Lily of the Valley: Longboard Soul Surfer

Ultimate Surfing Chi Gung

2012-01-24T13:44:00.000-08:00

Aloha Tribe,

Many surfers today, especially Pros, are interested in High Performance Progressive Surfing, and the most elite development of this, Ultimate Surfing Chi Gung offers specific concrete training methods for pushing totally beyond all competition in every element of surfing including coordination, endurance, speed, adaptability, creativity, flexibility, healing from injury, strength, mental strength, spiritual strength, as well as and most incredibly of all are methods of getting in tune with the sea, your board, and your body in ways never before done by anyone anywhere anytime.

The secret, oddly enough, is not some futuristic method of training, but instead, comes from the past, with over 3000 years of practice, study, and exploration in the ancient Chinese field of the exploration of the energy of our bodies and all that is around us.

Using such methods allow a surfer to do things they have never dreamed of before in ways never imagined. This, of course, then lifts us into whole new ways of exploring our surfing, where we no longer have to search the world for the perfect wave, but instead, can find the perfect harmony with any wave within ourselves in how we surf. Interestingly enough, this leads the frantic external quest for surfing perfection of boards, breaks, and maneuvers into an internal quest never before explored, thus, virgin territory on a blank map.

It is with these methods that I find myself facing the sea each day in my beloved Wilds, alone in the Winter Swells in the wild feral seas of ice, snow, and unimagined winds. Such offers a playground of personal exploration seeking an ever detailed quest for internal pefection in harmony with the sea through surf.

The secret to surfing at such a level, comes not from without, as I mentioned above, but from within, in depths always pushed beyond one's grasp, on an eternal quest for internal or Chi awareness. This, of course, leads to ever increasing levels of sensitivity to your body, your board, and the sea, which, then leads to further exploration in a harmonious cyclical dive into the depths.

If you literally want to be the best of the best of the best, then there is but one way. And that, is within yourself. All you need to do is to know how to find it. And to do that, you simply need to look within. That, is the secret. Of course, if such words seem cryptic, and they might to some, then formal training of course helps, for a guide (Coach, Trainer, Teacher, whatevers) along the way can tremendously speed up the process of learning, yet, the truth of the matter is, your highest level of surfing is and always has been within yourself all along.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Ulitimate Chaos Surfing: A New Feel and Look

2012-01-11T06:10:00.000-08:00

Aloha Tribe,

Imagine if everything you new about surfing, everything you'd ever seen in the movies, from your friends, anywhere, anytime, anyplace, was suddenly, in a single day of the wildest most feral surf you'd ever danced with tore your body loose from the old surfer you were, reshaping you in boiling oceanic pulsations into a totally new surfer. That was yesterday.

You see, yesterday in the Wilds, the sea was alive, it was as if it were boiling water, every inch of pulsing movement exploding in new directions of unlimited skyrocketing swells, waves, boards, and, ideas.

Oddly enough, I've never seen the ocean quite like this. Now, from a normal surfing expression, one would look upon such a scene and say it either sucked or it was terrrifying beyond all measure. Then again, by surrendering ones soul to the sea in such conditions, a whole new way of feeling surfing and my body swept through every fluid fiber of my being.

The swells seemed to come from five primary directions all at once, for example, a wave would come from the SW and 8 seconds beind it would be one coming in from the NW, followed 2 seconds behind that by one from the W, the then 6 seconds later for a Period from the SNW. Interestingly enough, the waves would come in at not only different angles but also dramatically different speeds, thus, there could, with any given wave, be a crashing explosive assimilation of countless waves hitting each other, thus Jacking Up and Doubling Up even upon themselves, leading to total chaotic swirling and bursting expressions of water geysers, with currents pulling from every direction at once at both the same levels of depth and different depths.

Now, when I got there for all of this, there was no one anywhere. No cars, nobody watching the beach, and most certainly nobody in the water. To get to a decent Line Up, you had to swim out for roughly 3/4 of a mile if you truly wanted to get beyond the churning Lines of wild oceanic dancing. Alone in such a sea, with nobody in sight anywhere, leads to interesting insight and thus, new surfing feelings, expressions, and ideas.

Yesterday boiled my body, mind, and soul into a new artistic expression of surfing looseness, giving me unimagininable and countless new moves to yearn for with full passion.

