And now these three remain: speed, power and flow. But the greatest of these is flow.

That’s the good news John John Florence is proclaiming these days. The two-time World Surf League champion is relaxed and ready, and feeding off the energy of the ever-increasing streamlining of his whole being.

“I have so many different little hobbies,” the 26-year-old Florence said during an interview last week in the yard of his North Shore beachfront home. “With many of the things in my life, I like figuring out ways to be efficient. For me, one way is clean living. It would be cool if we could grow our own food and make our own honey.”

Those two examples have intertwined for Florence in an insightful, green-planet kind of way.

“We have fruit trees all over the property, and for a few years the trees flowered but never fruited,” he said. “We couldn’t figure it out. And then we got bees and literally within months, there was just fruit popping out everywhere. It was crazy to me to see that the bees were the missing link. It was ‘Boom, OK here you go.’ ”

And so now the Haleiwa boy, among a handful of the hottest, cutting-edge surfers on Earth, is an actual beekeeper.

“And a while before I was a beekeeper, I went to a nursery and asked about why the trees weren’t fruiting and they asked if there were any bees around, so now I understand why they were asking me.”

Like Florence himself, his bees have their ups and downs.

“We had a big storm and they weren’t doing so well,” he said. “They got a little wet, but they’re making a good comeback.”

A new perspective

Good comeback. By saying that, he could also be talking about himself. Florence won back-to-back world titles in 2016 and ’17 before suffering a season-ending knee injury in 2018. Not surprisingly, he’s back in form this season and sits atop the Jeep Leaderboard with finishes of third and first place in the first two championship tour contests of 2019.

“Through the injury, I took a step back and looked at things from an outside perspective,” he said. “To be honest, I wondered if I still wanted to compete. I asked myself, ‘What do I like and how do I do this (coming back)?’

“I came back with a whole new view on how I want to compete and why I’m competing. I was kind of in a weird mind-set before the injury anyway. I had just won my second title, and winning world titles had always been my goal. Then I get there (twice) and I was like, ‘Now what do I do?’ I’ve always known that winning isn’t the thing. It’s more the process, the road that took you there. And (I concluded) that the process is incredible.

“Every step along the way, every hard heat, every training day was the most fun part. If you enjoy every part, the ups and downs, winning and losing becomes a little bonus at the end. You’re already winning and you’re getting to experience the journey. It takes the pressure of ‘I have to win’ off.”

Homecoming session

Pipeline threw a little bit of a welcome-home party for Florence the day of the interview.

“I was just surfing out there now and I was like, ‘Haaaaaaaaa,’ ” he said. “I missed it all last winter because of my injury. It’s been like a year. I was soooo happy, oh my gosh. I can’t believe how much I miss this wave. There were maybe five people out. That’s pretty much nobody else at Pipe. And there were barrels and turns and airs and everything. It was like a full playground.”

Pipeline and its accompanying Backdoor, without question, are Florence’s favorite waves, and he’s still in awe of Peahi (or Jaws) on Maui.

“When I’m out there, it’s like a cliff and you’re taking off from it and I just want to get a couple of waves,” he said. “You’re up there, looking down on these massive waves and you see the same (vertical) wall you see on a 4-foot wave, and you’re wondering, ‘Should I go? Can I make that? How does that work?’ ”

Winning “The Eddie” in 2016 remains one of Florence’s biggest accomplishments. It was another one of those moments he entered the water thinking that catching just a few waves would be plenty good enough.

“I always dreamed of being in The Eddie,” he said. “I never went into it thinking, ‘I’m going to win The Eddie.’ ”

The typical world tour stop does not have those types of monster waves, but when Florence does go out hunting the huge ones, he often goes with his brother Nathan, 24.

“Nathan has always had his mind toward big waves, and when the waves are big, I enjoy it, too,” Florence said. “It’s such a fun preparation and everything like that. Last year, though, Nathan started getting into airs and wanting to get better in that part of his (smaller-wave) surfing, and it’s been really fun to surf with him to see that drive and motivation and excitement he has. I feel like I am exploring that stuff for the first time, too.”

Hobbies set sail

Photography, video- and film-making, and sailing are some of Florence’s other interests.

“The sailing thing happened,” he said. “And it also has to do with my fascination with efficiency. If you change it a little or move this, it will cut better through the ocean — on a surfboard or a sailboat. I was into model boats when I was younger. A guy who films with us got us into sailing on a tiny boat one summer. From there, I was just so hooked. I knew I had to have a sailboat and got a little one, and every day in the summer when it’s flat as a lake, you push the boat off the beach and it’s so much fun. The tradewinds are blowing and you feel like you’re surfing. You’re going so fast and pushing the boat to its limits. We have a Hobie Cat now. That thing goes so fast. And sometimes you have those moments where the bow will catch and you’ll just roll the whole thing.”

And the photographic arts?

“I have always been really into photography and interested in what cameras can do,” Florence said. “You can take a photo and can control that all the way through to the end product and be able to capture the light here, bring it into the darkroom, bring that up through the chemicals and then you are creating this whole thing yourself. It’s cool. I did a Nixon watch project and it wasn’t really my idea. But it was a really cool thing. They shot lots of whole rolls of film and it came in the video as a stop-motion thing. In my world, I get to work with a lot of really creative people that want to do these things. That’s so interesting because I’m already into film and developing.”

Influences in the waves

Tom Curren, a three-time world champion, was one of the first pro surfers who made an impression on Florence. Along the way, he has also picked up bits and pieces of professional acumen from others, especially three-time world champ Mick Fanning and Kelly Slater, who has a record 11 world titles.

“Tom has always inspired me a ton,” Florence said. “He has more of a quiet personality who would just show up and let his surfing do the talking. Mick was kind of the opposite, very regimented with his training and competing. But he could turn it off and turn it on. Surfing against him, one of the scariest competitors in the world, he would finish the heat and come in and say, ‘That was super fun. That was great, mate.’ Kelly is harder to relate to because he’s such a freak of nature. What I take away from him is his confidence in himself to win. So I want that confidence like Kelly. I want to compete at the highest level possible and come in and be a good person at the highest level possible like Mick. And I want to show up and let my surfing do the talking like Tom.”

Florence didn’t leave his biggest rival — Gabriel Medina, another two-time world champion — out of the conversation. The two are trying to chase down a third championship this year, with judges intently looking for the surfer with that optimum amalgam of speed, power and flow.

“Gabe is a beast competitor,” said Florence, who won his first heat Monday on the tour’s third stop — the Corona Bali Protected. “He’s probably the best competitor in our day and age. Such a machine, such a good surfer. It’s scary to compete against him and he brings out the best of me, for sure. Some of my best performances have been against him.”