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.
