Surfing Success

We started this year’s family adventure with three months in Oceanside, CA, a surf town in North San Diego County, CA. We surfed with our 7th and 4th grade boys almost every day, and it was heavenly! Here are the details about what it was like for me, a 46 year old momma, to learn this intense sport… and feel free to check out our complete album of photos from Oceanside here.

SURFING DREAMS

My husband has been surfing his whole adult life at various beaches throughout California. When I met him, he would frequently head to Ocean Beach in San Francisco, suited up in a full wetsuit, cap, and booties since the water is so cold. He returned from his surf outings so frozen that he could barely turn the door knob to enter his condo. After a hot shower and claiming he was starving from surfing all morning, he’d take me on dates and tell me all about how great surfing is. Having never surfed, I found this fascinating; I couldn’t imagine having fun while simultaneously wet, cold, and hungry.

We would walk through the Marina with our Starbucks coffees, enviously eyeing the couples with babies in strollers, while Dave would tell me all of the things he couldn’t wait to do with the kids we would have one day. Surfing was high on his list.

I learned Dave didn’t imagine surfing only with our kids. He hoped the ENTIRE family would one day catch waves together. Once we planned this year’s family adventure, I knew that I had to at least make an attempt to learn to surf – to see if we could make Dave’s dream come true – even though I suspected I might hate it. I vowed to suck it up, take a few lessons, and give it a really good shot before resuming my post as family photographer and cheerleader on the beach.

WATER, BEACHES, & MY CHILDHOOD

I grew up in Long Island, NY, near lots of beaches, thinking surfing was something the Beach Boys sang about, and, since they were an “oldies” band, must be something from long ago. I never realized people actually continued to surf in CA let alone around the world until well into my 20s! I never met anyone who knew how to surf until I met my husband in San Francisco in my early thirties; I certainly never expected to marry a surfer, let alone become one myself!

As a little girl, I grew up spending my summer days at a local community pool in Long Island, NY, enjoying jumping off the high diving board, the hot humid weather, and the candy at the pool snack bar. My only friend at the pool was my younger brother, likely because I was the odd girl there who wore plastic nose clips until 12 years old. Yes, TWELVE. I’ve since had the conversation with my mother about what in the world prompted her to allow me to continue to wear them, if at all?! She said she didn’t want me to be uncomfortable, so if the nose clips were working for me not getting water in my nose, then why not? My mom was least concerned with showing me how to be “cool”, and never prioritized the having of lots of friends. For her, simply learning to be true to myself was all she wanted for me. Well, true to my fear of water getting in my nose I was. I’m grateful that I did ultimately learn to be able to be true to myself, but I’m not convinced the wearing of nose plugs for so long actually helped.

When I was in middle school, like most east coast kids in the early 1980s, I went to sleep away camp each summer. Taking swim lessons in the Long Island Sound’s salt water – that you can’t see through like you can pool water – was a requirement that I loathed every day. The feeling of the sand and seaweed in my toes, stepping on an occasional crab, and god forbid waves splashing me in the face irritated me to no end. I ended up learning both HOW to swim and to HATE to swim, though I loved all the other aspects of sleep away camp. In high school, college, and my single years, I frequented plenty of northeast beaches including Martha’s Vinyard, Nantucket, and Cape Cod, usually on a boat, only dipping or wading in the water if I really needed to cool off. Surfing was the furthest thing from what I ever expected to do on or near a beach.

FIRST TIME LEARNING TO SURF

When we arrived in our surf town in the beginning of August, we went down to the beach and got ourselves a family surf lesson while my husband was traveling. We made the rookie mistake of going to the first little shack right smack in the middle of the most tourism along the beach. We were set up in rental wetsuits that didn’t fit quite right, posed for the picture with our huge boards which were pretty much paddle boards, and off we went to tackle our lesson.

I had no idea that the hardest part of surfing would be just getting out into the ocean. The waves swelled and broked with an angry tumultuousness. I was sure this meant the sport might not be for me. Each time the waves broke on the shore, I got splashed in my face, and altogether knocked over. As soon as I got up again, I got knocked down. My boys had just finished swim team, and so headed out with no problem. As a solution, the instructor put me on the large board and pushed me out, topsy turvy over the choppy waves. Once past the first line of shore break, I could see the waves on the “outside” – those further away from the shore – swelling up and breaking. I was having flashbacks watching the movie The Perfect Storm in which their little fishing boat would try with all their might to get over the huge wave and get tossed back down. As beginners, we were to stay in between the larger swells of the outside and the choppy break of the inside, so the instructor could turn us around on our boards and push us into the waves just after they broke shouting, “Pop up!!” I was so discombobulated that pushing myself to a push up and getting my feet securely under me was a huge challenge.

