Session 5211

This morning, we did a late morning surf session with a local friend. The swell sized up to 11 ft over night so the picking of the location was slim. The bay was all but closed out and not surfable so we had to head north. The swells were coming more from WNW directions in this set of swells so the bay was getting more direct hit and that seems to cause close outs.

When we got there at the beach we met another local friend. I did not know that he rode a long board too because up until now we always surfed together with short boards, but he, being a good surfer (and lone behold, from Michigan) he could ride any board!

The waves were not walling up and closing out as usual, probably because the tide was high and also there was enough power in the swells that they were just perfect shape and size for me.

I have written about how important to be committed to take offs and so now I try really hard to do that, and with some more understanding with the use of the tail end of the board, my rides are really starting to improve, and after the session my friend told me that he has noticed a significant improvement in my rides.

At one of the waves, the take off was just felt great. I was paddling hard to catch the wave and I thought I was really going to be left behind but the wave jacked up even harder and with a huge impact I was blasted off into the wave. I was staying low and back and I stayed on the board being able to set up the first left turn. I had so much initial speed and the rest of the ride was so much effortless with just a small change in the balance I could steer the board any direction I wanted to go.

Please Note:

The world headquaters of StokeMasters is moving close to the Jetty at El Granada, California staring 5 November 2005 . We will likely have some net silence for next several days. You know how it goes; we need to make appointments with cable and phone guys. Wish us luck and keep it cheery on the StokeForums!

Session 5210

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!

Session 5209: Driving Practice

With the time change, getting back into the DP mode is always easy, simply because I am still in good half year of DST-lagged mode (with a few Japan trip in between), so I wake up super early without a problem. So I was fully awake at 5 a.m. But, as usual I started to fiddle with my web site and also checked emails etc. by then it is starting to get late if I don't get going, then I caught Jocelyn logged on to my site; by the way, I like the new member online feature, because I know who was there recently. So I quickly SMS messaged to her and she called me right back and so I was racing the rising sun on the Cabrillo highway to Pacifica when I pulled up my car next to hers she was already in the water. So I hurriedly set up the gear and went in.

The waves were just about the same small size as yesterday, but of course, it is Monday bright and early and who wants to surf, except for a few dedicated and stoked ones. So with a bit of stretch, I was back in the water for the second straight day! Well, one thing I did not realize is that the water has gotten considerably colder, so the water was stinging my paddling hands a bit. But one thing about this is that after 5 - 10 minutes or so, the blood vessels start to open up and the hands are not cold any more and the rest of the session was just fine. I still like to paddle with my bare hands, I really feel much lighter especially on return strokes.

If you have joined my WavLOG now, I have been studying a lot about the fins and using the tail end of the board more effectively. This is actually something that I have not really realized until just last week when I was actually reading up a lot about this subject. So the next several sessions, I will be writing a lot about it.

In surfing, it is often very difficult to just read and understand what to do, but once you discover yourself what it feels to be getting the "drive" out of the board, then it is like half won the battle because then the next thing to do is to continue to improve upon that. It initially happens sporadically, then become more consistent but every time it happens I know about it, whereas, before I know it was happening but I did not know whether that had any significance to surfing or not.

Today though I came to one of these breakthroughs and figured out why I stalled so easily by the time I got to the bottom of the wave. Today I had two rides that it clearly demonstrated that I have not been getting the power and speed from the wave, and what I mean by this is that I was not harnessing the tail end of the board more effectively to get the drive out of the board. So I consciously adjusted the weight of the board to toward the tail and try to stay up higher on the wave longer instead of just plainly descending down as fast as possible. Previously my thinking was that I should go down as fast as I can so that I can execute a strong bottom turn and get up. This would work if there is sufficient wave face to work with, but often that may not be the case, and by the time I hit the bottom I have out run the wave too far in and then the wave crashes down. So instead, I would make the turn sooner and also maintain the trim and then at the same time stand a bit more tail weighted, and in one of the wave it worked beautifully, and I had a great long ride out of a small beach break wave. In fact that made me happy so much and I felt that I had the wave of the day, I decided to cut the next 30 minutes of session, got out of the water and headed to the office early. And I have an honor of having a witness this morning.

So tomorrow and all the sessions following, I will be making more practices incorporating that.

Session 5208: Bak in Action!

I am back in action. Due to the HIPPA regulations, I will not be able to tell you a gory detail of what I had to go through, but I became rather ill shortly after Session 5207 on October 10th where I started to get some severe pain and the next day, it has gotten so bad to the point that that evening, I decided to go to an emergency room to see what the hell is going on, because I was actually ill already. To make a story short, it was nothing really major, but a kind of a thing that I needed to take it easy for a while, while the body repairs itself, and I am happy to say that I am now recovering from it quite nicely. So I have decided that today is the day to get back in the water, and I am really glad I did because three of my Stokemaster buddies showed up to share the waves, and it was warm and sunny and the waves were gentle and nice welcoming back in the water.

It was a bit powerless today but it was easy to get out and paddle around. I tried both 6'3 which was totally ineffective and my trusty 6'6 board, and I decided to stay way inside and just catch many small inside waves, which, of course is my favorite way to surf, and I was glad that my paddling arms and lungs held up without a sign of gotten weak.

The first wave, I blinked and held back a bit, but after that I was starting to get back into my surfing self. Now I was wishing that the waves were a bit bigger and not closing so fast. One area that I have gotten a bit weaker is the flick up part and I caught a lot of waves but I was not popping up fast enough missing good rides.

If you have been following my StokeMaster.COM StokeForum posts, you know that I have been taking advantage of this downtime I had and do some on-the-desk learning, and I've learned quite a bit about the fins and drives that they generate. So I was actually consciously thinking about that and while I was surfing I have really realized today that I am still very poor at using the tail section of the board well. I was also watching some surf videos too during this time and if I look at professional short boarders, basically I saw that their front half of the board is almost always out of the water, one of the few exceptions to this seems to be the bottom turn. When a surfer does a bottom turn, the entire rail, one side, would bury in the water and the more front part of the board contacts the water, but once the board is back on the face, I'd say that they are getting most of the forward thrust from the back part of the board (if you can help me out on this, please use the Comment feature of the Blogger or respond to my WavLOG post in the StokeFORUMs).

So I was really happy, received back the good energy from the water and ready for a DP tomorrow Monday!

Before I conclude this WavLOG tonight, I should say a couple of more things.

What I've learned is that one would only appreciate so much about having a good health when you have not gotten one. It can chew your stoke away and almost make the suffering worse as I'd try to deal with it more.

And towards the end of the session, a surfer asked me if I am the "WavLOG" and also asked me if I was OK. It always a pleasant surprise to see someone I've not met recognized me and also asked me if I was OK. And thank you for being an avid reader of my BLOGs. Today I really felt blessed with many great surfing friends not just in this area but from San Diego to O'ahu!

Extra Feature Today!

While I waited for other Stokemasters to arrive, I took a video camera along and took a Video (Microsoft Media Format, 150 Kbps Bandwidth) of my long time surf buddy from StokeMaster, so hope you enjoy it.

Almost there...

Looks like I am finally leaving this illness behind. Based on my own Blog, I have been out of the water since October 10th. I think that I will be fully recovered from this by this weekend or the next week. I am not going into a gory detail of what I had to go through, but this has been one of the longest and painful illness I have gotten.

Most likely I should start from easier sessions then gradually build the scale back to more demanding practices.

No Session for A Bit...

Well, there was a fairly major health related setback that was discovered early last week. Nothing life threatening, but still playing in the water is out of question for at least another week.
Everyone, please go catch some waves and report your experiences to me.

Session 5207

I have been planning to do a decent DP but I have still not yet shaken off the jet lag. By the time my eyes open, the clock says 7:00 AM! But I was saved today by the low PM wind and as a result a balmy sunny sunset. I should have taken off a bit early but I had to check out a few things before I had to leave the office.

But I did go in this afternoon, and with the tail end of the bigger swell, the waves got really fun. It was really perfect fall afternoon evening glass-off with the waves just about the perfect size and power for me to take on; not too small and not too fast and pummeling. Some great take offs and turns and some just a bit still a bit of challenge to take off successfully.

I paddled back for more pushing the water steadily behind me I was racing the sun to fit in as many waves as possible. Getting out required some work but it was a welcome situation since I really wanted to get some good exercise too, breathing deep and a lot of air for each paddling stroke, and looking at the setting orange sun to the edge of the beach where people in the lineup started become silhouette in front of the setting sun.

Yes, it is the fall evening glass off, nice fun waves before the cold invigorating winter swells hit our beaches.

Session 5206

Once in a blue moon, I get some comments posted on my Blogger site (http://surfinghmb.blogspot.com) where it is where my WavLOG are kept. At any rate, I did get a suggestion of kicking the legs during take off to reduce the drag. So I was giving this approach a shot.

