Roshel Ballard was the most influential female surfer of my youth, even more so than her contemporary, the four-time world champ Lisa Anderson.

While Lisa was dogged and

tenacious, Rochelle was effervescent, present, and seemed to be fueled by a desire to get big

barrels more than to win contests. Perhaps that was the result of her growing up on Kauai from the

age of six, where she was encouraged to surf by her neighbor and four-time world

champ Margo Oberg. At age 26, Rochelle won the QS and the following year finished fourth

in the world on the CT. Through her 15 years on tour, she won eight events and finished first

in the Surfer Magazine's fan-voted popularity contest, the Surfers Poll,

three different times in 2000, 2001, and 2002.

She retired from professional competitive surfing at the age of 36 for reasons that she will detail in our chat.

And Ballard has transitioned gracefully into life off tour. In 2002, she stunt doubled for

lead actress Kate Bosworth in Universal's feature film Blue Crush. Most of her time nowadays is

devoted to our wellness business based on kauaii called surf into yoga that centers around weekly yoga classes, surf lessons,

and more in-depth private retreats, of which she has an impressive list of celebrity clientele

intermixed with regular old tourists. That business has also spawned an active wear clothing line,

and the day before I actually recorded this interview

with Rochelle, I went for a surf with Dave Parmender, who happened to be wearing a pair of her

board shorts. So that's a pretty strong endorsement. All of this stuff is actually, I've linked to

on surf splendorpodcast.com, as always. And we recorded this chat at Rochelle's home on Kauai,

where we unfortunately were cut short due to shovels in both of our schedules. So I would have

loved to chat with her for hours, and I certainly will in the future. So just consider this an

introduction. And the entry point for this

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