01x04 - In Pursuit of Perfection

[bunniefuu]

Play is way more important

than you might think.

We play to learn.

We play to survive.

We play to explore

our inner selves and grow.

But that's not all.

We are animals that take pride

in being at the top

of the natural pecking order.

So we also play to prove

that we are better than the rest.

We hope our talents make us braver

and more impressive.

But is there more to these pursuits

than our urge to be the best?

These games are not about

crossing the finish line first.

They're about using our bodies

to create the greatest show.

When it comes to surfing,

the pursuit of perfection means

teaming up with Mother Nature.

Under these waters lies a unique canyon

producing the mightiest of waves.

On the Atlantic coast of Portugal,

the bravest of the brave wait patiently

for their precise moment to shine.

Here, tribes of thrill-seekers

flock to compete in big wave surfing.

On this playground,

perfection is riding the tallest wave

and surviving.

The very best make it

into the history books.

Hey, guys, good morning.

First update here.

Looks super stormy still.

Just unorganized, a lot of white water,

so there's energy, but

unrideable for now.

The locals think

big wave surfers are crazy.

But for one of the best female surfers

in the world, Maya Gabeira,

the sea here in Nazaré

provides the perfect opportunity

to prove herself and woo the crowds.

It's, I think,

the most dangerous surf spot in the world.

There is a lot of power

in the ocean today, and it's kinda crazy.

If you're in the water near,

you're in danger,

but then we're looking for that reward

of riding the wave of our life, you know?

We take that risk and we commit,

but the risk is always there, you know.

We've, uh

I've had a close call here,

and so putting together the drowning,

the difficulty of rescues, and the cliff,

you have a pretty big,

um,

danger zone there that you're

dealing with, you know, constantly.

When she came here seven years ago,

Maya rode the biggest wave of her life

and was almost swallowed up

by the power of the sea.

What seemed like the perfect wave,

almost took her from this world.

When I looked inside,

it just looked like hell.

I just get run over by a truck

and I had, like,

an impact blackout, you know, just black.

I don't even have, like

Honestly, I don't have

memory of it much anymore.

Like, I can't picture it.

Maybe it's just, like, my safety,

like, brain thing

that just tried to erase that moment

of my life 'cause it was so scary.

I was very traumatized by the impact.

The pain, the physical pain.

And that stayed with me for a long time.

I didn't even know if I was gonna be

a professional athlete anymore.

Even on the beach,

I remember, you know, waking up

and having a very, very strong sensation

that I never ever wanted

to go through that again.

And for years after, when I was

trying to get myself back together

and surf here again,

I would look to the inside,

and it would represent

so much pain and so much fear

that I had a hard time surfing.

But, to me, it just became clear

that I wasn't ready yet

to give up on my life and to change life.

I was literally just doing

what I did for all those years, you know,

since I was 15, and I didn't

I couldn't stop doing it.

As the storm settles,

the wait is finally over.

For Maya, the chance

to tackle these waves again is near.

But she'll only achieve perfection

if her team can find the biggest wave.

The surfers are towed out to sea,

where they wait.

Onshore, Maya's team

are ready to make the call.

Okay, guys. Stand by, stand by.

It seems like a set is coming.

Nope, the wave is disappearing.

You can relax.

I see Nazaré and all I want is

those glassy, sunny, beautiful first peak.

It can be 60, 50, 80,

whatever how many feet.

But I wanna see those waves

that, like, just gets me so excited

that I can't think about anything else.

I'm just there, and I'm like, "Aah!"

Get to the bottom.

Start of a wave, for sure.

Maya almost lost her life

in these waters,

but she is willing to risk it again

for the moment it all comes together.

Okay, stand by.

There's a Seems like a set is coming.

There are more waves

coming on the outside.

More waves coming in the outside.

Three waves. It seems like

the second one is the best one.

We're looking for

all the variables to come together

and to give us those sessions

that you never forget.

Now you are on the perfect position.

Perfect position.

Okay, Maya on the wave. On the wave.

On the wave.

On the wave. On the wave.

Whoo!

Maya just surfed

the biggest wave ever ridden by a woman.

