Florianopolis - surf's up, and shockingly, so am I
The first time I attempted to go surfing, I was 19. I was in Santa Cruz, CA. I was roadtripping with my cousin and we stopped in Santa Cruz to visit a childhood friend of my dad's, who was an astronaut for NASA, which we considered pretty badass. My dad's friend was also a surfer and so he agreed to take both of us out surfing -- it would be the first time for both of us.
I somehow fell under the mistaken impression that this would be a lesson of sorts, rather than him handing us a board and telling us to paddle out to sea, then paddle in the other direction in the same direction as the wave, then stand up when we felt the wave coming. Now that I have actually surfed I do realize this fundamentally is how it works, but that's a bit like saying that to drive a car, you turn the key, put it in gear, and step on the gas pedal.
My cousin claimed to stand up on the surfboard "once", but I never did. I don't have any real recollections of what the waves looked like, nor did I really even have the knowledge to understand that there is a correlation between wave size and difficulty. I really just remember falling and falling over and over and never getting remotely close to surfing.
There are two other thing I remember about that day: One is proudly taking a picture of myself (that is, beforehand) in a wetsuit, with the board. The other is my dad's friend emerging from the water with a bloody lip, explaining to us that he had been swallowing the whole time because he didn't want to bleed into the water for fear it would attract sharks. Seriously? You couldn't have mentioned this beforehand?
My second attempt surfing would not be for another 10 years, in Hawaii, as I wrote in this post. For those too lazy to click through, on that January day, I rode in a van out for my first actual surfing lesson. After the long ride to the other side of Oahu island, we got onto the sand and our very competent instructors taught us how to stand up on the board. We drilled standing up on the board repeatedly. It was great. I remember the motions were very similar to grappling motions, and even though it was my first time as well, I was hitting it better than most people. I went into the cold (yes, even in Hawaii -- it was 8 AM) January waters with great confidence that ten years after that day in Santa Cruz, I'd be catching a wave,
Then, as we paddled to water, I noticed a pain in my left hand. It felt like I'd cut myself, then I noticed a bunch of blue crap all over my finger. The pain gradually got worse and worse and one of the instructors identified it as a jellyfish sting (actually turned out to be a Portuguese Man-O-War) and sent me back to shore. I spent the rest of the hour lesson in sheer agony as everyone else playfully caught their first waves. It was definitely one of the low points of my year as the fuckign thing hurt all day, and I'd once again failed to surf.
So, the fact that I went out on Friday to surf shows, in my estimation, at least a little bit of character. I went out to Barra da Lagoa, which is known for having the most beginner-friendly waves, and coralled a couple of girls into joining as well, which I figured would help ensure that I wouldn't change my mind once I got there.
We did the same drill, practicing standing up on the board on dry land, then paddling out to the water. Even though the Man-O-War incident from January was a total longshot fluke, lightning can strike twice, so when our instructor asked who wanted to go first and the girls hesitated, I jumped on it. I paddled out and when the wave approached, instead of paddling forward, our instructor actually pushed us (seriously, it was like being a 4-year-old in the water for the first time). He yelled at me to stand, and ... I did! On my very first try I rode the wave -- tiny though it was -- pretty much all the way to the shore, at which point I realized that getting off the board gracefully had never been covered.
It wasn't even hard. We were on such big boards and the water was so easy. I was up over and over, and every time I fell off or fucked up I knew exactly why -- it was easy to tell the way the placement of my feet was off. The whole standing on the board thing is almost identically opposite of what grapplers call a "technical standup". It's a movement with the hips swinging the legs that I've done thousands of times, except to surf I had to do it in reverse.
Of course, I can really only say the standing is easy. After all, our instructor did all the real work. Even after I started doing my own paddling, he identified the best waves, which is not a skill I would have had. And again, they were teeny tiny waves. To say I "surfed" would be to say that a small child who wobbles his way down the street on a two-wheeler "went cycling".
Still, it was a lot of fun. I don't typically enjoy new sports. Right now in my life I have this very singular focus (though it doesn't seem so at the moment) on the one sport that I'm any good at. And I'm not really any good at that sport. So my attitude is sort of like building a video game character and just allocating all my points towards the "Fighting" attribute. But it's a lot more work to go from Lvl12 to Lvl13 Fighting than it is from Lvl1 to Lvl2 Surfing. I struggle to say which is more fun -- I do love the fighting thing -- but variety is the spice of life, and all that.
Later on that day, the hostel rented out a mini soccer pitch and we played a pickup game, six-a-side. I don't know if I was the worst player in the game, but easily bottom quartile. And my team (shockingly) seemed to do much better in goal scoring and possession when I rotated into being goalkeeper. I actually wasn't too bad as a keeper because I have the ability to read plays well and just sort of be in position even if I don't technically know what to do, but when playing out I handled the ball like a fucking grenade and turned it over repeatedly. It's funny because when I started the game, my thoughts were just like the rock waterfall experience from my last post: "have fun, but make sure you don't injure yourself: you have work to do". But once the game started, that pretty much went out the window and I was diving and cutting and just all over the place like a complete spaz. I really did end up hurting my ankles playing goal and making a couple decent saves but nothing that today (Sunday) is bothering me too much, so no harm.