First to scientifically prove this actually reduce the drag or not, what I tried was when I come into the beach belly riding on the white water (I do this to walk along the beach to get back out through a channel since at my level of the fitness and wanting to have the session last longer, preserving the energy is important.) I compared the speed with and without kicking the legs, and lone behold, I can go much faster and smoother if I kept kicking my leg or completely bend them up. So I now accept this theory completely.

~ ~ ~

This morning I checked out all local beaches further south the waves gotten impossibly big to my liking, probably well overhead and the kind that would hold me down if I mess up on the take off. So we opted not to surf in the area and head north.

We were surfing at LM this morning and it was not too crowded early on plus we were spread out thanks to a good amount of swells coming in. The shapes were not that good but I had a fair share of satisfying rides, and of course a lot of take off practices that I am still working on; more pddling, longer paddling and don't give up paddling. As a result of this newly instated practice goal, if I decided not to go for a wave, I don't even bother paddling for it. Now with this new suggestion I have started kicking during the take off. I did it so hard that my back (of all other places) are sore this morning (Monday).

Again, it goes to say I am still discovering something new every time I go out.

Session 5205: Back in The U.S.A.

Back in California! I worked a bit in the morning and then decided to hit the water again. I was going to hit the Jetty. While it was sunny out and there were a lot of cars parked on the highway, there was no wave that I would catch. Then when I saw Montara, it was a bit disorganized. At this point of time I was running out of time, but I did one last check at Linda Mar and the waves were good for my preference, the kind not too tall and not too fast. Only one hour left before the 3 PM conference call, I promised to attend. So I had about 1 hour to surf and a bit of time to get changed in and out of the Excel suit.

Well, I was really glad I went because the wind was not too bad (while Montara was already blowing) and I caught several nice lefts that are my favorites. And the breaks were just all spread out all across the beach so picking my own break was not a problem.
If you have been following my logs, you know that earlier on this season I was working hard on the tail weighting during the take off. That's now somewhat under my belt and I think I am the stage that I can start to polish that. Then you've seen the video how timid I was in paddling in to the wave. In fact there was a guy next to me in the lineup, he had a lot of problem catching waves, and he was exactly lacking what I saw in my video. He was paddling so slow and not hard.

So I was actually working on that stuff, and basically I have decided that no matter how big the wave is going to get, I will give my best shot at padding into the wave and I will continue to do so until the wave gets flat and I know for sure that I cannot catch the wave. I will even kick my legs to help (I really don't think that will help, but mentally by doing so I think I can feel that I am giving the full effort.)

I caught several nice lefts, most were short rides but there were a couple that I would say is satisfactory as I did inject myself into a nice trim and kept going for a longer ride. No matter how the waves are, it is always very satisfying when I can successfully negotiate the turn #1 and get right into the correct direction to keep the ride. Once I get that going, I can usually gain enough speed and power that opens up a bit more options. On the other hands, if I go straight then I do ride but it is short and fizzle out quickly.
Well, that's about all for today. It was really nice to get back in the water?. For sure.

No Session in Paraside: Lesson learned! I should always be ready to surf!

One should always be ready to surff!

Is this a paradise or a hell? I arrived in Honolulu this
morning because I could not get a ticket for a direct flight back from Osaka.
It was supposed to be a short and a smooth change over to another flight but then I
have learned that the return flight was late by about 3 hours due to a security
bleach, which resulted in 5 hours in HNL. I got out of the airport building and
walked around. Only to find out there was the famous shape of the Diamond Head
may be 30 minutes or 40 minutes of drive away. I became, obviously, very stoked
with the sight of this. After about 30 miu of thoughs, I thought "heck, why not
get out there at least and check it out even if I don't surf."

So I hopped on one of those $8 Shuttle deal and asked the driver to drop me off
at any beach hotel (by the way it is a good deal because the return cab was $40
including some tip.) Now
I am sitting at the Dukes Canoe Club sipping some Daiquiri and other that I will
not mention to keep some sanity in my household upon my return.

This is right at Waikiki beach built into the Outrigger hotel where Duke
Kanahamoku surfed and also the palce where Jack London wrote at length about
what I would call one of the earliest of the StokeREPORTs known to the menkind.
But listen to this, the killer is that the beach is not crowed and I got
pictures to prove, have perfect chest high long rollers, it is sunny only about
80 degrees and I am just watching with a bag load of travel cash, a green card,
a passport not willing to risk losing any of them -- prefect Cowells condition
but without requiring getting inside of 3/4 rubber suit. Perhaps, if I am in a
true sense of a stoked surfer, I would say "f" this, and go and decide what to
do later on. This is a torture in a paradise. I even could have rented a board
asking the dude at the beach front rental place to "please look after my stuff?"
Would I trust that? Well, if I lose my green card, that's another $600 plus 6
months of ordeal and believe me, I had to go through that process once simply
because one of the border agenet thought that my original card was expired,
which it was not after paying the fee to replace one as instructed by that
agent.

The board shorts were packed away in the suitcase sitting
somewhere at the airport. Should I have planned a bit better, I would have
packed a pair of the oldest board shorts. Should I have known it was only 30
minutes ride to Waikiki then I should just have headed down there, hoping to
catch 1 hour session then come right back to the airport allowing me enough time
to take off my shoes and get my laptop out at the security to catch the SFO
flight in the afternoon. Should have this been Dog Haus and if I was with him
on this trip, I think I have gone for it, just getting the cheapest pair of
board shorts and beach towel from the closest ABC store.

But, of course, the problem with me is that I am still too
uptight of a guy that I would not go for something like it, even though I had
perfectly great fun condition and I was just watching with my jaws half open. My
life has been saved numerous times by not taking some minor risks like those,
and but I am also certain that I probably missed out a lot by not taking these
"risks." But right now, I have to make sure that I can get back to Osaka at a
moment of notice from the primary care physician for my father. Only less than
24 hours ago, I was in the doctor's office at the hospital learning about the
actual condition of my father, then asking him to come back to Half Moon Bay
when he gets better stroking his "mostly bones" arms and legs for comfort. This
is the man who took me to the top of Mount Fuji when I was in junior high. This
is the man who taught me how to ski instead of doing some catch and going to
Hanshin Tigers' game at the Koshien stadium.

So today, I surf and when he talk about my surfing he talks
in terms of my "boating" coming from his storke wonded left brain, but I know
exactly what he is thinking. He is stoked about my surfing and that's what he
means to say. I know that's what he is thinking but he just does not have the
choice of word in his command. But I know the guy very well, he is my father and
I can tell what he is tying to communicate. The strange thing though is that
that does not work with my mother. My mother would try to correct him, "Your son
does not do boating." I tell her "Mom! I know what he is saying so why you try
to correct that?"

Sometimes, accepting the way it is will open up a lot.

Session 5204

Well, on Thursday I will be flying back home to Japan in a non-vacation and non-work circumstance where surfing is totally out of question, so I was hoping for a really fun wave in the afternoon. I decided to hit Montara. It was really sunny, clear blue sky and nice out. But waves were not cooperating. It was a soupy frothy mess and not easy to get out and even when finally out after burning 200 calories the waves were not shaped easy enough for me to surf. On top of that there was a very strong N->S current going by the shore so I could not get to where I wanted to go easily.

I was though happy to see Dog Haus, though he was not surfing but playing with his daughter in the sand, and I got out after 4 get-out attempts. Picked up a 6-pack of Kona Longboard Ale, headed to his house and consumed it. And that's the extent of this session.

Session 5203

Session 5203

It is always nice to get a call at 6:30 in the morning from someone near by to go out catch some morning sun and the waves. Quite often, things do not work out with buddies then I am all alone out in the ocean.

This morning was unexpectedly fun! It was fun because we were the only two surfers out there within our vantage point and we caught tons of good mellow waves that I tend to prefer, perhaps up to shoulder level, but still there was enough power in them to mess me up good if I screw up. That's fairly typical of the beach breaks we got around here.

It was a real blast and fun and I felt that I have started to make some progress again and my buddy commented about people having different surfing style and there are some of our friends surf in more bold powerful style, but mine, he said, looked very graceful. What a complement, I really like that.

The reason I thought I caught more waves is because I am not consciously paddling harder and not giving up paddling until I know for sure I did not catch the wave. The video my wife took this weekend was very educational, so I am about to show you what I am talking about. This is the part of the video that I did not show you last time because I was a bit embarrassed about it.

http://www.culturewave.net/Surfing/mov/NotPaddlingHard.wmv

You can see that I am really late in committing to take off and then once the wave comes I am totally missing it by not paddling in hard enough and fast enough. If I saw another surfer doing the same from the shore, I would have advised the surfer to paddle earlier, faster and harder. That's exactly not what I was doing. So now I know. I am going to work on it more in upcoming sessions!

