Technical Update: Paddling Topic

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Technical Update: Paddling Topic

In addition to trying to look good while I am up on the board, lately, I have been training myself to be a better paddler.

When I started surfing, I was so weak of a paddler that practically everyone passed by me. Older people, kids and women... I was so embarrassingly bad. Not only that paddling only for a few minutes caused so much pain in the muscles that I had to stop. I was just completely out of shape in terms of paddling.

As I surfed more I have been able to get to the average speed but it was still not good enough to be with a group of more experienced surfers. I was always left behind when they all moved from one peak to another.

Now I am at a level that I can keep up with others in most sessions.

But when I am in Santa Cruz or Trestles there always are people who are significantly more stronger than me, and many of these people look smaller and thinner than me and so I wonder where these muscle powers are stored. They take waves and while I am still paddling out they are already at the lineup. Amazing!

Without some power, it is difficult to hit the "outside." My experience with this is that there is some threshold of speed that you need to attain, and here is what I mean.

When paddling in the inside part of the ocean, there are more white water breaks, and the water seems to flow back towards the beach. I've seen some beginner surfers from the side that they are continuously paddling but they are staying basically at the same spot or gradually going backwards. I am sure that they do not realize that they are retreating instead of moving forward. I've seen this happen to me a lot at Montara or Ocean Beach, for example, when I am paddling for a while and when I look back I am basically at the shore! Nevertheless other and better people do make it to the outside. This is not to mention how far up and down to the side of the beach I have drifted.

So I must conclude that when you are a waker surfer, you cannot even overcome this initial part of the game of getting out. This is even without talking about turtling or duck diving. They do help but without some basic power to overcome the speed there is nothing you can do, but get back to the car and go get a cup of coffee or a glass of beer instead.

As far as the paddling technique goes, my experience with it is that it can be used to generate more efficient paddling but still without the muscles to support the power you cannot paddle fast enough. In addition, improved techniques will begin to utilize more and other parts of the muscles that you have not used much so far yet (unless you swim hard already.) Given the muscles though the "better" surfers palms are nearly closer to the center of the board under water, not directly under the rails. Watch some under water videos of pros paddling out. Another things you notice is that when you begin the stroke put the palm in the water from thumb first. This will get your hand and arm faster in the water at the point where your muscle power is the least from the leverage point.

Some additional findings are that smoother, slower and big stroke paddling gives much less fatigue and often I can move faster in the water. Especially I have been working so that the same amount of power is continuously applied while altering hands, this way I am preserving any gained momentum.

Also this is especially true with short boarding. Dragging the feet in the water can generate additional resistance. I try to make sure that my feet are out of the water. I use one of the legs to prop up other slightly. That's get tiring so I alternate the legs.

Watching strong and good surfers, they really look nice, natural and confident paddling and I am trying to get to that stage.

The "Confidence" Thing

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The "Confidence" Thing

I just got a comment from a surfer in Australia about thanking me writing about the fear. Funny because lately I have also been thinking about the confidence thing, which is either exactly or almost other side of the coin from the fear.

I would say so because as more we conquer the fear the more we become confident.

I am now remembering the first day out at Montara, and I paddled out and I thought that I could never be able to come back to the land. I paddled out with other better surfers when I only had just a few sessions under my belt. Quickly I was pulled away from the comfort of being able to sand on the shallow water, and the panic ensued. I was frantically trying to paddle back, but no matter how hard I tried to paddle I felt like I was getting away from the shore.

Remembering that day from where I am today, it was a sunny clean day without much wave action. But, I do remember that day clearly, and I did think that it would be a horrible day for me and my friend when they would have to call the Coast Guard or something to come rescue me.

Though the fear was mostly inside my brain. I did manage to paddle back to the shore. It was probably only the first 5 minutes that seemed like forever as the shore did not come closer, but once I saw the shore closing in, I felt much better.

At that time, I thought and admired many people having so much confidence in being able to paddle out much further out in the ocean.

Many years later in a local bigger break, a big wave was braking and it was too late to paddle to the outside. The only option was for me to bail (throw the board to the shore just in time -- normally we should not be doing this sort of things, but there was nobody around me so I felt that that was the best thing for me to do.) Instead of my leg being dragged under water, the board slipped away, the leash came undone and I could not find the board. This is probably one of the worst case scenario where it is bigger, stronger and I was already fairly way out. By this session though, I was confident enough that I can swim toward the "zone" so that I can take advantage of incoming wave and I can also take my time getting back there. Still a bit scary, I could keep my calm and slowly swam away from the rip current and toward the shore. Sure enough, in no time I was standing back on the beach and picking up the washed up board, and paddling back out after resting a bit from the swimming. This is where years of short boarding have been really helpful.