Now I'm in Curitiba. I'll try to finish off the rest of the Floripa posts (I'll have nothing but time, really) from my spot, right here on the floor of my shared bedroom at the gym.
I somehow fell under the mistaken impression that this would be a lesson of sorts, rather than him handing us a board and telling us to paddle out to sea, then paddle in the other direction in the same direction as the wave, then stand up when we felt the wave coming. Now that I have actually surfed I do realize this fundamentally is how it works, but that's a bit like saying that to drive a car, you turn the key, put it in gear, and step on the gas pedal.
My cousin claimed to stand up on the surfboard "once", but I never did. I don't have any real recollections of what the waves looked like, nor did I really even have the knowledge to understand that there is a correlation between wave size and difficulty. I really just remember falling and falling over and over and never getting remotely close to surfing.
There are two other thing I remember about that day: One is proudly taking a picture of myself (that is, beforehand) in a wetsuit, with the board. The other is my dad's friend emerging from the water with a bloody lip, explaining to us that he had been swallowing the whole time because he didn't want to bleed into the water for fear it would attract sharks. Seriously? You couldn't have mentioned this beforehand?
My second attempt surfing would not be for another 10 years, in Hawaii, as I wrote in this post. For those too lazy to click through, on that January day, I rode in a van out for my first actual surfing lesson. After the long ride to the other side of Oahu island, we got onto the sand and our very competent instructors taught us how to stand up on the board. We drilled standing up on the board repeatedly. It was great. I remember the motions were very similar to grappling motions, and even though it was my first time as well, I was hitting it better than most people. I went into the cold (yes, even in Hawaii -- it was 8 AM) January waters with great confidence that ten years after that day in Santa Cruz, I'd be catching a wave,
Then, as we paddled to water, I noticed a pain in my left hand. It felt like I'd cut myself, then I noticed a bunch of blue crap all over my finger. The pain gradually got worse and worse and one of the instructors identified it as a jellyfish sting (actually turned out to be a Portuguese Man-O-War) and sent me back to shore. I spent the rest of the hour lesson in sheer agony as everyone else playfully caught their first waves. It was definitely one of the low points of my year as the fuckign thing hurt all day, and I'd once again failed to surf.
So, the fact that I went out on Friday to surf shows, in my estimation, at least a little bit of character. I went out to Barra da Lagoa, which is known for having the most beginner-friendly waves, and coralled a couple of girls into joining as well, which I figured would help ensure that I wouldn't change my mind once I got there.
We did the same drill, practicing standing up on the board on dry land, then paddling out to the water. Even though the Man-O-War incident from January was a total longshot fluke, lightning can strike twice, so when our instructor asked who wanted to go first and the girls hesitated, I jumped on it. I paddled out and when the wave approached, instead of paddling forward, our instructor actually pushed us (seriously, it was like being a 4-year-old in the water for the first time). He yelled at me to stand, and ... I did! On my very first try I rode the wave -- tiny though it was -- pretty much all the way to the shore, at which point I realized that getting off the board gracefully had never been covered.
It wasn't even hard. We were on such big boards and the water was so easy. I was up over and over, and every time I fell off or fucked up I knew exactly why -- it was easy to tell the way the placement of my feet was off. The whole standing on the board thing is almost identically opposite of what grapplers call a "technical standup". It's a movement with the hips swinging the legs that I've done thousands of times, except to surf I had to do it in reverse.
Of course, I can really only say the standing is easy. After all, our instructor did all the real work. Even after I started doing my own paddling, he identified the best waves, which is not a skill I would have had. And again, they were teeny tiny waves. To say I "surfed" would be to say that a small child who wobbles his way down the street on a two-wheeler "went cycling".
Still, it was a lot of fun. I don't typically enjoy new sports. Right now in my life I have this very singular focus (though it doesn't seem so at the moment) on the one sport that I'm any good at. And I'm not really any good at that sport. So my attitude is sort of like building a video game character and just allocating all my points towards the "Fighting" attribute. But it's a lot more work to go from Lvl12 to Lvl13 Fighting than it is from Lvl1 to Lvl2 Surfing. I struggle to say which is more fun -- I do love the fighting thing -- but variety is the spice of life, and all that.
Later on that day, the hostel rented out a mini soccer pitch and we played a pickup game, six-a-side. I don't know if I was the worst player in the game, but easily bottom quartile. And my team (shockingly) seemed to do much better in goal scoring and possession when I rotated into being goalkeeper. I actually wasn't too bad as a keeper because I have the ability to read plays well and just sort of be in position even if I don't technically know what to do, but when playing out I handled the ball like a fucking grenade and turned it over repeatedly. It's funny because when I started the game, my thoughts were just like the rock waterfall experience from my last post: "have fun, but make sure you don't injure yourself: you have work to do". But once the game started, that pretty much went out the window and I was diving and cutting and just all over the place like a complete spaz. I really did end up hurting my ankles playing goal and making a couple decent saves but nothing that today (Sunday) is bothering me too much, so no harm.
Now I'm in Curitiba. I'll try to finish off the rest of the Floripa posts (I'll have nothing but time, really) from my spot, right here on the floor of my shared bedroom at the gym.