Learning to Surf

 

I like to think of myself as an active and sporty person. At the same time I know how lazy I can be. So if you can marry up the concepts of lazy, active, and sporty in your head -- that would be me.

Because I am so lazy, active and sporty, I have tried a few things to maintain that image, starting from going to the gym regularly, doing yoga, tae-bo, boxing, playing tag rugby, badminton, proper swimming (meaning actual laps which I never did because I'm such a poor swimmer), then eventually completing my first 5 and 10 mile runs, etc etc. Over the years, many of these activities went to the wayside, either because I got sick of it, it was too inconvenient, or there was just no one to play with. The only ones that still manage to sneak into my schedule are the gym visits and badminton once a week.

Enter November 2010 and me moving to my Kiwi friend's natural habitat.

Because New Zealand is probably the best country to be active in, we decided to try out a few new things for the coming year. Top of the list was learning how to surf. Stand up paddle boarding, Tennis, Squash, Touch Rugby, Korfball and many others were on the list too but what the heck, let's start with the hardest.

We got a Grab One deal where you get three (3) intro to surfing lessons at the Muriwai Surf School for $90 which is half the regular price and we were all set. I guess activity number one was happening in December, even before 2011 got its chance to start.

For those unaware, signing up for Grab One is a great idea. Its an online service that you can easily sign up to as long as you have e-mail. They come up with a never ending list of deals with limited time offers so you have to be quick if you want to get in on any of them. For exceptionally good bargains, the site actually sends you an e-mail letting you know of a particularly sweet deal, and any other deals you might be interested in for that day. So far, majority of the shenanigans my friend and I have been swept into are products of these specials from Grab One and it just keeps getting better I think.



Muriwai Beach

Anyway, back to surfing. Muriwai beach is probably an hour's drive from where we live to the West of Auckland and classes start at either 10AM or 3PM. The Saturday we picked to do our first of 3 lessons was probably the most miserable day ever. It was dark, gloomy, and pissing rain. I was not a happy camper as every one of my friends know that a) I love my sleep and view weekends as a time to indulge in this great love, and b) as a true blue Filipino, I view rainfall as a valid reason to cancel anything and everything. No one in our little group seemed to be happy that morning. We all had to be up by 7.30AM on a miserable day to get ready and be there for sign up at least 15mins before class starts and some of us were even nursing hangovers so it really didn't bode well for us.

We got there, and signed up. The staff were friendly and helpful and knew what size wetsuit would fit just by eyeballing you, most of them had that sun-blonde, dry matty hair that came from too much sun and salt water, they all had toned bodies and gorgeous tans. The dudes and dudettes so stereotypical of surfers. It did not help our moods that they were pretty, no one wanted to be the ugly duckling of the room. It was 10Am and we were still clutching our mean tempers close.



Getting Suited Up

First order of business was to squeeze into our wesuits. I wish it were as easy as it sounds but its skin tight, and its rubber/latex/whatever and apart from it being a tight squeeze, the material tended to stick to you before you wanted it adhered to your skin. A quick trick we learned from the instructors was to wear any old plastic bag on the foot you were trying to get in thus making it easier for your appendage to slide through the suit. Once your foot was free and peeping out the other end, wear the bag on your other foot and repeat. After a lot of pushing and pulling, we were in our suits and given a colored top that would make us easy to identify as learner surfers once we were in the water.

All gussied up, we were then set in pairs so we can help each other carry our boards to the beach. A pair gets to carry two boards each with a person standing up front with a surfboard head under each arm and another standing at the back holding the tails of the same two boards under each arm. It was a neat system they had going, otherwise I wouldnt know what to do with myself considering even the kiddie surfboards looked to be too big for me.

Before we hit the beach though, we got together on a clear spot on the grass and went through a few lessons. We were taught the parts of the board, what to do once in the water, how to lie on your board and how to stand up on your board. Did a few practice runs too and thought to myself, "hey this is dead easy!" After a few minutes, we went to a grassy knoll so the intstructors can go through things to watch out for in the water, finding the best place to surf, spots to avoid, and a few more safety warnings before we got wet. And off we went.

