Session 5212

Another very busy week is just about to go by, and this is the first time I got in the water since last Saturday. We had to move our home and that took a bulk of the weekend and the rest of this week to settle in, plus I had several last-minute items that had to be moved which did not let me keep my boards inside the car all week. Finally though last night, I put all the normal surfing gear back in the car and put a board inside too to go surfing, and this morning I did go. October and the start of November was not good for surfing for me due to a relatively sudden trip to Japan, struck by a fairly severe illness soon after I returned and then the move. Changes in my routine impacts quite a bit in surfing! Also during the last session, I broke off one of my fins on the 6'6 board so I am now using the 6'3 Rusty board today. Just there are a lot of changes happening, and hopefully that goes with the improvement in my surfing skills.

So let's get right down to this morning's session. I had short session due to a meeting at 9:00 a.m. Don't we all hate when someone requests a meeting at 9:00, especially in the winter when the morning is shorter and it is getting shorter by day too! But the part that is even worse is that when I cut the session short and rush to work and only to find that the meeting was cancelled, and of course, that's exactly what usually end up happening.

Oppps! I have diverged again.

The sets this morning was just right size for me, and on the "fun" range. Just about above shoulder on bigger sets. But as typical of our local beach breaks when some big sets get in they all close out not letting us surf. So on a condition like this, I just have to sit inside and hopefully these bigger sets won't come as often, and if they do, I'd paddle crazy to hit the outside and hopefully I can duck through them, which, of course I would, sometimes, be agitated in the mess of white water.

But there were some good inside sets that built up nicely. Sometimes I am a bit too far in, but I catch them anyways.

In past several sessions, I have been focusing a lot more on extracting the power out of the wave, and by which I mean to surf with building up speed, which requires a bit different in the way than I have been surfing, and the more I try this I know it will be a bit longer before I can master that part. What I am realizing is though; I had to do what I did up to now in order to get to the next phase. In other words, moving forward there is more need to refine all of what I have learned BEFORE I can actually move significantly forward. A lot of actions like take offs, flick ups, setting up and following through turns need much more refinement both in the agility of actions and also more pronounced weight shifting.

The good news is that I am willing to go through this, and even more than ever, I am realizing how difficult to master the art of surfing and how it require iterative means of building skills upon skills.