're doing it with mates? Or is it all of the above?
Surfing in general?
Yeah, surfing general, all.
Of the above. Yeah, I prefer it to be with less mates these days. The ocean is very, very crowded everywhere in the world now, but you know that's the only part of it that's getting more challenging.
This is a dumb question to a surfer, but is there a favorite break for.
You anywhere where there's no other people? To my other point around crowdedness, it's it's now like I've definitely got credit break my favorite breaks around my local area. Look, I'll call one of them out because it's just ruined now. Like for most surfers, you ask them what their favite break is, I'm not going to tell you because they don't want to blow that spot up and everyone to go there are There's a spot near us called box Head, which is probably one of the longest left hand breaks
in Australia, maybe in the world. If it all connects up, it's like a kilometer long. We used to have so much fun there, but it's just every time there's a swell now there's like three hundred peop than the water. I basically don't surf there anymore.
It's not really worth going, is it.
So rather than me read something mate, tell my audience a little bit about you give us a little bit of the Matt Formstone bio, if you'd be so gracious.
So I'm blind. I've got three percent. I've got no central vision in about three percent peripheral vision. So it's just a big blur. I can see a little bit of shapes and lines and maybe, like people say, how far can you see? I can sort of see the line of the horizon, so I can see a long way away, but there's no detail, and then I can't see him on facial features straight in front of me. I am a paralympian. I was a world world champion cyclist,
world record holder as a cyclist. I'm a business business executive. I run sustainability for enterprise. I'm a dad, really proud dad, and a rugby league coach, junior footay coach, four time world champion surfer, big wave world record holder, and just just got a againess world record for the biggest wave ever served by a blonde person. And that's enough.
That's enough. That'll do. Now you just bragging? How big was that? How big was that wave? Mate?
Fifty one feet?
It's about five stories, so think everyone, think of a five story building or a twenty story building.
In the first five floors. I don't even know.
How do you get your sense of spatial awareness?
Matt?
How do you how do you do that without vision? How do you know where you are? I mean, I know there's dumb questions, but they're probably understandable, and I'm sure you've been asked a version of this, so I apologize, but we've never chatted.
How do you know where you are? How do you know where you're going?
And how do you know where you are on the wave.
It's a very reasonable question, but I'll say I'll answer it, but I'll also say it back to you. I'll preface it with a question, how do you walk?
Automatically? Instinctively? Intuitive?
Yes? Right? So e Then people say, how do you like? It's the same sort of question. I've been surfing for nearly forty years. It's like walking for me. I just do it, so it's really hard to explain how I do. And I've been surfing as a blind person for almost forty years too, right, So there's that element. But now that I've had to explain it a number of times.
I can feel the waves, so I can feel the water traveling up my rail on my board and but by the way it's traveled, the way the water comes up the rail of my board, and through you know, we talk about ten thousand hours becoming an expert. I've done one more than ten thousand hours of surfing. I can feel I've had that many stacks and wipeouts and got it wrong so many times. Like making mistakes a really important part of becoming good at something, and I've
made lots of mistakes. So through that, I now can feel with my board's doing. Like when I go down the wave, my front foot's basically my cane. Like I use a cane on land, sometimes my front foot becomes my cane. I can feel my way down the wave, then back up the wave, and the way the water
is tracking up the rail of my board. I know of the book, but if the wave is going to barrel so it's going to pitch over my head, or if I need to get further out in front of it, and then when I'm going up to do a turn, what it's doing. So I just feeling everything under my board, and I'm just one hundred percent present, so I'm not worried about the next section of just feeling what the wave's doing. Right now and then for fifty foot waves, I've got a few extra little bits that we've worked out,
so we use a whistle. So I'm obviously not paddling into waves that big. I'm getting towed in with the jet ski, so I'm on a tow rope. And then when the boys know that's the wave they want me to get into, they basically as I'm in the right spot, they blow like we go really out orienteering whistle. They blow that, and I just got to trust it. They've got me in the right spot, and I pull the rope and let go, and then it's the same process,
just feeling my way down the wave. But because I'm going so fast on those waves, you're doing sort of sixty five cornus an hour bit more. And as I said before, I got about ten kilos, I let in my board to hold my board in the water so
it doesn't start skipping out of the water. And then they I was turning too late on those bigger waves, so they worked out that they ride the corner of the wave on the ski and watch me, and they blow the whistle a second time, and then I can I turn, and then they blow the whistle a third time. I kick out of the wave. So it's a bit of feel and a bit of bit of information from the boys with the whistle.