I feel today, different. A new girl alive with a depth of a love of movement I have never know before, a level beyond levels calling my heart and soul, singing to my muscles, beckoning me to the swells today.

In darkness, I await the rising of the next Dawn Patrol sun, my heart pumping beyond burst, my muscles aquiver, my soul aflame, my mind dancing free, my Alaia patiently waiting with the explosive anticipation of a Champion racehorse seconds before the dropping of the Gate for our harmonious union.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

December Full Moon (Blood Moon) Surfing all Night

2011-12-10T06:32:00.000-08:00

Aloha Tribe,

The winter moon is upon us, the December Full Moon, the Blood Moon. It's a night of Night Surfing all Night and then, fresh grilled Fish Tacos and ripe papayas for breakfast after Dawn Patrol. It is one of the most magical times to surf and a total must for all surfers. The one night when you must surf at night.

The next must surf day is Christmas Eve, also an all-nighter. And then, of course, Christmas Day!!! Following that, it's the annual New Years Eve surf and then New Years Day surfing.

And between holidays? You surf of course!!!

I hope you all survived the moon's light upon the dark waters no matter where you are in the world.

Stay safe, surf fun, and don't think about sharks and dark water nasties, they probably won't get most of us.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Big Island Hawaii

2011-11-30T06:47:00.000-08:00

Aloha Tribe,

The last week and a half or so, most of the Big Island was pretty flat, except over by Hilo where there were some beautiful Head Highs with nice clean lines. You know, that's the way of surfing though, and all was good. I got a lot of time to freedive the reefs, which was great for getting a more indepth understanding of the bathymetry of the Big Island which was not only great benefit but also great fun. There were also some Knee Highs around Banyans which were fun. You know, you really can learn a lot on Knee High and smaller waves for it's really a chance to work on your technique and details. While studying under Darrick Doerner, he once told me that if you can ride One Foot High waves really well, you can ride anything.

Now, I know a lot of surfers who won't go out in anything unless it's their required height, typically Overhead to Double Overhead or whatevers, but, the thing is to me at least in my silly naivette of my love of surfing, to just take any waves, even flat days like the Big Island had last week, and to simply love the fact that you're a surfer no matter what the conditions, then, well, that's what it's all about. I learned a lot about the ocean especially the bathymetry of the Big Island, had a few great fish tacos and some awesome Mai Tais, got a nice tan all over, and just way totally embraced my Hawaii trip. I'll probably be going to Kauai for a month or so in another month or two, so that should be pretty awesome, then, after that in the Spring, spending a few weeks on the North Shore of Oahu. I'll also more than likely be going to surf China in the Spring which should be quite the adventure. In the Summer, I'll be hitting Waikiki. In the meantime, for today, there's some Double Overheads (16 Foot) at the Wilds with Triple Overheads a bit further on, the waters intense as usual, Light Cross Winds at about 6 mph, water at 49, a far cry from Hawaii's 79 degrees or so, but, hey, it's my home break and the cold water and cold winds make it fun, especially as the waves rise, winds grow, and snow whips the shore. It's time to put away my camouflaged string bikini for later and get out my wet suit for now. It's good to be home.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Alaia Secrets for Surfing Mastery

2011-11-17T08:43:00.000-08:00

Aloha Tribe,

Would you like to improve your surfing skills? Sure, we all probably try to do this. Well, one pretty fun secret is to surf as much as you can on an Alaia. They're easy and fun to make and learning to surf on one will dramatically improve the way you surf. To make one, simply get a solid piece of wood and cut out the outline or glue several planks together and then shape them into the pattern you want for your board. Shape the nose and tail to fit your interpretation of what what you, work on the rails a bit, and, there you go. This can be as creative and beautiful as you dream, or, as simple as a piece of solid wood hand cut and shaped with an ax or machete or similar tool like one might do in the jungles of Gabon (there is a beautiful example of a rugged as hell hand chopped board on a Gabon site that is pretty cool (it couldn't be any rougher or more primitive, and that's why it so interests me). Simplicity, old-school, working with what you have, those are secrets behind Alaia surfing.

