Wilding Fifty: Surf Tales

Reinvent Yourself at Any Age with Steve Lang

Christine Foerster Season 1 Episode 15

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0:00 | 28:37

In this episode with Steve Lang, we discuss how his 30 years of work in law enforcement has profoundly changed how he sees the world, why he had to reinvent himself after retirement, how he learned to surf at 62, his commitment to yoga practice, surfing between the winter storms and how to surf like your 14 again. Steve is living proof that with perseverance and play, you can reinvent yourself at any stage of life.

Highlights:
[00:00] 30 Years of Work in Law Enforcement
[11:37] Surf Patrol
[12:59] Surfing Between Winter Storms
[18:50] Learning to Surf at 62
[24:12] Reinvent Yourself at Any Age

Quotes by Steve:

"Watch these kids and how they become instant friends with the water. When it's careening off the rocks, they'll take the softies and catch the waves going out. And boom, hit the wave coming in and launch themselves up in the air. You should do that! It is more fun than you can imagine. Instead, as we all do, get in a panic and try to get through the next wave. Don't do that. Just stay inside and let it pound you for a little bit. What that does is it teaches you that it's not that big a deal."

“Stay in shape, do yoga, be flexible. Don't get all nutted up, relax, and have fun with it. Be goofy. Be a goofball. You'll see people out there and they're all stiff and they're worried and they surf like hell. They're like wood. Relax. It's only water. Leave your ego on the beach.”

“When I started surfing, I thought, what do I want to do with the rest of my life? Well, when were you the most happy? What were you doing? I was hanging out at the beach. I grew up in Malibu. I didn't surf, but I grew up there, so that's what I did. And you can do that in any age. They say you can't go back. You can go back.”

More about Christine Foerster

Christine: Welcome, Steve. Thanks for being here. 
Steve: Thanks for having me. 

Christine: You've worked as a police officer in the narcotics division for the last 30 years, and upon retirement you told me you didn't quite know what to do with yourself. So you took up surfing as a 60 year old, and I would love it if you could talk a little bit about that transition.

Steve: Sure. I worked for just over 30 years in law enforcement. And retired, I guess it's almost 12 years ago now. Went from a hundred miles an hour to zero, basically overnight. Without going into a long diatribe about the career, it was involving. You're immersed in that in the law enforcement, police lifestyle, and even more so working as a detective.You're working undercover and you're doing special assignments and stuff. I left that life kind of abruptly. I just had enough for a myriad of reasons. I found myself with all that identity and all that lifestyle gone. I had to sort of reinvent myself and I wasn't real sure what to do. I don't golf. I can't stand watching golf. I hate golf. Yuck. So I traveled about for a couple of years. I went to Thailand to visit my daughter who was a yoga instructor, went over there and surprised her. And a friend of mine in Malibu, who was an architect, older guy, he's a mentor for me. I was struggling with some things and he said, why don't you start surfing?

Steve: And I did. I started at 62. 

Christine: Marvelous. 

Steve: It came pretty quick. It took a year or two, you know, to not go upside down all the time. Not be made fun of every five feet. I bought a board and kind of took up that lifestyle. So for the past eight years, I've been surfing almost every day. The problem is now I don't go anywhere where I can't surf. I won't go on vacation. I don't care. I don't want to go to Palms Springs or Big Bear. I don’t go snowboarding, I don't want to do anything except surf. So it's effectively ruined my life.

Christine: It's a great sport. You said that not only surfing, but also yoga changed your life, but changed you too.

Steve: I found that yoga went hand in hand with surfing. A lot of the core, a lot of the balance, a lot of the being dragged into deep water. When you think you can't function and you have to function, you think you're gonna die and you want to get up and walk out of the class cuz you can't see, you can't breathe. And sometimes that happens with surfing, as well as the balance and core. But that helped a lot. Yoga was huge. It was symbiotic with the surfing, 

Christine: Did you also started practicing yoga around the same time? Around age 62? 

Steve: Yes. 

Christine: Not to go too far back, but you also had this analogy involving piranhas. I was hoping you could give a sense of what it felt like. 

