Creating A Ride

Here is some additional story from Saturday session.

I am really convinced that many good women surfers are so much more graceful whether they are on short boards or long boards.

There is at one point in learning surfing when it becomes more about riding the waves than catching them. Crossing this threshold is, in my opinion, very difficult and most people I consider who passed this stage are very limited in number. Most people have the natural knack at this with them being great athletes to start with. I still consider myself in the "catching a wave" stage since I am still spending a majority of time figuring out how to catch a wave when and where and how I want. Many people crosses this stage, then can ride decently. But basically their rides look awkward and do not inspire much confidence. My friend calls these stances "a survival stance."

If you run into a surfer that crossed just this "catching a wave" stage, and now they are riding the waves, they start to look very confident in their rides, and also they are actually creating rides out of the waves ahead of them, really taking advantage of the wave that is ahead of the surfer. It is kind of like a dance performance, except that the performer is provided with a music chart the moment she or he takes off on the wave.

There was one surfer on Saturday session I saw I thought that she has clearly crossed just catching waves then onto actually creating rides on the wave, and that was really stoke inspiring. With her movement all in synch with the wave ahead of her and with graceful movement all on her knee to the upper body.

For me, this type of shift won't happen suddenly on one day, but as I start to catch much larger percent of waves I go for, that will bring more confidence and wave time, and then I can begin to create more on the wave.

Surfing continues to be a very difficult sport to master and at the same time, it is very rewarding every step of the way.