Summer is Here Time to Get In Shape

Lots of training out of the water required first.  Pull down on the door bungies for paddling.

Must do 50 per arm in one set on those.

Walking 4 miles 3 times a week.

Pushups back up to 25 in a set.

Paddling in bay, not ocean to get up to one full mile before any ocean exposure.

I hope Summer isn't over by the time I reach all of these minimum required goals of mine.

-J

Positions in the Wave Part 2

In smaller waves like we have here on LI, it matters a lot less than in larger waves elsewhere.  I figured that out after catching waves in just about any place in them.

With a large board that has a lot of flotation, the wave that is starting to break will take it with it.

So I'm simplifying my approach down to just paddling into the wave as fast as I can.

Even if I don't remain level on the board, the wave is still taking us with it and in.  Even if I wipe out, I'm still headed in.

So the goal becomes remaining level, lined up and fast enough so that the board is stable to pop up on.

Next post I'll talk about how I finally made some progress with this.

Why Slater Should Stop at 10 Wins

1. Sometimes 11 is mistaken by Roman Numeral 2.
2. If he gets to 11, he would have to go for 12 to fix #1, above.
3. Ten is the basis of our decimal system.
4. If a younger guy gets first place and Kelly gets 2nd, a lot of speculation would be wasted wondering useless things like.
A. Would the younger guy have beaten a younger Slater or Slater even last year?
B. Is Slater suddenly over some unknown, highly speculative age limit?
C. Way too many Slater-based speculation that would cast doubt on the new winner, which would suck for everyone.
D. Will Slater go for 11 next year?
5. I, as a big fan, just don't want to see Kelly not come in 1st place and even worse, 3rd, 4th, 5th, or even worse, drop out.
6. If Slater drops out, another whole host of specualtion that I just don't want to be hearing out of the surfing world....
# Rather than what I don't want, above, here's what I do want.
7. I want to hear Kelly Slater talking about surfing and what the guys on the tour are doing and I think I could listen to him forever and definitely learn a lot from him and it could even help my own surfing.
8. He's not going anywhere.  He's going to be surfing and rather than having fans not want to see him not come in 1st place, fans DO want to see him surfing, off tour, and doing it for the same reasons the rest of us do it, because we love it!  Thus making Kelly Slater, a more accessible surfer because we will be able to relate more to him since he will forever be the best surfer in recent times and we want to see him loving surfing, not competing and worse, "losing."  And that's the real problem with not being 1st after 10, he could never "lose," but that word just might pop up and it doesn't belong any where near the guy.  But it might and that would be totally unfair, because ***any other guy on tour coming in 2nd, 3rd, 4th, would consider it a win in some respect, however, not for Kelly.  I don't want to see that.
9. Never come down, always be unbeaten at.
10. It's TEN!!!

Positions In The Wave Part 1

Positions In The Wave

After a long session, I was in many different positions while trying to catch waves at LB.  I came home and drew them on paper.  Simple diagrams is all that's needed.  I am trying to determine where I was, what was wrong about it and what to do and where to be in the future to get it right.

I have a few more for Part 2.

Rip Cur Pro Search Live On Now

Slater taking off...

Conditions Not Flat For First Time In Weeks

Amazing out there today.  Warm air, warm water, after a tiny shock but only on the feet, blue sky, some swell for a change.  It's been 3 weeks or more of totally flat conditions.  I also got over to Lido Beach for the first time ever.

Time to hit the gym, I haven't been out enough to keep up the arm sprinting ability.  I probably would have done much better without the webbed gloves now that I think about it.  They slow arms down because of the increased resistance, but at my maximum conditioning, I can paddle just as fast with them.  Today I wasn't at that maximum.

Never saw the drawbridge up and today it was up on each direction, weird.

I can't believe it, in the ocean in October, that's a first for me.

Some of the lineup, it got popular today after 3

Not me...yet

Powerful Water and Back Strain

Surf was breaking in shallow water and looking decent for practice just a few yards out from where I was still able to stand.  So to give my arms a break, I waded into them and caught them as I  jumped up or paddled for a second after jumping on the board.  It was a change from the bigger swell that I've been in where they out 10 or 20 more yards.