Steve: You know, you start out all young and bushy-tailed and bright-eyed and you're gonna do some great things and you're gonna change this and that, and you're all fun in games. It's like if you came across a large pond that was about waist deep and you looked at it. You thought you could wait across, but there might be some potholes on your way to the other side. But this pond would be filled with piranha, little fish from South America that eat you. And as you walk across the pond, it takes you a long time to get to the other side. You get out on the other side, on the other bank, and you find that you've got all these little bites all over, you're shredded. And that's the career, in law enforcement. For a lot of guys if you do that job right, it, it really does take little bites. 

Christine: It's gotta be very taxing… 

Steve: In a lot of ways that you wouldn’t think. If you can imagine being treated better by the crooks on the street than you were at home at times. 

Christine: Is it because you feel that you're on duty so often that you're giving yourself so much to the job that it's very hard then to have balance in life? Is that what you mean? 

Steve: I think so, in some respect, but you see things and you're put in positions, such unusual positions. You're seeing things from a perspective that you would never imagine or, or see otherwise. It's hard to describe. You can go from sitting down drinking coffee one minute and then getting in your police car and driving with lights and siren for two miles, jump out and some lady is coming at you with a knife from the porch of her house through the screen door. You never know. The child abuse and the inhumanity and then the stress from the department, the administrative stress. It’s very complicated coming out of that life and raising a family and having a career. You sacrifice yourself in a lot of ways. You give up a lot of things that you'd rather do. I mean, you can see Europe on a policeman salary, but you're gonna have to watch TV to do it. So it's that kind of thing. But that's okay. I mean, that's what you sign up for, right? You don't sign up for getting shot, being killed. Lots of stories. 

Christine: Do you have one story in particular that wouldn't compromise anyone's privacy that might give whoever's listening right now a taste of something was very impactful for you? 

Steve: How much time do we have? So in 97, somewhere in there, I was working uniform patrol for an agency in Southern California. It was 3:30 in the morning and I was the field supervisor. I was a corporal and there were five other guys working with me in the city, which wasn't a lot. 3:30 in the morning we got a call of three carloads of males pulled into a cul-de-sac in a residential area and they all got out with dark clothing and hoodies and walked out to the main feeder street. Basically, they got outta their cars, walked around to the other cul-de-sac. So we got up there, we were real quiet. We got up there and our lights were off. I think three or four of us were on scene almost immediately as we were kind of figuring out what we had. We saw a dude walking down the street, on the sidewalk, and we detained him quietly. It turns out he was on parole for murder. He was a gang member from Orange County. So we're talking to him and all of a sudden another guy walks down the sidewalk. We detain him. Where are you going? Oh, I'm looking to get a beer. It's 3:30 in the morning, dude. Well, I was fishing with my uncle. Where's your fishing pole? Click, click on they go, the handcuffs on him. He's on probation for kidnapping and some other stuff. We put him in our car. Make a plan to find the other four guys or five guys, whatever it was, around the corner.

Steve: So I stayed with two detainees and four guys walked around the corner and almost immediately found an open gate to a backyard. They walked in there and they spooked these guys that were going through the window of a house, big foot pursuit, radio traffic. One of the guys came over the fence, back toward the cars where I was. I saw him come over the fence. I got in a foot pursuit of him, chased him down the sidewalk. Freeze. Get your hands up. Get your hands up. And he's looking behind him with his hand on his front waistband with his back to me as he is running and I'm thinking, they're car thieves or something. This is no big deal. He turns around. Long story short, pulls out a 45 handgun and sticks it in my face. And boom. The first round I kind of leaned back to the side and the round went. I could see the muzzle and I could see white, yellow, orange, and then blue, and then like sand hitting my face. You ever walk down a a road and have the sand pepper your face? Kind of like that on steroids. And so it was an instantaneous gunfight from about five feet away. We were standing toe to toe shooting at each other. 

Christine: Oh, wow. 

Steve: And I thought, man, I hope this vest is gonna work. And I'm hitting him with my gunfire, but he's not going down. This guy's gonna, you gotta do something.We had run up into a driveway, right. And the driveway motion lights came on. So I was lit up like on stage and he was back of it. He was shooting at me toward the street for some reason. If you've ever seen The Matrix, the movie of The Matrix, with Keanu Reeves? 

