Brett Burcher: Surfing & Breathing Like He Means It
Brett Burcher has accidentally bodysurfed into a 20-foot slab at The Right. He’s led the charge surfing some of Australia’s heaviest bombies near his home in Mollymook. He’s surfed some of the sketchiest, heaviest barrels on the planet, from South Oz to Ireland, Shippies to South America. His is a life dedicated to the pursuit and storytelling of surfing. Few surfed harder, shallower, riskier or with more style. Or as Russell Bierke put it. “Burch showed me what was possible in surfing. And why.”

With a reputation as one of surfing’s most core, underground big-wave chargers, all be it a criminally underrated one, he thought he knew fear, and how to deal with it. Till, in his late 20s, he didn’t.
“I began to perceive threats that weren’t there. And I associated night time with fear,’’ Burch said. “I just got, you know, terrified of going to bed, and developed intense insomnia. And, as I know now, what you resist, persists."
His anxiety issues had come with a move to Sydney. Having been making ends meet through his surfing, writing and filmmaking, he had retrained as a primary school teacher. At his first ten-week placement, a combination of stress, a series of classroom-led illnesses and burning the candle at both ends trying to maintain all aspects of his surfing and new professional life led to the deterioration in his mental health and a self-diagnosed panic attack. He wrote that his life was good but that he was suffering gently and quietly. He called it an inner niggle that didn’t let up, comfortable but that he was tired of the same patterns playing out.

“I thought it was a complex problem and so I looked for complex answers,” said Burch. “Something led me back to my breath. I used it to regulate myself and give myself pockets of energy and pockets of relaxation and focus during the day. It became a tool for better sleep, and to get back on track.”
The natural-footer had previously used breathe work but only as a performance aid for his big wave surfing. He'd completed Breath Enhancement Training (BET) courses with the guru Nam Baldwin.
“I feel like all those experiences and the paths I've gone down, the people I've met, the writings I've done, the surfing I've done had led me into breathwork,” he said. “And I've wanted to share my knowledge. That’s why so I became a teacher. But doing it in front of kids in a classroom didn't quite scratch the full itch. Teaching breath work is something I'm truly passionate about and that can help people.”

I was talking to Burch as the bastard sipped a cold beer on the deck of The Barrenjoey, on the last evening of a ten-day boat trip in the Mentawais. He was on board as part of an Ain’t That Swell trip that, apart from surfing their brains out, also saw Brett train the punters in breathe work and movement. When not on boat trips, he does workshops, private sessions and corporate training days, for an incredibly diverse list of clients, most of who aren’t surfers.
It also says something about the core nature of his career, that this was his first boat trip in the Ments. In his own words, he was always a “povo” surfer who could never justify, or afford, spending 5K for ten days.

It always seemed strange that a surfer of his talents, who was also a creative writer and storyteller hadn’t been a more major figure in the surf world. You couldn’t put it down to his personality. He is universally regarded as one of the best and most humble blokes in surfing. I couldn’t find anyone who has ever said a single bad word to say about him. And God knows I tried.
He puts his underground status down partly to sticking to his south coast roots, an unwillingness to stray or lose the hard-partying, hard-charging crew that were his best mates. He was also perhaps a victim of his many talents. He dabbled in surfing and many aspects of storytelling, without really committing to a single task that may have been more rewarding financially, but less fulfilling creatively.

Burch isn’t bitter, or with regrets, even if part of him realises he may been able to take his surfing to another level. “I’m a Dad now, and I've never fully sunk my teeth into something,” he said. “It’s early days, but the breath-work feels different. ln my own way, I can help simplify things and make real impactful change. It's not like you're going to have to reinvent the wheel. I help to adjust something that we already do 20,000 times a day. It can be a positive regulator in our lives and I aim to help support awareness and connection to self and others.”
He, of course, still rips. And has never lost the urge to track any purple blobs headed to some of his favourite slabs around the Aussie coastline. At 35, he’s as fit and committed to getting barrelled as ever. In every sense, Burch may be the poster boy for Core Stories. Yet, even in that, his take on that term is measured.

“Core surfing to me is maintaining that thirst for the experiences and pleasures that shaped you as a surfer. It can be anything from riding 8-foot single fins guns at slabs in speedos in the desert, to sharing waves on a longboard with your kids,” he concludes. “The key is that with each surf, you are building and learning, almost adding to your tool belt, and pushing forward. Core surfing is doing the surfing that is best for you.”
Few do that better than Burch.
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