Oh my God.

How could I have known

what the world record would mean to me?

The hunt for perfection

leads surfers like Maya

to return to the sea again and again.

But she's not the only one

looking for glory in treacherous waters.

Perfection can also be about timing.

On the Pacific coast of Mexico,

another group is waiting for that

perfect moment to take on the sea.

From dizzying heights,

they free-fall into the ocean

from these cliffs above Acapulco.

The depth below constantly changes.

The water can be deceptively shallow,

which makes this a deadly playground.

To be honest, the rocks

are not trustworthy.

Traditionally,

the locals here have impressed visitors

by risking their lives

diving off these cliffs,

but danger is always present.

The divers jump from up to 100 feet,

and the bravest from as high as 135 feet.

One of these daredevil acrobats

is Brandon.

My biggest fear

is not entering perfectly

when the wave comes in.

Because it's very shallow.

It's only 13 feet deep.

And I'm scared to hit the rocky bottom.

Here, a mistimed dive

can have serious consequences.

So, in order to stay alive,

the clavadistas need to make

the perfect dive.

Just like surfing,

this terrifying sport

is played out for the crowds.

After all,

perfection needs to be witnessed,

especially when the risk is so high.

Some people have broken their forearms.

Shoulder dislocations.

The most common injury is in the eardrums,

due to the pressure

for not putting our arms the right way.

There are many consequences.

That's why it's so important

that the dive is perfect

from the moment you take the leap

until you're in the water.

Diving is all about harmony.

Aligning your breathing with the tides

and trying to keep

the distraction of the world out.

And pray nothing unexpected happens

that will jeopardize your timing.

Just 50 pesos.

A nice souvenir for your family,

Do you feel any pain in your arms or feet?

Yes.

That's my bad shoulder.

It keeps dislocating.

Because of all the cliff diving.

Okay.

I dislocated my shoulder

about 16 times

since I was about 11 years old.

Ready?

You'll feel a pull. Two, three.

Hold it

I became a professional diver

trying to follow in the footsteps

of my father.

If there weren't any tourists

and no cliff diving,

the whole ravine would close the shops.

I have no idea what I would do.

I've never thought about it.

I wouldn't know where to start.

It's the only thing I know how to do.

Tonight, Brandon will risk his life

in search of the perfect dive

in the dark.

He has never made this jump before.

It's a challenge

I've been wanting to face for a long time.

I hope I can do it and come out alive.

I have to admit

that I'm still not used to the heights.

And, honestly, I'm still scared.

Very scared.

At night,

leaping into darkness,

cliff diving is even more dangerous.

From the highest platform,

Brandon is unsure

of the depth of the water below him.

I have a daughter,

and I need to think about her.

What if something happened to me?

She'd be left all alone.

I don't know.

You start thinking about these things.

It feeds your fears.

I think if I have

to die, it's better if it's a quick death.

When you step on those rocks,

ready to make the dive,

at that very moment in which

you lift yourself up from that cliff,

you feel a complete vacuum.

That tiny moment,

it's filled with adrenaline, with fear,

as you tilt yourself,

ready to make the jump.

Watch out!

Whoo!

I'm still shivering. I'm nervous.

Brandon is willing

to risk serious injury

in his search for the perfect dive.

It might seem pointless to outsiders,

but by playing his luck,

he impresses the crowds

and lives to dive another day.

Another sport that's

all about perfect form is drifting.

A crowd has gathered to witness driver

and machine come together as one

for a show of pure perfection.

This isn't about speed.

Just like ice skating,

it's about completing the course

in the most elegant manner.

It's a male-dominated sport,

but on her way to becoming

the first female drifting champion

in the Arab world is Marah.

In our traditions, it's more customary

that driving is a thing for men,

not for women.

Everything looks fine.

When my father supported

my decision to take up this sport,

especially as I'm a girl,

he was under huge pressure.

"How could you let your girl do racing?

This is a sport for men!"

I want to feel happy and to feel alive.

And I can only feel alive

when I'm doing motorsports.

I'm not sure where exactly.

This is the start.

This is the start.

You know how this goes.

You will be in your car

at the starting point.

