Age really is just a number for 89-year-old Seiichi Sano, who, after climbing Mt. Fuji at age 80, recently started taking surfing lessons. Although he considers himself a novice at his new sport, the full-time Japanese businessman who sells timber, said he feels ageless as he catches gentle waves with fellow surfers (who are all decades younger than him).
"I don't consider myself an old man," he told reporters, according to AP News. "I have never thought of myself as an old person. I always feel that I can still move forward."
Sano was inspired to surf after he chatted with a local bank employee who looked tan and not like the usual working stiff. When the man said surfing was his secret, Sano signed himself up for lessons. He has since made it into Guinness World Records as the oldest man to surf. (See video below, posted by Eurosport, to see him in action.)
"I enjoy being swept up in the wave," he said. "I am not a good surfer. So I call myself a 'small-wave surfer' — out of respect for those who surf well." But the octogenarian will only get better with age.
"I think it would be interesting to try to surf until I'm 100 … I think I take better care of myself when I have goals like this."