Session 5202

Session 5202

What an awesome fall afternoon! The sun was out completely (which is rare in this area), the wind has stopped (which is rare when the sun is out in our area), and we did have some good close out waves in our local beaches. A local buddy of mine also showed up in the mid session, and instead of surfing, we decided to paddle to and from one state beach to another (though I cheated, I walked back since I was already paddling up and down for some time before he showed up and I was on a 6'3.)

I requested Wendy she would come out and role the camcorder for me, so here it is. With all these sessions I do, you might be wondering why I am not a pro surfer yet, but I guess there are who make it and there are who never will. But you all know I am having fun.

http://www.culturewave.net/Surfing/mov/Sepember%2025%202005.wmv

These are but just a few of the best rides that were recorded in camera. But I have really learned that I am not paddling hard enough and giving up too soon based on other footages that you did not see. So that's what I am going to work on next.

You will find that the video taping helps a lot on your skill improvements. I suggest highly that you do that. The technology is within the reach of most surfers. So do it!

Session 5200 - 5201 (Thu and Fri)

Session 5200, Thursday 22 September 2005

The work is now super busy and also I need to wrap up much of the outstanding work before I head back home in Japan for a week. Again, I tried to focus a lot more before and I get in the water. It has really been a good practice for me to do this since there have been a lot of distracting thoughts and events that have been happening lately? most of them are happy events but intertwined with some rather sad events too. So, I would like to make sure that I will allocate a small piece of a day just for myself, which I should do even when there are no other major stuff going on. Then once I am done with that I should then focus on other things, instead of being distracted by the thought of surfing, and I am really practicing hard to get that switch to turn hard in one way then to another way depending on the time of the day.

So in terms of surfing, I had only an hour of session time left in the morning, and with this being a NW swell day and also I really did not want to venture out to other places that I decided to get back to Linda Mar. I has been a while I surfed here but I think that with the NW swells increasing and the summer onshore wind calming down I will be coming here a lot more, unless it gets really big then I can escape back to the Jetty or something.

This morning the surface was glassy and it was an easy paddle out, at least where I was, and I caught a few fun waves. It is really fun to read the waves and connect the rides, there were just a few of those I could do but even when the waves are relatively small when that works out I am just so happy when I get out of the water!

Session 5201: Friday 23 September 2005

Another short stop at Linda Mar this morning before hitting the desk. The amount of work is getting very busy due to a travel I have to do at the end of the next week back home.

The swell has built up over night. The waves were closed out, as very typical of this spot, especially looking from the shore, but as I paddled out ducking through a lot of white stuff, the waves became looking more surfable, and there is some kind of magic to this feel. As I paddle further out, getting out gets easier and also see the waves in different shapes as I thought they were from the beach, in fact, quite a bit more surfable looking than from the shore.

I caught several fun waves with a bit of effort to getting back out. But I kind of liked it because I really got a good amount of exercise before hitting the office!

Session 5199

The last several sessions were so difficult that this morning was a real delight. While the rest of the beach was basically closed out, I picked the south end of the beach with real smooth paddle out with just some push through or going over the waves to get to the lineup. The sets were a far and a few in between, but when they came, they were clean and relaxingly small enough hip to low chest size. It was really nice to surf these waves, since they are so unthreatening and yet when I catch them correctly on my 6'3 Rusty, they worked wonders. Besides, there was just me and another long boarder. And that's another interesting part that started to happen; starting this year, I have started to catch waves on a short board along side long board surfers. I think that this is attributed to more increased paddling power I have gained over time and in some cases I can even paddle from further outside. I am really happy about that.
But even happier part about that is that I was really able to focus more on the waves and become the part of the surrounding, and I continued to realize how much I enjoy being in the water.

Session 5198: Become A Surfing Animal

I was hoping to catch some remnant of the S swells this morning at the Jetty.

I also made a commitment to myself this morning that I am not going to fool around too much in the morning, instead, I become a surfing animal -- I just get things together and get out and only think about surfing for the next couple of hours. There are many things going in my life right now. I am not going to get too much into the details what they are, but definitely there are some "a few time in my lifetime" type situation that is happening, and so I have been rather distracted and not being able to focus.

So I wanted to get away from all of that and just find a moment of solitude for an hour or two. And my wish did come true.

It was almost embarrassing to show up in the middle of rush hour traffic, being the single surfer in the beach, probably looking like a fool paddling up and down to find waves, but not finding any good waves.

But the water was smooth and not too cold. It really felt good on my body as I slowly stroke my arms through the water. It really brought back some of the important reason why I like participating in Surfing. It is kind of a sport I can really enjoy myself alone and also even if I don't catch any waves, just simply being in the water alone can be a nice thing. Even though was just a few hundred yards away from a stop and go traffic, when I turn my board around and gaze at the horizon in the general direction of where I was born, it really soothes my mind. It is a kind of a void and quiet place where I can allow myself to get rid of all the thoughts and just focus on one basic thing; to live and play and become a part of this totally liquid world for a short period of time. I am realizing more and more about how surfing places me in a totally different world than being on a solid land with people and associated stuff that goes with that. I do like to be in both worlds, but the fact is that I now have the key to both worlds and that's something that I was actually not expecting to realize when I entered the sport because it was some challenging or fun thing to do.

As I looked over the horizon, I saw a large black fin sticking out of the water. Then two other fins converged to the first fin, and then started to swim around. They zigzagged the surface of the water sometimes completely hidden and sometimes doing the standard dolphin-through moves, but swimming very slowly, in a relaxed pace, the same way I was paddling around. I was also pulled out to the outside on a slow rip currents, and eventually we came just a few yards of each other. Dolphin encounters do happened often enough in this area, but this morning it was really special because I was totally alone in the water and I really felt that they are now my friends sharing the water with me; a part of an experience to become as much of an ideal surfing animal.

Again, I have not scored any ride this morning, I took off on waves but they all closed out so I had to pull out on all of them. But I really don't even have to report on that aspect of today's session, because I have really found out more about why I like to return to the water so much.

STOKE 10

Session 5196 (Fri) - 5197 (Sat) @ The Jetty

Friday:

Got up a bit later in the morning, the sinus problem has started to clear, and the buoy was indicating 5 ft at 20 seconds. Clearly the south swells are still in. Finally I am back in the Jetty. Knowing that the situation is going to be crowded, I decided to at least paddle out in this condition, just to see how it was like. A total number of days that 20 seconds swell would hit us in Half Moon Bay are probably countable with the fingers on my both hands.
The breaks were all different pattern than the usual W or big NW swell days and how they built up are also different. Waves seem to pop up from the bottom of the ocean rather than more like "swept in" type pattern. So you'd wait on flat water for a bit then suddenly the water pushes up underneath.
As with Thursday session, I was clearly not up to be able to fully surf these types of condition. Getting out was not an issue but catching the waves were not possible for me yet. There is so much water movement that adds to the speed of the break that extremely powerful and fast take off is required and once you take off, again strong knee actions are needed to stay on the wave and make turns. If you can get that power and speed, I am sure it will be a lot of fun. But with the crowd and my current abilities, I opted to stay on the lineup, not really trying to take off and just enjoy being in there and see some of the best people take off and making great moves. Floaters, Roundhouse? you name it, some of the people were making those as if they do it every day. Where do they come from, by the way?

Saturday:

Initially I was not going to get out. I was going to rest. But when I saw my new blue helmet sitting in my room and a dry wet suit hanging, my spirit was lifted immediately and I felt a strong surge of energy pumping within myself. The Stoke is back and the ocean is calling me to come and play! Then there was a call from Luke that he was already at the Jetty, now I really have to go.

There were a lot of things I had to take care of this morning, but I finally got things together and got out to the Jetty. Sure it was crowded, I was really determined to go out but still well prepared to do what I did yesterday. Sorry I was a bit too late but did catch Luke on the way out. Which, of course, I was really happy to, because there always is an anticipation of hitting the waves and it is really good to see someone coming back "in one piece." No matter what types of waves are out there.
Once I splashed in the situation looked similar than yesterday, but a bit calmer, so to speak. There still were a lot of waves and water. It is interesting that all that waves have traveled from very further north to reach and showing the last show of the energy as if they are doing their best to show their end of the journey in our corner of the earth.
There was so much water movement out in the area that a constant adjustment of the position was needed. Like yesterday, if there are a lot of sets coming then a huge rip current would form and in no time I am way outside. So, in order to maintain my "comfort zone" position I was continuing to paddle.

