The Red Bulletin Oct/Nov 2020 (US)

They looked like they were just having
fun, too. You have a sense that Lenny and
Chianca would be out there whether or
not there was a contest running. They
stayed in the water for two hours after
the competition wrapped up because the
waves were still pumping. Once they were
out of the water, Lenny looked at images
on a phone. He chuckled and said, “I love
big-wave surfing.”
Still, despite his success and long
overdue recognition within the surf
community, you’d expect Lenny to have
a little chip on his shoulder. Instead,
he’s laser-focused on performing at the
highest level and eliminating as many
gray areas as possible.
“For me it’s never been about beating
someone else. It’s always been about
beating myself,” he says. He loves rising
to the occasion in competitions when
he’s facing the best in the world. It forces
him to push himself to the next level,
to a place he wouldn’t go without the
pressure—what he calls encouragement—
of someone who rides better than he
does. “The reason why I’ve been so
consistent and getting better across all
my sports stems from being purely
passionate on the deepest level for what
I do. I love the sports all the way down to
the technical stuff, like my equipment. I
love the fact that ultimately I can achieve
something I couldn’t do before. On top of
that, I love the art form of it all,” he says.
That relentless march toward
progress and innovation is baked into his
DNA. From an early age, his parents
helped him set goals, baby steps that
would blaze a path to riding mountainsized
waves. For example, when he was
around 9 years old, his dad showed him
the spot up at Hookipa where all the
windsurfers eventually wind up. Martin
taught him where to come in so he could
climb across the rocks. “Eventually,
when he would go out and push himself,
he’d get clobbered. But you’d see him
twinkle-toeing around the rocks. He
knew what he was doing and he was
fine,” recalls Martin.
When Lenny was in his early teens, he
and his dad would sit down every year
and plan out a road map of goals Lenny
wanted to achieve. They continue to
revisit the plan annually, tweaking it
here and there and adding more to the
JAKE MAROTE
Daily acrobatics,
October 2019: Lenny
does a backflip on his
foil board in the
waves off of Hookipa.
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