It was hard to stand and walk forward from the broken foam wave to the next one, where I wanted to be.  The amount of water is amazing, it's a foot or more higher and like a plateau over the water level in front of it.  It passes by with so much force it's a fight to keep my feet on the sand.  I lift my board up over them as they hit, and I can work my way right into the edge of the wave where it's curling into the face.  I was in a good spot and practicing popping up on every one and making good progress each time.  Caught about 20 this way.

The problem was taking the hits to the torso every 6 seconds to work my way to that perfect spot.  I learned that it's not worth doing that since those hits moved my back too much as I took them all on one side.  So I had to rest for 3 weeks.  I didn't miss much, we've had a 3 week lull here.  Doing this 20 times means I took about 20 hits getting back out there each time, 400 torso hits is too many.

It was a lot of fun and that's why I couldn't stop, but I paid for it.

Green is where I was working towards but Red arrow was a massive force

Part 17 - Hooked Summary

Part 17 - Hooked Summary

~Always liked the idea
~Always looked at LI waves here and saw that they looked completely different from any wave I've ever seen anyone surf, and it was never East coast, so I thought it was impossible.
~Won a surfboard
~Tried it and it was impossible
~Got the right board - cheap
~Tried again with a friend
~Caught a wave
~Caught waves, Hooked.

I Love Wave Rain

I don't take the wave, it is tall, the surface starts to rip apart under me as it flies by and large drops become airborne and the offshore wind takes them over me and cools me down.  I love it!

Part 16 - Long Beach

Part 16 - Long Beach, NY.  First weekend after Labor Day, No fees!

Finally went there after living closer than I realized.  Luckily, I met people who go there regularly and it is not as hard to park as I thought.  The waves, however, are totally different from what I had just learned from Tobay.

At Tobay, just the week before, I got totally hooked after consistently catching 3 waves in a row even tho they were belly rides.  So this pretty much brings my story up to the present.

I am now getting used to LB and have been there 9 times this season and shifting my weight forward on the board does not work at LB.  There, the waves are steeper and the weight hast to be aft in order to prevent the front from sinking 3 feet down.

Typical LB wave

Today Was Good

I'm happy to report that:

Caught 20 nice sized beginner waves and started popping up.  I gradually went from totally wrong foot positioning and sliding off and wiping out, to knee boarding with both knees, then one and 2 hands, then 2 feet and both hands on my final and if I had any more energy I know I would've continued the evolution.  But for now, I'm happy with at least the start of the chart. :-)

Started out a clear day in suburbia

Remained clear at Lido water tower

Perfect little beginner waves

Remained nice as I was leaving

Part 15 - Caught A Wave With Soft Top

Part 15 - Caught A Wave With Soft Top - This Summer, 2010.  Significant because it was the first time I consistently caught waves ever.  Also important because it was my new used board, and after a long time of conditioning with paddling.

I was out for the 4th time this Summer at Tobay, next to Gilgo, and there was a nice break at the sand bar.  Sand bar is a long way out at Tobay.  There is a very wide and deep longshore trench there that normally would make for nice rip currents and lateral currents that wash you quickly to one side, but the actual rip out, I've never found, which is odd.  Maybe it's a long way off,  It may even be way down at the end of the barrier island where there is the ocean inlet.

It's a long paddle out crossing the longshore trench before reaching the sand bar.  It's strange to suddenly be standing up and looking 100 yard back at the shore.  I was out there with only two other guys.  One guy was a boogie boarder and the other was on an old longboard and he was wearing a full wetsuit in July, which is odd.  He had to be way too warm.  I had only shorts, it's the middle of Summer and water was really warm.  So I didn't quite know what I was doing out there and the few I paddled for and tried to stand just passed right under me.

I watched the suit guy and every wave he tried he caught and stood and rode for a bit.  After a few tries I just chilled and watched this guy since I was getting nowhere.  Then I learned something.  He would see a swell, then turn right around and start padding way, way in front of it.  Nowhere near the swell, he started around 10 yards away.