As for improving your surfing using an Alaia, for one thing, there is no rocker on an Alaia since it is simply a flat piece of wood. Thus, you have to pay much more attention to board trim so that you don't get your nose too high out of the water and Stall, or dig too deep and Pearl. Learning how to not Pearl using an Alaia will give your surfing a supblety, smoothness, softness, delicacy, and control you may have never had to such a high degree of perfection, thus offering your surfing whole new possibilities of creative expression with surfing lines.

The same thing applies to turning. You have to be exact when you weight a Rail so that you don't Dig or Bog a Rail. In addition, you learn to use your feet to also help turn.

Once you master your Alaia, your old board you typically always ride will seem easy by comparison, offering you a whole new way to explore your surfing.

Now then, as for the real secrets of surfing mastery by surfing Alaia, hmm, the best way to share them is to get together and surf together and also Talk Story after sessions and while in the Line-Up. So, all we need to do is to be in the same place at the same time. That being said, watch the waves around the world, chances are, I'll be there. And wow, are there some cool things to talk about and share and so very much for me to learn and try.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Triple Overheads and Hawaii

2011-11-14T06:02:00.000-08:00

Aloha Tribe,

So, for prep training for my Hawaii trip, we have Triple Overheads (21-22 foot) in the Wilds today. Blown Out, Voodoo Mist, Windy as hell, Choppy, and strong Cross Currents, medium Periods, plus, bitter cold and rain, just the way I love it. Then, after that, it's off to string bikini surfing in tropical lushness, perfect waves, long periods, lots of sunshine, gentle sea breezes, and lots of fish tacos and fresh fruit and tropical drinks like Mai Tais. It'll be a fun few weeks. My days will be spent surfing Dawn Patrol to Dusk and my nights playing Xiangqi or Chinese Chess (I've got to get in chess shape for my upcoming China trip - I plan to do some chess hustling on the trains as I travel the country, Street Compositions out of a portable stall in the cities, games in the mountain Taoist monestaries, all while training for some tournaments).

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Double Overheads Today Through the Weekend

2011-11-03T12:37:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

Double Overheads today and through the weekend in the Wilds, except Saturday, oh, and a week ago, Tentacles and Beyonds utterly ripped. 15 footers tomorrow, 17 on Sunday.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Pop Ups on 3" Manilla Rope

2011-10-22T06:22:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

So, yesterday my 300 foot long, 3 inch diameter manilla rope came. It's roughly 600 pounds, but very worth the weight for lugging it around in that I can string it out and not only comfortably practice a huge variety of surfing moves on it, I can also practice Pop Ups on it. Basically, you simply tie the rope to two trees, boulders, buildings, docks, boats, or whatevers, I like to use a Double Bowline with Jack's Variation on the stationary end and two Butterfly Knots on the end you tighten called the working end. Running the rope end back and forth through the Butterfly Knots, I can easily tighten or loosen the rope to any tightness depending upon what surfing moves I want to work on.

Today out in the Wilds, there are Blown Out Overheads, choppy as hell, more wind than predicted so it'll whip you a bit, so it'll be a great day for some surfing in small rough stuff. The worse or harder it gets, the more I love it because there's so many different things to work on in the unpredictable waves offering true in-the-moment responses and decisions, as well as it's just pure fun. Sure, most love the smooth silky perfectness of tropical waves, but whatevers, I like it wild and unharnessed.

I got a lot of BMX riding in yesterday which was great, I set up an Olympic official sized BMX track on my property. It's a full quarter mile long track with some wild spots to work on such as great berm curves, lots of jumps, good solid dirt in spots and muddy as all get out in others. It's a perfect track for my training. BMX, by the way for those of you who don't do it, is where you ride on those "little kid" bikes. There are several types of events such as jumping, freestyle, and racing. Where I live, I can do all three right at home. In any event, it's a great way to really develop the fast twitch muscles you want to truly shred when you surf. Longboarding is about smooth style of course, but for those who love to rip when you surf on shortboards, you need a body shredded with fast twitch lighting fast muscles so BMXing is one way to really hit it hard.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Tightropes, Slacklines, and Tightwire in Home for Surfing Training

2011-10-18T16:33:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

It's been time to set up my various tightropes (manilla rope), slacklines, and tightwires in my home again for training on constantly to hone perfect balance for Surfing.