Hit the pedal hard,

so that the wheels start spinning,

and off you go, and once

the car starts moving, you go right.

Okay, you should go

- In the opposite?

- You want to go right.

You need to keep control of the car

while it goes round and round

around the cone

He's not just my father.

He's my best friend.

He has always been

one of the greatest supporters in my life.

So, whenever he saw me taking a step back,

he would push me forward.

If I want to go left,

I turn the steering wheel right

in opposite direction.

- Then we turn right.

- So I turn here.

- Ghassan!

- Welcome.

- Everything alright?

- How are you doing?

- Everything alright?

- Everything is fine.

- I'd like to see racing tires.

- Right.

Give me something

that gives more smoke rather than speed.

Got it.

We have full-slick tires, by the way.

Let me show them to you.

The grip these tires provide

are very different

from what regular tires offer.

The more warmed-up they get,

the better grip they have.

When regular tires are warmed-up,

they tend to wobble, these don't.

They offer better grip.

- These are new?

- Yes.

Alright, then. I'll take these.

- I'll take this type for the race.

- These will make the car perfect.

O Allah, help her

and keep bad people away from her.

May she win the cup,

God willing, my dear Lord.

To prove her worth

as a title-worthy dr*fter,

today Marah needs the perfect performance.

Thousands of spectators will be watching,

but for Marah's performance to be spot-on,

attention to detail matters,

even down to the final engine checks.

The tiniest detail missed

could mean failure on the circuit.

So I turn it around here.

Here, turn it around. Don't overdo it.

Start turning it around here.

- Here?

- Yes, you'll keep going a little further.

I'm sure you'll do great.

Don't be nervous and you will nail it.

I'm sure you'll do it.

Everything will be okay.

When I hear

the engine and look around inside the car,

I feel that I'm in my own world.

A world that I love so much.

A world where I feel comfortable.

Help me with this, will you?

I'm sure you'll do fine.

The first thing I feel when I get

into the car is a bit of nervousness.

I can even hear my own heartbeats.

I feel that all borders are open

for me. I feel such overwhelming freedom.

Especially as we live

under so many restrictions

in this part of the world

and the occupation.

But when I hit the gas,

it's all gone.

I've now entered

my own world, Marah's world.

Give it up for Marah.

The first female drift competitor

in Palestine.

With the preparations complete,

it's time for Marah

to show the world, and her father,

exactly what she's capable of.

To successfully

prove yourself as a dr*fter

through years of courageous practice,

you must drive as though your car

is an extension of your body,

and Marah has done it.

She has driven a perfect ten.

Her driving has been

a sublime combination of concentration

and finely-honed motor skills.

One, two, three

Marah isn't the only one obsessed

with creating a beautiful spectacle.

In bodybuilding,

points are awarded on looks alone.

But it takes an incredible amount

of sweat and sheer determination.

- You okay?

- Yeah.

- Because it's one minute.

- It's one minute!

Johnny has come a long way

in his battle for the perfect body.

Push. Push.

- Come on, push.

- One.

One more.

- Freeze.

- I got it.

You can try two. Go ahead.

Bring it down slowly.

- Got it.

- Okay.

Three more.

Come on, push.

- Come on, you're almost there.

- One.

Now give it to me.

One, that's it.

Slowly bring it up.

I already had my mind made up

what I wanted to do

when I was in high school.

I was a mechanic. I love cars. Race cars.

Me and my buddies were always

into cars and tinkering around,

trying to make 'em go faster,

rebuilding engines and stuff like that.

And I was good at it.

That was 1995.

So

But, uh

I'd just bought a street bike.

Got on my bike at lunch.

Not even a mile up the road,

I came through an intersection.

I had the green light.

This woman in a minivan

turns right in front of me.

I just T-bone this minivan,

just smashed head-on.

It was lights out.

They pretty much gave me

a 10% chance to live.

They'd put me in a medically-induced coma.

You know, after spending

about four weeks in the ICU,

I slowly start to remember

bits and pieces.

You know

That's when it hit home.

Like, man, this is for real.

Like, I'm paralyzed.

And at 21,

I just felt like my life was over.

