If You Go Leash-Less, You Should Assume All Your Responsibilities

A Guy wipes out right in front of me, and the surfboard comes right at me. Obviously he was not wearing a leash. 

That in of itself is fine by me. I was not hurt. If I could have the confidence, I would do that also.

But the guy on the way to his lost board said why I did not catch it for him.  If I was him, I would not have thought of asking.

Well, I could have caught it, actually, if I saw the leash snap or would be in otherwise more dangerous condition. But obviously he was surfing without the leash and it was a small surf day. So I did not catch it for him. 

Because it is part of the deal, if you lose a board and if you chose not to wear the leash you go get it. 

Surfing, for me, is a kind of sport that you as an individual have to take the whole responsibility from the time paddling out to coming in, and that makes it even more of a discipline to become a level of confident surfer who can do so at all times (or knowing when not to get out.)

The most challenging part of surfing is taking off!

Note, I wrote this note on my NEO Alphasmart and in around 2006, and it was still not posted.
I will assume this is about August 2006... Today in June 7, 2015.

At this point in my surfing, I still find taking off the most challenging part of surfing. Obviously without a good take off, there is no surfing. As the skill level goes up, so is the willingness to take either bigger of faster waves. For me the main focus is to catch faster and hollower waves because there are a lot of those in my home breaks, and also when I do catch them they are much more thrilling. Also in these types of waves, it is often good to take off at an angle, as when you take the route of going down straight the wave is already closed down and not riding the shoulder.

And to do this, what I need is the seer paddling strength, and that's where I have realized was finally starting to build up; instead of paddling evenly on both hands, I now paddle harder on one arm to steer the board in the direction I want.