Dreads to grins

Waves always come when you're not expecting them. The good thing is that one look out my window first thing in the morning always tells me when they're here.

After all this time, I still get the dreads before a session when the waves are more than two feet. There have been times before a session (usually on a gray gloomy day like today) that the thought comes to me, unbidden: I'll be glad when I don't have to do this anymore.Then I say: What the hell? No one's making me do this, I want to do it.

Do you know what I mean? Whatever your comfort level is, there still must be a point where you get them too. You look at the waves and all you can think of are all the times you went over the falls, got hit with your board, etc. Or just had a cruddy miserable time. You make sure you have your cell phone in case you need to call the paramedics.

But you go anyway.

Because you know it always looks bigger from the beach than it is. Because you know it will be OK. Because that's what life is, doing what makes you somewhat uncomfortable.

It was my first time surfing at my beach in over a month, and my first time back on my Robert August.

It wasn't as big as it looked, not at all. After a couple of missed takeoffs--too late, too early---I got the waves figured out. I can still surf, YAY! There was lot of downtime between rides, but I got another, and another. The worst thing I was doing was surfing butt up again, that is, keeping my hands on the rails way too long. That means not popping up, I assume (though my ankle isn't scraped up again, so who knows). I was getting the waves early enough to be on top of them (I don't know how else to describe it) and then could see that there was going to be a drop down, and didn't want to take my hands off until that happened because I thought I would fall. Truth is, as I've been told enough times, standing up actually helps you not fall when that drop happens.

Well, though the ass in the air position may not have looked good (W. calls it doggy style, arrrrgh), it was working well enough for me to get rides, however ungracefully. My confidence was back and I was smiling. But I knew I had to work on doing better than that.

I tried bending my knees at takeoff, getting my feet off the board and into the air while lying down, even though I've never understood how anyone can pop up from that position. I don't think I did either. But somehow---I sure wish I had a video on this one---it worked. I think it helped me balance better on takeoff. And then without knowing how I was standing up, arms in the air. Arms are absolutely critical to balance, at least for me. Having them on the board is actually counterproductive. On my last wave I got one of the best rides of my surf career. And you know how that works, the memory of the dreads was immediately erased, the story of this gray day rewritten. It is not a cliche or exaggeration to say I got out with an ear to ear grin on my face.

I'm still grinning.