Thoughts about my Surfing

My last surfari down the east coast in March gave me a lot to think about over the last few months. Like some old man that rediscovers cycling, I rediscovered surfing, a mid life crisis so to speak. Like all old men we dream that the body and brain can react fluidly to a situation, like we did when we were younger, and with the benefit of age reach a more rational conclusion to the problem at hand. Shit, life doesn't work that way. Now days the body doesn't react with speed and decision making is still clouded by occasional bouts of irrationality. Whereas before I dreamed of standing in the barrel hands held aloft, the reality of surfing these beasts sunk in very quickly during the last sojourn south. Ouch. A quick recoil from that idea set in..

Anyway, these dreams just need to chunked down into smaller components, refined, built upon,
and wave size built in an orderly manner until comfortable going after the end result. Confidence rebuilt. Easy. Even Slater struggled with surf over head high. I'll never be a Slater, just a happy trier.

The surf has been pretty ordinary of late. I decided if its ordinary not to bother riding the wave, simply practice the execution of a particular skill. This seems to have rekindled my enthusiasm, on the weekend I started practice feet adjustment whilst on the wave, this led into trying to do floaters on the white wash etc.

Its become apparent that the type of board I'm riding is also an impediment, due to the fact that they are boats. Becuase I'm older and have a weaker upper body strength, which I've worked hard to correct, I've tended to go for longer length boards in order to get a better paddle in. In retrospect this has served me well as it has got me back into this pastime. However, in the usual Gold Coast tiddlers I do not get the drive out of turns or the ability to get as vertical or through the lip that I require. My DHD, which I have a great affection for, works great once the wave gets over head height, its good at generating down the line speed but not great (is also influenced by the mediocre rider) at turning tight, turns are very smooth but longer than necessary, once the turn is completed I sometimes feel the drive out of the turn is not there.

In essence I need to find a short board with the paddle in of a short longboard (more foam, nose area, flatter rocker) with the lift of today's modern high performance boards (fat tails, concave/convex bottom contours). But then again as one surfboard salesmen said to me, "in the end its the clown who rides it that makes it look good".

Murray Bourton with some interesting thoughts on quads.

Regards
TheBagwan