Laird “Bad Ass” Hamilton- considered the best in the world at big wave surfing- and yet has never entered a single professional surfing contest in his life.  That changes everything I thought I ever knew about the word amateur.  According to Laird- “Contests are less about the one big wave than about your performances. Surfing is about your body of work. It’s about art. I would snap if I was letting someone other than the audience determine my fate. How does a musician judge his thing? By how many people love his music?”