The morning was cloudy with a slight breeze and as I got in my car to head down to Malibu's Surf Shop on 8th & the Boards (see http://www.malibus.com/). I was a combination of excited and nervous for my first private lesson.
By 8:00am I was in my wetsuit and was headed down to the beach with my instructor JT. Here's a picture of JT in action from the Malibu's surf shop. He's been surfing locally for years and provides lessons nearly every morning.JT spent the first couple minutes talking about the objective, proper positioning and how to maneuver the board from the safety of the sand. Within 5 minutes we were in the water and getting on the board. Talk about jumping right into it! Love it!!!
The water was a bit warmer than I anticipated and I was appreciative of my half wetsuit at that moment since I am a total cold water baby. I'm guessing the water was in the low 60's. I was fine until the last 15 minutes when my teeth literally started to chatter.
Once I got in the water JT lined me up for my first wave and so began multiple rounds of JT pushing me into a wave, yelling out when I should pop up and I would work hard to meet the basic goals --- pop up onto my feet as fast as possible and ride the wave into shore.
In short order I had mastered the art of getting to my knees and riding the wave into shore. Now...I just needed get out of the safe zone, pop up and get on my feet. It is much harder than you can appreciate. After numerous successful times getting to my knees I was able to get myself onto my feet once or twice, but then would immediately crash land off the board. DAMN! As JT said, "it's mental and all about balance." I just need to do vs. think. Easier said than done!
JT would surf a couple waves in so I could see his technique and when I was making my way back into the surf-line JT would body-surf a couple waves in. I don't blame him. It was COLD out there and you needed to keep moving any way that you could.
30 minutes into the 1 hour lesson JT shifted into making me do it all pretty much all by myself. He would still help me line-up and would tell me which waves to catch since I was still learning about the wave breaks, BUT I was paddling into the wave by myself, feeling the surge of the wave and a couple times actually got up on my feet...YAY...but then would crash land! At least I was consistent. I always crashed off the left side of the board.
I know that the things I need to work on are: popping up faster, using my arms to then balance myself on the board and making sure that my front foot is more perpendicular to the board so that I have more overall stability.
For my first time it was freaking awesome. I know why folks end up loving surfing now. I told JT that I would be back for more very soon.
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