Okay, now that all makes sense.
Here's my only here's my only question about your analogy between walking and surfing. If I was walking and blind, I'd be bumping into shit all the time.
Mate.
I'm good at walking, but I'm not good at navigating the world with my eyes closed.
And here's the here's the here's a bit of what that won't won't you won't be intuitive for you, but we'll click when I say it. Right, You're one hundred percent right. So walking is a lot harder for me than surfing. Wow, Because walking there's potholes and gutters and cars and trees and low hanging branches and things that just want to get me and hurt me all the time. And I've forever got brushins and rolled ankles and I'm
forever injured. In the surf, I've hit a bit of a bumper, fall off on them and water.
Yeah, And I guess in a way.
That the ocean is this is going to sound maybe this is wrong, but I feel like it's more predictable for you than terra FIRMA.
Yeah, I wouldn't say more predictable, but just more forgiving. Like I can slide, like as I go off, I can slide and move my feet around. Whereas once I've rolled my ankle or I've hit a toaball it's too late, you know what I mean, smashed my touchin into a table into a table. And but also I can go full gas, like if I run anywhere, it's like unless it's a controlled environment, run on the beach, and I make sure I run into the locations where it's pretty safe.
Yeah it's bad, right, Like if I'm like snowboarding, for example, I go snowboarding. If I get it wrong, I go with the cliff. That's a really bad outcome. Or run into a tree at high speed, very bad outcome. Whereas I can go as fast and as crazy as I like in the surf and as long as my body's physically fit enough and strong enough, and I can, I can. I've trained as a big wave surfer. I've trained to
hold my breath. I can stand the water for almost six minutes, So you know, I've got all those physical components that are no different to me than they are enable body. Big wave surfer. I'm just probably going to get it wrong more than they do because I can't see.
Does your missus never say to you listen, squeeze and that's no fucking snowboarding for you.
She used to, but she realized when she does that, it does it's I then probably go bigger. So which I'm still trying to get that out of that little teenage brain out of my body that has that rebellion. But look, I'm toying with the idea of doing a free diving world record at the moment because of that breath capacity I have from big wave surfing. And she's like, can we not do this? But it's, you know, it's just who I am. I'm just inquisitive about what's next.
How old are you? How old are you?
I turned forty six yesterday.
Wow, you look amazing, dude, Happy birthday.
Thank you.
It's funny speaking of people who love the ocean, right. So two of my friends are Trevor Handy, who I'm sure you know of, ye and Tammy van Wissa, who you might not know of.
Do you know who Tammy van Wissa is? Yeah?
So I chatted with her yesterday on the show, and I used to train her. Someone excise physiologists, but I used to train her and she was for quite a long time the world's best female endurance swimmer swimmer, and both both Trevor and Tammy talk about how therapeutic the ocean is for them, like it's almost you know, meditative, spiritual, whatever you want to call it. Do you feel like your home when you're in the ocean?
Does it make for sure? I can't be away from it? Like when I was when I was a psycho pro cyclist, I'd spend months in Europe racing in like very landlocked areas, and as I was getting deeper into that time, I could fielm my psychology and I suppose my motion and everything just needing that that that top up from the ocean. And so yeah, I just now I get it every day. I just need it. And it's anything like I went ice skating with my kids yesterday and that's always playoffs
ice hockey as well. But it's still water, right, It's the something to do with that, like it's frozen water, but it's it's water, and I think and anything to do with the water sport, I love it because it's just the feel of flow, and water. You know, it doesn't have tables, so it's always fun.
Yeah, that is true. Yeah, nice observation. Tell me about So I'm fascinated with high performance. I talk about it all the time, and I've worked with lots of teams and athletes and organizations and stuff. What's what's your kind of And I'm sure it's varied, but in terms of sleep and recovery and training and nutrition and you know, optimizing your physiology, give us a bit of an insight into how you do all that.
So right now, look, it's totally tuned back when I was a cyclist, as you know, that is a fitness sport. Like there's no there's very There's not a lot of technique involved. It's whoever is the fittest, whoever has the most strength and power to weight ratio, they're basically going to win because obviously there's technique involved. But when you're in the top twenty in the world, everyone's got similar technique.
