After taking three rest days after cutting my foot on a break way out of my league, I stuck a compeed (A blister bandage, a brilliant invention, google it to check it out) onto my healing wound and wore a pair of freshly bought reef booties and headed back out into the surf.
Recommended a smaller board by the surf coach, I went back out into the water to Insides (a crowded break in Gerupuk bay) with a 30 litre 6’ 2” and surprisingly, I could paddle it relatively well. The first session out was more like an introductory session to the board. I didn’t catch many waves, but it was an excellent introductory board to duck diving due to its low volume and so I started my duck diving progress.
In the second session, I caught a couple of waves but didn’t cut back down to the low line. I think because the wave was fat and I needed to rotate my line of sight back to the wave’s power pocket more. But duck diving through some large waves, I felt I was making progress in my surfing, saving lots of energy by avoiding getting caught by huge wipeouts. I could survive through the session a lot longer than I previously thought.
On the second day, the swell started to build in the bay and we returned to Insides. The waves were just slightly overhead, and I didn’t realise it then, but I was definitely intimidated by the size of the waves. I greedily wanted to sit out right where the wave just started to break, yet was unwilling to commit fully to it out of fear, so I subconsciously compromised with myself and sat in between the second take-off zone and apex zone.
This undoubtedly resulted in the worst positioning possible, as I neither caught the smaller waves nor the bigger waves.
I returned again to the same break for the second session with every intention of consciously overcoming that fear, knowing that the reef was pretty deep and the wave wasn’t that powerful. (implying the consequences of a wipeout are not so severe) However, I subconsciously was still not fully commited to the wave as I would find any excuse to not take it, ie I was dropping in on someone, someone was dropping in on me, it looked too steep, etc
This resulted in my worst session ever since the beginning of my surf trip, a couple of failed take-offs and not a single line ridden. Adding salt to the wound was the fact that the local guides continued teasing me, still thinking I was in a good mood, and this only pissed me off even further.
I ended this miserable session with a super late and steep take-off, followed by a couple of tumbles in the white water washing machine, as if mother nature was there to further rub more salt into the wound.
You’d think that’d be as bad as it gets, but no. Back in the boat, I started talking openly about my problems and other participants in the camp started advising me to move back onto a bigger board. I did agree with them, but then I realised that they were talking about going back up to a 6’8”” or more. And I simply and adamantly disagreed, I needed to be able to duck dive to save energy, but they thought that duck diving was ‘over-rated’ and necessary. I gotta admit I was also slightly insulted that they thought my surfing wasn’t at the level I thought I’m at. I was hit emotionally pretty hard…
But upon further reflection, they meant well, and only wished for me to catch more waves. And at the end of the day, without close observation from a personal coach, the best person to assess my surfing progress is myself. And I feel at this stage, duck-diving is not an optional nicety. I must be able to duck dive to conserve energy and stay out in the surf longer. However, I do need more volume to paddle faster in the water. Additionally, I need to eat humble pie and recognise the full sized waves are too big for me, and that I need to sit further out on the shoulder for the smaller rides and scraps. I also need to overcome my subconscious fear and commit to the wave, especially since the consequences are not hazardous.
Part of the struggle of the surf journey is handling the emotional ride, and I gotta say, this is probably one of my lowest I’ve ever been. But, the emotions of one session should not affect the subsequent one.
As one of the other camp participants, Moe, said, “If you’ve had your worst surf session, the next can only be better”.
So, time to put this terrible one behind me and focus on my points of improvement for the next.
