Pure joy is contagious, and I caught some on a visit to Kid Peligro’s Ginastica Natural surf training class at the Sunset Beach Jiu Jitsu studio across the highway from the famed surf break. Housed in a wood-frame structure with one side open to a green yard on a hot, sunny day, the class was a barrel of monkeys — grinning kids, that is, performing a whirlwind of antic stunts.
The studio reverberated with the sound of hands and feet drumming the floor and the rush of deep breathing as the kids enacted the “monkey,” a fast, inverted backward crawl; “seals” and “snakes,” paddling or slithering on bellies across the floor; and “tigers” stalking.
Betty Lou Sakura Johnson, 11, sprang up and down like a rhebok on the padded mat.
“Such great energy,” said their teacher, Kid Peligro, a lean, youthful 62-year-old, as he cheered on the 12 students, ages 11 to 28. “It’s like they don’t know they have parking brakes.”
His goal is to help them channel and focus that energy in the waves. Several compete on the Hurley youth team, and Peligro has won renown as a trainer for pro surfers John John Florence, Sunny Garcia and Elijah Gates, who has started teaching a beginner class at the gym.
“Such raw, unbelievable talent,” Peligro said of Florence, who began training with him in January 2016 and went on to win the Eddie Aikau big-wave invitational, the world championship and the Vans Triple Crown of Surfing, all in the same year. “He doesn’t need training to surf better, but for the stamina and flexibility. It’s like you have a Ferrari with a parking brake or two that hasn’t been released.”
Peligro, who had been coming to Hawaii to surf since 1975, settled on the North Shore two years ago. His given name is Gerry Costa, but he prefers Kid.
“Peligro” means danger in Portuguese; he got the nickname while studying jiu jitsu in Brazil. “I was the smallest, worst one, and I got beat up so much I ended up being better.”
Seventeen years ago he learned ginastica natural — a blend of jiu-jitsu, yoga and plyometrics developed by Alvaro Romano for extreme fighters — and adapted it for surfers.
THE KIDS smiled and made room for me to participate in their warmup, which included lunges and squats, rolling from side to side, lying prone on their bellies and leaping up into a crouch as you do when popping up on your board.
It was hard but fun, the movements always changing, like the waves.
“OK, this next part you’d better just watch,” Peligro told me, so I took a seat by Dawn Harris, mother of Logan Harris, 13.
“Jump, two big steps, lunge to table (flat) back, roll, spin, surf jump set (legs in a wide squat, elbows on knees), push up cross-over right, rock back and jump up,” Peligro directed.
They did all this as quickly as he could say it.
“Touch mat and kick from set.” They crouched and swiveled, kicking the walls high above their heads. Peligro patted the head of the smallest kid, cautioning, “Don’t take anyone out.”
Why kicks? “For off-the-lip,” Peligro said: High-performance surfers’ feet are above their heads as they execute vertical snaps. They also practiced handstands against the walls, surf squats on half balls “for pumping,” and paddling motions with resistance bands.
Core-strengthening crunches were good for centered power turns, balance and paddling, which is basically a plank, Peligro explained.
“They love abs,” Dawn Harris said.
During a water break, Mahina Maeda, 19, said Peligro’s workout helped her recover after she hurt her back surfing.
“The only weight you lift is your body,” she said, adding that it makes her feel “smarter and a lot quicker” out in the surf.
Harris agreed. “It’s good for the brain.”
Surfing, like life, is often awkward and unpredictable, and they were learning how to turn tough situations around.
Class over, the smallest one came up to give me a kiss on the cheek before he and his pals bicycled off, saying, “Want to go Ehukai? V-land?”
Talk about positive energy. Just thinking about these kids makes me smile.
For more information, visit Sunsetbeachjiujitsu.com or email kidpeligro@gmail.com.
“In the Lineup” features Hawaii’s oceangoers and their regular hangouts, from the beach to the deep blue sea. Reach Mindy Pennybacker at mpennybacker@staradvertiser.com or call 529-4772.
