Surfing Lesson

Well today I finally got around to trying my hand at surfing. I have no idea why it has taken me 22 years to get around to doing it. Especially as I skateboarded for many years as well as tried my hand at snowboarding and mountain boarding. I feel all I got left to do now is sand boarding somewhere one day so I can then tick off all the main boarding sports.

For $22 I signed up to a 3 hour surfing lesson on Agnes beach and had a wicked time. I didn't find it particularly difficult but saying that all I was doing was practising standing up on the board and heading in a straight line, directly towards the beach. I got the hang of it fairly quickly although was so inconsistent it was extremely frustrating. Just when I thought I was properly grasping staying up on the board I would have a 15 minute session where I could not get up on the board once or even catch a wave at all. I also found i was taking too long to jump up onto the board. I wanted to be able to spring up from a lying down position to an upright position but this just wasn't happening and I would always seem to stay crouched down for a few seconds before I eventually sprung up, wasting precious surfing seconds.

The lesson itself was fairly basic just one fat Australian guy who had been surfing for 40 years telling us how to get up on the board and how to distribute our weight on around the board. He then just sent us out in 2 groups doing alternate 15 minute sessions while he shouted instructions from the shore. Fairly basic but it worked as I think everyone left feeling that one day they would be cable of surfing.

I got warn out so quickly, I haven't really been dong that much exercise while I have been travelling but I can see why surfers all have ridiculous bodies after having to battle against seriously strong waves hour after hour you must get fit.

All in all was a great 3 hours and was great kicking back on a beach in a wetsuit on an Australian beach feeling like a true surfer. That's my level 1 surfing down only another 6 stages to go : )