Surfing for Beginners & Yoga

 That's me, my sis & Gary in Kauai 2005.

I've always wanted to try surfing, being a "California" girl I thought how cool would it be to try surfing for the first time in Hawaii. I hyped myself up, was super excited and thought I was going to be like Kate Bosworth in Blue Crush. Instead the experience was more about me struggling to paddle on my board, choking on ocean water & practically crashing my board onto someone as I attempted to stand up. It basically turned out to be a bit of a disaster, I felt very frustrated and to be quite honest I didn't really have a desire to try that again, but since I am going back home to California this weekend I thought...maybe I can give it another shot.

That's my Tito (uncle) Albert, surfing back home in California...he's also going to help teach me learn how to surf! YAY. =)

To prepare myself for the second time around at surfing I figured I'd read up on some tips for beginner surfers and really liked this philosophy from the surfinghandbook.com.

"Before you begin, decide that you won’t get too frustrated. Surfing is supposed to be fun! It can be fun to just sit on your board and enjoy the beauty of the ocean without catching a single wave. If you’re not having fun, take a break. The last thing you want to do is get so upset that you vow never to return to the water again. Ask any surfer and they’ll tell you it is NOT an easy sport to learn. It can take a long time to develop the experience needed to do certain moves and read weather and wave patterns. Surfing generally favors those with a “try try again” attitude, so try to adopt this mentality. The only way to get better is to keep practicing!"

I thought that was really awesome & actually made me feel better and more excited about trying surfing for the second time. What really stood out to me was that I felt like the whole philosophy relates to the yogi journey because so many times I feel like I might get wrapped up in what a certain pose is supposed to look like or how it's not possible for me to do a headstand, etc. but when I think about the whole experience being fun and even looking back to my first time taking yoga..I don't think I really had any idea what I was doing. I remember looking around the room with a puzzled look, thinking how in God's name are they doing that?!..and how the hell did they get into that?? Or my fear of having to demonstrate crow pose in front of students..I realize now that it's fine to be exactly where I am at in my practice because each day I am still continuing to grow. Before I don't think I could even lift a toe off the mat when trying to do Crow pose, but now I am teaching it every week.

I'm really excited about giving surfing another shot, I anticipate that it's probably going to be difficult but I'm just looking forward to "enjoying the beauty of the ocean" and spending a day at the beach with my awesome family...and maybe we'll even do some post-yoga surfing. =)