BALZ MÜLLER: THE SWISS WATERMAN

Balz Müller has played a pivotal role in the development of foiling – driving numerous sports forwards thanks to his innovative style and approach. We hear from Balz about everything from foiling to freestyle to his views on social media.

Words: Balz Müller // Photos: Carter / pwaworldtour.com & ENGADINGWING / Sailing Energy

CHANGE OF PROFESSION

I have moved over into professional wing-foiling. Since winging came on the scene it has grown enormously over the last few years. For the last two seasons I have been a full-time wing developer and wing athlete. I am sponsored by Ensis, which is a Swiss brand that originated right at the very beginning of this sport. Karl Müller was already the Severne distributer in Switzerland, so we already had a long relationship before. When winging started out, Robby Naish was riding a 4m wing in Hawaii, Karl picked up on the sport and started Ensis with bigger wings in mind, which was a great decision because it grew like crazy. It has changed my life completely and I’m now almost daily on the water with all of my sports. Of course, I am still windsurfing, but that is not my main income anymore. Five years ago I would never have dreamt that I was going to be a pro wing-foiler. I am still a professional windsurfer, but most of all I am a really passionate windsurfer. I love to spend time on the water. So now with this shift I don’t feel that pressure in windsurfing so much anymore, but in fact I’m actually windsurf better than ever before. My sailing has gone hand in hand with the release of pressure and now I don’t feel any pressure windsurfing. I am just having a blast. In wing-foiling it is at the point where I have to perform and people expect something. I am living from wing-foiling, so that is the pressure you have to accept comes with it.

LANDSCAPING

My old job as a landscaper has pretty much come to an end. I just don’t have the time for it anymore. My old boss keeps calling me up to sneak in two or three weeks on a project here and there. I would like to help, but it is impossible and it would be overkill. Landscaping is extremely physical.

EXPONENTIAL PROGRESS

Wing-foiling is getting to a point that is mind blowing. The progression on the water and the development at the beach is crazy. I never thought that watersports could become such a big thing in my life.

FOIL FREESTYLE

Windsurf-foiling is becoming a big thing, but it is still quite limited in terms of the number of people doing it. There is not yet a mass of windsurfers moving into windsurf-foiling. It is still quite a challenging discipline and I am kind of frustrated in the sense that it isn’t more popular yet, but it is nice to see the young guys slowly picking it up. It is now just a matter of time until the PWA will pick up foil freestyle. If you had asked me five years ago, I would have been sure that foil freestyle would have been in Sylt already last year, but I guess wing-foiling took a slice of that trend. It kind of feels like the young people moved into wing-foiling. The wind foil freestyle is still moving forward and the tricks we are seeing now are insane.

SPORTS SELECTION

I am into pump foiling, which is the most common sport I do in Switzerland. Then I have my downwind board, windsurf-foil, wing-foil, windsurf freestyle, kitesurf, surf and of course wave board. So you could guess that my garage is pretty stacked. In the past I even raced on formula equipment. I just love to spend as much time as possible out in this beautiful playground. I love creating new manoeuvres and combining my work and passion. I try to inspire everyone, but I especially want to inspire the young kids to get out there and play in nature. I am trying to transform this Hawaiian beauty of surfing waves into the realms of flatwater. Everyone is dreaming of big waves and palm trees, but the reality for most people is probably a flatwater location, which lacks palm trees and instead has cold, wet and grey skies. I am trying to showcase that you can become a waterman, even if you are from the Swiss lakes. It is a dream come true. Even if I turn up at a lake, it’s flat and there’s only six knots of wind, I’m still stoked to go on the water. A while back I was riding in strong winds and it was quite exhausting sailing in these conditions and I thought to myself that I’d rather sail in six knots right now, which is a new sensation that I started feeling late last year. I don’t mind going out with really big foils – we are talking about 175cm span here – as it feels like cruising on a ship or a sailing boat. At the end of last year, I was on my downwind board in three to five knots with a wing and the water was totally glassy. There was beautiful sunlight, and I was cruising around feeling like a captain. I cruised about 2km out to sea… I was all alone sitting on my board and just enjoying the atmosphere. I just absolutely love being out anywhere and getting creative in nature.