I probably missed about 20 sets, then finally the set came, it started to break right where I was and I was smiling because I know I can catch that and I looked left and right frantically as I paddled to the shore. Of course the wave I was dealing with was much smaller version of the ones that were breaking by the break water, but still, I had to paddle extra hard to catch it, because if I do not catch it, there will be a consequence of either thrown over or held under or both. But this one I caught and it was a good wave! I love it when I see the wall forming right of my eye as I take off. I look up as hard as I can to set the line and I try to crank the bottom turn as hard as possible to get back up on the face of the wave. Then the darn wave start to close faster, and I made a hard left turn, then there was a big backwash bump. I hop over it and then with the very strong impact of that I jumped against the bump and dismounted. I was way up in the air as the board also shot up too.
So there was only one ride but that one was really fun!

Session 5195

Thursday September 15th

The South has not given up yet. A few weeks earlier in the South Pole region were some strong relentless wind blowing for several days continuously. Some, if not all, of this enormous energy started to propagate in the form of long period swells.

In the meantime here in Nor Cal, and more specifically to my body and the immediate vicinity, my sinus problem has started to clear away, and I was definitely enjoying food and wine last night with the full dimension of senses. You never appreciate all the senses you have until you lose even just one. And when this afternoon at the beach I was able to get the sense of the bad ocean smell due to blossoming red tides.

Long period swells give different kind of breaks even when the swell height is very small. They come up as if from nowhere and the mound of water start to build up and before you know it, the breaks are already overhead and when they close out, there is just a massive amount of white water that forms.

When I arrived at the beach, the wind was almost negligible and so the surface of the water was rather calm, but when the waves broke there was more of the thunderous quality to it. This is no longer for casual surfer's realm, but only the best and most experienced can really take advantage of it. While I knew clearly that some pounding and hold downs are inevitable, I had to go, because I was just curious if this is going to be my limit or not, and it almost was.

Getting out was different from the usual short period and wind blown breaks that I am accustomed to. Instead of one after another of waist high soup, this time, I had to contend with 3-4 seconds apart of chest to shoulder high soups. My usual shallow duck diving are no longer working, instead, I have to really put a lot of weight over the shoulder, submerge the front completely and then really move fast to the back and push really hard to submerge the tail. If I screw up and go too shallow, then "bang!" I will be thrown backwards and then jostled in the huge mess of white water, which of course, throw me back good 10-15 feet back, requiring me to get back out to where I just was. As I thought I was "outside enough" bigger set would come sometimes, and I'd screw up getting through those, but if they close out just right in front of me, then I'd be treated with additional burden of being held under a bit. All of which, at my current level of confidence, I can handle no problem, but still are very unpleasant experience, as I try to swim up, it almost feels like a long time before I reach the surface. These are kind of things you only hear about from big wave surfers, and what I am experiencing is a miniature scale episode, like when I started to surf, all the waves were huge!

I had one really good and fun ride on a huge reform. But the rest of the times, I was waiting either for a "huge" reform or small ridable waves; none of which came as I waited for waves in a safe outside zone.

In the meantime, there were a select few people who were really catching a lot of waves. So again, it has been a very humbling experience, and I am glad that I came back in one piece, so to speak.

Surfing continues to be a long journey for me.

Session 5193-4

Session 5193-4

I was finally being able to hit the water this Sunday morning. I was really hoping that after this session the sinus congestion problem would completely clear. Of course, this is Monday and as I am writing this with a box of Kleenex next to I and I did not surf today partly because I had a busy morning and also to hopefully give my body a day to fully get rid of this issue.

This has really been a lower stoke season than the past.

The story should go back to Saturday because that was the Nor Cal women's surfing contest day and I actually did not end up showing up. The night before I had a business trip in Atlanta and I came back still with the sinus issue and I was really not in a mood to surf or do anything related to it. Yes, it sounds rather strange coming out from me saying that. But, I quite honestly, I was actually not in the mood to go out late, try to find a parking spot and then not really surf but stand around for the whole day sort of things. I will even admit that I really have become crowd phobic, and that's another reason why I pulled out of Santa Cruz shared apartment deal altogether last month. I must say that this is the phase that I am going through? I hope so. But if you talk to my wife, she know very well that I get extremely hostile and cranky, if she asks me to go to the open mike session at the Hang. I just do not see any point in going to the Irving district on weeknight after a long day of work only to drive around for 45 minutes to find a spot, get the musical instruments and PA out of the car, haul it, then wait for another 1.5 hours and play a single song in an "open mike" session. Conversely she does not see any point for me driving a day out to some spot on the coast, camp out, and haul the surf board down a 10 minute hike and surf, and come back and sleep without a shower either! So the level of "hassle" we are willing to go through are directly related to the Stoke within us.

Also I was looking forward to seeing a lot of my friends at the Classic contest earlier in August and that was a bomb too, since and except one local buddy of mine nobody else came to the contest either, and during the heat I basically go solo without anyone else present that I knew. Long after my wife and my co-worker friend showed up.

Hopefully we will make all of this up next year, I will be a much nicer person, and also hopefully I will even be a much more competitive surfer next year.

So instead of NOT surfing on Saturday, I managed to get up early and get out and surf with my local friends, and I was hoping some epic waves right here near my house. But of course the session was all mixed with poor condition and guilts of not showing up yesterday with my friends. In fact, the first spot was so sucky and too big and too unshapely that some of us got out and went to another spot. Since I took off my suit and put it back on, that constitutes two sessions. And at the second spot it was even worse than the first. So I ended up not scoring any rides! And that afternoon I got even more congested, probably I have irritated my internals more than what it was doing to recover from it.

So as for the surf goes, this weekend was more of the situation to gain from my mind disciplinary aspect than the regular surfing skill improvement type situation.

As the final stroke of the karma, I ran into the proprietor of the surf contest this morning as I was getting down to the beach to take this week's water samples at Montara.

Stoke 10

Sessions 5190 (Sat) , 5191 (Sun), and 5192 (Mon)

What a remarkable weekend this was since we had two nice sunny days at the beaches. It really is end of the summer and start of the fall.

For Sat, I headed down to SC to surf with Clio and pick up way over due wet suit repair from Blown Out Wetsuit. I dropped off my suit on 7/7 and it took me close to two months to pick it up. I was worried that she may have sold it, but she said that she never sells repaired suits. In terms of surfing the swells were not getting into both W and E side beaches well, so we opted to do Manresa again where the waves were not that great, so I am not going to write much about that. Of course it is always fun.

For Sun and Mon, Got to surf with Laura two days in row, since she will be entering the contest next weekend in 3 divisions! Wow! So the best place to practice is to where she will have a contest, and Linda Mar is the place to be.

For both Sunday and Monday, I felt rather awkward. I guess I am really not used to surfing in a crowded situation any more. I have mainly escaped to further north side where the breaks were less frequent. For Sunday, I opted for short boarding and I felt I did OK but if I had a long board, I would have been able to catch more waves. So on Sunday, I took out a long board and then I felt that I should just have sat inside and caught waves with a short board. But as soon as I start to blame the board for inadequate surfing, then I know it is really my skills set.

On Monday, Ren joined too, and she is still remarkably good at catching waves. She was catching many more waves than I was, so my hats off to her. I think she has a knack of positioning herself at good peaks.

I think that I will be going back to focus on short boarding for a while, I think that mixing the two is actually not a very good idea.

Session 5189

I have been a bit tired, mentally that is, for the past few days. I do not set my alarm clock. When I do a DP, I am usually up due to my own determination to get up and go. But this morning, the warm bed was more inviting to me than to get out and hit the beach before I hit the desk. I am sure you can all relate to that. I am sure I am back in track again especially I am now on a mission to compete as a full fledged surfer next year at the Classic. May be a wishful thinking but that is the goal I am aiming for.

Having said that though, this afternoon was another one of those humbling situation where getting out was so difficult and catching the waves were equally difficult. It is humbling because there are others who do, and can do it, ripping and shredding, and I am not there yet. I am not making the lineup easily and I am not catching waves like them.

So back to the drawing board? it still is a part of a long journey. It still takes more practices to get out as efficiently as the best people, and it still take more practice to take on more wider variety of wave shapes. I have a road map in my mind, I think I know how to get there, but I also know that the road to there is still a long and uphill battle. Yes, it is part of my nature to pursue this. Why would I want to do that? I need to know where the limit is. Have I hit it, I may have, then may not have, but I can only know by trying since I am still discovering a lot every time I get out.

Soon I will be hitting the 200th session this year!

Session 5188

The day started out with a call to me that one of our major systems at work not functioning. When this happens it is a hell of an issue because of the complexity of the system that I need to deal with, there can be dozen things that can go wrong, and if I find out the cause, it would still take a while for me to figure out what other people have done to it in the past. Eventually, though, we all figure it out. Otherwise I would not have even gotten out in time to catch the evening waves that would not have been fun.

