Surfing

My personal experience and progress on surfing

Learning

Surfing is a combination of skills and strength and attidute.

There's a great website that anyone can benefit when start learning: barefootsurftravel, they got very detailed in-depth tutorial with videos and illustations. I found it only after the trip to bali, I wish I could've seen it earlier.

And of course you can watch videos on youtube, I think you have to really pay attention to all the details like when to take off, how to position foot, your hand, you knees, you whole body gesture and everything. When you feel you get it right then things will get easy.

In essence, beginner surfing is more about skills than strength, you pay attention to the skills and many can stand up just from the first time.

Steps

GaoYangwei (2022 端午,十一(Oct 3,4,6,7), Oct 16,17)

• Getting better at paddle and arching my back, can sit longer on board and turn board when needed.
• Learned to read the wave, learn the concepts of sets, of high/low tide, of wind. Know when the wave is messy or not.
• Learn to do sunscreen on face, need to put sunscreen on hand next time.
• Learned about winter wave
• Learned 'the connection to wave'
• Learn to keep looking at the wave when popup and look at where I'm going (still don't know how to choose direction)
• Tried to not 'over-paddle', didn't work for me yet.
• Still didn't succeed on poping up on the big powerful winter wave yet.
• Learn to paddle out, don't grab on the top of the board, also can sit on the board and throw weight forward to overcome breaking wave. (need re-learn next time)

Kenting

1. First you learn the safety [^safety]^[1], it's really important to not hurt yourself but not all coaches will teach this, so be sure to check the safety concerns first before heading into the wave with a 2-meters-long board, the waves can hurt you easily.

Bali

1. Learn to stand up/take off. This is all about making the right move at the right time, but for beginers with white water, just be sure to really make sure where you should center your body on the board and all the taking off sequence.
2. Learn to paddle. As always, Skill first. In terms of strenth, well, it depends. It could be way too excausting for people who don't exercise their upperbody much, like those who face a monitor all day, or like my friend Jimmy who only do a lot of push-ups while the shoulders and back are not fully exercised. For me, I only feel that I have rounded shoulders so it's getting harder to lift my arms after some padding, I should also need more strench and more exercise on the back.
3. How to push Through waves, the paddling is excausting enough, but it could get worse if you don't know how to avoid/handle the coming big waves. We faced the exact situation in Bali, and Jimmy spend too much energy just to paddle to the green wave point while fighting with the comming waves, only to find out that he is too tired to surf anymore.
4. Finally, learn to watch the wave. I got help from a tanned mixed-race like man when I finally paddled into the green wave the last day of the trip, I don't know it first but he move close to me and suddenly cue me in Chinese, I was thrilled to find some help in the senario because I don't know anything about timing. He told me to move a little forward on the board and after a while when I didn't notice anything, he suddenly cue me to paddle. I look back and the sea looks so calm, I'm curious so I naively asked "really?" while I start paddling, but just after seconds, I can see that there's a wide line rising from the horizon and it then became a HUGE wave. I was so lucky that I ended up catching that wave and surfing a long way with other pros just around my side, I would not have done it without him knowing the exact timing. It was such a thrilled experience.
5. to be updated...

Trips

Taiwan May 2018

I surfed for the first time in 垦丁, mostly the coach taught us how to protect ourselves. The coach will give me a push whenever a wave come, I got up for several times and failed, only 2 times that I can stand steadily on a board. It was good experience, the water is clean the beach is sandy and the weather is good, the wave is good enough for beginner surfers.

Bali Oct 2018

Jimmy said that he wants to surf during Chinese national vacation to Australia with his family, but his parents don't have time, so then he decide to invite us for a Surf trip and then I decide that we should just head Bali, beacause it's famous and there's no jetleg as well.

We surfed three times in Kuta beach, first two times with the company of a coach that we don't like very much, beacuase he barely talks anything concerning technics, he only ask us to paddle and that didn't really help us improving the skill.

So we go back and check some youtube videos and self-taught on the second and third time, now I can basically just rent a board and surf along, and it feels good! We should have prepared before the trip then we would learn much more, but we still got chance and I'm looking forward to surfing a lot more in the future.

Surfing in Bali is great experience, there are all magnitudes of waves that meets one's need, and you can really enjoy yourself around town after surfing as well. The waves are strong and steady, no stone or reefs underwater, and there are lot of other surfers keep you companied and maybe teach you a thing or two. The whole trip feels warm and liberating. It simply feels good!

Xichong 2021

Huizhou - shuangyue bay / GaoYangWei / Lion Island

feels great. wave is intermidiate and feels right at Gaoyangwei, a bit too much in lion island.

felt a sense of exhaused whne in Lion island trying to fight wave and go to the green wave area

1. https://barefootsurftravel.com/livemore-magazine/surf-ethics-10-rules-beginner-needs-know ↩