Wednesday, March 17, 2004

Session 4036: Unexpectedly Great. The Magic Moment Returns

This morning, I committed to go extra early on a dawn surfing with Ren. She was already ready to go at 6:00 shortly after I just turned to northbound on The 1 to Pacifica. 15 minutes later I arrive. I was warming up and I saw Ren waving at me from way up north. I was not expecting her to be that far up there. She used to "work" at Taco Bell all the time.

Based on yesterday, I was a bit concerned that the waves will be too wimpy today, but with the incoming tide and not much wind, and a good sand bar, we had quite a few good "shoulder level" sets. Once these sets come in, they came in in set of 5 or 6, so there were plenty of them for all of us to surf. Earlier in the session, it was just Ren and me, then other people started to show up.

We were catching and riding waves as if we were in a Surf Classic. Probably we would have done some good should this have been an actual competition.

For me, it was the return of the magic moment where I can take ride and execute turns like the way I am comfortable with.

I am starting to realize the importance of paddling power to catch waves at will. I was reviewing some of surfing text books I have and rethinking about the take off approach. So I am going to apply more power in take off and keep paddling a bit longer. Also on this Sunday David Alexander was giving me an advise on fast wave take-offs, and he said to try taking off diagonally. I knew about this one, but I have totally been ignoring it. I also heard Tim Curren said that on his instructional video too.

In fact, I thought I was doing that on my long board all along, but now that I thought about it for a while, and after one good take off at outside Cowell's last Sunday, what I was doing was doing a fast turn on the top as I took off.

So, there is something for me to work more on!

Stoke 8:


LC:LMN:NW:6F:14S:MIT:NW:2K:A7.6

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