Should I have panicked at that moment the situation could have been worse, but I did feel a true sense of confidence.

Sizes of the wave is the same thing. I am now starting to look forward to the days when the swell period is more than 14 or 15 seconds and height can be more than 10 ft. Just a few years ago, I was hoping that it won't get that big. Of course, for many real surfers that probably would be on a smaller on scale, but I know where and when to hit breaks when the situation is like that and how to position myself to enjoy catching waves. The confidence in this area comes from a lot more experience in the wave. Frankly I have not changed too much physically in the past 2-3 years, but my minds are more set to deal with these types of situations, and as a result, I am not particularly struggling to "show off" how strong of a surfer I have gotten, but it is more like part of the environment, like a cat that can easily jump several times over their height, so as a result I am enjoying a wider variety of conditions.

The process was definitely not overnight type thing for me. I do say that I have been working on it on a very gradual basis, but I did identify the various causes of the fear along the way and worked specifically on them.

One of the worst fears that I had for the longest time was that I would get carried away by some strong current and swept away even on days when it is calm and clean, and the more I think about it the more fearful I have gotten. There are one or two news stories like those in a year that usually happen in Pacific Northwest on huge Alaskan swell days (I know enough about it that I won't go out on these types of conditions.) What actually helped me on these fears was that when my board came apart a few times and in all times, I was able to get to the shore in a short time and realized that these types of the fears are not really warranted under the situations I would go out. Also as I have been writing off and on, surfing with other stronger surfers provide additional opportunities to expose myself into the "next level" situations and once I do those a few times, my fear levels tend to go lower.

I know many of you are like me, but I think that with identifying your own fears and then work on them gradually would go a long way in overcoming the fear, and I am using this in my other real life scenarios outside of surfing.

Have fun!

Step Right Up Front Please!

Step Right Up Front Please!

Every so often, I do get some candid advise from fellow surfers. I was surfing on a break near Ventura a few weeks ago, and this surfer told me that I need to be on the front of the board more. That's after I screwed up one of the take offs. I was actually having fairly good day, catching many waves and taking long rights. And one time I screwed up a take off, this guy was watching me. This was also a beginner break and people are very friendly along that line so that may be a part of the reason why.

At that moment, I said, "Thank you." and paddled back out.

But every time I get some comments like that, I should take it very seriously. Because whether the advise is really true or not, it does make me think like "Have I thought about that lately?"

The truth is that no I have not been thinking so much about that. I actually have been thinking about taking off more and more deeper into hollower waves and how some people can do it and cannot. That thought have been occupying me for quite some time.

But come to think of it, definitely, I do have to give another long thoughts about stepping into the front of the board. Lately I have been having some problems about the board slipping out of me again a lot. I know in theory that's because I am not stepping forward quick enough. But until I was told this, I totally forgot about the importance of it. What might sound funny though is that I was very consciously aware of putting the weight forward during paddling into the wave.

This is a bitter reminder that surfing requires a complete total execution of all the steps. While I do say that practicing each aspect of a take off or a ride is very important, unless all of them come together, I would not have a completely satisfying ride.

This, of course, is true in anything we do, and that surfing really does teach important life lessons.

Are You Planning 6 Seconds or 6 Days Ahead?

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Are You Planning 6 Seconds or 6 Days Ahead?

I used to ride a Ninja sport bike and took it to race courses like Laguna Seca. One things I've learned from that experience is the importance of planning your ride several seconds ahead. You need to make a split second decision as to where you are going to be to maximize the speed of your ride, especially getting in and out of turns. It is also a good skill to have in driving regular streets both for safety and comfort, and to avoid hitting brakes, which affects the fuel economy.

When it comes to surfing planning ahead is just as important. The longer ahead you can plan your ride, your ride can be made better. Many beginner surfers do not have any clue about it. They are mostly trying to ride as things happen. This is one of the reasons why they look awkward on the wave, totally lost and even to the point of being dangerous by totally unaware of their surroundings, colliding or be collided.

