Waterless surfing in a warehouse gym trains everyone from kids to U.S. Open competitors

Inside a nondescript Westside Costa Mesa warehouse, folks from all over are partaking in a kind of waterless surfing.

They stand up on a Si Board — reminiscent of a skim board — to work muscle groups, practice their form and perfect that all-important balancing act required to keep riding.

Then they’ll stand on a bosu ball, another feat that helps them become “dynamically stable” to conquer the rough-and-tumble conditions of tumultuous waves.

Inside Kula Nalu Ocean Sports a surfer-minded gym at 1043 Center St., one finds clients taking on these types of workouts in a city where, unlike its ocean-front neighbor down the hill, there are no waves to practice on.

And that’s perfectly OK for owner Howard “HK” Keliinoi, who founded his business in 2011 in Huntington Beach before moving to Costa Mesa’s industrial Westside in 2013. He takes his clients down to the water too, but oftentimes, it’s that dry land training, he says, that best preps them for the real swells.

“We coined the term ‘surf fit,’” Keliinoi said. “That’s what we’re really known for.”

Two of his clients will be competing in the U.S. Open of Surfing this month but the gym branches out to other water sports as well. Kula Nalu teaches ocean activities like kayaking and stand-up paddle boarding, and provides general health and wellness advice.

“It’s a concentration of three specialties,” he said. “Training your spirit, mind and body ... we’ve kind of written our own genre. We love what we do and we’re not looking to be the richest people on the block.”

Around him, surfboards, wetsuits and surf-related posters were strewn about the 1,300-square-foot gym, as were his collection of hats that he bought to help the Mauli Ola Foundation, a Laguna Beach-based nonprofit that organizes surfing days for children with cystic fibrosis. Keliinoi volunteers with Mauli Ola as well.

Keliinoi estimates that Kula Nalu worked with about 3,000 clients last year from about 40 countries. About 30 of them are regulars.

Keliinoi, 46, is a Westside native and a former junior pro surfer who was on the Estancia High School team — and, he proudly noted, a former Daily Pilot paperboy raised just up in the street in the Freedom Homes tract.

He can’t help but proclaim he’s got surfing in his blood: He’s French-Hawaiian, with family scattered about four of the islands.

He wears his Hawaiian heritage on his tattoos. One of them is a pineapple; another says “Kulia I Kanuu” — Hawaiian for “Strive for the summit.” It’s all about persevering through life’s adversity, he said, something he knows all too well.

For most of his life, Keliinoi thought about two things: cars and surfing. But while working as a mechanic, one day a car’s hoist failed. The vehicle fell onto him as he worked under it.

“It was a career-ending injury,” Keliinoi said.

Following his recovery, he refocused his life, got a degree he didn’t use — computer networking — then studied sports medicine to become a trainer.

Keliinoi credits surfing with saving his life. Without it, he feels, he might’ve gotten into a lot more trouble as a kid. That’s a primary reason why when he sees at-risk teens, he finds them a spare surfboard, a wetsuit and lets them have at it on the water. It’s a way of channeling their energy, maybe even their aggression, he said.

At Kula Nalu, Keliinoi said surfers of all skills will learn something, from crusty old-timers to new talent.

“Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?” Keliinoi said.

Huntington Beach resident Nicole Herring complimented how Keliinoi has coached her 13-year-old competitive surfer daughter, Chelsea, for the last three years.

“She has improved greatly,” Herring said. “Her surfing ability, her stamina — I can’t say enough good things about the program that they put together for her.”

Herring works out at Kula Nalu sports too.

“I’ve gone from being just a not a good surfer at all to being able to catch open-face waves and ride head-high waves, which is huge for me,” she said. “I’m in the best shape of my life.”