Trip Report: Surf Lessons

[bigbabyjesus]

Despite living within 5 miles of the beach for 20 of my 25 years on mother Earth, I’ve never surfed. I bodyboarded a bit in high school but never got much into the ocean.

As a new pact to myself to get more active and try things I haven’t done, I signed up for surfing lessons.

The lessons took place at Dockweiler Beach State Park; it’s about half a mile from LAX so I had the pleasure of 747’s flying above the whole time I was surfing. At least, it makes it an uncrowded beach and there weren’t any other surfers around, just a bunch of Mexican families.



I get there first, and wait for five minutes before I see some dude walking down the hill w/ two boards on his head. He ends up being the complete surfer stereotype; long blond hair, overuse of positive bro slang, and the slight “surfer twang” in his voice.

Pretty much exactly what he looked like:



He was a super nice guy, and ended up being a great instructor.

We shoot the [censored] for a bit, and he shows me the board I’m going to use. It’s a bright blue long board. He makes some really corny comment about how the board was my "rocket to a good time" and I laugh inside.

We go over the basic stand up position, a 4 point process: after paddling on the board, raise the right knee; bring your left foot between your two hands; while still grabbing the “rails” of the board, turn 90 degrees, then stand up.

We also go over basic etiquette in the water, but I’m anxious to see how bad I’m going to suck at this so I zone out until it’s time to hit the water.

The surf spot is a small area to the south of a rock jetty. The waves are really small, ranging from 1 to 3 feet. A good ride would last me 4 or 5 seconds.

At first, he grabs the nose of the board and gives me a nice push while I paddle, and tells me when to stand up. The first two waves result in me tangled underneath the water and the board, but by the third try I get up and ride the wave for a few seconds. It’s a pretty cool feeling.

It’s interesting to be up on the board and feel the conflict between your control over the board and what is happening with the wave beneath you. These waves were pretty calm, but also not very powerful, so they could die off quickly or parts of the wave would break sooner, sending me off balance.

You can feel how moving your body weight forwards or backwards increases the speed of board as your center of gravity over the wave is changed. You can also feel how leaning left or right can “turn” the board, much like a snowboard.



Of course, I say this like I got it all figured out, but for the most part it was crash and burn. I had trouble with the push-up part, and generally got my feet in bad placement or had bad timing and either missed the wave or got up too soon and lost momentum and ended up on the bottom of the ocean in some weird contortion.

We spent an hour and half in the ocean, which was a [censored] work-out. It didn’t help that I’d worked out shoulders the day before, and by the end I was a paddling pussy as I tried to get out past the waves, but I didn’t want to miss out on any waves so I sucked it up.

Also, the “push-up” motion to stand up the board requires a real solid push, and by the end my triceps was spent. I’m pretty sure I lost 2 or 3 waves for the simple fact I didn’t push my self up fast enough.

Seawater sucks ass, also. It kept getting in my eyes and mouth. I felt like I’d drank a gallon of seawater by the end.

Overall though, it was a blast. The instructor was great and it’s an awesome feeling to ride a good wave. My final wave of the day was pretty much flawless and was a great way to go out.

In due time: