Sometimes I can’t bring myself to get out there. Days like today. When my lonliness, depression, & anxiety are at their absolute worst.
On days like these, thoughts of my ex boyfriend reel through my head uncontrollably. Trainwreck. Trainwreck is what he called me the day he stopped loving me. Along with “good luck in life, bitch, you gonna need it”.
Although, was it ever real love? I’ll never know; and that’s why thoughts of him haunt me.
Like any typical wipeout, these days are a complete tumbling blur. I fantasize about paddling out and never stopping. I don’t want to be around anyone ecxept my dog. I know that no one else on earth knows I feel like this. No one understands that I hate being alive on days like these.
The worst part is that I have to go to work tomorrow, twice, and pretend everything is fine as I pour myself out into the lives of other people who don’t even give a fuck what I’m sacrificing to try and improve their lives. Drain all my energy, deprive myself of sleep, proper self care, and a real dinner. For never enough money.
On days like today the only salt water I’m experiencing is that which is autogenerated.
Michael Peterson at Burleigh Heads, 1970s. Photo by Bruce Channon.
“…Michael Peterson was awkward and uncomfortable when surrounded by people on land, only really coming to life when alone in the ocean. Between 1973 and 1975 he won every professional contest going in Australia and seemed unstoppable until a dangerous combination of drug abuse and serious mental illness started to unravel his grip on normality.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/CaaWofItSJL/?utm_medium=tumblr
Surf outing #1: Getting out there, for the first time, without a professional lesson.
The first time I actually made it out surfing without a professional lesson was with my Hawaiian gal pal who we’ll call Kay. She started surfing seriously maybe in her teens or twenties? Her dad is a surf instructor. So I guarantee there was some exposure in her childhood. But she got serious about mastering the sport after childhood.
She says she used to just go out the same break by herself and wipe out day after day after day until one day, she finally got it.
So for my first non-professional surf outing, Kay and I went out to a break somewhere around Sans Souchi/ Kaimana area (the name of the exact break escapes me). My friend Kay and her husband strapped the boards to the top of my car, so I didn’t have to deal with that. Kay and her husband provided a wavestorm I could use, so I didn’t have to deal with acquiring my own surf board either.
When we went in the water, Kay pushed me into all the waves. So I didn’t have to deal with that. But it was technically my first time trying surfing with anyone other than a paid professional surf lesson. Did I stand up on any waves? Nope. wave count: zero. But I did start to remember what it felt like to catch the wave and know that it’s pushing you, and you could stand up on it. Except that at that particular time I couldn't manage to stand up on the wavestorm. Kay suspected that maybe she was pushing too hard? We’re not sure. She was convinced that her husband was really good at pushing people into the waves just right, but she was still figuring it out.
While Kay did the majority of the work for us that afternoon, what I did learn was...
~ that it is easiest to carry a longer surfboard on your head.
~ You need to rinse off the board after the surf.
~ It’s a good idea to watch the water before you choose a spot to paddle out. Not that a total beginner kook like myself would know what to watch for.
~ I also learned that you should pick a landmark on shore to keep track of where you are in the water, and to discern if you’re drifting further out to sea, or drifting to the left or right of where you paddled in.
~ I learned that when the sun and sea collide just right when you’re surfing, rainbows form on the back of the waves; and it feels beautiful just being out there.
~ Most importantly, with the right friend, I felt supported and safe 95% of the time. But there was of course the moments where Kay would be catching waves on her own and I had to chill by myself. During these times, I observed that I was psyching myself out in my head, trying to keep an eye out for where she was with a sense of frantic fear, and trying not to convince myself that something would be swimming in the water that shouldn’t be in the water, or something could go wrong and I’d have to paddle all the way back in by myself.
So I guess you could say that I also learned that you have to mentally be prepared to be out there by yourself-ish, even if you paddle out to the lineup with or to people you know. You have to have a willingness to let go of the hand hold and fend for yourself when you are no longer out there with a professional surf lesson crew. No one can “do it for you” all the way when it’s not a professional surf lesson.
I also recommend that if you go out learning to surf with friends, absolutely pick the right friends. Friends who will remain positive and supportive, friends who know what they’re doing, and friends who genuinely will watch out for you.
Why I keep showing up, even tho this is work and I get worked. Every time.
One of the myths I’d like to bust for adult beginner surfers is that it’ll be easy. Surf lessons, where the instructors do everything difficult for you, may seem easy.
