Rites of passage , once central to marking life’s transitions, have faded in modernity. As we navigate rising anxiety, social fragmentation, and a world where technology permeates nearly all aspects of our shared human experience, what role could a revival of rites of passage play in reclaiming our resilience and our capacity for social cohesion? Dr Arne Rubenstein is the CEO and Founder of the Rites of Passage Institute . His goal is to make Rites of Passage mainstream once again. He has over 3...
Jun 25, 2025•1 hr 16 min•Season 7Ep. 4
What moves you through the world? In the most literal sense, it's the same answer for all of us: muscle. In On Muscle , Bonnie Tsui brings her signature blend of science, culture, immersive reporting, and personal narrative to examine not just what muscles are - but what they mean to us. Bonnie attended Harvard University, where she rowed crew, snowboarded, and studied American literature. She came to surfing in her late 20s after relocating to California. Today, Bonnie lives, swims, and surfs i...
Jun 08, 2025•1 hr 20 min•Season 7Ep. 3
How much has your homebreak shaped you - your life, livelihood, the person you've become? The quirkiness of Dylan Graves ' Puerto Rican homebreak shaped a lifelong obsession, and subsequent career in chasing, riding, and documenting Weird Waves around the globe. Tidal bores, standing waves, wedges, glacial calving swells; Dylan's Youtube channel shares an astonishing diversity of wavelengths. While the focus of Dylan's wildly successful series is taking viewers to obscure and novel waves on the ...
Jun 08, 2025•1 hr 55 min•Season 7Ep. 2
Besides being a professor of chemistry, Dr. Sarah Gerhardt was the first woman to ride one of the world’s most feared waves, Mavericks in icy Northern California. She is a mother of two and acknowledged as the first female tow-in surfer. Amidst a tumultuous childhood, Sarah found stability in an unexpected place: The Periodic Table of Elements. Sarah learned to surf in the late '80s at Pismo Beach, California. In time, surfing became her escape from the hardships of home and faith became the gui...
Jun 08, 2025•1 hr 11 min•Season 7Ep. 1
When was the last time you followed a spark of curiosity all the way to some distant shoreline? Kiana Weltzien 's ocean adventures began in 2016 when she left her real estate career in Miami for a year of travel. Along the way, she met a mentor and moved onto his boat; a replica Polynesian double-canoe. She sensed that this was her new way of life. In 2018, Kiana acquired her own boat, Mara Noka, a modern Polynesian double-canoe. Despite her limited sailing knowledge, Kiana navigated challenging...
May 17, 2025•1 hr 3 min•Season 6Ep. 12
What's lost when we hand over skills or experiences to technology ? We sat down with localisation pioneer Helena Norberg-Hodge to learn more about the waves of radical economic and social changes she has experienced first hand. In 1975, as a student of linguistics amongst the glacial melt of the Himalayas, Helena witnessed the rapid erosion of traditional culture that followed the introduction of Western ideas and economics to the isolated territory of Ladakh, or "Little Tibet." As an economist,...
Feb 05, 2025•49 min•Season 6Ep. 18
How do we make magic boards last longer? Gary McNeill and Dave have been experimenting with alternative, non-petrochemical materials for the last decade. The front runner in their experiments? Flax cloth, for board strength and durability. Stab recently ran The Electric Acid Surfboard Test , to explore the validity of their flax tinkerings. This episode features the flax master himself, shaper Gary McNeill . Gazza absolutely fizzes about all things board design. He's an accomplished competitive ...
Feb 03, 2025•1 hr•Season 6Ep. 15
How do you better a culture? How do we better surf culture? Dr. Krista Comer is a scholar of American literature and cultural politics. She has written widely about women and surfing as a way "to build bridges between university and community, or subcultural knowledges. Because we need each other to understand the worlds we inhabit, and to make better worlds. I need bridges to stay true to who I am, my own histories and hopes for the future." Dr. Comer offers clarifying perspectives on the gende...
Dec 23, 2024•48 min•Season 6Ep. 18
Many professional athletes struggle to transition from their sport-as-career. The highs are often out of reach for pedestrian life - especially for pro surfers who spend their years in whirlwinds of hedonistic wave chasing. For Puerto Rican tube connoisseur Otto Flores , the key to transition was community. After many national titles and a spell on the World Qualify Series, Otto veered away from competitive surfing and toward chasing perfect waves of consequence, a decision that landed him on th...
Dec 21, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Season 6Ep. 14
Called the "most underrated sports person in Australia" and the "greatest Bells surfer of all time” Gail Couper has been both: at the centre and the sideline of surf culture and sport for the better part of her 77 years. She's seen a lot change, and helped to lay the foundation for Aussie surf culture as we know it today. Gail is a five-time national champion, and 10-time winner of the prestigious Bells Beach/Djarrak event. In the year 2000, she was inducted into the Australian Surfing Hall of F...