Christine: Of course.

Steve: There's a scene in there where they're shooting at each other. He's taking this pill or something. The bullets are kind of circulating and he's in slow motion and he's going upside down and he is shooting. That's the only thing I could think of to do to save my life. And I did. I jumped up in the air and started shooting upside down and I went to my back and I was shooting up. And I was hitting him and he's starting to go down and one of his rounds came down and  hit me in the leg. So he's down. I'm down. You can imagine the chaos at 3:30 in the morning. This whole scene is being observed by a little kid in, above the garage in his room. 6 year old kid. Another side note to the story. Another gunfight is going on when this one's happening. The long or the short of the whole thing, no other policeman got shot. Two bad guys got shot. They both lived, my guy lived. Welcome to 3:30 in the morning on patrol. 

Christine: And how your life can change so fast.

Steve: It's unbelievable. Yeah. It can change is right. 

Christine: Wow. I'm just imagining you doing this kind of wild jump in the air and that Matrix move.

Steve: I figured Kiana Reeves kind of saved my life. 

Christine: So you really think that you had that movie in your mind when you busted out your move. 

Steve: Yeah. That's the only thing that came into mind. You gotta do something. What are you gonna do? There's nowhere hide 

Christine: And you’re backlit. 

Steve: It's like Danny Thomas or somebody. I got a chance to meet with Keanu Reeves. And I talked to him for about half an hour and I said, hey man, you got a minute? And he goes, yeah. So I told him the story. I go, you saved my life. It was cool. He was really cool about it. 

Christine: Fun. Well, I wonder, have you thought about him from the Point Break movie now that you're surfing? 

Steve: Never seen it.

Christine: You should see it. Let’s move on to our surf session yesterday. We all kind of take note of what's happening in the water, but I definitely remember meeting you that day we went surfing together and you were talking about the wave height and the high number of people in the water and all these potential dangers. You seemed to me that you were already very aware and really communicating all the potentials of things that could go wrong. And it made me think, you must see the world differently having been a police officer for so many years. 

Steve: You do. You just do. I taught a course, it was called Safe and Sound Life, and I developed an 8 hour class. Basically teaching people how to become efficient and safe in an urban environment to save their own lives. It was a lot of work, and I put it to bed after a while, but I did all the casinos and their command staff and their security folks. Some of the chapters in this class were, situational awareness and gut feelings and instinct and trust in your instinct. It was a blend of, are you familiar with a book called The Secret? 

Christine: I've heard the title but I haven't read it. 

Steve: Really good. It's how thoughts become things, the law of attraction. You draw those things to you that you think about. You have to be careful with it cuz you do. We all do it. Some of us know know more about it than others. You do it naturally. 

Christine: Well, that’s my homework. 

Steve: You'll love it. 

Christine: Great. 

Steve: It's fantastic. Don't see the movie, the movie's stupid.

Christine: I always start with the book. Okay, we surfed on Sunday, January 8th, and it was right after that big storm that swept through California. We have another one currently, but I'll tell you that I have never surfed at Terramar when the waves have been that big.

Steve: Really? 

Christine: It felt quite powerful to me. I remember even going out, usually Terramar is just a quick little paddle and you're out. And it took us, we stood there for about 10 or 15 minutes waiting. 

Steve: Oh, yeah. There was a big set that came in. 

Christine: They were breaking on the shore, like around the chest high, and then ricocheting off the rocks. And I was honestly just kind of going with your cueing. Whenever he goes, I'll go to, let's just see how this plays out.

Steve: It was fun. One of the things that I would ask you to do when in your surfing career is watch these kids and what they do and how they become like instant friends with the water. When it's careening off the rocks, they'll take softies and catch the wave going out. And boom, hit the wave coming in and launch themselves up in the air. You should do that! It is more fun than you can imagine. Instead of, as we all do, get in a panic and try to get through the next wave. Don't do that. Just stay inside and just let it pound you for a little bit. What that does is it teaches you that it's not that big a deal.

Christine: I started at Oceanside and a lot of times, on some bigger days when I probably didn't have much business being out there. So I know about being on the inside and just getting relentlessly pounded. Because you just never make it to the outside. 