It just comes down to fitness. So when I was doing that sport, it was crazy, like I I'd have to be in bed by nine o'clock every night to get up and train every day. It's full fifteen six days a week doing sort of one hundred and twenty k's ish to two hundred k's a morning, and then I do gym and I was like seventy three. I'm about ninety kilos now as a surfer, and you know, I'm a little bit more body fault that I was carrying as a cyclist, but I'm pretty fit human. I
was racing as a cyclist at seventy three kilos. They're just not eating at all. But while I was seventy three kilos, I was lead pressing four hundred and forty kilos. The power to weight ratio was crazy.
That's ridiculous.
And forty kilos so that's like forty five degree leg press plate loaded.
Was it correct? Yeah, like every every twenty and twenty five kilo plate in the gym basically, Yeah.
Wow, that's incredible. And how tall are you? I'm trying to figure out what that ninety kilo took? Six foot so six ft and ninety so, like you're a strong, solid lump of an athlete. Like you're not skinny, You're not gargantuan, but you're definitely not skinny.
Yeah.
No, I'm not the smallest human getting around, But I'm definitely a presence.
So what what is your you know, when we talk about what we do?
You know?
So whether or not like for me, I started a PhD at fifty six, So I do podcasting, I do corporate speaking.
I've been training. I'm sixty.
I've been training in a gym every day in my life since I was fourteen.
Blah blah blah.
So they're the things that they're my wat's, But I'm interested in the why behind the what, like what what's your what's your why? With the pushing, the striving, the raising the bar, the trying new things, the danger, the uncertainty, the vulnerability.
What's the driver for all of that? Do you know?
Yeah? So it's evolved for me over the years. So definitely when I was younger, it definitely was too There was the f you to the world to say, can you keep telling me? Because I got told, you know, when I was five, and my parents got told, your child's got disability, he has to go to a school for kids with special needs. He won't get an education, he won't have friends, he won't play sport, he won't have a career, all these things. That was the prognosis.
Terrible what kind of terrible fucking input is that from people.
Who says that, Well, all the experts, so that you know, the specialists, a doctors, the school principal, the school teachers. So my parents had to fight that trend. And and I was in a mainstream school and not like he has to leave the mainstream school, and like, but he's doing okay at the mainstream school, so why does he have to leave? So I was lucky that my parents had that within them like myself. My dad was a sales and marketing director, so he's used to having challenging
conversations with people. And basically so I stayed in that school. So I went through and I was one of the not many kids with disabilities went through in the eighties. They were just kids with disability didn't go through mainstream schooling. And because of that, the teachers weren't set up for me, so they you know, it was it was always hard, but there was always this thing like you can't. And I played rugby league for multiple years. I ended up
playing representative rugby union. I played ice hockey to a representative level. But every time I start one of those sports, people like the blind kid can't play like this, can't, can't, can't. So the whole world was always saying you can't do it. So my brain, my whole, my whole psychology is I
can do it. I'll prove you wrong, you know. And that was that was my that was my why back then, and that carried on and then I and then I got really sick when I was about sixteen, got glandular feval, was in bed for six weeks and the doctor said, if you play footy so that that that time was rugby league, ruby union, sorry, and ice hockey either or and you get a stick to the ribs or a big tackle one of the ribs, that you could have a ruptured'splain because of my honest. So I missed the
whole season. Then I couldn't. I have had all these processes I used around following the ball and hearing the park go across the ice and I lost all that, And then the kids got better and stronger, and I just couldn't keep up anymore. So I found partying and I found you know, I found drugs, and I just I went down this really toxic spiral. It was it got into like I was fighting because I've got bullied at school. So my way of dealing with the bullies was to bash them. So I broke kids fingers and
say how many fingers? And my holding upsides, so how many things you want to keep? All this really toxic stuff. And that went off about ten years and then I found my way out and I was in my late twenties. I basically got my first executive role in corporate. Within a year, I started writing for Australia, met my wife, and it all just turned around because I decided I took ownership of my life in instead of trying to say f you to the world and prove everybody wrong.
