What you don’t see with the surfer:

Reflexes — insane. Thousands of pounds of wind and water are steamrolling, shifting, changing, morphing, in an ever-changing environment, and the surfer is adapting instantaneously through every second of the ride.

Decision-making — nuts. With all the variables described so far in this article, the surfer brings their thousands of hours of water experience, training, and talent to every moment of every wave. There is never a second that it relents. Decisions are made from the moment they see the wave on the horizon, until they have completed, or not completed, the ride.

Consequences — unparalleled. If you miss a ball in basketball, you disappoint your team. If you fall in gymnastics, snowboarding, pairs ice skating, you can be badly injured by the cold hard ground, but you still can at least assess your environment. If you misjudge a 10-foot wave, you could be drilled by the lip into a jagged reef, held down by the wave, cut, concussed, or drowned.

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