Practice makes perfect. Photo: Kanoa Igarashi // YouTube
Kanoa Igarashi is living the good life. The Huntington Beach native has been on the World Tour since 2016, when he entered as the youngest rookie on the CT and the first to represent Japan. Since then, he’s settled into a comfortable routine that would be the envy of basically any casual surfer around the world. And in his latest YouTube offering, he gave a peek behind the curtain.
The video takes place shortly after Igarashi became one of the first surfers to secure a spot in the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics at Lower Trestles. That was a result of a win at the 2026 Asian Games, where he took down fellow CT competitor Connor O’Leary in round three, then beat Indonesia’s I Made Pajar Ariyana in the final.
He didn’t take much time to rest on his laurels. Though the qualification gives him a clear goal to set is sights on, the next stop is Peniche, for the Rip Curl Pro Portugal. And as Igarashi describes it, the new comp required a complete pivot. “Just changing everything,” he explained. “Boards are different, mindset’s different, preparation is different. Just slowly getting back into the rhythm of things.”
From there, it was a tour of Kanoa’s pre-comp routine, from cutting things up in the surf to hanging out with friends and eating chef-cooked meals at his swank Portuguese house. And despite a globe-trotting lifestyle that is quite a bit different from the average surfer, at least one part of it was very familiar: driving from spot to spot looking for waves, only to end up at the closest break to home.