But we did fix everything, and it was really a frustrating day.

There is somewhat of a ritualistic nature in session. When I get into the water, I do have to strip all my work cloths off. I use that chance to strip off all the other things in the "day" world and try to become a part of a sea mammal family, I will forget about everything and focus just on the waster, the waves, the smell of the ocean and don't even thing about anything else but just being in the water and live as simple of life as I can.

After I got out of the water, I really felt a lot better about everything.

Session 5187

First, answer to a question from one of the readers. "Who is this legendary guy that you mentioned?" Well, I am vowed to keep this BLOG HIPPA compliant so whatever I write about someone (except that StokeMasters web site members will get a direct mention), I must make sure that person is not involuntarily mentioned in public. But the reason why this person is legendary is because he used to be a very prominent local surfer in the area and I heard about him many times from a few other locals that I surf with and how great of a surfer he was. Then I actually had met him once at Montara during a surf check and he started to speak to me in Japanese. Turns out he was living in Japan for several years for his job. But I have not heard from him or saw him surf since. This was at least 7-10 months ago in the late fall or winter.

Anyhow, he suddenly shows up in our 3-peopoe line up and we started to talk. So, that was really fun and amazed to see him take these close outs at ease. There are several other well known surfers too so I am sure I will eventually get to surf with them. First though I still need to get better so I would not be totally out of a league and place.

Now onto this morning's surfing.

The sun was totally out this morning, indicating the start of fall, perhaps, a wishful thinking. As I go enter the Devil's Slide section, I see some solid swell lines coming in again, indicating a fall like feel. I was excited and at the same time I was still a bit intimidated by it.

This morning I went to Linda Mar because that would be the best bet for me. When I got to the spot though, the north end was already fairly big, so I decided to do the south end, and it was actually decent! I was pleased by the shoulder level high sets. Today, I took out the 7'5 JC Equalizer and that was really fun to catch a bit larger waves on the outside. The reason why I say it was fun is because due to the size of the board, the speed I can get out of that thing is really good, and once I get in the speed and I really like to take big turns with it.

There were a ton of women out this morning. Yes, they must be polishing up their surfing skills for the women's contest. Since it will be at Linda Mar, why not practice right at the location. Now that I thought about that I now realized that the situation is a bit different if you are practicing for the HMB Classic because you don't know until the night before the contest.

On the way out I checked the north end one more time. The waves did have some shape. There was nobody on the waves but I bet that would have been fun if I got a courage to do it, or have someone better than me to come along, I've gone there.

Session 5186

So, in this sort of swells that are coming and at the level of my surfing, I should either have not surfed or should just have gone to some other (you know where) place this morning. But you know, if you have other buddies who'd respect is a seasoned local, you'd have to respect his opinion too. In fact if I have chosen other places it probably would not been good for me either. But then there still is a "poser" nature in me that would cause me to say, "I wish I would have?" I am sure you can all relate to that.

So this is one of the mornings that we have conspired to surf in a local beach when they are not even supposed to be "open" and then go and park where "No Parking" sign is posted all over the places and snack in to the beach and try to catch a few waves before we hit the desk.

Well, even around here, we could not escape the swells and so the breaks were ugly and not really catchable "you break your nose if you mess up" sort of waves. Plus they are beach breaks as such they were shifty and the "best" peeks seemed to have moved around a lot. This is to mean that I say "Let's go there!" and we paddle 5 minutes straight to "there." Then, what happens, "was there" start to break with nice shoulders. I don't think that people living in Santa Cruz or Rincon would totally appreciate what we have to live by, but in most of the times that we have to live with. The funny thing of this is that after a while, you'd say "Hey this ain't too bad." And I guess, you might call us either "addicted" or "nuts" of sorts. But may be it is not bad, even if this means duck diving with sand stuck in our eyes and gritting our teeth, and creating a straight horizontal stress lines on our boards. Every once in a while a surfable shoulder would come by, it is just fast enough and we take 10-second rides, while we hope that one of these days when we hit a nice big break we'd surf better than anyone because we paid our dues.

Of course that's the story that I am telling. As for me, I am just sitting duck and duck diving too like a mad man each time a bigger outside set come in.

This morning though, I finally got to surf one of the local legendary surfer that I only heard on the lineups and the Surfrider meetings!

Gosh he was good.

He takes off in the waves that I could not, then he manages to go down and kick out through the waves back out back into the back side of the wave! I have not seen that happen before!

Then he paddles back and says to me "Minikui Nami" (Ugly waves) in Japanese. What a dude!

So if the waves suck there always are all sorts of excitements on the water!

The adventure continues.

Session 5185

It is kind of ironic that the day I decided to "pull out" of Santa Cruz is the day to surf with Clio who caused me to surf in Santa Cruz. She was out of surfing since July of last year, but decided to come back to it this afternoon. She even has the same mini-long board that I started really surfing with; it is a Pearson Arrow 8'6 Mini Malibu board. I tried it today just to remember how it was like, and when I got on it, the whole feeling of what it was like came right back to me. It is really interesting and strange that every board has it own characteristics just like how one make of a guitar or a piano would sound and actions feel differently from others. As for this board, it is really good board ready to allow trimming. I wish I had more time on better waves for this condition.

Rewind to the start of the session? We checked out the Cowells beach to see if it is doing anything, and it was lame. There was only one guy out there, the bay was filled in and there seemed to be nothing. So we decided to head straight to Manresa where I know there always are some waves. When we arrived there the water was murky red brown color indicating that there is quite a bit of algal activities out there. We did go in anyways.

The wave were a bit difficult to catch as they were doubling up on every set and also at the same time, closing out? double closing out to be more accurate. I continued to catch the waves even though there was not much to be ridden. It was almost like 2 years ago when we were both working hard to get waves.

So I think it was a successful re-introduction to surfing for Clio and as always I still had fun being challenged with the condition too. There were, yet, some better surfers showed up and they were riding with snap backs, and I was not doing as well, so yes, there will be some more learning to do.

I am really happy that Clio has gotten back into surfing as we met at the Club Ed camp in Baja a few years back and being surfing friends since then and many other people have come and gone in that time.

Session 5176 Pictures 2

This is typicaly what happens afterwards. I have narrowly and succesfully escaped breaking the nose of this board. While I was just about wiping out, at this point I was still riding the board. If I was to take my helmet off, there will be quite a bit of sand.

Session 5176: Photo

From Session 5176: A fraction of a second before this wave just crushes down on a shallow knee high beach break (hey but I did get up!). You can almost see the sand in the water in front. This is pretty typical of our local beaches. (Photo, Courtesy of Dog Haus)

Session 5184

Many of my friends like "bigger" days. Personally I don't like "bigger" days. They don't do anything for me. They are hard to paddle out to, and difficult to catch too. I would rather have shoulder to overhead size days with fewer closes out sets and really ride the ridable faces to my heart content. I don't really have an urge to tell people that "Manabu would go" type stories. This preference, obviously is more unique to just a few of my friends because it seems that 9 out of 10, other surfers biggest complains are "not big." I have been to situations that were double overhead size waves, and while I can get out and surf and all, I still don't and cannot enjoy much. It is largely due to my skill levels, for sure.

So this morning was just perfect. I like the tail end of the "bigger days." With very little wind going and if any going at side to offshore directions, easy paddle out and there were just plenty of good waves for me to catch. I was catching so many fun waves that I was almost feeling guilty of other bros who were there with me, but actually I was selecting easier and smaller spots that were happening more consistently, rather than going to the outside sand-bar where once in a while bigger sets would break. Besides, I was on a 6'3 board, so I could use a bit more boost from the inside break anyhow.

Today, one thing I really realized was that I was still looking down. I though that I was not, but I was because I was looking down for 2-3 seconds ahead of the line, and not the entire horizon ahead of me. We had a Stokemasters discussion regarding this, and I have realized that I was still not looking at the horizon. And when I did that it was so much more helpful. It is amazing a simple few words like "gaze at the horizon" have so much profound differences in the riding experience. It was so much easier to pick a better line than ever before.

I am really thankful for everyone to come to support my "surfing lifestyle." Because if I have never met them and talked to them, I don't think that I would have advanced even to this point. I want everyone to know that I almost flanked the Ph-Ed classes in middle school because I did not want anything to do with sports back then (but if there was surfing at school that may have changed that in retrospect.)

Session 5183

Good NW swell continues this morning. I surfed alone this morning at "you know where" and it was decent. A bit closed out as other Stokemasters reported this morning, but there were a lot of waves to catch.

Session 5181-5182: Well, The size does matter.