We all ended up being successful with it after several tries – the boys more so than me since they are so much more buoyant in their size and overall more comfortable in the water. Once I did get up to standing and rode the wave for just a bit, it was inevitable I would fall down, get tossed again by the waves, and have to endure getting past the shore break, pummelled by the breaking waves, all over again. By the end of the lesson, I was as beat up as a Barbie in a washing machine spin cycle. Salt water had invaded my sinus cavity and both ear canals. I was coughing and gagging, gasping for breath each time the waves knocked me over or crashed on top of me. I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to try surfing again. But with three months and Dave’s dreams looming over me, I knew I had to make another attempt, but not with a junior in high school who could not understand the massive fear I had in even getting in the water, let alone challenging it to a duel.

A DIFFERENT APPROACH

I came away from our first lesson so irritated that the young man who was in charge of us didn’t really “teach” me anything about surfing. He simply made sure I didn’t drown, showed me how to get to standing, and then pushed me into the waves to be able to ride for a bit and say, “Yay! I surfed!”. That’s great for a tourist for a day, but I was in it for the long haul. I need a real ‘teacher’, not a camp counselor.

Dave did some research and sent me to the pop up tent in between lifeguard towers 3 and 5 on Oceanside beach, just south of the pier. I met the folks in charge and announced, “I want to become a surfer, I don’t just want to ‘go surfing’.” They looked at my a little quizzically – bossy, blond, older moms who are scared of the water aren’t their typical clients on the beach – yet they assured me I had come to the right place. I had no idea the amazing experience I was about to have over the course of the next two months of lessons.

Matthew Berry, the owner of Oceanside Surf School took me under his wing and set out to ensure I had all of the knowledge base I would need to feel safe in the water and achieve my goal of becoming a surfer. We spent most of our very first lesson on land, and that was a relief. We practiced popping up extensively, but what really impressed me is how we spent a lot of time simply watching the waves and the surfers catching them to understand the rhythm of the experience.

BEST SURF INSTRUCTION EVER

Upong meeting Matthew, I had just come off of two years as an adjunct professor at Mills College, teaching people who want to become middle and high school teachers how to teach and make the most of their student teaching placements. I was so impressed with Matthew’s skillfulness in applying so much of what goes into great classroom teaching to his lessons on the beach with me – things such as: having an objective to accomplish for the day, accompanying all auditory instructions with visual cues like drawings in the sand or watching existing surfers in the water, sharing videos for reinforcing in slow motion the techniques, providing foundational knowledge – understanding the physics behind the waves, intersecting topics – connecting surfing to the weather and surf forecasts for predicting and understanding the types of waves we’re seeing, connecting to the “feeling” part of learning – communicating with the ocean, considering what the ocean is telling you about which challenges you might undertake or back off on that day, offering choice – letting me choose when the lesson would end or if I’d had enough, learning which days to choose to surf and why. Ultimately, Matthew helped me overcome my fear of being in the ocean and harness the strength I had cultivated from all the Orange Theory classes I took before we arrived in Oceanside. He helped me feel empowered and use surfing as a great metaphor for the challenges that life would serve. It was so inspiring to go from being a teacher to being a learner again, taking the steps to achieve a goal through such great mentorship.

I’M A SURFER NOW

By the end of 3 weeks and about 6 lessons, I was confident enough to be out in the water on my own, without the safety net of Matthew with me, and I was physically strong enough to handle myself in the water and on the board without additional cues. Surfing is no easy feat! I continued my lessons for another several weeks to hopefully master some of the nuances of catching the waves.

I graduated to buying my own 9 foot board from Matthew, and I had so much success with it, especially with the variety of types of waves the Oceanside beach would offer us during the course of our stay.

It was so much fun to have an activity to do as a whole family, especially one I could do alongside my boys, hopefully for years to come. Gone are the days of waving, smiling, cheering, and photographing from the beach. Now I can get out there and get after it just the same as my little guys do, and they cheer me on, too!

By the end of three months, Matthew had become our friend, and we spent our very last morning as a whole family surfing with him.

I surfed the very best I ever had that morning: I was able to paddle into my own waves from the outside, pop up quickly, ride the line, even moving my feet on the board or shifting the weight in my hips as needed to speed up or slow down the board and extend each ride accordingly. I was finally able to look up while standing up on the board, checking out the sights around me, and the wave I was riding. It was a thrilling feeling to have achieved indepenence in something that is so physically demanding at this stage of my life. You can check out one of my favorite videos of me surfing here (since I’m not tech savvy enough to upload it to this website. It was captured at the end of September.)

Sure enough, Dave’s dreams of surfing with the whole family came true, and I got so much out of the entire experience. I felt free and like a little girl again, playing and having fun with my whole family. I can’t wait to be able to go surfing again one day. We don’t have plans yet for May 2020. Maybe there will be more surfing in our future….??

🙂 Carolyn