Smiles, Everyone, Smiles!!!

Okay, I take back everything I said about the swell yesterday. Today, I had a ball. I went to Sunset, as usual, but surfed in a different spot. I got in at the south end on at the short dirt path and didn't feel like paddling over to Dos Baños so I stayed put, thinking I'd catch a few waves where I was. When you surf at that part of Sunset, you're often in the middle of the beginners. That's both good and bad. It's good in that you can get your fill of waves; the beginners usually won't paddle for the set waves. It's bad because you have to be more alert for people dropping in or being in your path when you're going down the line. Today's session was good. My new goal is to give serious attention to walking the board. I couldn't do it yesterday. I was able to do it today. I got one wave that was a bit weak, but allowed me to find trim quickly. My brain knew what it was supposed to do. The little voice in my head calmly told me to move to the nose. (In the past, the little voice would scream at me to go for the nose. I'd take off running like I was doing the 100 yard dash, and then fly right off the end of the board.) And, today, I calmly moved to the nose. I could tell the position of the board was right for it. Too bad the wave lost juice soon after I stepped up there. Nevertheless, it was yet another breakthrough. I moved slowly and methodically. I've had to tell myself to think of the words of Dane Peterson when discussing noseriding: Walk, don't run. Those three words now keep me focused in my quest to get to the tip and stay there. What was cool was someone saw me walk the board and reacted positively. I didn't know her. From what I could tell (by watching her), she's working on walking the board too. I got couple of other waves that allowed me to walk. I'm starting to know when a wave is good for walking. Of course, the best wave for doing it is the one whose name I won't mention. But it's kind of hard to work on walking the board there when you're riding a wave with "50 of your new best friends" (a description I must attribute to Peter, my buddy from Sunset). I'll get it figured out soon enough. Tyler told me to remember to weight the inside edge of the board. That's something I still have to work on, especially since I do much of my walking while going backside. Tomorrow is another day. I'm on a mission now. Each day that I go out on a longboard, I'm going to practice walking the board. You can quote me on that.