I gave this a bit of thoughts and see what I do. I can say, my surfing starts looking 6 days ahead, along with planing just a few seconds ahead. Here is how it goes,

6 Days or More Ahead

I look at global weather and swell charts and see the swell, tide and wind trend. For Half Moon Bay area, I actually came up with my own tool called StokeConsole, and basically this is all I need to do this type of planning. With a bit of skills in reading the information that flow from public metric sites, I can usually pin-point whether any days 3 to 6 days ahead can be surf days and where it would be optimum. If you want to know more about it, you should come to my StokeFORUM and ask questions.

1 Day Ahead

The metric data will become very accurate within 1 to 3 days ahead of the surf day. So I do check my StokeConsole regularly to check the condition a day ahead to figure out what time to head out and where to check.

1 hour Ahead

I check to make sure that nothing has changed as planned before I head out.

15-30 Minutes Head

Now I am at the break, I will look at the breaking pattern and see where I should have the most fun for the next hour or so of my "daily" session. I pull up my cell phone and use my StokeMaster Mobile Console to check any surf parameter changes. Of the condition, the wind direction and speed can change by the minute, especially in the winter surfing.

2-5 Minutes or So Ahead

I am constantly checking every set that come and planning ahead now in real-time to adjust where to line myself up for the next take-off spot.

5 Seconds Ahead

Now the set is about to come, I will make the final correction to the lineup and start to paddle out.

2 Seconds Ahead

The wave is start to break as predicted, I am paddling as hard as I can to catch this wave "no matter what!" I am looking behind left and right, make sure that other surfers has not taken off on me, and which direction it is going to break and what angle I am going to inject myself.

From this point on I am making my surfing decisions 2-3 seconds ahead of myself as to the pattern, direction, shape and rate of the break to set the course, or make a decision whether to cut back. To total culmination of the decisions I made starting 6 days ago. I am not only looking ahead of me with my head up and but also checking my surrounding quickly to see for my safety and to see if totally cutting back will create a longer ride. I am a bit proud of my ability to execute long full-sweeping full cutbacks.


Minus 1 Minutes Ahead

After the ride ends and I paddle back out, I usually make a mental review of the last ride to see how I would have done differently if I caught the similar set again.

Session 7165: Technical Update

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Day 165

Personal Technical Update
The Imporatnce of the Focus

One of the areas that I have become very aware of it lately is the focus. As a recreational athelete (of some kind), I have become more aware of the area of focus lately. I got to know a few atheletes through surfing and also race-biking etc., that this is one of the attributes they got but which I need to improve significantly. Frankly, I am more on the camp of attention deficit group of people so I actually need quite a bit of a skill development in this area. My high school teachers as well as my mother will testify my attention deficitness especially then.

So what have I been doing about it?

My main work actually is to eliminate as much distracting things as I can. Here is a list;

• I need to build individual skill set well so that any one of them would not become a distration. For example, paddling technique, stand-up etc. This is actually very important because it actually takes quite a bit of time to perfect each of the motion. But now each part has improved to the point that they are less distractive now.
  
  
• Being mentally focused. For example, I have been paying too much attention to other surfers, or even people at the shore, how they do, how they look at me etc. I need to be able to completely isolate myself, at least while I am taking off and riding. It is a really a bad habit of mine. You can tell I have that show-off tendecy; Who else would start a web site and blogs about my own surfing!
  
• Fear is someting I talked a lot about on this WavLOG, but the fear is probably the number one cause of distraction at the moment. When I am more truly focused, I should be focused enough that I even shut off the fear part of the distraction. This part needs a significant mind training. But having had so many surfing accidents, I still am a bit afraid often. Also another part of the fear that interferes a lot is the fact that I am still afraid of the open ocean. That prevents me from challenging otherwise good bigger waves at many "less surfed" spots.
  

In my past 5 years and especially in the last year or so, I have been making much more progress in each of above areas, and I am much more confident and less distracted surfer today than before. Everything take a very very long time for me and we just need to keep at it one small piece of puzzle at time. Three steps forward and two steps back.

So to summarize this, these days, there are more times when I say to myself "Heck, I am going to go for this!"

Surf Report

This moring in Pacifica was really fun. Not too many people were out. Closeouts were there as usual, but there are many makable waves. I caught many fun long rides with some more "vertical" turning actions. Large circile cutting back around the wave face is some of my better skills and when that happens it is a real treat! I am starting to get the trick of riding some of near-close out waves; I need to paddle hard, turn hard into the wave and then hop more towards the tail side of the board for a bit then push hard forward. The board start to do the booster take-off then! Another trick is to make sure to find the area where it is going to turn to the shoulder. The Takayama 7'2 egg board, presently in a single fin configuration, was just great especially when I am receiving a lot of power from the wave on a bigger face.

