Mimi | Pura Vida Surfer Girl - May 3, 2011

Me gusta mucho surfreo!

Took my first 2 hour surfing lesson this afternoon- so much fun. Didn't realize how much paddling is done and how little surfing you actually do - great exercise especially since I have been doing nothing but eating 3 or 4 times a day and drinking beers on the beach.

Here's how it works. Huge boards - must have been like 8 feet long and about 18 inches wide. Evidently, the larger the board, the more stable it is - makes sense in retrospect.... We lug these boards out to the beach where there are lots of folks surfing and a steady stream of waves. There are 6 of us taking the class so they divide us into 2 groups. My instructor, Gerard - a cute stereotypical "surfer dude" grew up near here - skin in blackened by the sun and his hair in dreadlocks.

First we lay the boards down on the sand and he walks us through the basics of where to position ourselves lying down - feet close to the back of the board, head looking forward, arms out on the sides. Then he has us practicing on the command "up" - basically pulling your arms in as if you're doing a tricep pushup quickly coming to a plank position on your hands and almost at the same time shifting your feet so one is in front of the other and hopefully at that point, you're balancing on the board and you're on a wave. Or not....

Easier said than done.... we paddle out 50-75 yards out and line up our boards facing the beach. The first couple of times, Gerard is holding on to the back of the board and instead of paddling and then standing, he pushes us when the wave comes at the optimum time and yells "stand up... stand up" at which point, you're supposed to do that tricep pushup, skooch, position your left foot at a slight angle and step forward with your right - all the while looking forward, crouching down a bit to lower the center of gravity and positioning your hands forward and away.

Of course, at this point, we're doing more falling than standing. Sometimes, it's how my feet are balanced (or not) on the board that make me tip off immediately. Sometimes, I've missed the timing of the wave and sometimes just pure lack of coordination - which for me, seemed to be most of the time.

About 20 minutes of "stand up stand up" and flailing around in the water and then paddling back to Gerard, I was finally able to stand, crouch and ride a wave ALL the way in to the sand. WOWWWWWW!!!!! I was so exhilerated and got such a sense of accomplishment.

Of course, it must have been serendipity and not so much my evolving skills that allowed me to do my first successful surfing. Paddle paddle paddle back and try it again .... and again ... and again...... each time, I'm getting marginally better and finally Gerard allows us to add in the paddling and THEN standing on the board.

Over the course of the 2 hours, I succeeded in getting up and riding on the waves about 4 or 5 times with many half attempts where I'd be able to get up and then fall right off again. Each time, I couldn't wait to do it again.... So much of this surfing is watching and seeing where the waves break and anticipating when to paddle in order to catch the wave at the perfect moment. I was amazed at how Gerard was able to look out into the horizon and see how big the wave was going to be - a couple of times, he actually told us to get off the board as the wave was going to be so big and break right over us.

Speaking of breaking big waves, I ended up being engulfed by one that was so strong that it pushed all this sea water in to my sinuses. I actually sat on my board for a couple of minutes as it felt like my ears were popping. I must have flooded my sinuses so much that several hours later, back in the condo, I leaned down and as my head dropped forward, more sea water poured out of my nostrils - and again throughout the evening - no wonder my sinuses felt blocked!

Something funny to share - Gerard asked me if I was a college student and I told him that I graduated from college over 20 years ago. I told him I was 45 and he looks at me and says "you are older than my mother" - is that a good thing or a bad thing?

I'm definitely going to do this again during the course of the next 2 weeks I'm here. It's sort of like swimming with the paddling you have to do and it's a great way to get some sun without being on the grainy sand with insects flying around.

Oh yeah, school - that is, after all the reason I came here, right? Our second day was spent learning the past tense for irregular verbs. I was.... he was... they were.... etc. Sylvia, our teacher does a nice job of focusing on conversation and speaking rather than exactly where the accents go on the words when writing them. Since we are using the past tense, she had us (myself, Gabriela, Betsy and Isabelle) describe a trip we took. Then she passed around a picture from a magazine and had us tell a story about it. We also did this exercise where we had to first write out 10 events in our lives - like, in 1985, I moved to Minnesota. In 2003, my son was born, etc. All of realized that when we had to read our sentences, we shouldn't have written the years since we now had to say them out loud in Spanish - and so saying "One thousand nine hundred eighty five" was hilarious as we were all botching our numbers. Only Isabelle was smart enough to write her sentences as "When I was 6 years old....." so she got to avoid the spectacle we made out of ourselves.

Lisa spent the afternoon back in the condo as she was fighting a headache. Probably a combination of the heat, dust and the fact that her brain is getting overloaded. 4 hours of Spanish is a lot, especially when even the beginning classes are conducted entirely in Spanish. I hope she's feeling better this morning.

Off to do my homework that's due in about an hour - more past tense stories .....

Pura vida everyone!