Steve: I love to go to Maui and I like to go to Hawaii and surf over there, but I learned real quickly that you need to leave your ego on the beach. And if you think the waves are too big, Don't go out. I almost got killed a couple of times and it'll kill you. Boy will it hit you. I got my leash wrapped on my big toe. I thought my big toe got ripped off. Oh man. It was horrendous. Yeah, it was terrifying. When I go over there, you look for smaller waves. Head high, a little overhead high. 

Christine: It's hard. I mean, yes, you do wanna have that young kid at heart, that playfulness. But I think at our age we've had enough. I know I've had, I've done enough stupid things in my life and had enough stupid injuries where I tread a lot more carefully. Even the day we went out together, I came in from the water thinking it's a good day when I haven't gotten hurt. I hate to say that, but that's kind of true, 

Steve: You know the other thing too is stretching. I'll spend 10 or 15 minutes stretching on the beach. And just watching it. You have to watch the waves and what's going on out there before you go out anyway. So stretch. Do the yoga stretching.

Christine: I usually do it at home. I usually do a little stretching and get my body and my psyche ready. Like, okay, here we are preparing for the next session. 

Steve: And then lots of caffeine. That helps. 

Christine: I didn't catch a single wave that day, which was fine. I was just getting used to that kind of the power at Terramar. Like I said, I hadn't been there when the waves have been that big. But I saw you, you caught quite a few waves and it seemed like everyone, no one else was bothered by the size. Everyone else seemed to be doing fine out that day.

Steve: They're used to it at different levels. It's like yoga. Same thing. I mean you can take a hot yoga class and go in there thinking you're okay, and all of a sudden about halfway through you're dying. You gotta get up and leave. Same thing. It's all what you're used to doing and becoming friends with it. Terramar, those waves that we were messing with, they're real easy and real soft. They look dark and menacing, like they're gonna hurt you. They don't, you take off and as long as you can get to the bottom of the wave and, and get to your feet. You're good. 

Christine: Yeah. Okay. I have felt that with it when been there when it's 3-4 feet. I've been able to handle those fine. I noticed you several times singling to me and then to probably to a few other people out when the next set was coming in. And it was another thing, it struck me again that you were the one that was really watching the horizon cuz on a day like that, you can't let your guard down. 

Steve: Oh no. 

Christine: A couple of times I didn't quite react fast enough. And sure enough, you catch it when it's already crashing on you and it it throws you for a while. 

Steve: It does, it doesn't seem like it at the time, but it's really, really good to get pounded by that stuff so you're used to it, you know? You make it through and you're that much stronger. You're that much closer to getting a good wave. 

Christine: Well, that's a question too, one of the reasons why I moved from Oceanside to Terramar was I really wanted to have better board control and say if I take my board out, I'm gonna hold onto it. But on that day, I really tried, but when a couple of those big sets came and I tried to do the turtle and there was just no holding my board. I mean, it just was ripped outta my hand. 

Steve: That's okay.

Christine: It seemed like a lot of other people were in the same…
Steve: Oh, it happened to me all the time. Yeah, it happened to me yesterday a couple of times. There was a couple of waves that came through that were big! And they came outta nowhere, right? Like rogue waves. Yeah. It was like an eight foot faced thing and broke in front of you and like white monsters coming at you churning white devils. Oh no. 

Christine: But you still think then even at Terramar that size, if you catch it right? It's still gonna be a solid wave. 

Steve: Absolutely. Terramar's a real easy wave. I wouldn't recommend doing that at Oceanside cause that's a violent, more of an open ocean kind of powerful wave. That's a pretty serious wave when it gets big. It can really hurt you, it’s a lot steeper. And it'll hold you down.

Steve: You know, I've been held down on the bottom and you can't get up. You don't know what you're doing.

Christine: I'm curious, as somebody who took up surfing later in life, it's much different to learn to surf at 6, 16 than 62. Do you have some tips for beginners?

