Many people are struggling to come to terms with what is happening in South Africa, and how life has changed. Others, like Cape Town big wave surfer Matt Bromley, has simply put his head down and is working towards helping people less fortunate during this time of uncertainty.
Monster Energy athlete Bromley is moving from project to project in his efforts to help the needy during the time of COVID-19. We caught up with him.
Hi, Matt How’s Lockdown treating you?
I’m naturally quite an introverted person, so I have been enjoying the inside vibes. I’ve been trying to be productive with my time and set a strict routine between work, training, making great meals and downtime.
What have you been doing to keep surfing fit?
To stay fit I’ve been doing some breath-hold courses with our neighbours, and workouts in the car park 5-6 times a week, working on bodyweight training with sprints in between.
Lastly, I’ve tied a leash to the side of the swimming pool and doing sprints against the resistance of the leash. This exercise gets my heart rate up, and I go straight into dive downs to hold my breath with my lungs burning.
Tell us about your current project? You are donating 50% of your 101 Learn Online course income to the 9 Miles Project, and they are feeding people?
Yes. We’re giving 50% of all my 101 Learn Online surf courses, for the next two weeks, to the 9 Miles Project. I’ve been working with them for many years and know how incredible their initiatives are. They’ve ramped up their outreach to serving 1500 meals, seven days a week to the Strandfontein informal settlements. Nigel and his team are doing incredible work, connecting, educating and feeding the communities up there.
Matt and friends.
Tell us about the courses.
Thanks. We have three online courses:
High-performance Surfing and Barrel Riding
How has it been going?
Last month we were working with Surf Pop and this month with 9 Miles. It’s not a time for making profits, but more the time to look outward. It’s a cliche, but we all should be so grateful. I’ve been thinking about how to add value to others. If everyone woke up and said, “who am I going to add value to today?”, our city would be such a fantastic place. There are so many in dire need of help. Now is the time to be giving, whether it is R50 or R1000 or more. We all need to seek out a cause, get behind an initiative and do our little bit to help.
Are you getting some good results?
We helped to raise R200,000 for Surf Pop, and we’ve raised some awareness for our online courses, which is great. We’re now turning our attention to 9Miles to help them with support.
For more information on Matt’s excellent online surfing courses – https://www.101learn.online/product/learn-to-surf-matt-bromley/
For more on the 9 Miles Project – https://9milesproject.org