Dec 21, 2024•53 min•Season 6Ep. 17
How many kids from Tennessee end up devoting their life to the world's heaviest waves? At least one. That's Lane Davey: Pipe Disciple, PhD, journalist and college lecturer at UH Mānoa. Lane has dedicated much of her adult life to being present in the line-up at Pipeline – she was long the lone woman amongst the sword fight. We trace her unlikely trajectory from growing up in Tennessee, to breakdancing, and surfing some of the most notorious waves on the planet. Lane talks us through the importan...
Dec 21, 2024•58 min•Season 6Ep. 16
We’re getting tangential. This episode is part of a three episode slip slide behind the scenes of a project that Dave’s been working on for the better part of 2024: The Electric Acid Surfboard test . It's a series that explores “alternative” surfboard design. Basically, iconic surfers on left-field, experimental surf craft. Our very own aquatic wombat, renowned question repeater, one David Rastovich, is this year’s test pilot. It's no secret: the stuff we use to go surfing is pretty toxic. Neopr...
Nov 19, 2024•1 hr 13 min•Season 6Ep. 13
Who modelled kindness for you? Who showed you how to be kind and curious in the face of difference? Before he was a Fulbright Scholar, Jamie Brisick surfed on the ASP world tour from 1986 to 1991, and has since documented surf culture extensively. His writings and photographs have appeared in The New Yorker , The New York Times , and The Guardian. Jamie hosts the podcast Soundings and is the author of several books, including We Approach Our Martinis With Such High Expectations , and Becoming We...
Nov 07, 2024•1 hr 15 min•Season 6Ep. 11
Longevity in any career begs for reinvention. With more than a decade at the pro surfing game, Josie Prendergast has been navigating new waters in her career - by taking the reins on her own storytelling. Born in Siargao and raised in both Australia and the Philippines, Josie is a standout surfer on any craft – from 10+ gliders to fishes – and she’s expert at nasal navigation on heavy logs. We caught up with Josie for her first podcast experience between surfs in Byron – where she talked us thro...
Oct 20, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Season 6Ep. 10
Did sailing have more to do with early human locomotion than the wheel? Hanneke Boon , head of James Wharram Designs , suggests that may be so. Born in the Netherlands, Hanneke grew up in a sailing family. She was building and sailing Polynesian Catamarans at the age of fourteen and joined the James Wharram team at the age of 20. A gifted artist / graphic designer / craftworker, she became James Wharram's co-designer. For half a century, all Wharram Designs have been marked with her signature. A...
Sep 23, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Season 6Ep. 9
Over the last half century, Bob McTavish has shaped thousands of custom surfboards. Always an innovator in surfboard design and technology, Bob pioneered cutting edge changes to the basic concept of a surfboard. In 1965, he started tinkering with rail and bottom design to maximise performance . This was part of the movement that would become known as the shortboard revolution, in which Bob’s role was pivotal, but only part of his ongoing contribution to the evolution of the surfboard. Now in his...
Aug 30, 2024•58 min•Season 6Ep. 8
Did you feel safe in your childhood home? If not, were you able to leave, or did you have to stay? Ruby Southwell hit the road, travelling solo for years, searching for guidance. What she found was a deep and clear inner well - and a renewed love for riding waves. At age 22, Ruby moved to Indonesia’s remote Mentawai Islands, where she surf guided, taught herself how to tube ride, and lived offgrid with a local family for just over two years. Ruby is known as a wildly talented navigator of weight...
Aug 14, 2024•1 hr 19 min•Season 6Ep. 7
What's the most challenging experience you've faced? Did it ultimately hinder or heighten your self-clarity? Brett Burcher is a heavy water specialist - a slab hunter who chases the thickest waves to some of the most far flung locations. He was given an irrevocable invitation to learn to lay down, be still and breathe when he hit the reef and suffered a spinal cord injury in remote South Australia. We wanted to talk story with Brett not only for his crazy stories of stretching the edges of his g...
Jul 26, 2024•1 hr 9 min•Season 6Ep. 6
As a follow up to our episode with heavy water specialist Brett Burcher we wanted to share a couple of breathwork practices that Brett found most practical in his own life - whether he’s dealing with insomnia, or about to drop into a bomb set wave. This is a levelling breath practice— not an upper or downer -- just a way to reconnect with a gentle balanced breath state. Send us a text ... Listen with Lauren L. Hill & Dave Rastovich Sound + Video Engineer: Ben J Alexander Theme song: Shannon ...
Jul 26, 2024•7 min
In this bonus episode slab hunter Brett Burcher takes us through an energising breath practice that he’s found useful when you need a little extra pep in your step. This is your reminder: breathe like you mean it. Send us a text ... Listen with Lauren L. Hill & Dave Rastovich Sound + Video Engineer: Ben J Alexander Theme song: Shannon Sol Carroll Additional music by Kai Mcgilvray + Ben J Alexander Join the conversation: @Waterpeoplepodcast ... Get monthly musings and behind the scenes conten...