But when you’re trying to learn how to surf as an adult, for real, on your own, at your home break rather than at a lush resort-like surf camp somewhere for a couple weeks, there is a serious activation energy hurdle. There is work to be placed on the altar when learning how to surf in adulthood, pretty much except for the lulls between sets when you’re waiting, talking story (chatting) with other surfers, and resting.
From carrying a longboard from the Xth floor of your apartment down to your car, strapping it onto the car, to walking a mile with it on your head just to reach the actual water. Not to mention the walk back with it on your head after you’ve just been out at sea exercising for an hour and a half, LOL.
Don’t even ask me how people who live in cold water locations have the morale to consistently show up for this experience. There’s a reason I never picked up surfing when I lived in Santa Cruz, California in that frigid water. If I had to do this whole routine on the regular with a wetsuit and booties thrown in, in the cold; if I had to run the heater in my car on the way to the beach, I’d quickly drop out.
As we speak, I’m about to get outta the car to show up to this dawn patrol surf club I meet up with. It’s the only option I currently have in order to show up to the break and see any familiar faces in the water, rather than be out there completely alone.
To show up for this, to a beginner ass break maybe 10 minute drive from my apartment, I personally have to wake up in the 5 o’clock hour, in the dark, and prepare for like two hours, to be in the water by 9am. I need to eat something, brush my teeth, get dressed, walk the dog, get the board out of the apartment without letting the dog out, make sure the dog is good while I’m gone, get the board down to the car, strap it on, drive to the beach, find parking, unstrap the board, sunscreen myself, then walk it down to the beach which isn’t a short walk. In my case personally I also have to make the time to do knee exercises and warm ups before I leave the house to manage a life-long knee issue before I perform rigorous activity.
Most Sunday mornings I’m already exhausted before I’ve even dipped a toe in the ocean. And I feel like I’ve lived half of a life before the sun rose just to show up to the sea.... in order to spend the next hour and a half physically exerting myself. Maybe I’m the only one? Idk.
But if I don’t do this, I will reflect upon the week and have nothing but quotidian work stress and sleep deprivation to look back on. B/C the rest of my adult life is arguably kind of unpleasant. I’m basically working nonstop from 5am on Monday to 4pm on Friday.
I also know that who I am when I exit the water is a completely different version of myself compared to how I entered the water. I’m bursting with energy, and I’m happy after surfing, even if I spend most of the time wiping out while the keiki surf circles around me, and I only catch two waves a sesh. And these two reasons alone make it worth it for me to wake up at 5am six to seven days a week.
So I’m willing to endure all the effort it takes to get myself down to the water. To feel like, for an hour-ish a week, maybe my life is actually not so bad after all.
boy could I relate to so many of her reflections. Enjoy this beautiful video, and I hope it inspires you and triggers thoughts about your lifestyle the way it did for me.
One of eleven films created for Nike Sustainability. Each film profiled a different athlete and how they are fighting to make the world a more sustainable place.
Featuring Carissa Moore, 3x World Surfing Champion.
Filmed one morning on location in Oahu, Hawaii.”
Native Hawaiian Carissa Moore fittingly surfed underneath a rainbow to win her sport's first Olympic gold medal, carrying on a legacy spanning generations.
A blog all about a woman in Hawaii learning to surf in her mid-to-late thirties
Aloha mai kakou!
Welcome to my newest blog, which I trepidatiously created in order to document my experience of learning to surf at age 36. I live in Oahu, Hawaii. Before this I lived in Santa Cruz, California for a decade. Before that I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area. All of these location contain premier surf spots for people to learn the skill of surfing. But I never truly learned the sport, despite six professional lessons scattered across a couple decades, and my extreme admiration for surfing and the associated lifestyle.
Here is a blog that is meant to help other women learn that you can learn to surf, too.
You don’t have to fail your way to success alone and without guidance. Despite what jerks in reddit forums might try to say, you’re not a loser or violating some kind of unofficial surf community social code for asking other people to help you learn this sport (I tried to post an anonymous request in a surf forum on reddit for anyone local willing to give me private surf lessons in Waikiki for $50/hour because I’m not the richest person you’ll ever meet. And the respondents on this forum in reddit were deeply infuriated. I was badmouthed and shamed suuuuuper hard on reddit for this request while everyone insisted that if I wanted to learn to surf I needed to buck up and paddle out by myself. According to reddit, it was somehow rude that I would ever think to ask someone local to help me learn to surf for $50 an hour. Even though that’s double what I earn as the only teacher in the state of Hawaii who has my professional certification. Apparently surfing matters more than the keiki).
