There’s little doubt Tyler Wright is a winner. At the tender age of 23, the two-time browsing world champion is a veteran of the Women’s World Surfing League; a tour which has seen her compete for 10 months of the 12 months since she was 16.
As the 2018 season kicked off its first leg on the Roxy Pro in Australia in March, the reigning world champ appeared effectively positioned to carry that trophy over her head for a 3rd time in her profession. But, alas she exited the comp within the quarterfinals. Unperturbed by her loss, the Jeep Ambassador tells myBody+Soul, an innate drive to win isn’t essentially what pushes her to compete.
“It sounds weird, because you’d think it comes with the territory of being in a competitive sport, but I don’t know if I’m actually that competitive,” Tyler says about her perspective towards her fruitful profession. “I love the game. There’s rules and you have to be smart—you have to play better than another person—but I don’t mind if I lose the game because someone playing outsmarted me.”
IT’S ALL ABOUT A PB
For the Culburra native, browsing is simply a part of life’s “really cool path of mystery and evolution”, a journey she says retains her “intrigued”. Under the steerage of her surf coach Glen ‘Micro’ Hall, she manages to domesticate an strategy the place a private greatest efficiency is extra fulfilling than an outright victory.
“Generally, I’m content with how I view [surfing] because it makes it a lot easier to not be so results based,” says Tyler. “I’ve had heats where I’ve made 17 mistakes and I’ve won. Technically I’ve got a victory and people are congratulating me, but all I see is the 17 mistakes I made. Then there’s heats where I’ve done everything sound and lost, but I wouldn’t change a thing.”
BEING GRATEFUL FOR HER STRONG BODY
Butchange is one thing that Tyler has inevitably skilled since starting her skilled profession as a teen. As a younger surfer, whereas she was powerfully ripping via waves with an ease that challenged a few of her male counterparts, the actual fact remained was she was a woman, growing up in a bikini under the watchful gaze of the sport’s media and spectators, unable to flee the acquainted sting of self-consciousness that comes with puberty.
“It took me a long time to accept the type of body that I have because I would watch other people who I guess were skinny or lighter and I would think, ‘I’m not any of those things,’” says Tyler, who stands at 170 centimetres and 68 kilos of pure muscle. “But eventually I was like, ‘Are you fucking kidding me? Like, the amount of times I should have broken my body is ridiculous!”
That refreshing gratitude means these days Tyler freely credit her “strong” body with permitting her to have a profession.
“My body means I can do things I shouldn’t be able to do because, realistically there are so many times where my bones should have broken or I should have torn but I never really have, apart from one or two injuries,” says Tyler, who overcame a niggling knee concern on the trail to her 2017 victory. “I guess I changed from being self-conscious about not being like other people to appreciating that my body can get the shit kicked out of it and still be okay.”
Tyler causes, “At the end of the day your body is what it is. You don’t really get a choice in it, it’s more important to be happy and healthy than anything else.”
MAKING FRIENDS WITH ENEMIES
In phrases of being comfortable, Tyler says one thing that has stored her sane on the tour is her connections with different professional surfers.
While she has the blessing of getting her household on tour – her brothers Owen and Mikey Wright additionally surf on the Men’s WSL tour – she says making buddies out of her fellow feminine rivals is vital for all these months on the street.
“It’s actually lovely to have friends on the tour because they’re some of the nicest and greatest humans,” says Wright. “Some of the girls I absolutely love as humans, and whatever happens in the water will never have a different effect on me, win or lose.”
“You can have a day of competition and have a drink after and catch up. Things like that make tour life a lot easier.”
LESSONS ON PERSPECTIVE
In the previous few years challenges exterior of browsing have introduced themselves to Tyler slightly too usually. In 2015 her older brother Owen Wright suffered a traumatic mind harm after wiping out on a wave on Hawaii’s North Shore and Tyler took day out to assist together with his restoration. More not too long ago her mum Fiona Wright has had her personal well being points and for Tyler, these have solely additional fuelled her experiential perspective to life and competitors.
“I’ve had too many things happen in life to give me perspective to really get bummed out about losing a heat,” says Tyler of the trials of the previous few years. “There’s just so much more to life and you have to have a good balance.”
That stability is what motivates Tyler proper now, who hopes to take pleasure in browsing, and certain profitable, for years to return.
“My aim now is for a sustainable career over anything else and I find that through balance I’m getting better at knowing when to turn on and knowing when to switch off,” Wright says.
“I still haven’t figured out the right formula for me just because obviously my life has been constantly changing with Owen one year and mum the next, but now, this year it’s just me figuring out that delicate formula.”
WHAT TYLER’S GOT PLAYING WHEN YOU SEE HER GETTING PUMPED UP BEFORE A HEAT:
“It’s not really as hectic as what people think it is!” Tyler tells myBody+Soul. “It was once hectic however the previous eight months it’s actually mellowed right down to ultra-cruise.
“At the second it’s like Alex the Astronaut, and clearly my brother’s girlfriend, Kita Alexander, and Jack River.”
Wright says she gravitates towards singer-songwriters as a result of, “I think they are telling people’s stories and sharing a part of themselves.” Adding that expression “is something I will never do and, the whole sharing of an experience in a public way is something I respect enormously.”
**myBody+Soul travelled to the Gold Coast do that interview because of Jeep Australia, celebrating its launch of the all-new Jeep Compass.**
Read what a six-time world champion surfer eats in a day. Plus, that is the wetsuit every woman who surfs need to get.
Know somebody who would discover this fascinating? Share this text with them!
Comments
Post a Comment