Steve: Yeah, pretend you're 14. I'm dead serious. I mean have the mentality of a 14, 13 year old. I paddled out on a big day one time when I was learning, and the only people that were out were like young kids. It was big. It was much bigger than when we were out there. It was twice that size. And I got out there and I looked at these guys and they kind of looked at me and I had my gray hair and I'm some old guy. And I said, how old are you guys? And this one kid goes, 13. And I went, okay, for the next hour, I'm 13. And we had more fun. It was really, really cute. But that's the key. Stay in shape, do yoga, be flexible. Don't get all nutted up, relax, and have fun with it. Be goofy. Be a goofball. You'll see people out there and they're all stiff and they're worried and they surf like hell. They can't surf because they're so stiff. They're like wood. Relax. It's only water. Leave your ego on the beach. Have fun, stretch. But the bottom line is it's a fun sport, it's a replenishment. It's spiritual. That's what I would say. 

Christine: To get something technical out of you, you did offer a little bit of advice for my paddling technique and I would love it if you could explain that to me again. Was it to angle my elbows a little bit higher.

Christine: Yep. And then to scoop the water a little bit under the board, was that what you were trying to say? Or sweep it or to the  side?

Steve: Yeah. And put your elbows up a little bit. And then maybe not reach quite as far. And then roll your side on the side of your stomach and your pelvis a little bit. Use your body as well as your arms, keeping your head in the middle of the board. You don't want to be moving around on the board a lot. You want to use your body. You want to use not just your arms, but your obliques, your stomach, your butt, your shoulders, your back. Paddling is a real technique. I'm not the best paddler in the world. People out paddle me all the time, although the time to paddle hard is obviously when you're going for the wave. People waste a lot of energy when they're paddling out. But yeah, keep your elbows up and like you're reaching over a round log.

Christine: Okay. Your fingers are also making that kind of knife into the water, right?

Steve: You can leave your fingers open a little bit. I found that helps. It's a funny sport too, because they'll be guys that are really good. There's a couple of pros that go out there, Sean Madison for one, and they’ve been on the cover of Surfer magazine. They're pros and they're really good surfers. They won't tell you anything. You might surf with 'em for five years. And if you get one thing out of them, it's gold. I've surfed with him for a long time and he told me two things, and both things were great. I go, so what else? And he goes, you can sign up for my class. You can pay me to instruct you. I'm a surf instructor. Okay, shut up. You know, I'm not paying. So what I did is I went over to his house and we traded a little bit. I taught he and his wife about handguns and security and you know how to sweep your house. 

Christine: So you got some tips that way?

Steve: I did. 

Christine: I'm tempted to ask you here, but maybe if it’s traded, it should be kept close.

Steve: I got the short end of that deal. I think he gave me two things and I spent like two hours at his house. Oh man. I brought guns over there. And let 'em hold the guns. They knew nothing about guns.

Christine: Any personal hiccups when you were learning or any technical difficulties? What was the most challenging for you?

Steve: Perseverance. Staying with it. Sticking to it. I've been so frustrated and angry getting out of the water where you felt like you were Jerry Lewis on quaaludes. You couldn't do anything. Your board goes under, you can't catch a wave. You have to just persevere through all of the things that make you want to quit. And that goes with anything I think. But surfing is a real individual thing. And there's a thousand things going on all the time. You know, it's not easy. I took my grandson the other day and 

Christine: How old is he? 

Steve: 17. And he's just learning. 

Christine: I was imagining him much younger when you mentioned that. 

Steve: No, he looks like Thor. He's a giant, he looks like a viking.

Steve: That kid's like 6’ 3.” My God. He's all chiseled. And he lifts weights and he’s 13 or 14 size shoe. It's ridiculous. Anyway, I pushed him into a wave on my board in the whitewater and I've never seen him smile like that. So about two weeks ago. He FaceTimed me. He bought a board, came down and said, let's go. We got a $40 wetsuit and we went out for about an hour at Terramar. 

Christine: Wonderful. I really admire you. I think it's a lot to be starting surfing around 50, but to start at 62 and then now eight years later, you're doing great with it. 

Steve: Oh, thanks. 

Christine: And it, it gives me a lot of encouragement to see you out there the other day.

Steve: Fun. Anybody can do it. I mean, there's guys out there 80, 85 years old that are doing it. 