Well that is pure #bullshit b/c now I’m going out surfing every week thanks to the help I got; I could never have done it alone. I would have made so many more dumb mistakes. (You’ll still make dumb mistakes regardless but they’ll be fewer b/c the people helping you guide you quickly in the right direction).
My surf sistren, you’re not stupid for seeking out resources and wanting wisdom for how to get started surfing later in life. You don’t have to just head out to sea like a clueless idiot alone, not knowing wtf you’re actually doing. You don’t actually need friends who already know how to surf. You don’t have to flounder not knowing how to get started. You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to be fit. You don’t have to have a goddess of a surfer’s body to participate in this sport. And most importantly you don’t have to be a 4 year old grom when you start.
You can learn to surf “later in life” just like I am, and I’m going to show you how I’m doing it. My friend is learning to surf with me, and she’s... 52?
What might give this blog a different angle is that I’m a professional educator with a master’s degree in a unique format of education most people have never heard of. So if there is anything I know I’m kinda good at, even if it’s not cutbacks, it’s explaining to other people how to do physical tasks effectively in simple-to-understand ways. And how to empathize with the beginner’s perspective and experience (so long as I have already experienced what I’m attempting to explain). My thoughts are that maybe if I chronicle my lessons while I’m still a beginner, I can help other aspiring beginner surfer women to better understand all the things I am kooking my way through, like a, well... kook. LOL.
TL:DR - there are suboptimal and optimal ways to learn skills; and after teaching children how to master hands-on skills for the past 15 years in a unique way, I now learn differently myself. I know there’s a better way than trial and error or trying to jump to levels of learning that are too abstract and perhaps too advanced for your current skill level and conceptual understanding. and if you’re trying to learn wrong, you won't get as far as quickly. People who don’t know how to teach well and don’t understand how learners learn can often give terrible advice.
So I figure I might be able to use the same principles and methodology from my professional teaching career to explain what I’m learning as a beginner adult woman surfer while learning the sport of surfing at age 36. This might be akin to “Montessori and the art of Surfing”.
The Montessori method is an alternative educational approach that is a) physical skills-based, b) connects mind, body, and ‘spirit’ (emotions/thoughts), c) is focused on giving students the gift of functional independence, d) factors in the psychology of the person, and d) factors in the learning environment alongside task analysis in order to optimize a learner’s success.
In order for people to learn well, according to the theory of the Montessori method, the learner should ideally feel safe and as relaxed as possible, if not excited and drawn to the activity. There is a such thing called “the prepared environment” that allows any learner, from the most beginner to the more seasoned, to experience various levels of success at whatever skill level they are currently at. Learning can be individualized or occur in small group formats. It will be more effective when supported by excellent guidance, which is later faded when it is no longer necessary. But when someone is an absolute beginner, continued guidance is non-negotiable until the person starts to demonstrate functional independence and no longer needs the help. We won’t let the beginner persist in dysfunction or maladaptive patterns because success begets success.
In the Montessori style, peers also learn from peers; and peers are encouraged to help less experienced learners. There’s more similarity between the learning experiences of say, a 3 year old and a 2.5 year old, versus a 3 year old and their highly experienced 30 year old parent whose body and hands no longer even remember the reality of a 3 year old. A learner needs the opportunity to gain an effective conceptual understanding for themselves about wtf is going on instead of remaining conceptually clueless; and they need to use all of their senses to help them learn optimally.
Guided lessons are then followed by the learner’s own opportunity to try what they’ve been taught, because sometimes there is no scaffolding for active/lived experience-- sometimes you just have to do things and put all the lessons into practice. Finally, if need be, we will pull out a skill and isolate it to perfection and refinement when need be.
After all of these things fall into place, it is only a matter of practice and repetition, and without fail, unless there is a physical, cognitive, or emotional barrier that needs addressing, the student will naturally and inevitably gain mastery at any targeted skill they repeatedly practice.
Read on to learn with me how I am turning myself into a competent beginner surfer, at age 36. I will also be using this blog to share about anything I learn from the surfer girl lifestyle that I find enjoyable, and to shed a little light on how surfing is benefitting my mental health and wellbeing. I might throw a little Hawaiian adventure on here too, from time to time.
