The Spirit Of Play Washes Over Her

Susan Frieder in 2021 when she was 77. In this photo, she is on a beach in Hawaii preparing to enter the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest female kite surfer.

By Ray Glier

Susan Frieder, 80, is shamelessly throwing herself into life. She kite surfs 300 days a year in Maui. She plays pickleball six, sometimes seven, days a week. Susan golfs and still runs a psychological counseling business. She belly dances and does ballet.

Just look at this short video of Frieder kite-surfing a few months shy of her 78th birthday.

It put her in the Guinness Book of World Records.

The woman needs a dimmer switch. She is an accomplished bridge player and traveled to Bhutan last March as part of a group that showed Buddhist monks how to play pickleball.

I read about Frieder and watched a You Tube video about her and I thought it might all be a masquerade. Who is that focused on play, especially at 80?

Then I talked to her and the juice flowed at me. It was all about active resistance to aging through “fun”. It’s been with her all her life, Susan said.

“Some people don't have that spirit of play because growing up maybe they had trauma in the home,” Frieder said. “I had that spirit of play before (I found) boys at 12 or 13 years old and I regained that spirit as an adult.

“So regaining that spirit as a woman and finding what you love is really important.”

It’s why these stories at Geezer Jock have meaning for people in their 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s.

It’s all about the play.

Frieder explains herself like this: “I’m really 19 years old inside.”

Eighty and going on 19, Susan went to her first Huntsman World Senior Games earlier this month and won a gold medal in pickleball (W80-84).

Last spring, at a national pickleball tournament in Dallas, Frieder won gold in mixed doubles and women’s doubles.

Who better to teach monks how to play the game?

The group that went to Bhutan in March 2024 took pickleball gear on the trip, as well as shoes, donated by sponsors.

“One of the monks said the monks were fat and lazy and they needed the exercise,” Frieder said with a chuckle.

To be more like Susan—the kite surfing, the pickleball teaching, and the belly dancing (at parties with a sword over her head)—requires shifting the relationship with yourself. It also requires balancing your life’s ballast, Frieder says.

“Those physical, mental, the emotional relationships with yourself, you have work at filling up all your tanks so there's balance,” she said. “It is self care and healing yourself, whatever that takes. It is taking good care of yourself and healing your inner child.

“So often women are caretakers. Say 'no' so you can say 'yes' to yourself.”

I imagine kite-surfing, which is flying on the water, is the ultimate in self-care. The freedom and exhilaration must be immense and do wonders for mental health when you are practiced up.

It can be challenging, however, with kite-mares, which Susan calls “experiences.” Rogue waves, wind shifts, wind dying down, or your line crossing with another kite surfer can disrupt the fun, but the tradeoff is worth it, she said.

“So you have to be able to be calm in the moment of an ‘experience’ because you might have to self-rescue way out in the deep, deep, deep water,” Frieder said.

That’s the spirit of play we had as children. Jumping off docks, or bridges. Racing on bikes. It can be regained, if we allow it.

The monks at play with pickleball.

Susan teaching kids the game in Bhutan.

A gold medal at The Huntsman World Senior Games.

 New converts to pickleball in Bhutan.