Surfing is Difficult!

See you out there!

Session 7089 Technical Note

I forgot to mention some of the struggles I had with session 7089.

In a great number of take off attempts with a long board, I just kept burying the front of the board. I thought that waves were makable but they were jacking up too fast. I actually do not care if I ride the wave through but the board should go forward without burying any part of it.

There are several possibilities;

• Weighing too much forward of the board during take offs. This could be. Switching between short boards and long boards especially on the same session seems to cause this problem.
  
  
• Should have gotten more momentum. Should have started out sooner and stronger and should paddle strong while taking off especially when the tail is jacking up really fast.
  
  
• Waves just closed out. Could not have ridden. I kind of doubt about this one. Sure there were some huge close outs during the session. They break at rather shallow water and earlier in the session I was pounded all the way to the bottom.
  

Session 7069 Back in NorCAL

Back again at the regular home break this morning. The summer fog is in full swing, but this morning, the wind was blowing SW. I have been shut out of my home breaks.

A lot of wind means there is still a lot of upwelling bringing chilly water. People were surfing with swim trunks or just a jacket. What a difference a 5 hour drive south can make!

I put on a squid head and a pair of gloves, but the first duck dive is something that I still hesitate to do.

This morning, with the offshore condition, there were some small but fun waves to continue to work on the wave selection and more consistent take-off technique. Surfing definitely takes a long long time to become good at, it is a collection of a lot of small improvements in various areas.

Oh, one thing I have starting to realize. I did not look left and right of me well into paddle in. For some reason, I just happened to do that in the past few sessions, and the results were really big. I can figure out the line to take much more confidently. Why did I not think of that sooner! Previously I looked at the wave before paddling in and guessed which way it broke, and while paddling I looked straight ahead.

After having had this experience, I started to train myself to be more conscious of peripheral vision. So even when I am driving my car, I try to become aware of more objects in the side of my eyes while I am basically looking straight ahead.

Sessions 7062 and 7063 Speed Continues to Be the Key

On Friday I went to the spot on the picture. It was actually a lot of fun and a lot of exercise. I do not usually like to surf here because there usually is a lot of paddle out required, and Friday was no exception. Most of the times, I just get washed right back to the shore even if I am paddling 5 minutes continuously... It is really amazing that how strong surfers can just plow right through the stuff!

But over the years, I have learned a lesson. I just wait in the middle of the water and let the side current take me to the rip. The it happens is that there are islets of sand bars out there and between these islets there are channels. It is just amazing that almost no effort I can taken away from the shore and the calm outside. I used be very scared about that too, but again, I now have enough confidence and skill to come back so now it is a lot easier and fun way to get to the outside.

I had to share the with some of the best local surf competitors and a surf shop owner in town, and that usually means that the spot was the only game in town. It is always good to get out with these folks because they just demonstrate to you how these waves are to be surfed. It still shows that I have a long way to go, and I probably don't have much chance in getting as good as they are as I have really started surfing late in my life. That does not mean I won't try. I will keep trying, and I did make progress too.

Saturday Surf and Beach Cleanup at Linda Mar

Another real fun surf day on Saturday. Though the waves were smaller, I caught several fun long rides on my Walden Magic. Long boarding is really fun and especially now I am walking on the board that is a lot more challenging move practice I can try.

The beach cleanup was a big success with a lot of StokeMaster friends showing up. Hope that we will do more of this session again.

Technical Update: Speed Continues to Be the Key

On both days, I am still painfully reminded me of the speed. In order to get surf like experts, I need to move more radically on the board to positively produce more power. If there is more power then I have more option to position myself on the wave to extract more power. Executing a cutback is a good example of this. If there is good speed going and I see that the losing the power ahead then I can cut over back to where I came from. I can wait for the wave to build then continue, or simply do a pull out maneuver.

Being not so athletic in nature, I tend to be timid and don't work too hard with the board. Even if I catch a good wave, I just waste most of that just standing on it, or crouched down all the way down.

You will see me working on this this season.

See you out there!

Session 7045, DP, Jetty

The picture looks kind of flat. In fact it was rather flat for some time, and I thought I would be paddling back without catching any waves, but there were good periods of some reasonable size sets. As with this place, most of the set waves crumble.

It almost seems that the first or second wave set fills in the water, and while the water is filled in the second stuff comes in and it is a bit smaller but often smoother. It just seems that way but I will observe further and write more about it if I find more about it.

