On the water
My life on the water.
Foiling brings together the things I love most: deep practice, the joy of the flow state, competition, and a community where everyone is still learning. I love being completely absorbed in the wind and water, feeling connected to the natural world around me.
@heart_wrench
Community
A sport still under construction.
Foiling is still young enough that everyone is learning at once: nine-year-olds and seventy-year-olds, pro surfers and total novices, all figuring it out together.
As much as I love the flow state of flight, the true reward is the friends I have made along the way. Yes, I know that is cheesy. It is true and I am sticking to it.
Learning
Grit is the entry fee.
I learned as an adult, which means I remember the hopelessness, the exhaustion, the curses the wind carried farther than intended, and the annual cycle where "this is impossible" becomes "I can do this, sometimes."
Foiling takes grit: a willingness to look stupid, get tired, collect a few flesh wounds, and keep showing up. Eventually your body learns something your brain could not explain.
Migration
I stopped saving this life for later.
Remote work in AI let me do something I once filed under retirement fantasy: live in my favorite foil spots and train often. I split time between the Gorge, the Bay, and Puerto Rico, following wind, swell, and friends from all over.
I am grateful every day that I do not have to choose between work I love and the water.
Hood River
Summer · Gorge wind & waves
San Francisco
Shoulder · Home base, 15 years
Puerto Rico
Winter · Caribbean swells
Competition
I am, regrettably, competitive.
A broken ankle grounded me from big air kiteboarding, then wing foiling appeared right on schedule. I got obsessed, got competitive, won the North American Wing Foil Championship in 2024, and qualified for Team USA.
I still race, but the newer disciplines keep pulling me toward waves. On a hydrofoil, you can find surf almost anywhere.
Flow
Reading water is its own language.
Foiling opens up the water. Chop and small swells that used to be unrideable become a chess game mixed with a skate park: figuring out which bumps to connect and what you can do with them.
It takes skill, strength, endurance, and awareness. With the conditions always changing, there’s always something new to learn and another chance to find that perfect flow state.
Systems
Resilience in practice
Foiling gives me constant practice in resilience and grit: working through fear, frustration, and exhaustion while trying things I can’t do yet. Failure is a necessary part of that process. I get to practice staying with it, adjusting, and trying again.
Those same habits matter in my technical work: experimenting, working through uncertainty, and staying open to what the results tell me.
Project
Building Foil Run
Foil Run started with algorithms I wrote to compare foil gear. It’s grown into my dream app for understanding our riding, bringing together measurements and riders’ own observations to study gear and performance and stoke some friendly competition.
Explore Foil RunDisciplines
The learning curve keeps moving.
I have tackled just about every foil discipline at this point: kite, wing, downwind SUP, Foil Drive, tow foiling behind a jet ski, behind a miniature remote-controlled semi-autonomous jet ski, and now parawing.
We apparently have to invent a more obscure sport every year. You are welcome to call it all windsurfing. I will not correct you.
Affiliations