It's just like what I took ownership of what I want to do. Who do I want to be? Like? I wasn't That wasn't the human I wanted to be. On knew I could. I could be better for myself and for the world. And since that time, now it's about best being inquisitive about what's possible for me. And because of that that ten year hiatus, I'm like, I only died right. I was lucky I didn't end up dead or in jail. And because of that, I've got this now, I've got this perspective of life like, I
don't want to go back to that. I know how bad that is. And that's what I suppose why I can train as hard as I do because I did train hard as an athlete when I was younger. I had to train harder than all the kids that could see to be the fittest kid on the field. And then I know, now you know that what brought that toxic party life is like as well, and I don't want to be part of that. So I just just pushed myself. That's just being inquisitive. So I take on this next
journey of free diving. It's just because I'm inquisitive about what's possible from them and what's possible for human beings.
Yeah, and with all of that, I love that. I love that turnaround. I love that story. Was there a was it just a cumulative thing, Matt over ten years of going this is not fucking working. Or was there a light bulb moment? Was there an epiphany an event?
There was? There was no light bulb moment, but there was there was light bulb moments. So there was one time when I, and I tell this story very often, but there was one time when I, like I woke up after after being like a blackout of partying way too hard and not knowing what was going on. And I had I had like BRUI MT knuckles and had blood alab me, which wasn't mine. That was one moment
in my early twenties. And then I had a few relationships that didn't weren't successful, and you know, when you look at it at the time, it's easy to blame someone else, but then when you look into it, you're level. I was, you know, there's two people in that in that relationship, so there was there wasn't. And then my work, like my career was sort of stagnating. And then I was like, you know, if I take ownership and I change these behaviors, I can be a better man, be
more successful, animal, happy man. And I wasn't happy, you know, and I really wanted to have I wanted to become a dad, I wanted to be a husband, and that were things that really important to me. And I knew that I needed to change things in me to be to make that a successful thing. So you know, I made those changes over a couple of years. And then once I made a few of the minor changes around stop partying and having goals like once I had that
goal of writing for Australia. That was really good because it changed that I couldn't then go drinking. I couldn't go do these things because then I've set my training backs. So they were they were just things that all clicked in that all helped me get there really quickly in the.
Middle of you know, like the mix of ambition and anger and dealing with the stuff that you were dealing in that ten year period. Was there ever moments of and if there was, I would understand, because I think I would.
But was there ever moments of self pity like woe was?
Yeah, I'm sure there was. I don't really remember it, but yeah, I think definitely through the relationship breakdowns there was a lot of that you know, why why am I having to do this? You know, you know, why am not good enough? All that type of stuff. Yeah, I'm sure there was in my career as well, like where you know I looked because well, to be honest, the world not a not set up for people with disabilities.
I'm a massive advocate now and I work a lot in the disability space, on the chair of the Disability Network at optice and through that, I've got a really good lens of what what disability looks like in the corporate world. And like at the moment, there's a huge gap between the amount of people with the don't have a disability to do a disability with employment like where it's it's a huge gap. So the opportunity to start there.
But like in the corporate environment, a lot of the systems don't work, so there's an opportunity to just go whole is me, you know, like it's not working for me, so I'm not going to do it. But but there was obviously there just you know, through that whole change a period I was like, you know what it is, what it is, So I'm just gonna have to work with what it is. We work with the tools I've
got and do the best I can. And I used to hide my disability so when I first, you know, were a first couple of jobs, I wouldn't tell people that I was blind because I can get around a little bit and sort of fake it. Do you make it? But then I realized, you know what, that's actually my strength because I lead with So I'm on a few boards and now like I'm going for very very senior roles.
When I'm going for those roles, I'm going straight in with I've got disability, but despite because of my disability, I'm a very good problem solver. I've got huge amounts of resilience. I've got all these attributes that I've built because of my disability. So I lead with my disability now rather than hiding it. And that's been a big mind shift for me, and I try and help. You know, other people use that to go you know, but just
your difference actually makes you better. And as market as there any business person you talk to, they'd say, oh, when we need like what's the differentiator, Like every car is the same, every TV is the same, but what's your differentiator? But then, as humans, we hide our difference rather than leading that difference. So I think, you know, that's something that we wanted to do better hundred percent.
And I mean I think about you navigating the world with pretty much no vision. Like you said, you're constantly solving problems. But it also means like problem solving is a form of creativity, right, So you're always having to think outside the box, whereas the rest of us just walk across the road. Unconsciously or do whatever, or open the gates, shut the gates, slide the bolt, da da da da, like all these things that for us are unconscious and you know, without thought.
