Dane anoints me in aloha spirit

You spend enough time walking around Waikiki and sooner or later you feel like you ought to go surfing. Which is a problem if, like me, you don’t know how to surf. Not that there aren’t plenty of opportunities to learn. It seems like every few feet on the beach there’s a Hawaiian beachboy or two giving lessons on how to properly stand when you’re in the green room.

photos by David Lansing

photos by David Lansing

The Hyatt, like a lot of hotels, even has its own surf school, called the Dane Kealoha Surf Academy. I’ve gone in there a couple of times just to, you know, check it out. Usually there are two or three grems in there (average age about ten) trying on wet suits that they’ve somehow convinced their folks to buy.

Yesterday I ran into the man himself, Dane Kealoha. I always imagined that big-time surfers were hip dorks—like an Austin Powers character. Not Dane. He was very cool. He asked me if I was interested in a surf lesson and I told him I didn’t think so. “Bad knees,” I told him.

Rather than blowing me off or getting all snarky, he pointed to the scars on his own knees and said, “I know what you mean, brah.” And suggested we go out on stand-up paddle surfboards instead. Which sounded kind of fun.

As we headed for the water, I asked Dane about the Surf Academy. He said it was the hotel’s idea. “Me, I couldn’t really wrap my head around the idea of charging people to surf,” he told me. “I mean, I didn’t pay to learn to surf so why should I charge someone else?”

Obviously Dane is not your standard entrepreneur. But the hotel really wanted to have a surf school and they really wanted Dane to run it, so he finally gave in. Though charging people money still made him feel bad.

Dane Kealoha

Dane Kealoha

“But what happened was that I’d get out in the water with a couple of students and maybe someone else would come over and listen to what I was saying and I’d tell them to join us—even though they weren’t paying for it. And that made me feel good. It was living the aloha way of life I’d grown up with.”

Dane said that when he’s in the water, he feels very spiritual. “I feel blessed with the aloha spirit,” he said. ‘It’s what holds me together. I’m at peace within my heart when I’m out on the water. I find the ocean comforting. It allows you to let go of the world and open your soul to the aloha spirit. And that’s the way I want to live my life.”

Something to think about.

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2 comments

  1. mARIENNE

    yOU ARE THE ACTION THAT ALOHA AS A WORD MEANS TO CONVEY… A SMILE AND YOUR LAUGHTER ONLY SHOW, REGROUP LET GO AND LET GOD ALOHA IS HEALING AND THE OCEAN IS THE PLACE TO GO… MR KEALOHA YOU ARE THE AMBASSADOR OF GOOD WILL HAWAIIAN STYLE. ONE WHO KNOWS. ( anni)

  2. Angeline’s avatar

    Duke and Dane, a great photo.

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