When junior Nainoa Johsens was a “young and reckless” 16-year-old, he found himself thrown to the bottom of the ocean, wrapped in kelp, asking, “Is this it?”
Tangled in seaweed and thrashing against the turbulent seawater, Johsens learned a valuable lesson from surfing: respect the power of the ocean and its control over him.
“Surfing is one of those sports where you’re not shaping the field, the field has to shape you,” he said.
Johsens’ field, the Pacific Ocean, and surfing it as an informally-sponsored surfer has shaped and continues to shape him, from his casual California style to his laid-back life philosophies.
But before Nainoa was even a thought, the Johsens’ family story followed the waves: Karl Johsens, his father, let his love of surfing choose his medical school — the University of Hawaii — where he met his future wife, Hualalai. When their son was born, they named him after Nainoa Thompson, who navigated the Pacific from Hawaii to Tahiti by constellations to prove the ancient Hawaiians could have done the same. In Hawaiian, “Nainoa” means “the names,” and represents a commitment to protecting the island people’s traditions.
After both Johsens completed their residency in Denver, Colorado, they moved to Santa Cruz, California, a beach town with a tight-knit surfing community.
Close to the water now, his father took Nainoa surfing for the first time when he was 6 years old. It wasn’t until Johsens was 14 that he dove headfirst into the sport, surfing every day once his family moved into a house two blocks from the shore.
While Johsens surfed primarily for the love of it, in high school he began participating in contests hosted by the National Scholastic Surfing League. In this competitive environment, surfing brands noticed his skill and informally sponsored him with monthly gifts of gear, from wax to wetsuits.
Selah Bartlett, a family friend and close neighbor who grew up surfing alongside Johsens, said she fondly remembers beach days with him and his younger sister Leahi Johsens, her best friend, goofing off in the water and all scrambling onto one surfboard to ride back to shore. Bartlett is also a sponsored surfer, representing multiple brands including Reef shoes and Oakley sunglasses. Bartlett said in the competitive surfing world, everyone who does well gets something.
“You’re not really getting money,” she said. “You get fun stuff.”
While the free gear certainly saves surfers a lot of money, it’s also a motivational tool.
“You want to represent the companies well,” she said. “It motivates you to have a good attitude in and out of the water because there are more people watching.”
More than the sponsorship and competitions, Johsens loves surfing for its close community, where waves match personalities and everyone speaks the surfer lingo.
“The bigger, heavier waves, you get more aggressive personalities,” he said. “Where it’s calmer, you get people there who like surfing more to just relax instead of to get amped.”
Excitable or chill, all surfers know the slang lexicon: clichés like “rad” and “stoked,” but also lesser-known ones like “kook,” a newbie who gets in everyone’s way, and “steezy,” when surfers are in their own world after catching a good wave.
Nainoa said surfers have a strong sense of shared experience.
“The getting up early, the going surfing … it’s 6 a.m., the sun is rising over the water, it’s really beautiful, and you talk to these people — most of the time they’re your neighbors.”
That sense of community, born of shared experience and enlivened by surfer slang, strengthened sibling bonds in the Johsens family, too.
“Surfing ties you all together, it comes with a lot of encouragement and camaraderie,” said Leahi, the fifth overall surfer in Santa Cruz County (an achievement Nainoa proudly pointed out).
But it wasn’t always feel-good: She and her three brothers, Nainoa, Kapailani, and Kauwila Johsens, also bonded over their long, grueling beach days and weren’t afraid to push each other to surf better.
“Surfing, the sport itself, is a lot of work,” Leahi said. “The water is super cold; you have to put on a wetsuit, it’s kind of gritty.”
She noted that surfing requires patience and etiquette, qualities she said she sees in her older brother.
“Nainoa is persevering, diligent, and polite. Surfing helped shaped that,” she said.
While Nainoa gave up closeness to the water for college, the waves followed the Californian surfer — with his Volcom T-shirts and Vans — to southern Michigan, where he said his surfing brands and laid-back style screamed weed-smoking hippie.
“I didn’t know what boat shoes were until I came to Hillsdale,” Johsens said. “I would get one pair of Vans every year and would wear them until it was time to get a new pair. Formal wear? I had no idea what that consisted of. Then at Hillsdale, there are people wearing full suits to class.”
Miles from the nearest shore, Johsens still finds ways to apply his California style and lasting lessons surfing taught him, especially on Inauguration Day.
“I’m here in D.C. for WHIP, and people are losing their minds on both sides,” he said. “To me, it’s hilarious. In a thousand years, people will not care what happened today.”
For him, history and politics roll like the waves of the ocean.
“It might be a California thing,” he continued. “The competitive attitude at D.C.? It’s taken to a whole new level. In the back of my mind, I’m saying, ‘You know, we need to take it easy.’”