Christine: Actually the day we were out, it felt like there were quite a few people of that set. And definitely, the Harbor. I really appreciate that there's people of all ages out there.

Steve: There really are. It's a weird sport. Everybody's checking you out. Everybody wants to see how you're sitting, how you're surfing, how you're built. Are they better than you? Are you better than them? Can they challenge you for the wave? But what really is the great leveler for me? I'll bite 'em. If they get in my way, I just jump on their board and bite 'em. 

Christine: You really do bite them? 

Steve: Oh yeah. Bite 'em and then they leave you alone. No, I don't. I don't really do that. Just kidding. But headstands help, if you can bust out a headstand on on your board, nobody will mess with you. 

Christine: Okay. I wanna see one of those next time.

Steve: I see have pictures at Terramar. I have pictures on my phone I can show you. That's the other thing yoga really helped me with doing is headstands. It's Frankie Avalon, you know? No, it's a great sport, so I'd encourage anybody to just get out there, even if you're not catching waves and standing up for a while, you're gonna have as much fun as a beginner, as a pro has, maybe even more. The adrenaline, the serotonin, the dopamine, everything you're squirting out to make you feel great. It's the same stuff they feel. You know, in Hawaiian, a 30 foot wave. It's the same thing.

Christine: Yeah. Every little achievement or every little gain, you feel it. The first time you catch your first open face wave, it's so thrilling. Or I remember in the early days, just catching the whitewash. It was just so fun. And you reminded me of being a kid and playing on the Boogie board. There was a lot of water time when I was a kid. 

Steve: So when were you most happy? When you were a kid? Right. 

Christine: I'm pretty darn happy now. 

Steve: Well, you're kind of a kid. 

Christine: I try to keep that feeling that now is the best moment. There hasn't really been a prior best moment of my life. It’s something I try to embody.

Steve: That's awesome. You’re so fortunate. when I started surfing, I thought, what do I want to do with the rest of my life? I didn't know what to do. Well, when were you the most happy? I thought when I was like 15, 16. What were you doing? I was hanging out at the beach. I grew up in Malibu. I didn't surf, but I grew up there, so that's what I did. And you can do that in any age. They say you can't go back. You can go back. 

Christine: But it takes, first of all, that questioning, that awareness. And reflection and then being really honest with yourself. Because I think that sometimes even that basic question can really trip people up. When were you happiest? People actually can find that. It just takes a little bit of digging sometime. But from there, you do have to do a lot of work to get to the point   of bliss of surfing. 

Steve: You do. As you get older, you have health stuff. I'll sit out there and there'll be some older guys. I have to laugh, we used to sit around, and we were talking about cars and girls and movies, and what we're gonna do and talk smack. Now we're talking about hip replacements, Lipitor, and you know, torn rotator cuffs. We’re like a bunch of old geezers out there. But you can do it until you break yourself in half and have a walker and a surfboard. You know how kids have their bicycles? I'm gonna get the walker and I'm gonna make a little rack for it. 

Christine: That would be amazing, I hope you do.

Steve: I swear I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna put a rack on the walker and I'm gonna put my surfboard on it and go shuffle on down there. I think that would be hilarious. 

Christine: Just to be able to pop yourself up quickly on a wave. That right there takes so much core strength, arm strength, flexibility, it's all there. That in itself will hopefully prevent you from ever needing a walker. 

Steve: I hope so. 

Christine: Thank you so much Steve.Thanks for taking me out the other day.

Steve: Bring a bigger board next time. 

Christine: Okay. 

Steve: A little bit longer, more volume. We'll make sure you get some waves and scare yourself to death. 

Christine: Wonderful. 

Steve: But get out there soon. Cause these waves are gonna be really good. 

Christine: Make sure the waters okay. I’m thinking maybe Friday by then the water will clean up. After this storm… 

Steve: On Magic Seaweed, it's getting five stars and it's like six, seven feet. So it's gonna be… 

Christine: When are you going out again? You said it's important to wait the three days or so? 

Steve: I think it is. Yeah.

Christine: Yeah. But then you went out with your grandson. I was counting the three days, but you went after two days.

Steve: I know. I had to go anyway. Until the next time.

Christine: Thank you.

Steve: Yeah, thank you.