A bit late for the double-header session I did yesterday. It was almost like the start of the winter season and the morning session was really treacherous for my skill level. I did make to the outside with many ducking through. On the outside sets were going well overhead but would have been better if I had a longer board to paddle a bit faster to catch these big waves, really should not have taken the 6'3 since catching the waves on the inside was also felt like "too late." The 45-minute session was just good enough to tire me out before hitting the office. The waves looked especially meaner and bigger with the horizon all shrouded with the fog. Should this have been sunny and with a clear view of the horizon, I would have been able to be there at much more ease. Perhaps, this is a lame excuse, so I now should write on.

In the middle of the day, Surf Doggie drop me an email to look at the Mavs Cam. The reason we do this is because we want to check the texture of the waves. If there a lot of wind in our area, then we can actually figure that out. But we did agree that we will do the bay rather than the northern beaches.

Since I also volunteered to baby sit and surf with Dog Haus in the afternoon, I headed out to a beach near my home in the afternoon. I did one cool thing though, since we were taking turns we decided to do 15-minute heat each turn. That was a good practice for surf competition, and I took each "heat" seriously, practicing from splashing in, fast paddle to the outside to really focus on waves and catching them. The waves in the bay were really fast and again like on the other day, but that gave us good duck diving through practices, focusing on the horizon for wave selections and then catching as many waves as possible. The waves were so closed out due to the low tides that we could not take actual rides but I did take off on many number of waves. Surf Doggie, another close surfing buddy of mine mentioned afterwards that he was surprised how many waves I got into, because he thought I would not make a majority of them.

I am a bit gratified that he has recognized that, since that's exactly what I have been, and continue to be, working on; to get ready to take off into deeper and steeper walls. My 6'3 board was also helpful in this regard because I was able to hold down the back of the board without being overpowered by the waves.

In terms of baby sitting, I got a bit of a short end of a stick. While I was taking care of his kid another strange couple showed up with a girl about 2 years old too, and she wanted to play together, so I ended up doing the work for two while they enjoyed relaxing afternoon. But I trick Dog House to come to the Brewery and I am coercing him for two Mavericks Pale Ales coming my way. Though, given he has been geeking out with his new iPod and text messaging on his phone he might be reading this.

I better stop now.

Session 5180. The Size Does Not Matter

Calling my buddies up at 6:15 AM is fun. "Hey Dog Haus, get your butts out of da bed, put your shit together and come on out!" I can almost see that he is rolling in his bed trying to turn off the ringer. But he did get out the bed, threw his two boards on the truck bed and that's all what matters instead of what he was doing.

Surf was rather disorganized this morning, but as usual we don't really care so long as there are surfable peaks we'd go and work on them? small or larger. We can often be the measuring sticks in which other surfers would decide to come in or not. It is often the case that, "Hey I saw you guys catching waves so I decided to go." Dog Haus can handle the outside and the inside, I can always handle the inside if it is too difficult to make it to the outside? like this morning when a lot of chops will just crush down one wave after another. But by now, we've all figured out the local rip current patterns, so we just go and ride those out.

And as for the surf, it was a lot of fun both the inside and outside. Definitely the waves are on the junky side if it was left up to other peoples' opinions. And yes, there were a couple of overhead sets in the mix too to catch. I have written in various past occasions but when the waves are junky like today, the surf landscape changes from groomed giant slalom hills to mogul hills. These are so much fun to corner around from one bump to another, and give a lot of chance to pick the lines and make quick turns. Quick turns are just a lot of fun too because these bumps do build up into rather steep faces. Just like skiing on the mogul hills this is where the use of the knees do play a lot in having a lot of fun or wipe outs followed by waves closing out on me. And skiing the bumps was one of my favorite things in my college days. I hated that once in a while they come out with the groomer and flatten the hills. Then we had to wait for two days, and we used to ski really rough on these surfaces so that bumps would form.

And you know what? My college time ski buddy from the Upper Michigan just called me on the other day. We will have a lot of catching up to do!

Session 5179

Sometimes not having much expectation works to my advantage. I was not so sure if there is anywhere that would catch current 185 degree south swells, and given the past few days without much in the way of good surfable waves, I decided to drive further south this morning. It was a type of morning that required an intermittent wiper on. After driving for half an hour or so, the sky opened up with the sun in the sky. It was also the spot that I originally planned to be.

The spot was not happening much but once every 3-5 minutes some sets rolled in, so I said "might as well" and got in, and also the wind was going on an offshore direction. At least the S swell was doing something here, and the extremely low tide turning to the incoming tide made me really hopeful.

As for today's lesson, today my wave selection and positioning technique was suffering quite a bit. On smaller days, there are fewer sweet spots and obviously they are always owned by few good surfers who would catch every darn wave that come. But still once in a while the chances for me to catch good waves do come and I do catch but I feel like my timing needs more adjustment as well as positioning. Specifically today, I was too far out more than usual. One of the right waves was perfect, I was right in the pocket and just barely going faster than the closing wave on my butt and my arm folded in a bit so that I don't touch the wall.

I don't know if you noticed this or not, but there is one interesting thing I noticed a while ago and I meant to write about. It is about how to wind goes over the wave, and when I go over the waves or when I am taking off on an offshore situation, I can definitely feel the whiff of more wind blowing against the wave. It is an interesting experience to me.

Totally changing the subject, but this week I did an experiment to see whether going through Sharp Park Road or going around Serramonte on 280/1 junction to Pacifica makes any faster. The result was surprising. Even though the distance to cover on the freeway only route is much more, it is still 2 minutes sooner. Sharp Park took exactly 10 minutes to get over to the Sharp Park freeway entrance from the Westborough exit. Whereas it took almost exactly 8 minutes on the freeway only route. Something to keep in mind.

Session 5178

One of the surfing skills that I am trying to acquire better is the forecasting skill set. When I started surfing, I was really curious about why on some specific day people tend to be surfing on a specific place, and not the other places. Of course today, I have the answer to that one. People tend to stay longer when the condition is better so that automatically creates the crowd.

Nevertheless, I did not know, for example, when Mavericks would start to happen. After I started to surf, I started to see web sites and NOAA buoy sites and see how the numbers they spit out related to my surfing experiences, and today I have a much better idea of what to and when to go. Still, though there are many days and times that I feel I don't know what the heck I am doing. This also goes with my surfing skills too, by the way. In both areas, there just are days that I feel like I am a total beginner in the whole situation not have learned anything about anything even though I have been at it for a while. Compared to, say, music, that is a bit different, because when I play my keyboards I am clearly building upon what I have before. There are good days and bad days, but I don't have a day in which I have forgotten how a voicing on a chord is supped to be, and how the scale over that chord progression is. Yes, sometimes the fingers tend to move smoother or faster, but when it comes to surfing, there definitely are days that I feel that I have not made any progress what so ever.

Before I get into this morning's situation, though that I was clearly having fun. So don't think that by reading this that I was a miserable time. There are miserable times though, say when it is in the winter time, a 7:00 AM DP, it is a constant drizzle out, the swell period is 18 seconds 8 ft from the WNW, and I am paddling, paddling and paddling out never finding the true outside, and when I thought I found it, I take off and I get plummeted and held down for a good several seconds, and after catching zero wave (I mean no wave) all fatigued barely making it back against the tremendous current, I have to change to regular clothes. That's a miserable time.

Compared to that today was a relatively flat day, working with near shore breaks, and try to catch waves that are coming down rather fast. And I could not do anything about catching waves. I take off but they either crumbled or just thrown over, and as a part of the reward of this, I hit the sand bottom (thank got it is just the sand). Of course my buddy Dog Haus was catching tons of waves. I am not just simply there to do what he does. But I saw that he was geeking out with his new iPod ? and his unlimited text messaging feature he just figured out how to do (by the way I sent him several text messages in the past several months and now he confirms that he got them, about the NW swells we had in SC this winter, for example) so I now have some hope for him to become a part of my regular society.

It was not a miserable time today because the sun came out, and I was sharing the wave from the Zen Master, Dog Haus, and Caryn Stokemasters, and I was so stoked because she is a short boarder Stokemasters too! Instead of catching tons of waves, I really had a good time talking to her on the lineup.

It is always interesting to meet someone for the first time. This Internet community culture really have added one more dimension to it, because there are some people whom I have not really met live but know the person for months at a time, not even knowing what they sound like on the phone. But this mooring, I got a call from her, and from then on I started to formulate in my mind what she would look like and surf like and then when she actually shows up then I would compare about the actual differences are.

Well, there are much more I can write but I will stop now. Please come back again and read more, I know you all do.

Session 5177

As a surfing enthusiast, I must say that I really came to appreciate so much variation in how the ocean and the sky changes all year. Given there are so many varieties and permutations that arise out of them there simply cannot be a day that I could say "This was exactly the same kind of a day that I had?" There are similar days, for sure but, no, I have not encountered the exact sky, wind and the waves that combine into a surfing experience.

