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Changing focus
This one is for those who don’t have very consistent waves. I’m looking at you @Brian.James. This morning I was hoping to work on angle take offs and/or white water climbs. I am recovering from a shoulder injury and the waves were pretty meager and messy. I ended up changing focus to just try and catch a few waves by any means necessary, and let the wave dictate what it might let me do once I got up. A step here, a bottom turn there, and mostly just close outs or waves that never broke. I did manage to get one white water climb attempt which was educational :). And most of all, I had fun getting in the water for an hour before work.
For those of you who are goal oriented, how do you handle when the waves, fitness/injuries, etc.. makes it so that you can’t work on what you originally hoped to?
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6 Replies
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Well there’s no simple answer here, but I think you nailed it. You just have to adapt to the conditions. For example, right now I want to work on backside bottom turns with compression. However, I know I need a certain size wave to do that so I’ll only plan on doing that if the conditions are right. If not? I’ll work on something else. However sometimes you think you can work on something and you THINK the waves are right for it and in the end, it turns out they are not. That’s when you have to adapt on the fly.
In the end, I’ll always have 2-3 ideas in my back pocket just in case I completely fail at what I’m trying to do. And sometimes the waves are so bad that there’s nothing I can do haha! I do avoid those days at all costs tho.
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Thanks. I usually have 1-2 ideas and no backups. Might need a longer list :).
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This is an interesting topic. One of the difficult, but fun things about surfing is that you can’t plan your run like in other sports. I’ve been trying to focus on getting to the nose more often and I find myself searching for waves with a clean pocket, but mostly I have to backtrack to turns or trimming. I get so surprised when I actually get a good wave that I forget my plan to get to the nose and just try to make it haha. I guess the answer might be more good waves haha. Wish we each had a private point.
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Yeah I definitely got spoiled this winter surfing down in Central America. Maybe they’ll build a wave pool in the NY area that is good for logging one day 🙂
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I have a range of things I want to work on…then I look at the conditions before surf and then try and choose
With clients we usually have a 1-2 things we’re working on and if the conditions aren’t conducive for practising either then we think of what skill sets we already have that could perhaps be strengthened.
Sounds like a day where the goal should’ve been paddling out, trying to spend time just watching the waves, then finding the best place to be to get the best looking waves…win=smile…fail=rinse and repeat 🙂
I do force myself sometimes to just go out and have fun and try and forget all the drills
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Thanks Tommy – was definitely one of those days. Good practice judging which waves would break decently and where to take off. One of the positives of such poor wave quality is that my wife and I had the beach and this particular jetty all to ourselves. A great way to start the day.
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