A heart sits in the center of the body, pulsating out an electromagnetic wave that manifests its reality all around it. The heart is the magnet that pulls everything together, the beat that keeps the feet moving, the force that keeps the body breathing, the energy that connects everything through frequency. That is exactly what the heart of a community does. It brings everything and everyone together by frequency. In a community, that frequency and energy is often held by a person and centered around a gathering. For the log lovers of the international surf community, that person is Israel Preciado, and that gathering is the MexiLogFest, which he created through years of love, blood, sweat and beers.
For the unfamiliar, the MexiLogFest is an annual, invite only, classic longboarding event that most closely combines collaborative festival culture with the arena of competitive surfing. Seventy-five men and women from around the world are invited to a world class point break in Mexico to surf, compete, collaborate and celebrate as a unified global community. The prize purses have been equal amongst men and women since the beginning, there are no leashes allowed, single fin longboards over 9 '2 only, and grace, style and composure are key elements of the judging criteria. For loggers, that’s as pure and real as it gets.
Israel, or Izzy, as he is affectionately known by many, dedicates so much of his personal time and energy to making sure the MexiLogFest has the highest possible vibes. The contest is run so that each competitor is guaranteed to surf three heats. Everyone has an early morning, late morning and afternoon heat throughout the week, giving everyone the fairest chance at surfing equal conditions. Then the best two waves of each heat are added and each surfer's best wave is doubled. At the end of that period, all the scores are added and the top 16 men and women advance to the quarter finals. Because so many of the competitors travel from around the world on a limited budget, this is the fairest structure from both a competition and community standpoint. It allows equal opportunity and saves everyone the normal competition stress of losing the first round and being unable to enjoy the event while there.
The 2024 MexiLogFest was the ninth edition of the contest. It has classically been held in either Sayulita or La Saladita, both of which host world class waves. However, this year Israel made a switch to the coastal city of Mazatlan, which raised many eyebrows with uncertainty. Plenty of seasoned MexiLogFest competitors opted out because they were unsure of the new location. It was a leap of faith, but for those of us who went, it was widely considered the best fest yet. The location is legendary, the culture incredible, and the waves were in warp drive. More than that, the frequency that Israel cultivated could be seen and felt expanding throughout the entire community.
It’s my first day in the water at Mazatlan. The water is a crystal-clear azure blue and the waves wrap around a nook of a headland, break over super shallow urchin-covered reef, then reel off around a perfectly sculpted point break. The point break ends in a channel that becomes a sprawling bay of blue, with the high rises of the coastal city lining the eastern horizon. In the water are just a handful of friendly faces, hooting and trading off on waves. Many of us arrive a bit before the contest to practice on the waves, soak in where we are and to see each other for the first time in a year or more.
“Yewww Johnny! Good to see you brother!” I see Johnny Pitzer, the brother from another mother who hails from the Hawaiian Island of Maui. He’s built like a bear, is as nimble as a cat, and as kind as you can be. I paddle over and hug him. This is a common scene at this contest, more like a family reunion than people arriving to rival against one another.
We catch up and exchange waves, tripping on this new spot and the way it breaks over the super shallow reef. He introduced me to three of the girls in the water who had been absolutely shredding, Lilly, Eve and Lulu.
“Yeah, we have that place right there.” He points across the road to a small apartment building with a balcony that looks directly at the break. The best possible location. “It’s Lilly’s birthday today. Everyone’s coming over. Come by!”
After a day of surfing perfect waves in a new location with old friends, it seemed fitting to transition straight into a celebration. Not only was it a celebration but that first night perfectly embodied what happens when we exist in the heart of the community.
People from every country were in the house, all connecting. People who were about to compete, people who had known each other for years and people who had just met, all congregating and celebrating under one roof as well as on top of one roof, since the rooftop had the most incredible view of the entire point break. That night set the tone for the week, making a home base for our international surf fam.
It was really this household, what I came to call the High Vibe Volcom House of the 2024 MexiLogfest, that came to embody the frequency at the heart of the community. This household and the people in it came to best display the expansion of what Israel had been working to create: a collaboration around the competition. Here we had people representing Mexico, Hawaii, Japan, Australia, France, The Philippines, Brazil, Uruguay and from all over the United States, amongst many others. Here was a place where competitors, judges, contest directors - and Israel himself - would come to hang throughout the course of the days and nights. A true core community center.
The High Vibe Volcom house also happened to be one of the best representations of balanced masculine and feminine energy that I had ever seen. This concept is key for the cultivation of our balanced and healthy community culture. This house had two men and three women: Cholo Win is a Mexican legend who also happens to work with Israel to make sure that all of the logistics for the contest are taken care of. He works, he cooks, he cleans, he’s funny as shit and chill as can be. He also rips. Johnny Pitzer is the ultimate brother, I simply call him Johnny Legend. His surfing is an incredible combo of grace, style and power. He has the calmest, coolest demeanor and is always the first one to invite you over for a hang. He’s supportive of everyone, a blast to be around and has a huge heart. I view them like the two sturdy mountains of the household, grounding down the energy by being solid and steady.