Like for you, that's a very different prospect.
And I just, yeah, I agree with you, and I'm not saying that to just endorse you, but I think, you know, there's some research out recently that people with dyslexia are three times more likely to become millionaires than people without because people with dyslexia, obviously, you know, can't read either can't read at all times or can't read well at all, so they have to navigate, and of course you too, but they have to navigate this world that is to an extent dependent dependent on.
Being able to read shit, and they can't.
So they end up being like you, really adaptable, flexible, able to improvise, adapt overcome, survive, thrive in the middle of pressure, and deal with all of the atypicalness of existing in a world where you're not like most people in the room. I mean, yeah, I think that communication.
Is a key part of that too. Now, I just think communications keep out of that too. I are a lot of sales teams and a lot of the time people just want to talk to people, Whereas I think if you've got this lext or something, you become a very good listener because that's your only way that you can consume information. So and I think that's a key
skill that a lot of us don't have. And we because we can read or I can't read, but because other people can read, they just go, I'm not going to focus now because they can just read the document, Whereas if you don't have to do that, you have to you have to focus on what's happening and understand the concept. So if you're not understanding, you ask questions, which makes you're very good communicator.
I also feel Matt like doing this stuff that you've had to do, Like you can't wake up tomorrow and go, you know what, I'm not going to do blindness today.
Fuck it.
You know everybody else can go, fuck, I'm not going to the gym, or I'm not going to do my run or you know, a friend of mine, Joel's a quadriplegic, and I always talk about him and he can't get up today and go, you know what, fuck quadriplegia.
I'm not doing it, Like.
Yeah, fuck it. I'm just going to walk today. I can't be bothered being qudriplegic, right, And the same with you. But like when you, when you don't have the option of easy, where you have to do hard, then you become strong and resilient, you know, almost just as a byproduct of your day to day function. Whereas at the moment, I don't know what you think about this, I think to an extent because of the great modelly coddling of the twenty first century, where we don't want anyone to
participate in a sport where they might lose. We don't want to give out, you know, we don't want to fuck. Don't let them, don't let's not keep score, you know, let's let's nerve the world. Don't let them climb because they might hurt them. Like I feel like, you know, in an intelligent and a caring way, like a motcom of pain and discomfort and uncertainty is good.
Right, don't get me started on this topic, mate.
Oh come on, let's hear it. Son fucking open the door. Bro. Come on, Well, my boy, my.
Boys play league and my son, my oldest son's ten. He's his team last year was undefeated. They and then everyone knows the score. This whole bass about not keeping the score. Every parent, every child, everyone knows the score. They go to school and they get marked at school. They get graded at school. They know who's the best reader, who's not the best reader. But then they go into the sporting environment, they're not allowed to be compared to each other. Yes, and all my son wants to do
is win a premiership. He all he wants to know is what the other teams are doing. All the other kids all they want and there's just been taken away from them. It's horrendous and it takes away resilience. And then they didn't know when they're going to introduce it. They introduce so now for regular argue, they've taken it from under tens. It used to be undertends and now they've moved up to Thirteen's what's one of the hardest things you have to do with in your life, transitioning
from from primary school to high school. So they're not just taking those children that they're having to do with going to high school and that transition, they're going to make them learn about losing when they're going to high school.
Yes, yes, it's just crazy.
And also you think about like when you step out of that bubble mate, Yeah, okay, now you're now you're getting a job or you're going to university. By the way, no one gives a fuck about you or your feelings. Right, It's not your boss's job, or your university lecture's job, or the world's job to manage your feelings and emotions. And if we're constantly running into ference and trying to protect somebody's feelings until they're thirty, fucking we're not allowing them to build resilience.
