Wednesday, June 16, 2004

Session 4107: Back to LM DP Routine. Stoke 6

Arrived at LM exactly at 6:30. About 6-7 people were already out on the S. end of the beach. The N end looked totally closed out. As far as I could see there was nobody in that direction.
 
The condition was on a poor side with mostly closed-out sets up to head-high size. The tide was still low, so that made the situation worse. But I was thankful that there was no wind.
 
White waves were coming every 3-4 seconds, making paddling out a lot of effort, even if I duck under.
 
In terms of the progresses I made today.
 
Today, I took out the 6'6 Fish and I had one really good ride plus several other rides. It would have been two nice rides but on one nice take off, I did not stand up fast enough that I could not take advantage of that one. Should I stood up on it, it would have been a fine left. So what is starting to happen is that I am now taking off more frequently on the fish but I am not up on the board fast enough. I know, this is mainly due to some fear that I have that I need to work on. Though the fact that the board is getting into the wave in these steeper conditions is very encouraging...  I am actually getting a bit better at taking off on these conditions. Even in these fast situation, if my mind is set up in a panic and haste I am sure to mess it up. If I let myself to just relax, watch where I am going and take each step more solidly then I would realize surprisingly how much time and space you actually have.
 
Some thoughts on where to grab the board during the flick up...
 
I am now a believer in not grabbing the rails when flicking up. Rail grabbing increases the chance for the board to slip out of my hands, instead, I am now back to putting my palms on the waxed deck and do a push-up. This seems to work better for me and it also has an added benefit of really pressing down the board. This is something that was written in Jay's text book, and I know this issue probably subject to a debate as other text book will tell you to grab the rails.
 
More tomorrow morning when I return.
 

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