Komang Kopral
Kopral is one of the most prominent up and comers here in Bali and you can see why whenever you get the chance to see him in the water. He began surfing around the age of 13 in 2008 and was actually mentored by another Balinese surfer who was willing to be apart of the project, Mega Semadhi. Mega was the one who saw the stoke for surfing Kopral had from a young age and gave Kopral his first few boards. The boards might not have been anything special, but it got Kopral surfing and for that he has Mega to thank.
Of course, being mentored by someone as gnarly as Mega comes with its challenges. Kopral shared a story with me about how Mega took him on his first ever surf trip to no place else but Desert Point in Lombok. For those that don’t know, Desert Point is a heavy, barreling, left-hand point break that often breaks on dry reef with a near fatal end section. It is considered by some to be the best left-hander in the world and countless people have gotten some incredible rides there over the years. Deserts is unforgiving though, and you’re equally likely to get the barrel of you life as you are to get the pounding of your life on the razor sharp reef. Unfortunately, the first time Kopral surfed it he got the latter.
What is most apparent about Kopral, however, is the general sense of stoke he has about surfing. The guy lights up every time he tells a story about surfing, whether it’s about him getting pounded or getting the barrel of his life. The smile on his face is contagious and we shared a lot of laughs during our short conversation.
When I asked him what surfing means to him, he replied simply that for him it’s freedom. He has centered his entire life around surfing and the freedom that he feels from it. Because of that, he wants to focus his career on being a free surfer instead of pursuing a life of competition on the professional tour. We talked about what it took to get on the tour and in Kopral’s opinion, the pursuit of that can take away from the freedom he feels from surfing. When the goal is winning competitions, often times you end up surfing in order to win instead of for the joy of it.
As he described it to me, Mega brought Kopral to pumping, 6-8ft Deserts when Kopral hadn’t even learned to do proper turns yet. On his first session, Kopral ended up on the reef as a set started to roll in on the horizon with no hope of making it out beyond the waves. As the first wave in the set came in, a solid 8ft wall of water, he was directly in front of it… standing on dry reef. Needless to say, Kopral got smashed by the wave, directly on the reef, and then dragged across it by the white water. He was completely cut up by the reef and went to shore in pain and feeling very out of his league.
Mega, however, refused to let him give up and forced him to come out again only 2 days later and get at least one wave. Sure enough, Kopral got his one wave, most likely the biggest of his life at that point, made the drop, raced down the line and straightened out to avoid the sought after but very dangerous barrel section.
Despite the pounding on the reef, which left scars he still has to this day, Kopral was still hooked on surfing. Since then, Mega continued to pull Kopral into to heavier and heavier surf and pushing him to to be a better and better surfer, and it has paid off. Nowadays, Kopral is right at home when the waves are pumping, and he has become more and more of a standout in the lineup.
On the topic of going pro, we also talked about why we don’t see any Indonesian surfers as a steady face on the professional tour. This is something I have been curious about for a while because, as anyone who has surfed in Bali knows, there is a surplus of extremely talented local Indonesian surfers. Kopral explained to me that, quite frankly, no one is willing to put up the cash to send a local indo surfer to contests around the world. To an extent it is understandable as the Indonesian Rupiah is not very strong and because of that is costs local sponsors an immense amount of money to send someone on tour. However, many really good indo surfers are sponsored by worldwide brands that have the ability to pay for it.
The other reason why we don’t see many indo surfers on the world tour is because the government doesn’t see surfing as something important or profitable. This is interesting because foreigners flock to these islands with the sole purpose of chasing good surf. Luckily though, as a result of surfing’s introduction into the Olympic Games, the government has begun to back Indonesia’s best surfers financially, in order to get them onto the world stage.
That being said, this is not what Kopral as a surfer is interested in. A life of competition is not his end goal; he would much rather be free to do what he loves most while keeping the joy and freedom he finds from it intact.
So keep an eye out, because Kopral is an immensely talented surfer and my bet is that we’ll be seeing a lot more of him in the coming years.
