When the clock rolled over into 2020, no one could have foreseen how strange and sad the following years would be. It was a hard time to navigate, what with lockdowns and travel bans, and the first installment of Red Bull’s “Shaping Jordy” follows Jordy Smith and his lifelong friend Mikey February as they take advantage of being stuck at home for a winter in South Africa.
As soon as the local lockdown restrictions lifted, the pair decided to pack the Jeep and start road tripping.
“The duo’s timing turned out to be perfect,” Red Bull wrote, “as they scored some of the best spots in South Africa in what was one of the best winters for waves in recent memory.”
Since both Jordy and Mikey generally have packed schedules, they’d never actually done a trip together. Jordy decided that he’d use the opportunity to “take a few feathers out of M-Feb’s stylish cap.”
Although M-Feb did try his hand on the CT in 2018, he didn’t qualify in 2019. Instead of hammering away at something he wasn’t all that passionate about in the first place, he turned his eye to showing that he was one of the smoothest, most stylish surfers in the world. Jordy, the consummate competitor, wanted to take a page out of that book.
“I think the more I free surf and the more I score those really good days, the more I grow and I fall even more in love with surfing,” said Smith. “I often think to myself: ‘Is that even possible?’ But I do. I just continue to get that excitement of where you’re just chomping at the bit to be able to get on that next swell. To drive all hours of the night just for that single wave – you know, it’s the greatest high ever.”
