Surfing is one of the most challenging sports in the world to learn, fact! Yes, we can help to change this for you, but it’s still going to take a few key factors to change! Why is it so hard you may ask, or furthermore have watched surfers and thought ‘that looks easy’. Well we’ll take a few moments to explain!
The single most challenging in surfing when you’re learning isn’t even the standing or riding the waves, it is getting out to the backline! Yes, you ‘just’ paddle out, but every single wave you get to is set on sending you back to the beach! Once you are out there you have to choose a wave that’s actually going to be a good one, which is far harder than you think! And then, you have to position yourself by paddling into the correct place to catch the wave, time it perfectly to actually catch it, and then? Nosedive! But then after an hour you get that one wave, and it all instantaneously becomes worthwhile ten times over! Whether it is just because of all the hard work that the reward is so much greater could be argued, but from my experience it’s that actual feeling of gliding along a wave or energy which has travelled thousands of miles to end its journey at the shore with you riding it.
Let’s compare this to other similar sports, especially as a beginner. Skiing, snowboarding, skateboarding, even tennis or cricket or anything else, when you are learning you practice. You fall off, get back on and try it again, it’s an even playing surface so you just need to keep practicing. When you are learning to ride the face of a wave, and you only manage to get two waves in two hours the chances of riding the fact become very slim, which is why people end up in places like Indonesia! With our nice deep channel next to the peak, and deep reef sticking out ensuring consistent lefts and rights, your odds go up much higher and you really can practice what you are trying to learn, or in our case being taught! Throw in some photo/video analysis, daily coaching and assistance in the lineup as well as the warm water and your rate of progression becomes much higher. It’s still a huge challenge and a slow learning curve but for us as coaches this is the exciting part where we get to see people going from being able to stand to start turning either onto their forehand or backhand and ride the face. Or from riding the face to doing cutbacks! The level of improvement in the two weeks in Canggu was very visible and exciting to be a part of!
You can’t just surf all day every day or your body will start to fall apart! So, for a break we decided a casual hike up a volcano at 3am would be a good rest! Well, maybe not a rest but an incredible experience and at least those arms got a break! Climbing Mount Bakur is always worth the climb for the view, but how good the sunrise is going to be is always a gamble with the unpredictable weather patterns near live volcanoes. This time the group got lucky, and it was one of the most incredible ones I’ve seen!
Aside from that we also went river rafting which was awesome fun, partly just for the complete change of scenery going up into the mountains and winding your way down the river in a big gorge with steep rice paddies on either side wherever they could. As surfers we tend to get stuck on the beaches when we travel, it’s always good to mix it up experience a little more than just the surf!
Although yoga isn’t included in this trip, Max has a lot of experience doing it, and with the rooftop setup at our accommodation we often did a 30-minute stretch prior to our surfs. With so much surfing in a short space of time, your body really needs a good stretch to ease the muscles and ensure you can still move your arms the next day!
Our last couple of days we were blessed with some incredible waves and the last night was a great dinner all together, with our new arrivals for the Island Hopping adventure, as well as a sad goodbye to our Italians Sara and Francesca, Canadian Ryan and UK’s Karen and Camille. Thanks for all the fun times and adventures along the way!
Check back in soon to see what we got up to in Lombok!
Chris and Max