The F-Word

Yes, I'm going to use the F-word, which I don't use often, or lightly.

Today was fun.

I got up and riding on my first wave. I didn't do a popup, but I got a ride. After that I kept getting rides, stopped counting at six. I got rolled a couple of times (that is, the back of the board went up and I somersaulted) but I was able to fix that by adjusting my weight. When I was catching waves well, I tried to concentrate on popping up. Most of the time I still did the knee thing, but sometimes I popped up---I think. How can I tell? Because I use my abdominal muscles, and because my hands are up in the air off the rails. If, when my feet are on the board, my hands are still down on or near the rails, I know I didn't pop up. But often, I can't tell whether I did or not. Even if I try really hard, I can't remember what happened once it's over. It's all over too fast, less than a second.

Once, I got that "on top of the wave" feeling I had about a year ago after a good surf lesson.

One thing that helped today was just taking a step forward after I stood up. It made all the difference in my balance. I think that when I land I'm generally too far back. I think.

What a difference, crowdwise, from yesterday. There were only three of us out, no one got in anyone else's way, we all got waves, and it was a cordial if largely wordless session. I didn't feel like, today, I surfed abominably worse than the others. The guy who was the best, who came out latest, stayed closest to the jetty, the other guy kept jockeying for a position next to him, and I kept ending up at the end of the line. It was a short line so I didn't mind, but it's funny how we ended up ranked by ability in a way that seemed accidental or careless, but wasn't. Let me try to get closer to the jetty and the less-good surfer showed me my place (but not in a hostile way).