Jul 26, 2024•3 min
“Whether or not you think you belong to the Earth is irrelevant, for you simply do. By virtue of breathing in you receive a gift of oxygen given by the tree and soil, by virtue of breathing out you gift carbon dioxide to the kelp so the fish may have their home. To accept our shared responsibility to the Earth, IS to remember our belonging.” – Nidala Barker Nidala is a surfer, musician and custodianship educator. She traces part of her ancestral roots to the Djugun and Jabirr-Jabirr people of th...
Jul 06, 2024•1 hr 37 min•Season 6Ep. 5
Why are some octogenarians still surfing, while others struggle to walk up the stairs? It isn’t luck. Harvard and Stanford trained Orthopaedic surgeon Kevin R. Stone, MD , believes that injuries present as opportunities to better our athletic potential - they can make us fitter, faster, and stronger than before. He is the author of Play Forever: How to Recover From Injury and Thrive. Dr. Kevin Stone is a waterman and a world-renowned expert in biologic joint replacement. He founded The Stone Cli...
Jun 23, 2024•50 min•Season 6Ep. 4
How to fund a pro surfing career in the 1980s? Sell stickers, Levi’s jeans, bicycles, whatever. Sleep in your board bag. Live on a diet of mushrooms and bread. World Champion Pauline Menczer got resourceful and hustled however it took to get her to the next stop of the tour. “In the 80s and 90s, surf culture was toxic, especially towards women. Pauline was a dirt-poor, chronically ill teen from Bondi, who defied insults and intimidation to make a name for herself in the surfing world. When Pauli...
Jun 09, 2024•1 hr 25 min•Season 6Ep. 3
When is surfing about more than just selfish wave hoggery? Mozambique’s first professional surfer, Sung Min Cho , or ‘Mini’ for short, is writing a new story for surfing – he’s part of a burgeoning surf culture rising from the wake of three decades of armed conflict in the region. In 2018, Mini co-counded Tofo surf club , Mozambique’s outpost of Surfers Not Street Children , which empowers street kids through surf coaching and mentorship. The effort has been funded in part by Pope Francis . Mini...
Jun 08, 2024•1 hr 12 min•Season 6Ep. 2
Ever want to pack up normalcy and set sail over the horizon? What’s it really like to live at sea for a year and rarely be further than 35 feet from your new significant other? Torren Martyn and Aiyana Powell talk us through the peaks and troughs of life aboard Calypte, a borrowed 35-foot sailing boat that they spent 12 months sailing 9,000-kilometres - from Pattaya in the Gulf of Thailand to Lombok, an Indonesian island east of Bali - a journey chronicled in their new independent film Calypte ....
Jun 08, 2024•1 hr 36 min•Season 6Ep. 1
The loudest human-made sounds: Nuclear Bomb (224 dB), Rocket launch (204 dB). And clocking in at 260 underwater decibels is the seismic blast, part of a process for exploring for oil and gas in the ocean. Unlike bombs and rockets, however, seismic blasts "fire approximately every 10 seconds around the clock for months at a time." For eight years, Marine Biologist Annie Ford worked onboard seismic blasting vessels, and felt the relentless explosions and reverberations from her bed at night. She h...
Jan 17, 2024•1 hr 43 min•Season 5Ep. 15
Are you investing in yourself and your curiosities? At 63, Sally Parkin sold her home to spend the better part of 2023 surfing in Australia with her family. Sally is known for "single handedly" reviving the 100 year old tradition of English surfing on wooden bodyboards. She first surfed one at age 5, and decades later, when her family's quiver started to break, she realised there was only one local maker of traditional boards remaining. She founded The Original Surfboard Company to both produce ...
Jan 02, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Season 5Ep. 14
Injuries are mostly out of our control. But recovery offers many choices. Will we allow the scar tissue to stiffen or soften us? Stu Nettle is the editor of Swellnet, one of Australia's leading independent surf media and forecasting sites, where he has written about board design, surf industry happenings, surf science, and coastal geology since 2008. Stu is a lifelong surfer but late-comer to surf media. He “had many unrelated life chapters, business failures, social experiments, and surf advent...
Dec 28, 2023•1 hr 14 min•Season 5Ep. 13
Raised on a diet of deep ecology and the DIY spirit of her single mom, Pacha Light earned her first surfboard busking as a tween. She then forged her way into professional surfing as a teenager on Australia’s Gold Coast: signing a big endemic sponsor, training every day, and making a name for herself as a competitor and surf model. Until she couldn’t do it any longer. She felt she was not fully in alignment with her values. Still, along the way, Pacha found her storytelling voice, bringing depth...
Dec 18, 2023•1 hr 42 min•Season 5Ep. 12
Have you ever felt like something was wrong, but you weren't quite sure how to name it? Tyler Wilde is a teacher and bodysurfer from southern California. In 2017, Tyler won the prestigious International Surf Festival bodysurfing contest and was later voted into the Gillis Beach Bodysurfing Association as one of their youngest members. As a physical education teacher, his goal is to help his students "feel more embodied." Tyler went through a lengthy bout with depression and anxiety, and like man...
Nov 26, 2023•1 hr 9 min•Season 5Ep. 11