Yeah, well, this is one of the things. Back to my diagnosis, my dad was having. So when I start first started playing rugby league, Dad's having a beer with a couple of mates and they said, oh, does Matt have any mates that want to play because we're short on the team. This is like an underfile. I was under six's team and Dad said, well, made your play. And instead of those dads going good on you, my
dad's name is Don. Good on your Don for letting giving your son with a disability opportunity to play, and you have a try it if he files in, you know whatever. Instead of doing that, they went, oh, no, Don, your son's blind, like he can't play, You're putting him in harm's way and making him out to be the bad parents. That was the whole tone of narrative throughout my whole childhood was when my parents gave me opportunity to do things, the whole community would say, you're bad
parents because you're putting him in harm's way. Wowow, But we all know now that that we should know that has set me up to be the athlete that I am. Like I've been dominant in multiple sports because I've got to do to play against people that were ever bodied and then like the contrast of that as well as I then went on to play representative rugby union on the northern beach of the Sydney which is like one of the brooding grounds for rugby union in a time
when rugby was very successful. So like, when you think about who all those other kids that are turning up to rep triyouts, how the hell did the kid that's got at the time five percent vision get selected over other kids? Because I wanted it more and I was more focused on my job. I knew what my job was and I wasn't trying to be everything to everyone, And you know, float around, which just shows you know, if you give, if you give an opportunities and you
take them, then the world opens up for you. If you don't take your opportunities, or if you know, if you're hide away in the corner, or if you protect people from what might happen, they're never going to flourish and they're never gonna have those experiences to fail and learn.
Yeah, yeah, I love it. So you've got a movie. Is it a movie or a doco? You've got coming out soon?
It's a doco, it's a documentary. It's a nine. It's a full featured documentary movie. It's we actually launched at the Sydney Film Festival. We just did two screenings, all sold out there. We're getting great reviews. Then we go like we go cinemas nationally on the fifteenth of August. But we're so the premiere release will be at the Sydney Opera House on the eleventh of August. So that's all all happening right now. It's called The Blind c Sea.
The Blind ce. Oh that's great, mate. And how did that come about? Who filmed it, whose idea was it?
What?
How long did it take?
So it was filmed by a company called Brick Studios. The directors Daniel Finec or Finec. We've been we've worked together on a few little small clips like through the Rio Paralympics, and people have been saying, you need a movie, you need to do a movie, and you know, it's one of those things people said, you need to make a movie, but your life it's a bit of a you know, you laugh and good good on you, and
then look at an opportunity to come up. We got some funding so said let's do this and then we were sort so the first forty five it's a ninety minute film. The first forty five minutes is my backstory and my parents telling that the stuff we've talked about today, and then must equip it on my cycling career and break ended up breaking a world record which is an able body world record for four kilometers on the goor droone.
And then it transitions into surfing, and the last forty five minutes is Nazaree so the big wave, which is the biggest wave in the world and finishes up with me breaking the Guinness World Record for a big wave for a parasurfer. So that's the short and long of it. But yeah, he's got some great.
It's called the Blind Sea. Everyone's going to be in cinemas. August thirteen. I was talking yesterday, as I said to you earlier about with Tammy van Wisa, and she swam just under two and a half thousand kilometers. Mate, she swam the Murray River right now, didn't It took her one hundred and I think it was one hundred and thirteen days. She broke the record by I think thirty one days if I'm not right right, which was held by a bloke. She swam in one hundred and thirteen days.
She did not have one day off. That's the condition of the record. You can't have any days off. Fucking brown snakes, tiger snakes, lots, mud infections, like it's it's not a dirty river, but it's a muddy river, so
it's dirty time. It's fucking horrible. And I've trained lots of athletes, but I reckon you're in the same category of all the And I've worked with AFL teams, I've worked with Olympians, I've worked with you know, fighters and MMA athletes, and she's the toughest athlete I've ever trained, right, just in terms of and dealing with you know, like she swam lock Ness, which is fucking freezing forty kilometers, right, and yeah, she's just the toughest, the toughest athlete I've
ever worked with. But I'm thinking, did you say the four k's.
On the velodrome that you yeah?
That, I mean people who don't like as an x I sign, that's just fucking Firstly, how many minutes.
Is that we did? Four to eleven? Four minutes? So that's just so.
That's just two hundred and fifty one seconds of pain, Like that's just well, maybe not the first ten, but from there, I mean, how do you deal with getting in that level of discomfort? I'd be interested to know you lactate threshold, by the way, that would that would have been just four minutes of agony, wouldn't it.
