In a recent segment of the World Surf League's One on One series, John John Florence, arguably the face of the sport with Two WSL World Championships (the last 2 full non-injury years), sat down with Jimmy Chin, the Academy Award wining director of the climbing documentary thriller "Free Solo."
In Heat 1: The two champions of their craft talked staying sane during quarantine with Chin skiing up in Wyoming with JJF taking the opposite approach citing the first home break in awhile where he hasn't had to focus on rehabbing.
On the waves JFF remarked, "That's the great thing about having the ocean here, everyone kinda has a part of it. I think it really enhanced people's lives... to be able to go surf."
Moving on to Heat 2 where Chin reflected on his best surf trip last year in Nicaragua.
In Heat 3 Chin dives into similarities of the exploratory process between climbing and surfing with JJF agreeing delving further on the rush from finding new breaks and waves. Saying
"That exploration side of it is one of my biggest driving factors in surfing for me. This dream I have is just to go search for waves. There's something so special about it."
In the remaining heats: Chin sites the importance of having a great partner in getting in the right headspace for a climb and the human potential and its expansion in the human experience as a driving force behind his stories.
JJF & Chin explore failure as a push for success and how it leads back to the exploratory process of always finding that next challenge.
Finally ending on Chin discussing the balance of filming to document vs living in the moment and JJF going full out to set up the perfect shots.
Watch the full exchange here at the WSL & as well as the first in the WSL One on One series when Jonah Hill sat down with Mick Fanning.