Escaping the stream | Girmantas Neniskis | TEDxKlaipėda

Surfing in Lithuania is relatively young, yet it has been growing quite rapidly in recent years, and Klaipėda is becoming the core of Baltic states surfing. But how does surfing relate to our everyday lives? Well, just like on the ocean, we have ups and downs in our lives. Sometimes we ride the wave, sometimes we feel stuck without one and then, suddenly, they seem to keep breaking right on our heads. How to identify that you’re being carried by the current and how to escape this stream to prevent drowning in your everyday life?

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

Girmantas Neniskis is the president of Lithuanian Surfing Association, a ten-year "Surf Camp" festival organizer, a video producer, and a traveler. Surfing for the first time in his childhood fascinated him so much that it has become an indispensable part of his life ever since. Today, Girmantas Neniskis is always in search of new limits and ways to break free.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

Hello, everyone.

Like you already know,
my name is Girmantas.

What you don't know about me,

when I was four or five years old,
I had a drowning experience.

I was learning how to swim in a lake,

and I had to swim along a low pier
to make maybe one meter,

a meter and a half.

There was a windsurf board in front of me,
and I had to make this short distance.

Yet I went straight down to the bottom.

To this day, I remember going underwater,
some weeds around me,

small fish swimming by,
windsurfing board ahead.

Also sun glare.

Someone jumping after me
and pulling me out.

It wasn't really dangerous or anything.

It happened within a few seconds,

I didn't lose consciousness,
I didn't drink too much water.

Yet it was quite terrifying

to realize how quickly things
can change in the water,

how quickly you can lose
control and lose your ground.

If anybody told me back then
that I would spend most of my life

in and around the water,
I would have never believed it.

Yet this is the first picture of me
surfing just a couple of years later.

In the early 90s,

nobody believed that there's surfing
in Lithuania or in the Baltic Sea.

You can imagine.

Lithuania just regained independence,

and Western culture
was still quite alien to us.

We didn't have even the right equipment.

I was riding a windsurfing board,
just without a sail.

I remember coming
back to school after the summer

and writing an essay:
"How I Surfed during the Summer."

Nobody believed it;
even the teacher was laughing at me.

(Laughter)

Luckily I had the picture to prove
them wrong, so I didn't get a bad grade.

However, this addiction
to catch another wave

has literally shaped me as a person.

I kept coming back for more,
and I still am.

I might even say that surfing gave me
a reason to be better at anything I do.

Now before I continue,
I'd like to ask you a question.

How many of you
before entering here today

thought that there
is no surfing in Lithuania?

Just raise your hands.

Just a few?

Well, we can continue in the bar then.

All right, so I'll take it that the work
we did over the last 10 years paid off.

But today, I am surfing
the waves all over the world.

I am the founder-president
of Lithuanian Surfing Association.

I am also an organizer
of Surf Camp Festival.

Surf Camp was instrumental to bringing
surfing to masses in Lithuania.

10 years ago, mainstream opinion
was pretty clear:

There's no surfing in Lithuania;
there are no waves.

Even our friends that used other boards
like skateboards, snowboards,

wind and kite surf, and so on,
even they didn't believe

that the waves
are good enough for surfing.

So we decided that it's pointless
to fight this opinion and argue about it,

let's invite them for a surf camp.

A couple buddies, my cousin, and I,

we shaped seven boards,
and invited 50 friends to try surfing.

That's how all started:

with 50 friends at the beach,
surfing during the day,

listening to music overnight,
and watching surf movies at the beach.

10 years later,

2000 people gathered
in Preila this August,

and we had 480 people trying surfing
for the first time in their life.

Actually, Surf Camp was growing so fast,

that we had to scale
it back after year six

because we weren't ready
to accommodate so many people.

And the whole idea
was that Surf Camp is an event

which is free of charge,
and we teach anyone

who wants to catch a wave
and to be safe around the water.

However, thanks to Surf Camp, surfing
is not so uncommon in Lithuania anymore.

We have surf schools opening up
here and there. We have surf shops.

Local news are covering
our national championships,

and local shapers are even producing
Lithuanian surfboards.

Suddenly, more and more Lithuanians
are travelling the world to surf

in Spain, Portugal, Morocco,
Latin America, and East Asia.

And part of the reason for that,
the biggest part of reason for that,

is surfing itself.

It's very hard to describe
the feeling, the sensation you feel,

when you ride the wave.

Yet, this ever-changing body of water,
moving wall of water,

provides exceptional joy.

Surfing has one of the slowest
learning curves.

It's very hard physically.

Yet it's the same difficulty mentally

because you need to learn
how to read the waves,

you need to understand
where the wave is going to break,

what is it going to do next, and so on.

That's why surfing is a unique sport
because it doesn't have any premeditation.

You can't have a general idea
or a plan what you want to do.

Yet it all comes down to the wave
that the ocean will provide you with.

No two waves are the same.

Some might be very similar,
but most are really different.

And that's why you can't plan ahead;
you just have to be present.

Some scientists believe
that this concentration required

and being present helps
to treat some mental conditions,

like depression and
post-traumatic stress disorder.

