good evening. wow!!! what a day. i get up and feel like surfing so i head down to bowls. i knew the arnette contest was on at kewalo’s but i knew the boys would make their earlier heats so i took my time. i give tony a call while i was heading down. he told me that shun was in the final in 30 minutes. i stepped on the gas and sped down there. i got there and walked up to shun. i asked him how he was feeling, he told me “good.” the final was 6 man heats with all of the top hawaiian groms, except seth and josh because they lost in the semi finals.
check out this final heat members for the under 14 division. all good surfers!!!
shun grabbed his jersey and was waiting for his final to start. the poor kid looked nervous….
as i was walking with him to the point, i just kept on telling him “hey shun, go out there and fight. don’t sit down and let everybody get the good waves, fight for them. don’t be scared! what ever happens in the water happens. nobody is your friend. just go out there and focus. don’t catch shitty waves. all you need is 2 good waves in the 20 minute final so wait for 2 good ones. we don’t need to advance out of this heat, we need to win this heat. so don’t catch small waves because those won’t get you the win. give the small and medium waves away. catch big set waves, and go big. 1st is 1st and nobody cares about 2nd, 3rd, or 4th. now go out there and fight!!!” he looked at me, smiled and said “wakarimashita” which means “i understand.” what a polite kid….
and like a good japanese boy he is, he respects his elders so he let the big boys paddle out first… that all comes down to good parenting….
i stood on the point and watched the whole heat. i thought shun won but i was worried because everybody surfed really good in the heat! kaulana apo stepped it up by getting the highest scoring wave in the heat. but shun got two 8’s or even 9’s with his explosive surfing and won!!! i was so proud of this kid. here is a little young japanese boy that 2 years ago nobody knew. then last year, he was the little japanese boy. this year, he’s shun murakami and nobody will forget that!
the winner speech time. shun spoke in japanese. he thanked tony, his parents, and all his sponsors in japan. if i was him, i would have said after that “IF YOU DON’T GO, YOU WON’T KNOW!!” haha…
but hey, this has to be the first time ever a little japanese boy came here and won something so big. he beat a few hawaiian champions on the way to his first hawaiian championship. i took video of the whole thing so stay tuned… wait till you hear what ben aipa said about him today. and what veteran ASP jack shipley said about him too. i haven’t heard of two hawaiian legends talking that good about a kid from a foreign country before. shun worked hard this weekend so it’s time for him to play. go play shun!!! you deserve it!!
**and i bet shun’s little brother ren-kun is eyeing out shun’s new skateboard. hey ren-kun, don’t touch it!!! that’s his trophy and that is a piece of japanese surfing history! i think shun should put that in the dove factory showroom…. tokura-san is so proud of him, and so must be thousands of his family and fans in japan. japan ganbare!!!!