Then a total lull and everyone left.  I was just hanging out at the shore and as I looked out, it picked up again and there were nice breakers at the sand bar.  I bolted in there and paddled like hell to get to them and I caught one and was so stoked, I turned right around and with noodle arms, I just ignored them and dug in because that was a nice long belly ride and I had to do it again.  I rode prone because after trying to stand, after knowing that I had caught the wave, I was kicked out of it.  So rather than lose them all by tring to stand, I decided to have fun and go for the rides while making sure I knew how to catch them and I did.

There is one important part of catching these low slope waves.  I had to move forward on my board from where I had been paddling level in the bay.  It was a weird feeling to be that far forward, but it was the only way for me to get on them.  Later on, I realized this is the opposite for steeper waves like those at LB!

I later realized that the low slope of the waves at that break require the long, 10 yard acceleration paddle because there is no drop as there is in steeper, more normal waves, like at LB.  This answered a few of the questions I had earlier.  Yes, I can catch waves with the new board.  No, there is nothing wrong with me for not doing so yet.  Yes, I can figure this out.  Yes, the board is ok and not of a poor design as to prevent surfing.  Final result, stoked and hooked.

Down The Barrel (2008) DVD

Down The Barrel (2008) DVD Breathtaking photography on a large HD screen.  Cool soundtrack and amazing angles, every angle imaginable, I was impressed by the underwater video looking up at surfers and waves above.  I watched this about 15 times before it went back to Netflix.  Also cool that it is so recent for a reason I'll describe.

Opens up with the amazing video and some slow mo.  Narration is very good and it slowly introduces the characters, pro surfers.  Describes their backgrounds a bit, and then we hear from them.  Also gets into a few famous surf spots and why they are good.  Then it all takes a turn and gets deep into the pro tour scene.  Here is where it gets totally different from the first part.  We get deeper into the 2008 pro tour than anyone who isn't totally into surfing walks is done with it.  But still, it is 2 hours, and being that long, any part is good enough for an entire watchable part on it's own.


It does a good job describing the pro tour and right after I saw it for the first time, the Billabong Pro tour in Tahiti was streaming so I knew exactly what was going on and it had the same surfers.  It's a good one and not just about barrels, but plenty of those.  Fast paced, lots of action, great soundtrack.  One time I hit the water after watching it many times and the opening song played in my head!

Shelter (2001) DVD

Shelter (2001) 40 minutes 4:3 image ratio, Super laid back surfing film.  Maybe a little too laid back.  Don't watch this if you're tired at all.  Surfing is high energy, fast, active and Down The Barrel (2007) has that kind of energy, but this has laid back tunes, some quotes, not a constant narration, and a lot of slow motion.  If you put slow mo, laid back music, and no narration, then I get lulled into a little too much relaxation.  Artistic and impressionistic, but the pace never picks up. Great surfing and Rob Machado is def a laid back dude.

One interesting clip was a surfer riding a wide, flat board that looked like a wooden door.  It shows the importance of rocker.  It isn't discussed or described, it's just my own observation.  As the door catches the wave the surfer can't do anything to prevent the board tip from digging in at the bottom of the wave where you would do the first turn and it tumbles over.  Really nice scene of suys helping a surfer surf after losing a leg to cancer.  One thing missing is the content in the film to match the description I read of the film.  That description is not actually in the film anywhere.

Conditions Good but It Didn't Help Me

Saturday, I was in the wrong place and/or wrong time.  I am still catching waves without realizing it and therefore, not bothering to stand.  I can't read the waves once I'm outside at LB and I don't know where I should be.  I need to make a plan and stick to it rather than unknowingly drifting with the current into the closeout area of the largest break.

So if I want to get up and stop belly riding, I'm going to have to start focusing on positioning for the few ridable breaks, of course, that's where the crowd is.  So now I realize how much nicer Tobay is since the sand bar breaks along a very wide area and they're easier to catch and there are no rock jetties to capture and control sand that also change conditions and group the lineup together.

Weekdays are also better with lighter crowds, even in October!

Unknown surfer at Long Beach, NY Saturday, October 2, 2010

The point, which I just Tweeted, is this, "Beginner fun is nice, but now I have to start to focus to actually improve."