This morning I had an easy out with not much wind, but waves were just not as good of a quality (for me) as yesterday. They are coming down at a faster a bit more powerful rate than yesterday, making catching the waves a bit more difficult. There were several waves where I was simply plummeted, or barely taken off into the white water after the wave behind closed out on me.

That brings to another issue, though, better surfers don't catch those types of waves, they seem to know which are ridable ones and which are not, and they'd even position themselves at the right places.

So there is yet another surfing skill to master. It never ends.

Session 5175 and 5176

I had double header sessions today, which is usually possible in these long summer days. Speaking of that I am really happy to hear that we are extending the daylight saving in 2007, it is about time, and I would hope that California stays DST all year. For surfing, I think it is a better idea, even though, I'd miss DP, I think a lot of surfers can continue to surf after work.

The clock starts to be ticking now before Dog House moves out of our area and hit the east coast. That will be a sad day for losing a great surfing friend, but also that would be a good day to send him and his family off to their new adventure! This would be the last summer for him in California, at least, for a while. I wish that I started out surfing sooner since we actually surfed just this season together, but I must say I shared many fun waves.

The main reasons that I am going to miss surfing so much with him is that there has not been anyone else that agree so much with the philosophy of catching waves. For example, this afternoon, we were in this puny hip high waves breaking really close to the shore, and we both were having a blast catching waves after waves, and we both still can have a lot of fun taking occasional longer rides.

Forgive me, if I sound like I am boosting my abilities, but you got to know that this is my personal log of my own progress, this is not about comparing myself with other surfers, which I know it does sound like it sometimes. But part of the reasons that we can both do this is because we now both have skills to enjoy all sorts of waves.

After I got out of the water I was talking about this with Surf Doggies who also joined us, and I was talking to him that I used only be able to surf at Cowells or Inside 38th, but no place else. After this February or so this has changed to me, and to a good extent I do no longer need to go to Santa Cruz to find waves to surf, and that's because I can catch a wider range of size and shapes of waves, and also I can paddle out in to a wider range of situations too.

So I was thinking more about that today, and part of the reasons why this has happened to me is because I became simply more familiar with dealing with the water more so that how well I can take off or turn. This level of the comfort has really contributed for me to be much more relaxed in the water.

Then why I got there is because I was fortunate enough to hook up with some of the most experienced and friendly local surfers and go out surfing on a regular basis.

I must say though, and if you read my previous WavLOGs you know that at an early stage, it was a struggle to catch up with these guys. But eventually I got a point that I don't hesitate to call them and they don't hesitate to call me to get out on a session. To some extent I think I paid the dues. Before I could do this, though there were hundreds of sessions where I had to do it myself.

Session 5174

Finally I got a chance to hook up with Dog Haus, and also this morning's session was joined by Monkey Screw. A nice summer drizzly foggy morning (equals no wind) here in northern Half Moon Bay with sweet NW rolling in at 8-9 seconds on good tide.

First though Dog Haus is right, I have been a bit too harsh on other surfers on my latest BLOGs, I think I have lot a bit of the good spirit of the stoke and it really takes a friend like him to remind me that this is supposed to be for the fun and fitness, we are doing this for our enjoyment in life. You are right about that. I am not making write any excuse of it, so let us just move on to today's topic, which involves surfing, of course.

It is really a pleasure to surf with these experienced people as I can just follow them around from peak to peak and this morning was a kind of a morning where we were all so tired from surfing because the Pacific flooded us with a gift of sets after sets of gentle overhead waves!

We were catching waves like there is no tomorrow. There almost has not been a time when any one of us was not standing on a board with Dog House and his long rides high on the waves and Monkey Screw's smooth groovy rides, and of course I was continuing to work hard at take offs and turns. It was like a stage show.

Today I made one significant move that I have to share. I finally did a beginner version of a roundhouse cutback! This means that I have done a complete "figure 8" cutback ending up in the same direction I came from. Now that I tasted it, I can start to practice for it to perfect. I was super excited about that one. Part of it was a luck that the wave was in a completely good shape to do it, as I executed the turns 1 and 2, I saw the wave behind starting to build up more and 3 and 4 were really easy.

Also do you all remember when I wrote about my local buddies would look after me and people? Today, there was this guy in a spring suit seemingly trapped in a rip paddled way way out but Dog Haus in his fast paddling power went over and asked him if he was OK. We were relieved that he did finally make it back to the shore, but for the whole time we were watching him. Monkey Screw also told a family that their little kid not play by the shore break, and sure they should not have. Here is why.

When I was ready to get out, I was caught in one of the shore breaks, and right at the moment I was pulling out walking against the backwash, I got a strong leg cramp and I could not walk. I was caught in the shorebreaks after another getting pulled out and thrown from the top pounded and held under for several minutes. There is nothing really dangerous about it, I am used to this, but should this have been a small child not knowing how to swim, it would not have been pretty.

After I got out, Mooch left a message and said that and he saw our cars on the way to pick up a person at the airport and he saw our cars again on the way back from the airport, then he came back out to surf, so it was a busy morning for the beach! Yes, we were there for at least 3 hours and not just 3 hours but it was action packed one with one wave after another.

Then we all went to the brewery and partied for couple of hours, the time extended when Mooch came and joined us for lunch too.

Session 5173

Forgive me if I have been so hard of other sufers, you have every right to tell me about it and you should. My forums are open to everyone!

Another successful morning, caught waves after waves of good faces though two others who would say they come flaked out.

I don't know if it is my nature or the zodiac that I was born in, but I often feel like the one who is rounding up the surfers and make them surf at the time and place I want them to. It was really an interesting thing because a few years ago when the show "The Boarding House" was on the Werner TV, there was this girl surfer who was rounding up all other surfing girls and taking them to the competitions making them to surf and compete. As it turns out she is a Scorpion like I am, and to my surprise she and I have the exact same birth month and the date (of course not the year). So I am somewhat surprised by this. I am really sympathetic about this surfer because once you put on the wet suit and got your board under your arm, and tie the leash; there is only one thing that matters.

Just Surf!

At any rate, I have just found this sweet local spot that continues to break when Surfpulse and the surfers in general are just complaining bitterly about the smallness of the waves. To some extent I am really happy about it because it really helps people away from even thinking about coming to surf, but on the other hands, it is too bad because most of the surfing these days are so media driven that if a web site or a some major surf site says to you to go they go and when they say no-go and they don't. To that I would say, go out anyways! What do you got to loose, right? You can still have good exercise paddling around beautiful nice ocean for practically free. Instead, you'd pay $600 plus a year in a membership for the privilege of using a stationery machine and watch Fox channel that the next bigger guy chose on your behalf for the entire 60 minutes of your session, coming out even more aggravated before you started your exercise learning that the world is less peaceful then just an hour ago, or thinking why you have less than all the other people you just watched on the TV.

So back to the surf media telling you to go, you go and what happens. You did go didn't you? It is way over your abilities, it is breaking one and a half over head and getting out is a hell, and if you made it out, you would pearl and if you are lucky you'd be hit by the board, and if you are unlucky you'd get 5 stitches from the performance fin that you just put on because, again, some surf media told you that there are the best types of fins the pros use.

So you did paddle out, and you did not catch any waves, you barely paddled back in, but then you tell your friends, you went out on the biggest day of the year, and you are proud of what you have "accomplished."

The point I am making is this.

Perhaps, it is about time that you would and should find your own ways of surfing, your own size of the waves and don't even worry about what other people say about the condition or the makes and types of the boards you have.

The Surfers Having the Most Fun Rules!

Session 5172

Session 5172: Thursday, August 11, 2005

I get cell calls from friends, forecasts and what, and I cannot believe how people can get so negative about our current conditions! There just are places you can still catch a lot of waves.

There still are some things I don't really understand. For example, everyone goes to Linda Mar right? Everyone knows it is crowded, but then why in the heck all these people bunch together in one spot and try to take off into waves all at the same time? What kind of surfing is that? Some sort of competitions? And then those very people are whom I know who'd say "I don?t want to compete because it is not soul surfing" are also they are the very people who will paddle up to that mess and come back and complain to me that "Oh, it was so crowded!" So I ask when you say those things, are you really practicing what you are preaching? Yeah, yeah, I understand, these are prime peaks. I can see that from where I was sitting. But I look at that and there were only 2-3 surfers out of the 20 that are bunched up who were taking all the waves. They are taking off from way-way outside not giving you an inch of take off space.

Now that I have vented my frustration of the century, I am onto today's surfing. As usual, I was surfing at the place and sections that many would not consider going. But the sets were shoulder high and good steepness that I caught just so many waves and there was even a single person next to me. Not even a threat of someone trying to paddle up. So look hard and you can find a place to go. With the sun out and the paddle out so clean and nice, I have to give today a Stoke 8.