A DIFFERENT DIMENSION

Foiling changed my life – there is no doubt about it. I was definitely a very passionate freestyler and I still am. Sometimes I would say that foils have taken away from the pumping and sliding side of regular freestyle. Before, I was still registering over 300 sessions a year on the lake without a foil, but many of those sessions were just floating around in light winds – ‘flow styling’ I would say. Then the foil just took that sensation of fooling around in light winds to the next level. It completely transformed those conditions, so much so, that I went from performing a heli-tack in three knots to rotating through a pasko 720 in the same conditions.

For me foiling elevated the sport to a whole new dimension – especially at the lake where I live. Last year I had over 300 sessions written down in my logbook. There were probably 270 wing sessions involved, but most of those sessions were on the foil, even if it was on the downwind board just fooling around. The foil just gets me on the water and it is providing fantastic fun even in the worst conditions imaginable. I stepped it up into different sports and even in my natural surroundings in Europe I can have a blast almost every day. I am trying to become a waterman just like my Hawaiian idols, we just don’t have these huge waves. But we are also getting some waves where we steal the wake off of a ferry to ride the wave. There is quite a big scene now in Switzerland where the pump foil guys are waiting for the ferry to go by every hour, then we sneak on to the wave and score twenty-five minute long runs from one port to the other. In the summer when the lake is full of boats, we are even sneaking on to all the knee-high wakes. Surfing has been elevated into a whole new dimension.

Windsurf-foiling development has not really progressed that much over the last four or five years. The gear back then was just as good as what you can get now. There is still a huge potential to improve the gear.

DOWN-THE-LINE FOIL POTENTIAL

In Hawaii, I probably wouldn’t fit in because the conditions would probably be too big for me. I wouldn’t be scared, but I have never been to there. I would love to go there one day, but I would probably be the one who is searching for a flatwater lagoon, or going to the freeride location and just playing around there. Waves are still a big passion for me because the power they offer is tremendous – you can’t put it into words the feeling of gliding down a wave. Down-the-line wind foiling interests me with the windsurf equipment in waves. I visited Kauli Seadi in Brazil three or four years ago and I experienced for the first time the potential of down-the-line riding on a foil. At his home spot in Brazil, there are mellow conditions and mushy small waves with light winds, but the benefit of the foil is that you can go in any direction at full speed. I was able to do round houses and proper top turns coming upwind into the pocket. Whereas with normal windsurfing gear you would lose speed. With the foil I could draw proper lines on the waves. Kauli was mind blown by the lines that I was drawing. He was telling me that I was drawing lines like it was a perfect Cabo Verde day, but on one-metre high mushy wind swell instead. I have also been trying 360s off the lip with the foil. I would love to go to a proper down-the-line wave with the foil and see where it goes and if I can step it up. I will probably not be in the critical pocket of the wave, but we would probably draw lines on the face that we haven’t seen before in windsurfing, so that is one of my goals at the moment.

CROSSOVER PROGRESSION

I had some great sessions on the freestyle gear in Pozo last summer. Switching from the foil, which is a big heavy tool, and then swapping down to a fin on a small freestyle board, you feel like anything is possible. On the foil you are quite limited with what you can do with the centrifugal forces pulling you in any direction. So, when you go on the fin in high winds, suddenly all these crazy moves that you have been trying on the foil, feel totally natural and easy. It might even help if you train on a foil and switch back to a fin to create new manoeuvres and just to go back to enjoying the feeling of planing over the water. I love that direct contact of the fin and feeling the waves, but overall, I just love spending time on the water, no matter if it’s fin or foil. These sports go hand in hand as well. The foiling definitely propels me to progress on the fin and vice versa.