First, surfing is not easy in real life. Also, did I mention I'm not a strong swimmer? I never learned properly and what I've been passing off as swimming is mostly self taught. So you will understand that apart from being grumpy about our overall conditions, my stomach was turning over because I was afraid of drowning and being mangled by jaws somewhere in the deap blue sea. Turns out, we never went beyond waist deep water, well the normal person's waist and my chest. Also one of your ankles is tied to the board which in turn serves as a very good floating device, just make sure you dont knock your head on it when you are tossed into the water.

Muriwai Surf School

So there I was, chest deep in roiling water, with a board twice my size, in pissing rain. I was beat not even halfway into our 2 hour session. It was so tiring to keep trying to walk into deeper water, fighting off smaller waves so you can catch the big one. Then once you see a big one coming you have to be able to hop onto your board, paddle like your life depended on it, then try your best to stand up and surf. This is definitely one of those times I wished I was at least 3 or 5 inches taller than I was, just to make things that tiniest bit easier.

I never got to the stage of standing on Day 1. The best I could do was surfing on my knees but it was a good start I was told. The rain eased up to a drizzle by the time we were done and walking to the cafe for lunch. I was so tired, I got teased for nodding off while everyone was still chatting about what a great experience it was and planning the next schedule. For me, I was left thinking it wasnt too bad, and gained a new respect for why surfers have such tight bodies. Will I go to Day 2? Of course, apart from having already paid in full, peer pressure is intense around these parts.

So Day 2 happened 3 weeks later in January. I have to admit, I wasnt really looking forward to it, but at least this time we were better prepared and the weather was bright, warm and sunny. It was also a smaller group this time and our instructor was mucho caliente.



On our grassy high point looking
for floating dead bodies

We went through most the same motions, wetsuit, colored top, paired for boards, practice on dry land, and up the grassy knoll for last minute inspections and tips. The main difference though is it felt like this guy explained things better and even went into WHY we needed to do things and what effects each scenario had. I like this type of learning better, my brain needs its rationalizations for it to listen and digest info properly, I find it very hard to just do as I'm told without a good reason.

So here we go, praying in our heart of hearts that we dont look too much like the fools we were last time.

Surprisingly, we all did better this time. Part due to the better instruction but also because the guy actually took the time to take us under his wing one by one and show us what we were doing wrong and show us how to actually do it right vs just spouting encouraging gibberish without really doing any actual teaching. I kept veering off in my own direction though as whenever he got me it felt like he kept growling at me, he sounded quite frustrated with me I think and it felt like he was much nicer to the others.

Would you believe this time I managed to stand a few times on my board? It was a great feeling. You kinda get bored standing up for a while, probably because the waves I've been riding were small and there really wasnt much room to do much else other than ride them out, but man I felt cool! My friends managed their own stands too. We were invincible. We were more awesome than awesome itself. It was, wait for it... LEGENDARY.

The funny thing was, after the whole session, I found from my friends that the instructor was indeed frustrated with me. He was telling my Kiwi buddy that I had the elements of potentially becoming a good surfer because I had good balance and good form but just needed to practice execution and remember to do the steps properly. I told you it was easy to learn on dry land, the water just throws you off because you tend to worry about too many things at once vs focusing on what you're actually doing. I guess he was annoyed because I kept going off on my own and gave him the impression that I didnt want to be taught. In reality, I just didn't care to be growled at.



www.impawards.com

So there's still lesson 3 coming up and it will be 4 weeks this weekend since our last lesson. It doesn't look like we'll be going back any time soon as one of our team busted her knee from another adventure and it wouldnt be the same if we were a man down. But, we have high hopes for our next lesson. Let's just hope we dont lose what we've learned and with some luck, we get the same guy again -- maybe then we'll all be standing up all the time and managing a few twists and turns on the waves too.

On a final note, during both sessions and every time in between that surfing was brought up, my friends kept making references to Kelly Slater and Blue Crush. All this time I thought maybe Kelly Slater is the blonde actress that played the lead in Blue Crush and I guess they just liked that movie a lot. I never saw the movie myself, I just knew of it. Today, I finally googled the name Kelly Slater just so I didn't make an idiot of myself while writing this and found this man. 

No wonder my friends couldn't stop talking about him.





Kelly Slater (Source: http://www.lat34.com/)

Visit:
http://www.grabone.co.nz/
http://www.muriwaisurfschoo.co.nz/