Look it's the first three minutes aren't too bad because you're sort of building up, you're staying within your threshold. I mean, and when I say not too bad, not too bad as an elite athlete, so the norm of him being it would probably be unmanageable. But when you've trained at that level and you never do foks as a when you train to that level, you never do a four k effort ever in training because your body then your body remembers how bad it is and won't
do it. So you're tricking your body, so you trick your Only the longest effort you ever do is three k's in training and then that last k and then you do longer rides, so you do one hundred and twenty k rides or whatever, but you never do four gas four k's until you do it, until you do it to your race. And they say every time you do one of those, you basically take it because the amount of stress it puts on your heart, it takes about a year off your life. That's how that's how
bad it is. So you're you're done so once and once you train to that level as well, like you you go so deep that you can't actually you squeeze everything out of your body. You can't get yourself off the bike. So we like finish the effort and then we just roll around and we need like there's twenties and mechanics that actually help us stop and get off the bike. It's that's that's the level you get to. But it was it was painful, but the emotional part
that got through me through it. My my oldest son was six weeks old at the time, so I was away my son and my wife was looking after our baby, and I was, you know, as that started, that last minute was hurting. I was just like, and the thing about my parents, what they went through and their kids, and that just you know, that stuff just still gets me emotional talking about it, but that I might just suck it up, mate, get it done. And that was the thing we beat, like, we beat the Spanish and
it was in the heat. And the world record that day was four minutes sixteen because it was on a on a tandem obviously for people that are older would know that the tanna just used to race at the Olympics, not just in the Paralympics. So that was that was an able body world record, which was four sixteen, and we raced that attitude and that morning the Spanish went out into the four twelve, so four minutes and twelve seconds. So we're just like, we're going to do a four eleven,
but everyone else has got their heads down. So me and mix that I rode with, we just went bang, Well, if they can do a four twelve week, and it's just that self belief, right, so we're just like, we're to do a four eleven. We put a gear on which no one had ever was a massive year because obviously on the track you've got a fixed gear. No one had ever didden this gear ever in any race any in the world, and we hadn't written it in training. We just got it built because we thought we thought
we might be able to ride on it. One day we chuck this gear on. I think it was like a fifty eight teeth gear. It was massive and anyway we write, we kind of hard to get it out of the gate and then we wound the thing up and then by the end we broke the world record. But it was it was that thing of you know, I'm just doing it for my family. Really, that's what got me through the last minute.
That's amazing, bro. There would have been a slow start without fifty eight to one thing.
And because that, yeah, we came.
Out of the game and we actually rolled down the board, so we rolled almost roll off because just trying to get the things started. But then once we got through the first three or four pedal strikes, it was we got on top of it.
Now before we wind up, tell me about freedomving. That doesn't seem like a good idea. I mean, I'm no expert, but that does seem like a great idea, and that's.
Probably a good thing. Like one of the things I built a ond my my extreme sports career is managing real risk and perceived risks. So everyone's got this perceived risk around big wave surfing and free diving. There's a lot of people have died doing free diving, but when you look at the risk they do, they'll buy themselves or they're fully being a little bit reckless in competition. Only one person's ever died from in free diving competition.
So I'll be managing it the way I do anything else and being very you know, I'll be sending it as hard as I can, but I'll also be doing it in the most controlled way possible and managing risks. But look, I trained to for Nazuree. I trained myself to hold my breath for nearly six minutes. So if I can build on that a little bit, because that was obviously that was an elevated heart rate for big wave surfing, whereas free diving, I'll be less heart rate.
So if I can push that, then I'll be older. Yeah, I'd say I'll be able to set a fairly significant record for the power paraphletic community.
It's a very unique physiological requirement doing that, isn't it, Because it's kind of and your body the whole time, your body is like, what are you doing?
This is stupid? Stop, you know, because.
It'll come back to psychology though. I've just got to stay home and trust my trust that my body is doing what it's trained to do.
Yeah, yeah, that's amazing.
Hey, mate, if people want to find you or follow you, I know you're a conference speaker, you inspire and educate people around the all around the country and beyond. How do people connect with you and even book you.
Anywhere? So you find me on social channels, But the easiest way it's just at my website Mattformston dot com, which is f O R M st O N and yeah, reach out and would love to come and inspire your team or do whatever we can.
Awesome, And the movie comes out in all good cinemas and shit ones on August thirteenth, fifteenth.
Correct, go on, yeah, August fifteenth, We've got all We've got Hoots Village and whatever the other one is that it's in all cinemas fifteenth of August.
We'll go palace.
Who knows the other one? Yeah, exactly. We'll say goodbye offair in a minute. But Maddie, really nice to meet you. You're inspirational. You know that that's not a revelation. But thanks for chatting with me on the new project.
Thank you so much for having me.
Thanks Man