IMAGINATION IS THE KEY

I am the guy who is dreaming about the tricks I can do in extreme conditions at night. Then when it comes to the action, I have dreamt about the trick so many times that it feels natural. I wouldn’t say I am going out there and feeling like I’m in a position that I haven’t been in before because if I am trying a new trick like a shifty forward, for example, it has already been in my head for the last eight years. I dreamt about that trick a million times already, so when I am in the air and I am performing a shifty, I know exactly what is going to happen. Even though I haven’t experienced it before. There is a lot of imagination involved and then when the wild days come, I can’t get enough of it. In Gran Canaria, I was going all out – there was no holding back and the handbrake was firmly off. That is how we get out of the comfort zone and push the sport to a new level.

DIFFERENCES

Since our two daughters were born, I feel as though you are a lot less secure wing-foiling when you crash because the wing isn’t connected to the board. Whereas on windsurfing equipment you are at least connected – the whole package is compact and there isn’t a board flying through the air like there is when wing-foiling. On the windsurf board I feel quite secure, even if I am upside down and falling headfirst, I usually know roughly where the board is going to drop. In winging it feels like everything falls apart and it is like there are foils raining down on you. I have reached moments in wing-foiling where I have thought to myself, now I need to hold back! In windsurfing I never experienced that feeling. The landings on your spine in wing-foiling are far worse than from windsurfing because in wing-foiling your spine is basically the connection between the wing and the board and takes all the impact. So, while this provides almost unlimited potential to the sport, the body can only take a certain number of beatings. I hope the young kids, who are performing these crazy stunts, don’t end up with back problems in the future. Even if the landings look smooth, I can promise you they feel heavy.

SOCIAL MEDIA – A BLESSING OR A CURSE?

It was always my dream to be a pro, but with social media I do get to the point every now and then where I think I should just delete my Instagram! To be perfectly honest, I just get fed up with it. First of all, it’s a hell of a lot of work. Honestly, social media should not be in the hands of the athlete, it should be in the hands of journalists, managers, or others who are specifically skilled in that area. I look at social media with frustration because you see, we as athletes, get forced into a situation of explaining equipment and trying to sell equipment to a market that is very hard to understand. Especially with foiling as the equipment develops at such a rapid rate. So the riders get to a position where not only must they be an athlete, but they must be a salesman and a developer, while they should also be in charge of their social media as well.

Speaking about rapid rate, you can have a crazy session in the afternoon and it has to be online that very same evening. For me, this takes away the anticipation which used to build up back in the days when you were waiting for the latest DVD and/or magazine. People expect everything to be delivered instantly these days and then they look at it for all of three seconds, or sometimes even less, and then they just swipe away anyway! My wife is sometimes laughing when I’m juggling with words, or details, in my post for hours and then they seem to be lost in the world wide web black hole within a few seconds. No one talks about how much effort they put into their social media, but I am sure most athletes are struggling a lot with the situation we are facing right now. Sponsors expect us to post two or three times a week or sometimes daily.

Personally, it comes to a point where I will go two or three weeks without making a post. I still consume what is going on the internet, but it is all very frustrating and definitely not the way to go. My dad always said to me: “You will never meet the greatest surfers on the world wide web!”. You will never see a clip from the greatest surfer as he is somewhere having the greatest time and riding waves. However, nowadays with social media being everywhere, it is almost impossible to escape from it. You can’t even land a new trick without finding it online later that the day.

THE SURFING PARADIGM

I would tell all the young kids to surf more in nature and less behind their displays – there is a whole world out there. I don’t know what’s going to be next, but I’m freaking out to see what is going to be the next crazy sport coming along. I never ever thought there would be wing-foiling and windsurf foiling emerging. Freestyle was already blowing my mind, so I am excited to see what is yet to come and I think windsurfing has never been as great as it is right now. The possibilities are all there, we just have to make sure that we are showcasing it in a way that it is not getting lost in the clouds somewhere on the internet!