The take off technique is continuing to improve today, and rides are definitely getting higher quality and longer length.

Session 5171

This afternoon, I opted for an afternoon session only to find out that everyone who said going to come flaked out. Posers!

A nice thing about this is that I can catch the breaks and waves I WANT. And I went back to the Sandbox.

I must say though I do like these PM glass offs because I can take the waves at a much relaxed pace, no office and meeting time to meet. I just catch waves until I don't want to any more!

So,

Small not so manly waves - who cares
Wearing a helmet - who cares
Catching the inside and outside - who cares. I caught a ton of waves.
Too floaty, too long of a short board - who cares

It's fun and that's all counts.

By the way, the guy who had a full hood (the kind attaches to the suit). Take it off man, It?s August! We got 59 degrees water today. It's not Juno here.

Session 5170

Session 5170

This week has started off as a "small" week. Not much in the way of the summer south swells and basically "local" 8 seconds wind swells. But I continue to enjoy these summer small days. First of all, the condition thins out the crowds. And this is what most people don't know, if you wait long enough there still are some good sets that come form time to time. On smaller set periods, I stay inside and when the sets get bigger, I let give the first set to a group of people who have been waiting outside, and then I paddle out to catch second or the third one in the set, that are bigger.

I practiced tons of takeoff timing practices today and that's another thing I enjoy smaller days. Basically unless the condition is down-right dangerous for my level of surfing, there always is something to do and there is any part of surfing I can reinforce. Even if it goes completely flat, I can still build my paddling muscles by paddling the entire length of the beach and back etc.

Session 5169

Just got back from this morning's session, and the last time I was surfed there was during the local classic competition. The waves were not breaking as big as the last time I was there but it was a nice glassy morning with occasional shoulder level faster sets; the kind of the sets familiar to all of us who surf here a lot, and there were a few barrels that were forming here and there! Of course I did not want to compete in these sections, so we found our little sections, paddled up and down as the break point shifted as the tide swung up rather quickly to high in just a course of an hour!

The "fastness" of the waves this morning was just perfect because it was not as fast as the last time, and so it was nice to really practice more take offs. Yesterday was more about turning but today it was more about taking off. It is really fun to take advantage of different conditions and situations and learn to develop skills in each specific area of surfing.

A while ago I talked about the consistency in doing some motion, and today I have started to see more consistency in taking off into the waves that were previously "not makable" in my skill set. Even when I am failing, I am still up on the board and riding the soup or t least riding something. That's also party the poor wave selection, which is now another area that I need to start to work on.

During this session I was sharing to a local buddy that "I would quit surfing and move onto something else if I learned this sport." And his return to me was that "Then you would never be able to move onto another. Nobody can learn everything!"

It is probably true and for that I am really curious about far I can go with this, I may never reach the end, but that makes me even more curious what's out there!

Session 5168

Here is the continuation from my previous WavLog first.

Well, as it turned out that Thursday was officially my last day as an employee at the company I have started to build. It was recently bought by another company, and it beame official on Thursday. So that evening I ended up working 2 am in the morning to switch everything over from voice mail greetings, instructions to people on how to switch company names and email signatures etc. It was nearly a 6-year journey from 3-people office to something like 150 people company, and now we are a part of a company that is something in the order of several hundred thousand people.

As such as day, the nice fun waves were really a nice reward and treat for me, and it really came at the right time to make that day really memorable.

[b]Fast Forward to Saturday Morning.[/b]

Some weekends I have to pay my dues and sometimes they all come at once. Today was basically that kind of a day. There were two local Surfrider chapter related events, a beach cleanup in the morning and a support for the Nor Cal Women's Surf Club fund raiser. So I decided to invite my friends to take part in any part of it today with me. Well, it is always the case that people don't like to show up on beach cleanups. Understandable. Who want to pick up other people's mess let alone your own? However there are people who do and that was good.

Next things was my favorite part, eat lunch and surf. It was good to meet with Ren, she is continuing to improve her long boarding skills. She was getting some long left rides.

The waves were really fun today. It was really perfect because the sets don't continuously roll through so there was a plenty of chance to get out, and when they come they are not really nice and soft today allowing me to easily catch waves and they were breaking further out helping me get very long rides on some rides.

Today I could really be able to stay on the face of the wave and connect sections through cut backs. Also I practiced a lot on building speed through the bottom turns. Well when it is breaking further out, there is a plenty of time to do this, and when the waves are breaking in different sections that's even more fun!

There are two additional things I have realized today.

When I started to surf, I was really frustrated that other people are taking so many waves not allowing me to catch any, and I was wondering if this is a skill thing or aggressive thing. I think there is a little bit of both but like today, I was able to catch a lot of waves before others caught them, and I was not acting very aggressively, but I was strategically picking spots and predicting the next break and that helped a lot.

Second finding is that when I can get outside ducking through waves and using other techniques with an ease, I can also catch the waves at ease. In contrast to this, on bigger and junky days, I can hardly duck through and get out, then catching the waves even if I made the outside is usually very hard.

The event at El Rio was fun. I danced with the StokeMasters Girls Surf Team members today and music and food was good. It is amazing that they can pull off these events!

Session 5167

The DP this mooring was so excellent and I wished I had more time than I had. Tomorrow, I have some news to tell you all, but this morning was really a very special morning and day to get started on the final conclusion of the things I have been working on? more on this tomorrow because this story won't be a complete one unless you read the Part II.

At any rate, the ocean surface was like a mirror without any ripples and then from time to time up to chest level waves broke out. There was one guy in the line up and he was doing really well finding nice pockets to start. This really tells me that a higher level surfer has really a way of finding good position and only goes for the waves that are really good. Through surfing a lot with better people and also sat in surfing competition recently I think that I am much more keenly aware of the wave selection aspect of surfing! Again, surfing is a shallow sport when it comes to the depth of the water we play in but it is a very deep sport in skill development and as such it is a never ending journey like a life in of itself.

I was watching this guy and he knows where to catch, but also I was amazed by the speed he gets out of the same size waves that I take off on. He utilized the first bottom turn really hard and got back up on the wave then use rather radical cutbacks to get back in the wave again gaining more speed each time he turns. Unlike motorcycle racing, surfing is really interesting that you use turn to gain the speed. That's where a surfer uses her body and weight transfer to gain more speed, so without the mastery of good take off and turns, there really is no good surfing to me.

I was really inspired and I tried to imitate as much as possible of what he did. It is always a good education to be in the water with some really good people sharing the same level of the wave as I do.

To be continued.

Session 5166

This morning's DP was brutal! The size probably wasn't a big deal but there were so many white water breaks that I could not just move forward to the outside. It really is reflecting the current state of my work life. There are so many things to needing to be finished but because of the volume of the things I have hard time feeling like I am making any progress!

Zero rides today, and there certainly have been many days in my surfing career that I had zero rides.

In retrospect though I got a lot of excercise and of course that's the main reason I go out every day, and more I do it, more confident I get in any kind of conditions!

Session 5165

Have you all seen "Riding Giants" movie? One of the profound statements that were made at the end of the movie by the editor of the Surfer Magazine is to the following effect.

"If someone sees that you practice religion every day, there is no question, but if someone sees you that you surf every day, then?"

I do surf as many days as possible and as much as possible so long as the water looks safe enough for me to venture out. I even think that I rub people in a wrong way because I write about it each time I go out. But the point I am trying to make out of all of this is that everyone should have a passion or two and then go for it. At this juncture in my life it is definitely surfing and yes, it is the situation that "once the bug has bitten me." But on the other hands, I've seen people religiously jog, do yoga, swimming or whatever. Surfing should not be considered so special. Why should it be? Especially you don't have to sign up for any membership at all, and the equipment would last for a while, and you can get in and out of the water in basically the same amount of time you would for your swimming at a local gym. Of course I do have a bit of unfair advantage that I live right by the ocean and I just go before or after work, but even then there are people who drive across the Bay Bridge to take some Aikido or Kendo classes, so it seems to be just a matter of priority.

And that brings to the next issue. Why all of you do what you do? Because it is fun and also help you build the strength or endurance or whatever you want out of it.

So, if surfing is it for you then don't make an excuse out it. Don't waste any time or labor with your guilt. Just go and do it. It is your passion and your stoke, and what else is more important to your own life?

Session 5164

It has been a fairly a long time before I surfed with my old StokeMaster buddies Ren, Laura and Irene. We hit the calm version of Montara Sunday morning and it was super fun with a lot of good long board waves. Lots of lefts, and I took out my long board. It was a good choice and caught a lot of waves and really somooth rides.