Surfing

Those who stand up on their boards would probably mock me for saying so, but I call what I do surfing - I ride surf - I just happen to do it lying down. Stand up surfers have a range of amusing epithets for bodyboarders - "spongers" is one of my favourites :-). So yes I'm into "esky lid abuse".

I mostly surf at South Piha - photos coming as soon as our scanner gets fixed. It can get kind of crowded but it has advantages. The beach has a bad rep and has killed quite a few people, mostly tourists who didn't know about rips, and fishermen getting washed off the rocks.

Surf and Body Boarding Links

Weather and Tide links

Lessons I've learnt from surfing

Surfing has taught me some good things about life and how to survive it - sort of by analogy.

There are several zones on the beach. Inside is close to the beach. Out the back is beyond the breakers. Where the waves are breaking is the impact zone. Ideally we want to be out the back, to spend as little time inside or in the impact zone as possible. Out the back is calm with the swells just rolling through and mostly not breaking. Occasionally a bigger than average wave will come through and break there though, and these are the ones you want to catch.

So in life we can play in the shallows which is OK as far as it goes, but the real fun is to be had out the back - experiencing life fully. This has nothing to do with intense experiences or with hedonism. It's to do with awareness. Living life to the full is living with full awareness. Awareness is revolutionary - especially in a society (mine anyway) where unawareness is seen as virtuous.

Generally when I'm out in the surf I'm not bothered by everyday shit. On the way out I'm ducking waves and swimming to get out the back. Once out there though there is a special quality in just floating around waiting for a good wave. A lot of the time you just look out to sea, watching the waves. Perhaps it's the rhythm of the swell that calms and pacifcies? You learn which waves will be worth making the effort to catch. When I first started I used to go for everything and wear myself out. The other disadvantage to this approach is that I frequently ended up in the impact zone having failed to catch the wave I wanted and got pounded by the surf. Patience is definitely required. At Piha there is magnificent scenery - cliffs and hills, native bush. It can be especially beautiful watching the sun get low on the horizon with golden light reflecting off the water. Because there are few if any waves breaking it has a completely different character to being close to the beach. One can just float around being gently rocked by the swells. Glorious

Not long ago I didn't even really like swimming in the sea, having been bought up on the shores of New Zealand's largest fresh water lake. I am paranoid about all the creepy crawlies in the sea - let alone sharks and other man eating monsters. Definitely a place to avoid. But surfing has changed all that. I don't even think about that stuff - I'm just in the moment. Sometimes I do think about my life a bit, but thoughts just seem to come and go, they don't bother me the way they do on dry land. It goes to show that given the right conditions it is possible to overcome quite strong fears. Not that I don't still get afraid sometimes, but I can generally overide the fear by an act of will.

As in the surf, getting to the places of stillness and beauty in life can be difficult. In surfing we must traverse the impact zone - ie we must confront and get through the breaking surf. Head on is the most diffcult way to do this. Surfers have the advantage of being able to move more quickly through the water than bodyboarders and so will just head straight out. To do this one dives under the waves. The lesson here is that turbulence tends to be on the surface - the depths are very often not disturbed by all that frothing! If we can discover our own depths, we will have somewhere to dive to when the going gets tough. Some people seems to be able to take everything in there stride. They are the type of people who say things like "religion is just a crutch". Every now and then Piha throws up a really big wave out of nowhere - this is the one that drags the fishermen to their deaths. Shit happens.

For me at least if I do get out the back this way I am very tired and can not do it many times. As in life there is usually a better way. At Piha this is "the rip". At the south end of the beach is a rip that snakes around the edge of the bay. I think of it as like the ski tow. It conviently deposits you close to the optimum take off point and means that much less effort is required to get out the back.

In life there are many indirect ways of dealing with the turbelnce in which we live. Meditation is an efficient way that kind of relates to the rip - once you get into the stream it tends to carry you in the direction that you want to go in. I also find making music and art work for me. As well as, of course, getting out surfing!

At low tide the area where the rip is has no water in it and it can be very difficult to get out the back. The problem is that you can wade out so far and then try to swim, but because the water is so shallow you can't get under the waves - you just get washed back in. To add to the difficulty I'm wearing fins on my feet and can't really walk properly. I recently discovered a good strategy for dealing with this. The trick is to turn you back to the waves, lean into them and dig your heals in. Then keep walking until the next one. This way you can get out far enough to dive under the waves when they hit. So in life sometimes we can't avoid a confrontation. Sometimes the best thing to do is dig you heels in and just resist the force. Not as general principal but when appropriate.

Catching a big wave is like flying! For just a few seconds you race along half suspended in the air. It's exhilarating! It is the opposite when the wave catches you. The surf at Piha can regularly get up to 2m and I've seen it much bigger. 2m is about my comfort level. A wave this big has a lot of weight and momentum. When you fall off it or it breaks on top of you, you go under and are spun around. If you're lucky you get to take a breath before you go under, but just as often getting pushed under can knock the wind out of you. All you can do is wait. I've done this enough times to know that even on a big day you're not under the water for a very long time. The best thing to do is relax and enjoy this part of the ride as well! Eventually you do pop up. Thankfully with a sandy bottom there aren't too many other hazards which is one of the reasons I like going there.

So the last lesson is that you have to just go with the flow. Awareness of what is actually happening rather than what you fear might happen is essential - people do drown at this beach on a regular basis. A surfing buddy reackons the key is to keep your mouth closed. Once you open it you just want to suck in air, which is a bad thing underwater. So maybe I'm learning when to keep my mouth closed to :-)

The end.