Then there are the three water women. We all became close throughout the trip and I came to view them each as their own type of magical being. Lilly is a straight Punk Rock Shamanista, wielding wild magic, incredible surf talents and attitude so rad it can best be encapsulated by a big smile, with a middle finger in the air as she rages in a mid-night mosh pit. Her best friend Eve is like a creative fairy princess with some extra grit. She has a steezed out surf style, constantly creating, whether knitting, painting or drawing. She has the mellowest demeanor in the household and a soulful sensibility you can see in everything she does. Finally, Lulu holds it down with the heaviest Warrior Goddess vibe that is universally recognizable to all. Her surf approach is simple: charge. During that event alone, she literally took a board to the head, got stitches, duct taped her own head and surfed in her heat the following day.
It’s this incredible combination of energies that made the household what it was. It brought everyone together, allowed for different people to connect and express themselves. It is this combination of masculine and feminine energy that creates the balance needed for the heart of the community to continue to beat properly. It’s because of this that so many different men and women of the community ended up together at this place. It’s because of this particular combination that so many friendships were formed. Also, in community, many lessons need to be learned to keep this kind of connection continuously in balance, the most important of which is encapsulated by the word ‘reciprocity’.
Reciprocity is a concept that means to give in return for receiving. More deeply it implies understanding the other so that what you give in return is something of value to the person receiving. For instance, the High Vibe Household eventually had to become a little more closed. Why? Because of lack of reciprocity. They hosted everyone from all over the world. However, people partied and didn’t clean. Cigarette holes were in couches, beer cans all over, sand on the floors, surfboards overflowing in their storage space.
I’ve seen and experienced this many times before, living in a community. When people are open and giving, there is often an abuse of that giving and when we abuse, we lose. After the first week, there was only a small group of us who had the door code and were allowed to come into the house regularly. There were still gatherings but the fun, free flow of the first days was replaced by a bit more of a guarded gate than the original open-door policy.
Reciprocity is one of the supreme values at the heart of the community. This is the value that truly allows for this high frequency to expand. A balanced rhythmic interchange of giving for regiving is the way the energy stays in motion. When we are not in a balanced rhythm, when we are not giving and receiving for regiving, we fall out of the natural flow of abundance and growth that we experience when we are living in reciprocity.
The act of surfing itself is actually an act of reciprocity. The ocean provides a wave, we give it our energy and attention to catch and ride it. When we are surfing, it is a constant giving and regiving of that energy between the wave and the surfer. Great surfing is a perfect balanced rhythmic interchange of energies with the wave we are reading and riding. When we apply this to our action in the community, then our community moves, expands and flows like we would when we are surfing in flow. That reciprocity, that surfing in flow, is the key to our community. It is also the key to conquering the competition in the MexiLogFest.
In the contest, the person most confidently connected with the wave will win. It’s the natural flow, the give and take, the balance of grace and power, style and technique, that brings each surfer to the top. In the MexiLogFest competition, we are discouraged to paddle battle and encouraged to surf with respect and love for one another. Additionally, for this contest, the waves were firing the entire time, reaching eight foot faces and never dropping below three to four feet. From a competition standpoint that meant there were more than enough waves for four surfers to display their skills in twenty minute heats. Through this, the cream of the crop really rose to the top. And the finals were a perfect culmination to a climactic week.
In the end, four men and four women displayed their surf styles and skills on crystalline canvases in the ocean, and what a show it was. The finals saw a sequential elevation of level, with levitating hang tens, quick cross steps, searing turns, timeless trim, graceful arches and powerful precision making up the weaving of every wave. Each and every competitor should be proud of themselves for the epic surfing that was put on display.
In the end, only two people win. One man and one woman. In this case, it’s as classic as it gets. It was the two young stars from Hawaii: Johnny Michael Van Hohenstein won the men’s and Keani Canullo won the women’s, both from Waikiki. They each surfed absolutely amazing and earned those accolades. However, in my mind, there was an even bigger win.
Johnny Pitzer,The Mountain Man, and Lilly May,The Punk Rock Shamanista, each made it to the finals and each got third. These were the two who held the highest vibe during the whole contest, the two who were always down to host the homies at the High Vibe Household, the two who opened their doors to everyone, supported all their competitors, and were stoked on everyone else’s surfing. These two ended up in the finals.
This is one of the greatest displays of what makes the MexiLogFest so special and what it means to hold that frequency at the heart of the community. Johnny and Lilly opened themselves up to everyone, contributed to the community, celebrated with all, did their thing in the ocean and came out at the top tier of the entire competition. Most competitions are riddled with division and drama that takes away from the spirit of the art and the dignity of the sport. This competition, more than any other I know, holds the space for unity and collaboration. And this is done through fun.
Israel brings us to a place with incredible waves and stunning scenery. He holds events each night to bring us together, like Lucha Libre wrestling night with a Punk Rock band, an art showing night, a film screening night, a gala on an old-world observatory at the top of a cliff overlooking the ocean with a full moon overhead, as well as nightly dance parties that go as long as you can stand it. All of this to help people connect while they are converging from all over the world, brought together by a common love of walking on waves in the ocean.
The heart of this community holds the frequency and spreads it with each beat. Like Israel’s desire to display underrepresented Mexican surf talent that became a platform of underrepresented global talent. The way Lilly’s simple birthday celebration transformed their house into the High Vibe Volcom house. The desire to simply ride a wave connects us with our tribe from all over the world. And if we can all learn to live in reciprocity, just like when we are riding a wave, then we can continue to expand that frequency at the heart of the community infinitely. Just like when we go to the MexiLogfest, when we hold that frequency and find our community, we can end up living in an incredibly beautiful reality.