About these crowds...

With the warm weather and good waves we're having in November, the crowds continue. Today was another packed day. On a Wednesday morning! And just because I can handle a crowd doesn't mean I necessarily always want to, you know?

Although today was convivial enough. It saw the return of the person I'm going to start calling "Always Smiling Asian Guy." He's always stoked, smiling, hooting for people. He started off a conversation right away. And he offered some friendly advice. He saw me fall backwards off my board and told me I am popping up too soon.

Now, after all these years of not being able to pop up at all (as you can see by the length of this blog) it's hard to conceive that I might possibly be popping up too soon. Well, but I am up before the drop, and that's when I tend to lose my balance.

Is he right, that you are supposed to wait to pop up until after the drop? But that's clearly not what I see people doing, and I was taught that you don't do that because popping up is so much harder when you're at the bottom of a wave, not the top.

This may be an insignificant distinction when we're talking about one or two foot waves, but when they're four or five, yeah, there's a big difference between top and bottom, and it matters.

Whatever the reason, I wasn't getting good rides. I moved farther down the line to get away from the crowds to ponder the question of when to pop up, and worked on it a little without people in my way. I did better down there maybe because of less worry about hitting or being hit by somebody in front of or behind me. In fact, I got several really good, long rides. A gray morning turned into a fun day.