This morning, due to the low tide plus swell condition, I did not go in the morning instead, I went to the office early in the hope of surfing in the afternoon on the way back home. It was 3:30, and I was on a roll with the final coding of a new product I was working on, and then people started to roll to come into my office for questions. Of course, the work is very important and more importantly helping people is, but I am not denying that it will be frustrating when people "decide" to come for help when they could have done it sooner. People do seem to come in sets when I don't want to, and so do waves. They come when I was changing into dry cloths after a session.
At any rate, there was a lull in the sets, so to speak, so I was able to leave the building at about 4:15.
When coming down the highway 1 from north, it is very easy to see that Linda Mar was a big mess, because it looked like a bowl of cappuccino. I did stop by to do closer check at the south end, but the story looked the same. For the last hope, I have headed to the Jetty. Of course, I'd pass by Montara, and I would look as drive past by. Now, this place did not look too bad, so my stoke has gone up by a notch.
Finally I approach the Capistrano light, and you can actually see the water beyond the breakwater, and it did look cleaner than the Linda Mar section, so my stoke has gone up even higher. Then when the light turns green, I can finally check out the breakwater. It was, well, not optimum, but surfable. So I turned around at the light and headed to the dirt lot.
The condition was basically a mess, and it was a bit difficult to find waves that can be surfed, nevertheless, I actually had some really great waves.
I need to explain in a bit more detail why I caught great waves. It is because I made a discovery today and the as a result the ride was better. I have a surfing text book and I actually read quite often repeatedly. I actually read this so much that pages are coming off and corner of the pages becoming dog eared. In that book, they stress the importance of putting the weight on the board. This actually never made sense to me, because I am on the board, so 100% of weight should be on the board, or where else the weight would go?
Well, I think I can clarify what it is saying. You should put the weight where it is needed. That means you need to constantly weight shift yourself on the board. What is making the difference is that if this is done more correctly, you'd feel more adhered to the water. This was a different feel this evening. Somehow, at no matter which part of the turn I was executing, I was holding down the board on the water, and so I was executing turns with more definition and tightness. I have felt a bit of this on the bottom side of the turns before, but now I can continue to do this on the top side cut backs.
I think that what is really helping me is this practicing on the Indo Board. On the board, it is actually not easy to jump around and shift weights. I have been trying to go slowly from one side of the board to the other while maintaining a low posture. Another fun thing I do with it is that I turn on surf videos and watch it as I do my Indo Board practice. Originally I did this to keep myself occupied while doing this relatively repetitious routine, but what is really helping me is that I have started to analyze pro surfers' weight shifting, and try to incorporate part of the moves as I dance on the Indo Board.
No comments:
Post a Comment