Another good down patrol with an inviting condition! Like yesterday, Jocelyn was there already and anticipated swell build up did not happen in the morning so the condition was just about the same yesterday, in fact, I thought that today it was actually better because I did catch a fair share number of waves and days like today where long boarder dominated the scene, the wide French 6'6 board worked just perfectly great. The board presently have Rusty 4.5 fins, which even prior to really getting into the fins, I did noticed some differences compared to the Safco fins I had on, which I lost them in Del Mar not knowing a reef right at the shore.
Right now, this is my favorite board because it is very versatile in supporting what I want to learn. It is actually "too big" for me in professional surfing situations, but for me it really works well to use in place of a long board.
Today, my mission continues to discover more about using the tail and fin of the board to get drive out of the thing. And I must say that I am starting to reduce the early fizzle-out situation of just letting the gravity pull the board down and try to harness the power of the breaking wave more. Having said that though, learning a lot about "ups and downs" of trimmed rides up to now have been a great help in getting to learn the next phase; whatever that will be.
The experiment I have worked on today is to see by continuing to press the back of the board what happens, and here is what I have discovered so far.
By pressing the back of the board, I am essentially stalling as I go down the line, so I feel like I did not get that initial rush of the speed if I glided down. I was previously afraid that if I kept pressing the back of the board so much, I would completely stall out, but that's where it is proving me wrong given some of these experiences I was getting.
Instead of stalling completely at the bottom, I am going slower but maintaining the speed and direction as I am using the power of the pushing wave to stay up going with the wave instead of moving forward faster than the wave. It is almost like I am actually going down but the wave is lifting up back to the same height and so I am moving and there is a bit of spray coming from the tail of the board, but basically I am staying at the same vertical height. That's of course what you see on tube riders, they are moving, but they are basically the same breaking and tubing up part of the wave as the wave moves; you are moving and not moving at the same time, which is kind of a strange balance you are creating.
Of course, I know that's not the only one way to ride the waves, but it is possible to use that mode some of the time, and or perhaps, pump the back a bit, go on a bit more neutral or forward weighted, maintain a straight down line, then bring myself up the wave through more of a bottom style turn or a cutback turn , where I can transfer the upper body weight to gain further speed, which I now know a bit more about how to execute that.
So more experiments continue!
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