"I'm totally helpless."

"What am I gonna do now?"

You wanna start with the 20s,

or do you wanna do 15, 20s?

- Fifteens, huh.

- Alright.

- Where's Rob?

- He's down there.

Got the belts?

But then as time went on,

just to try and get some strength back,

I went into the gym.

That's where I saw

a magazine on bodybuilding.

You good with this?

- Yeah, it's good.

- It's good?

With guys in wheelchairs,

all jacked-up muscles.

And I said, "If I have to be in

this wheelchair for the rest of my life,

if I can look like that,

I'd feel a lot better."

It was after Johnny accepted

his physical disabilities

that he could start working

towards perfection again.

That's the beauty of a back.

Ah!

That's good stuff.

Yes.

- Good.

- Does it look good there?

- Well, from the front, it looks good.

- Yeah.

- Your angle's good.

- Am I straight?

- Yeah, just don't shake.

- Yeah.

- Remember what I said about the 5%?

- Yeah.

That's what we call the fine-tuning.

Together with his girlfriend,

Johnny travels to the Sunshine State

to take part in the most renowned

body build contest in the world.

Mr. Olympia.

Wow, what a great Olympia lineup, folks.

Last chance. Who do you wanna see?

My man.

What's going on, brother?

It was just years ago they added

the wheelchair bodybuilders competition

to the existing categories

of female and male bodybuilding.

See that? That's too much at play.

That's too much play.

I got 26 tires.

That's gonna bring you all the way up.

The same all the way up.

Put some 26s on there,

now you're just taller,

but you're the same.

That's what I'd recommend.

Those are 24s?

- Down at bottom bolt.

- All the way to the bottom.

Oh, hey, hey.

Oh, there he is. There he is.

We share that same bond.

Everybody's got a story, you know.

I'm not the only one.

How you doing?

Just to be able to connect

with other guys like that

and hear what they went through,

you develop a bond

that nobody else would understand.

'Cause nobody else knows

what you go through.

It's so much more

than not being able to walk.

Good to see you, bro. You back at it?

You got a new chair, huh?

- Yeah.

- That's nice.

It's almost Johnny's turn

to show the world his perfect self.

Since his body is the playground,

a final touch of paint

to hide the weak spots

can work miracles.

The judges are looking for purely

defined muscles from top to bottom,

which can only be the result

of years of hard work.

Winning takes a lot more

than just showing off your muscles.

The bodybuilders must follow a routine

that flexes each and every part

of their well-trained bodies

for the judges.

Alrighty. We good?

- Yeah.

- You ready?

Let's go, let's go.

- Welcome back here, everybody.

- Let's go!

You gotta just relax. You gotta relax.

Don't worry about something

you have no control over.

Next up, in 1998,

it was a near-fatal motorcycle accident.

Johnny suffered two broken femurs,

shattered knees,

broken wrist, broken jaw, and head trauma,

and he's a complete paraplegic.

They call him the Mighty Quinn.

From the USA, Johnny Quinn.

Let's go.

Alright, thank you.

And a big hand, folks,

for our seven Olympians.

Alright, Nick.

The judges' scores are in.

Please take the fifth-place award

and present it to

"Mighty" Johnny Quinn.

I feel like I won,

even though I didn't finish first place.

To me, this whole thing is a victory

in so many different areas of my life.

Finishing in the top five

out of the best bodybuilders in the world

was truly an honor.

I feel relieved.

I feel like a weight's been lifted.

- Was I alright?

- Yeah, good.

Yeah.

I think I'm in the best shape

of my life now at 44.

That's 22 years I've been in the chair,

so that's half my life.

And as crazy as it sounds,

if you were to ask me this

when this first happened

that 20 years in the chair

has been the best 20 years of my life,

I would have told you you're crazy,

but I have to be honest that it is

because, you know,

I've accomplished so much

and that I never thought

would be possible.

Perfection means

different things to all of us.

For some of us, it's how we look.

For others, it's about taking our minds

to the next level.

Some are looking for that perfect moment

and facing death to find it.

For many,

perfection will always be out of reach.

But the road we travel towards our goals

is often more important

than the destination.