Session 5162

It is kind of funny that we all hate crowds but then it is also a bit difficult to break the first water in the morning.

The same spot as yesterday, but for whatever the reasons there was nobody! I was a bit hesitant to go in. Could have it been a shark sighting yesterday? It's Friday and that means usually there are some people. But heck, it continued to be glassy and not so big and there are people around on the ground, so I got to enjoy the first 30 minutes of fun this DP session. The a good long boarder arrived, then other two towards the end of my session, finally one familiar local who was in the Classic competition came when I got out.

The sets varied from mushy chest level to slightly above shoulder set. Of course for me, an overhead wave is 5'6 so there are just plenty of those for me in most situations.

This morning, I continued to perfect taking off using the Piranha 6'3, and it was really a lot fun polishing up the timing. Another area that I am working on is much smoother take off, as I think I tend to jump on the board too much. The problem is that there is a moment of weight not connected to the board. This is really bad habit that I have been noticing to acquire. Without the full body weight placed on the board the board won't descend, and I am not even working on the "jumping down the fall" type move that some people do when the wave gets really steep.

There was a relatively bigger set (to me that is above my shoulder) at one point and I actually end up catching one of the rights. This one was a relatively fast one as the wave was big enough that I can go straight down then cranked a big right bottom turn and got back up to the middle part of the face, and I really worked hard to maintain the pressure on the board, that was really fun like a knife edge carving the side of the wave, and I was maintaining the line with my head up almost against the cresting top of the wave that could have crashed on top of me, where I was maintaining just enough speed so that I won't let the wave do that to me by going up and down to gain more speed, and just when it's ready to smash on me, I'd kick the tail of the board and do a single cutback, and continue down on the wave now reforming a bit in the inside. THIS is what more of a real surf ride should be (for me, of course). I would wish that all the rides are like that (or better). But this is an early indication that I should start to get those more consistently. Once I can do that I should not look too badly in next year's competition, even if I come to the last! I hope I can get there by then. I hope that Dog Haus will come back next year for the event and I hope I would place better than he does. He better watch out. I should also go against Moon Raker on the long board. It will be fun (until the day before the competition).