In Britain, National British
Health Service

even provides funding
for surf treatment camps.

So people who suffer from these conditions

might get some help.

Last year, we held the first
Surf Camp for kids

with autism spectrum disorder,
here in Lithuania.

We followed the international experience,
and the results were simply amazing.

In the beginning,
everyone had their doubts.

Some said the water is too cold;
others said kids don't know how to swim.

Others said something else,
the usual stuff.

But when the first kid caught a wave,

the emotions, the smile on his face,
was simply priceless.

I don't remember ever seeing
so much positive energy in the air.

And then everybody wanted to do that.

We had a hard time
to bring them out of the water.

They were all late for lunch.

All of these experiences weren't possible
if I didn't try surfing 25 years ago.

But people say that it's the journey
that matters, not the destination.

And I think that everything
that happens in between the waves,

in between riding the waves,
is just as important.

The tiring travels across the world,

the waiting in the airport
or in the surfing spot,

waiting for a swell to show up.

Fatigue, excitement, all of that adds up.

Each wave has a story:

What did it take for you
to get there and to catch it?

What did you have to overcome?

What did you have to sacrifice?

What coincidences
steered you towards it?

Every wave is an adventure,

and one of those adventures happened
four years ago in Morocco.

We were on a surf trip
with a couple of friends,

and this particular spot we were
surfing in had a big rip current in it.

What is a rip current?

A rip current is a water stream
that goes straight out to the ocean.

If you imagine waves breaking
at the beach, you could realize quickly

that the water is not
going to climb uphill.

It has to come back to the ocean,
so usually the water finds a channel

and goes straight back to the ocean.

This particular place,
this particular rip current,

was as wide as the stage
I'm standing on right now

and moving as fast
as seven kilometers an hour,

which is a regular walking pace,

so you can imagine, that's quite a lot
of water moving around.

So on a pretty big day, my buddy Marios
and me, we paddled out,

and at the end of the channel,
we heard a cry for help.

(Audience) Help! help!

So Hisi Maris still remembers the story.

So, there was a guy, a body boarder
without fins, floating around -

doesn't seem too bad.

Well, he was half a kilometer out to sea.

So we tried to give him
some pointers, some advice,

what to do, where to go,
how to come in safely to the shore,

but we just quickly came to realize
that he's not going to make it on his own.

So much for surfing big waves;
we had to help the poor fellow.

If it wasn't for us, nobody knows
how he would have ended,

because there was nobody else in the water
and you couldn't see him from the beach.

So me and Marios, we took turns
by dragging the guy

while he was holding on our feet.

And what do you do
when you're in a rip current?

It's pointless to paddle
against the stream

because it'll wear you down
and get the better of you.

The only way to escape the stream
is to go perpendicular to the stream,

far enough so it
doesn't affect you anymore,

and only then you
can come back to the shore.

On one side, we had a rocky point;

on the other side, there were three
kilometers of sandy beach.

It was clear that we were going to go
to the south for at least a kilometer,

so we were far enough from the current,
and then we can come back to safety.

When we reached the beach break,
we didn't want to endanger ourselves,

and stop for a minute
to explain to the guy

how we were going to proceed next.

Having two boards, board leashes,
a clueless beachgoer with us meant danger.

Once a real threat presents itself,

you couldn't really expect
what he was going to do,

and we didn't really want
to entangle ourselves with him.

This proved to be a crucial mistake
because a feeder current

took us back another half
a kilometer in three minutes.

So we had to start
over again halfway back.

After some time, a local school owner
paddled out on a big board,

on a longboard, so it was easier
for him to help us,

and it was more efficient
to drag the poor fellow in.

And according to my GPS watch, it took us
one hour and three kilometers of paddling

until we finally got him to safety.

He was in shock, perhaps hypothermic,

and medics took over once on the beach.

If this whole experience taught me
one thing, you have to be aware.

If you're on the water,
you have to be present,

have to be aware,
have to know what's happening.

This lost concentration
for a couple of minutes

did cost us another
20 minutes of paddling.

In other cases, in other instances,
the cost might be much higher.

But then, let's step out of the water.

How aware are we in our everyday life?

How many of you felt that sometimes

life is carrying you like a current,

like you're not controlling
your everyday life.

You go to work you hate
because everybody does.

You take a mortgage
on your house or apartment

because everybody does.

You do things you have to,
but not the things you want to.

It's pointless to fight the stream.

And if you want to go somewhere,
you'll have to find the way around.

So if you stop and look around
and define what is happening to you,

only then you can understand
where you've been taken.

Only then you can determine
your next goal, where you want to go,

define the obstacles,
and find the way around.

And if we reflect on
my childhood experience,

I drowned not because
I didn't know how to swim,

everybody in this auditorium
knows how to swim,

or at least, how to float in the water,

That's in our body; we can float.

I drowned because I didn't even try.

So that's what people do
when they lose ground.

They try to reach for the bottom,

and usually they reach the bottom.

But not in the way they want to.

So my tip for all of you,

if you suddenly lose your ground
and start drowning,

just stick your head up
and swim to safety.

Thank you.

(Applause)