One day we were sitting on the rocks off First Point, watching the women’s pro longboarding heats, checking out our friend’s competition for the quarter final. I can’t remember all the surfers in that heat, but what I do remember is at one point one of the women getting a nice wave and the announcer calling that wave and referencing the woman surfing as “the surfer in blue”. As in,

And that was a great wave for the surfer in blue!

My very astute and observant friend (let’s call him Mark) leaned across to me and explained,

So that ‘surfer in blue’ is the current women’s world longboarding champion, Jen Smith. There is no way Harley would ever get called ‘the surfer in blue’ in any heat, semi or final. That’s shit.

He was right. That surfer in blue was the then world champion, Jen Smith*. And he’s also right that it was shit that the commentator had no idea who she was. We listened to hear what happened next. What happened next was a fair bit of silence over the mic and then a return to commentating with the name ‘Jen Smith’ flying from his lips. I have a feeling Mark wasn’t the only one who was shocked by his lack of knowledge.

You know the kind of surf I’m talking about, right?

Well, I had forgotten just how wonderful that get-home-and-stand-in-the-kitchen-in-my-swimmers-gushing-to-mum-and-then-collapsing-into-the-shower-after-a-perfect-surf feeling is!! It’s heaven.

And there was dinner waiting for my tired, happy body after that shower too, by the way.

Per-fec-tion.

I was not that person today. I take that back. I showed the other side of that person today on one wave in particular.

I dropped in on someone. Blatantly. Unapologetically (which is a lie because I apologized to him later even though I wasn’t earnest when I did so.)

One of my friends chastised me for doing so. I paddled up to her later and told her what led to such egregious behavior on my part.

There is one guy in the home break crew for whom I have no respect. I flat out dislike him. I am civil to him. He has no idea that I can’t stand him. There’s no need to share that sentiment with him since I only see him in the water. For years, he’s taken my waves. He’d see me paddling for one, paddle right next to me and just go. Being the polite person that I am, as well as one who’d prefer not to imagine the physical aftermath of a collision in the water, I would always pull back.

No.

Not today.

It was a left. The shoulder was heading right for me. He paddled and popped up, going left. I then paddled and popped up. All I saw out of the corner of my eye was him crashing and burning.

Good.

When I explained our history to the friend who’d chastised me, she said, “Oh. Karma.”

Yes. Karma. That was payback, James Brown style.

Who’s your mommy now?

[ post by SurfSister from Intruder in the Surf ]

The other week I was driving into town from the highway when I looked up and saw this cloud that looked disarmingly like a dolphin jumping out of the ocean. Now, I’m notoriously suspicious of dolphins (I find all that “smiling” is slightly creepy and I can’t forgive how much they can look like sharks) but I was compelled to stop and record it.

Ok, so I was a moment too late to get it in all its jumping perfection, but you can see what I mean. And that afternoon when I went surfing, the water was slightly murky after all the rain. Not gross, just not clear. I was paddling back out after a wave, when two dolphins jumped out of the water, side by side. They leapt out of the face of the wave and crashed into the water in front of me, speeding under my board and away. It was a very dolphin day that one.

In Noosa there was a dolphin under my board as well. It popped up next to me and then swam away. I didn’t see it again.

I know these experiences are cool, and I do honestly feel lucky that I get to be in the water so close to them. Sometimes I feel guilty though, because I know other folk would get more out of it than me. I just don’t go much for the anthropomorphism nor the spirituality that people attribute to them, so that stuff is wasted on me.

Your ideas, thoughts, excitement, heart, mind and body all spill out through your fingers, hands and feet. They move out through the things you create and easily become lines, sounds and shapes on a page or a canvas or in the water.

It all makes sense.

And then, some days, it’s not like that at all. You stall, and the lines and shapes are stilted and awkward. Ideas come to nothing, there is no motivation and everything feels heavy and cumbersome and badly drawn. Trying harder and pushing more makes little difference and the only thing you can do is… stop.

Stop fighting and give yourself time to cool or warm, or time or change direction or whatever it is that moves you out of the creative doldrums.

You can stop looking for inspiration and instead allow yourself to just enjoy and feel, and have it sit with you in that moment only – stop trying to find any meaning in it, stop trying to translate it, stop trying to make it say anything.

But it’s good to find meaning and to translate ideas and experiences. And after all, the longer you stop, the more momentum you lose. The creativity begins to curdle inside as it mixes too completely with sadness and boredom so you need to search out points of connection again. Points where things matter and mean something – even if only to you – so you can start yourself up again.

Aside from the physical aspects of the sport, there is a more personal, spiritual side to surfing that is less widely discussed, although some works of popular culture — surfer Dana Brown’s fantastic surf documentary Step Into Liquid and the surf memoir In Search of Captain Zero by longtime surfer Allan C. Weisbecker — have captured this aspect well.

It’s hard to describe the soul of surfing to someone who hasn’t done it, and it feels like a hideous conceit to try to do it when you’re merely a novice. But once the surfing bug bites you and you start thinking of yourself as a “surfer” as opposed to someone who does not surf, there really is no going back to your previous way of life.