I just watch the pattern for a while, and I would usually let the first one go and see how it breaks. Then adjust the lineup a bit, and paddle slightly outside of where I think it would break next.

There are a couple of things that are starting to work better for me recently. One is that I have more confidence in paddling so I can try from a bit further out than I have been doing. This seems to actually be one of the keys, but until recently I have not been successful at it; as I did not have enough paddling power to get that initial impulse power cranked up. It is also a whole body effort. I am paddling hard and kicking hard all at the same time.

Another thing, which is also due to improvement in paddling, is that I am starting to be able to insert myself diagonally more consciously and controlled during the take-off. I still need and want to take off straight down but as soon as I feel the board and especially the tail caught the wave, then I will paddle strong one or two strokes with the outside arm of the turn to set up the initial direction, and I also tilt my body a bit to the inside of the turn. It is almost like the body boarding take-off technique!

Ironically, while I am a regular foot, my right arm seems to be stronger so I have a bit easier time inserting to left!

At any rate, between these two tings, I was able to get two really satisfactory take-off and rides this morning, that kind of event always brings a lot more powerful stoke at the end of the session and the rest of the day.

Session 7035: On Crowds

This morning, with the prevailing sunny and calm wind condition, and also the past several days of poor surf brought a lot of people to local breaks. Yes, I was part of the crowd so I should not be saying much, but while I was surfing I had some thoughts about it, especially I just came back from a week of just totally non-crowded surfing where I could own the whole break to myself for all day if I wanted to (but fortunately, or unfortunately I had to give them up because the session had to be terminated in 2-3 hours because I was so darn exhausted from catching so many waves.)

Now, however, this bring to the next thing. Whenever I come back from a surf trip where I caught a lot of waves, I feel like I have really improved a lot. In fact, I'd even say that having had to surf different breaks for a while had a profound effect on me.

So, if you feel like you are slumped, it might be a time for you to think about going somewhere other than where you surf all the time. I don 't know many surfers personally, but I know the faces and I see more than a fair share of people that hardly ever venture out to even just to the next break south or north of us. I know this because I can be at one spot one day and the next day, just a few miles down up or down the coast. I think that there is so much even within the confine of 30-60 miles from home that can be easily covered as a morning or an afternoon session.

~ ~ ~

Now, also, I am starting to sound a bit arrogant, but I saw there were some chance of collisions this morning, and also people taking off without regard to anybody or anything. The reason why I bring this up is that in most cases people are just oblivious to their surroundings. Whether they are taking off or whether they are on the wave, they are just looking only 1 or 2 seconds just ahead of the line. In all of the cases, if they were looking at the waves and much further in the direction they are going, they could have avoided problems. Luckily today, the waves were not big so you could easily stop.

Like anything from business planning, slalom skiing, motorcycle racing to surfing, looking ahead, getting the big picture is not only safer but also provides much better results. I think that it is one of the skill sets that all surfers need to acquire.

Session 7033: Technical Update

Now I am at a point that I can more confidently take off on a bit more wider variety of waves, and once I am on the wave, I can make various turns, also more confidently, I should be able to surf like some of the best people at a given session right?

Wrong?

What differentiates me from some of the technically best surfers is the lining up properly and that is the next key item that I need to consciously improve in the next many sessions.

The typical problems I have presently are the following,

• The lack of my confidence in paddling ability made me wanting to paddle less and tend to stay in one area. Good surfers seems to be moving around all the time.
  
• Given a session, there usually are one or two surfers who always are nailing the good take-off spot and so they are usually the one taking waves. If you tried to tag them, you know it is difficult to do because they are usually moving all the time, and they have tremendously more paddling power than I do, so even if the breaks are about to happen not exactly where they are sitting at, as a set starts to roll in, they start to paddle to the direction where the peak happens. In coming sessions, I am going to emulate this a bit more.
• When surfing with good surfers, they also are always using reference points so they know where they are and where breaks happen. They can usually describe where by pointing out objects on the ground, say a tree, phone poll etc.
  

While these things are easy to describe, it is actually very difficult to execute as ever changing current, tide, wind, and set sizes determine the lineups, and without a strong paddling ability, it is nearly impossible to keep yourself linedup at the optimum location every single time. But I think that this is one most important difference in who catches and do not catch good long rides.

Surfing skill improvement is very iterative, because advancement of one technique depend on another, and only once I improve one aspect, I can start to improve another, but then eventually that will expose the lack in the first technique, and there are just dozens of skill parts to them each of which is tied.

I will be focusing on this aspect of surfing and will be reporting further how much progress.