Yesterday evening, I went surfing for the first time in the Atlantic Ocean at the beautiful Jersey Shore. My friend brought me out to teach me, along with my sister and her pals. It was an amazing feeling! Frightening, but fun.
The hardest thing about surfing is not balancing, which I thought it would be; it's actually remembering to do all five steps at once in roughly 30 seconds. After all, you only have about that amount of time before a wave breaks, if even that long. I learned to lay on the board properly at first: Chest half-way on the board, hands griped firmly at the side of the board, limbs relaxed, and then the hard, scoop-like paddling. For those of you who are pro-surfers or have surfed before, you know then how tiring it is to paddle hard ahead of a wave. That was my arm exercise for the night!
The standing up motion is quick. You have to kick your body up in a crouching position and sprout up with your front and back foot placed in just the right position. You tie all this together, and you have yourself a simple recipe for conquering waves...right? Wrong. It was not as graceful as I originally thought.
When it was time for me to catch some waves, I gently walked into the water with the board at my side and cord attached to my foot. It was almost 8 p.m. and the waves were roaring and crashing hard and fast. The board felt heavy, so that was issue number one. Every time a wave came at me, I ducked under and the board got away from me. I finally hopped on, problem number two, and my friend told me to turn my board so I was facing away from the forming waves. "Huh, what," I thought to myself. I thought I had to face the waves, you know paddle toward them and then jump up before they break. Nope. Technical error on my part.
I was told to start paddling as a wave was lifting me and the board high, and I did. The wave was under me and as it pushed me, my speed was accelerating and I felt as if I were on a coaster at six flags! Then it wouldn't stop, the nose heading for shore. "Shit!!" I screamed. I rolled off the board as the wave crashed over me. I tumbled around and around, scrapping my back and legs on the rough sandy floor. The board was pulling me, but I got up, ear and nose filled with salty water. It was awesome!
I continued to do the same exact thing a couple times. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to stand up. Remember the part where I said this activity takes like a five step thought process? Well, I couldn't wrap my head or body around five which is the quick standing motion. Even after everyone was shouting at me to stand, "You have this! Go, go, go!" I just laid flat on the board like a bottom dwelling fish. So again myself, along with my board, would get sucked into the ocean's fury. In the end, I left the beach with a few scrapes and sand burns on my skin, but I was happy.
This is going to sound corny, but surfing is like life. The unforgiving situations of life will grab you and engulf you, and the weight of the world will try to drag you down, but you must fight and get up, willing to get back in, board in hand, excited to try again. Don't let the waves conquer you, conquer the waves.
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