When you’re surfing, you’re constantly reminded of something bigger than you, something so huge you really become aware of just how small and insignificant you are. If you don’t believe me, try going nose down and crashing into a shoulder-high breaking wave, caught up in the earth’s biggest washing machine and at the mercy of the ocean until it decides to spit you back to the surface again.

But at the same time as you feel insignificant in the face of force much more powerful than you, you also feel like a part of this amazing whole — part of the wave and the ocean that serves it up and the planet that depends on that ocean to support everything that lives on it. I know that sounds pretty far out, but give surfing a try for awhile and see if you don’t at least catch a glimmer of how this feels.

Lessons learned on the way to becoming a better surfer also are good ones for getting more out of life. Patience is essential, as is the ability to adapt quickly to an ever-changing set of circumstances and the ability to think quickly on your feet (or off them, as is more often the case).

These are all things applicable to life, which, like the ocean, is not always something that cares about your schedule, your plan, your needs and desires. Like the ocean, life does its own thing and expects you will learn to roll with it, because that’s pretty much the only choice you have.

[by Elizabeth Montalbano]

My life in Brisbane and the commitments I have here mean that I lack the resources to surf – namely time and money. The hours and costs involved in driving to and from the coast limit my opportunities, and the work I moved here to do has also taken up much more of the time and energy I have available for other things.

Sometimes, I get really bummed about it. Especially when, like this past weekend, there is decent swell. At these times I get texts and calls and invitations from home,

Come home! There’s swell! Why aren’t you coming down?

Or much worse (and meaner) is,

Haha! Did you see how much swell there is? And you’re missing it! Haha!

One friend put it like this,

You are writing about surfers and this is what surfers do. You go when the waves tell you, not when your schedule allows. Nowthat’s a blog topic for you, haha.

My friend is right, and I know that and feel terrible about it, but I still find it hard to explain to friends, crew and loved ones why I’m not there, and why I can’t find the resources to get there, let alone reconciling all of that for myself!

But it has made me think about the ways that surfing is available and accessible to different people, and the ways they negotiate and get through that. If I had the resources, I would love to explore the area around here more and learn what it’s like to surf from Brisbane. But to do that involves a combination of a car, petrol, ferries, food, accommodation etc etc. The bottom line is that I don’t live next to the beach anymore, so I can’t afford the time and money to go for a surf whenever I would like. Even when there is swell.

I think it’s a good lesson for me though – about the realities of access, costs and time – and in a funny way, it makes it even more precious. When I get to the coast I always enjoy myself – whether the waves are lovely or small or massive or blown out or busy or cold or few and far between. None of that bothers me anymore. I go surfing when and how I can, and I am always stoked for that.

You never know what Mother Nature

The joy of surfing is that I am my own coach and student at the same time. It’s not the destination, it’s the journey … If you fall, it’s just water … If you aren’t falling, you aren’t learning. These simple rules sit in the forefront of  every surf session like a code, a mantra. They remind me to remain light-hearted and self-aware during every surf session. Surfing can be unique, spiritual, educational, and always a classroom in session from Mother Ocean.

I push myself to try new things or motivate myself to grow. When my surfer’s motivation starts to wane, I regain direction by creating a surf plan that contains two positive actions. The first one is a small task or surf move that I have been meaning to try or work on, and the second is a resulting long-term goal. I immediately do the smaller task … like taking an extra step towards the nose, or focusing on the positioning of my feet as I carve a turn. This creates positive momentum. After that I take the first step towards achieving the long-term goal … in this example it would be hanging ten (toes on the nose!) or whipping a wicked backside!  Doing this periodically is great for getting out of a slump, creating positive reinforcement, and getting long-term plans moving.

My favorite places to surf were Barber’s Point on the southern part of the west side of the island, and Puena Point on the North Shore. One day I realized that I had been out for a couple of hours and I had thought of nothing. Surfing (unlike cycling which I do here in Boulder, Colorado), requires that you be fully present. You are busy paddling, positioning, constantly checking the horizon. Cycling on the other hand gives you ample time to ponder, to muse. Your feet pedal and your mind can just tick away, thinking about this or that. That particular moment on that particular day I was so pleasantly surprised to find that I had not thought of my own problems for a solid 2 hours.

And then I realized something else. When you are surfing, as you paddle out towards an oncoming wave, if you meet it from any other angle than head on, you are pummeled, thrown off of your board. If you meet it dead center, you can go up and over the wave with relative ease. (I never did figure out how to duck dive on my longboard).

I saw similarities in my own personal life. There was a situation that I was allowing to cause me great unhappiness, and I wasn’t doing anything about it. I had become a stranger to the happy vibrant person I had been for most of my life. I wasn’t meeting the situation head on. Eventually I found the strength to deal with the situation, to take it on front and center (that coincided with finding my meditation practice). It was the hardest thing I had ever dealt with until then. (Yes, there was a man involved) And I have dealt with far more difficult situations since.

It is quite a simple notion, but it is also profound if we actually practice it. If we don’t paddle straight into the wave (whether it’s a bad habit, a toxic relationship, an emotion that is destroying us), if we don’t paddle into it and continue to let it pummel us from an angle, we can’t really be well. Paddling into something that is large and looms out there can feel quite uncomfortable, but if we can be with that discomfort and keep paddling, the sky is the limit.

[by Molly Brown via destinationthejourney.com]