Ashley Braunton
Devon’s leading longboarder.
Ashley begins the chat by talking about his early years. Born in Barnstable Ashley has lived in Devon his whole life and tells us about how generations of his family have lived in North Devon.
Ashley started surfing at a young age where he was 1 of only 4 children at school of 1200 pupils that surfed. He started off surfing short boards but quickly turned his focus to longboards. Ashley started competing in his early teens with the likes of Ben Skinner.
As the years rolled past Ashley decided to get a “real job” (never a good idea for a surfer) in sales which took him away from the coast all week. Once the weekend arrived Ashley was too tired to surf after a week away from home and his family. Soon this started to become routine, and the pressures and stress of work led to Ashley gaining weight and becoming unhappy, all of which had a negative affect on his body. Pain in his back and knees made surfing very difficult and Ashley quit the sport.
After getting some help from the doctor, thanks to his now wife, and learning he was to become a father, Ashley vowed to quit his Sales job only to be made redundant before he had the chance to hand in his notice. Ashley found work locally which was less stressful and slowly started to get back into the water where he rediscovered his love of surfing.
Ashley was back and is now competing again. He talks about getting fit for surfing again and Pete mentions a podcast he listened to about tricking your mind into enjoying exercising (Huberman Lab – Controlling your Dopamine for Motivation and Satisfaction Ep39.).
Ashley is also beginning to provide Surf Consultancy to help surfers improve in the sport and he is currently looking for sponsors to enable to him to compete in surf competitions. So, if you’re looking for someone with an incredible knowledge of surfing, that has competed at a high level to give you tips on how to improve your own surfing, Ashely is your man. If you’re a company that would like to support a core surfer who has the potential to be winning competitions, contact Ashley direct at www.ashleybraunton.com or on all social media.