The various ropes, slacklines, bamboo poles, and wires are distributed so that I can go anywhere in my home, garage, or barn and be balanced on something, including my NOHO Surf Trainer. In this way, I'm practicing balance pretty much 24/7.

At the moment, I'm doing my dishes and typing this while balanced on a 2" manilla rope strung across my kitchen.

Rig out your home like this, it's great fun, perfect practice, and it works your body in so many awesome ways. If you want to be hotter than hot on your board, walk the wire.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Double Overhead (16 Footers) Hitting the Wilds mid-Week

2011-10-10T17:39:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

So, tomorrow I'll find out if I can slide on the Double Overheads coming mid-week to the Wilds. If so, bring an appetite for fish tacos over an open fire, great surfing, and lots of Talk Story. Oh, and, I'll have my Rescue Swimmer Rocket Fins and my Monofin with me too for training and kicking ass in a shredded sort of way for Oahus coming up this Fall/Winter. The Big Island first (massage and flexibility, as well as intense sand and beach training and underwater training). Then Kauai for Individualized Life Guard Conditioning and honing my surfing. Then the North Shore for longboarding and ripping.

All in all, several months (5 or 6) of intensely wild training and surfing.

Alohas,

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Alaias and Paipo

2011-09-17T17:51:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

I'm making three Alaias and one Paipo. Two of the Alais will be 8 foot long, one will be 5 foot. The Paipo will be 3 foot. Each is made out of a combination of redwood, red cedar, and yellow cedar. For waterproofing them, I am using a combination of coconut oil, macadamia nut oil and ashes and mud. I'm particularly stoked about my little 5 footer. Oh, and, the more common natural way to finish your boards and waterproof and protect them is with Linseed Oil but I simply chose to go with the more traditional method that I've also used on my Chinese Bamboo Poles.

I'm hoping to use the Alaias and Paipo on Oahu's North Shore, but in the meantime, it's to the Wilds, Tentacles, and maybe Number 9's. I'll also be hitting the local rivers around here of course. And, as you all know, Alaias and Paipos don't have leashes or fins so they'll be great for my favorite style of surfing, riding Slidding Ass.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Conditioning for North Shore (Oahu) this Fall/Winter/Spring

2011-09-15T19:03:00.001-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

So, I'm doing me pre-North Shore workouts now, to get totally shredded for surfing Oahu's North Shore this Fall/Winter/Spring. It'll be a great season.

To get my cardio up, I'll be riding my BMX, mountainboarding, swimming in the roughest seas I can find, and paddling on my board. Most of my training will be paddling (both sprints and distance), as well as Open Ocean Swimming and Coastal Swimming (the most dangerous sport there is). For balance, I'll be slacklining, soft rope walking, tightrope and tightwire walking, as well as using my NOHO Surf Trainer and my Chinese Single Bamboo Pole Drifting Pole and skateboarding as well as Birling (log rolling in a river - use a cedar log, by the way, they don't take in as much water as pine). For flexibility, I'll be doing Taoist Yoga and Chi Gung. For vision training (spotting swells as far away as possible) I'll be spending a lot of time doing a variety of eye exercises with the sea. For timing and coordination, I'll be practicing basketball (Darrick Doerner - DD - taught me this one as part of my Watergirl Training).

My diet, as always, will be mostly fresh fish tacos and fresh fruit with tons of water.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Surfing Balance: BMX Bike running Pegs and a Freecoaster

2011-09-13T11:47:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

A great way to practice your balance when you're not on your board is riding a BMX bike. For mine, I run quad pegs with a Freecoaster. This lets me use any of the four pegs as something to stand on and the Freecoaster lets the bike coast backwards so you don't have to reverse pedal.

My bike is a white MirraCo Blend BMX with a KHE Reverse Freecoaster and four smooth steel pegs, two for each wheel (lots of riders run pegs on just one side but this way, you open up your balance opportunities which is great for practicing Switch Foot for Surfing your surfboard. My chain, hand grips, peddles, and tires are pink and my seat is yellow. A bike set up like this lets you balance on your rear pegs or on your front pegs or on a front and rear peg on the same side, allowing for a variety of riding and balancing experiences. Using the pegs in combination with the seat and handlebars, you have 6 different pieces to stand on. For BMX Surfing, by the way, simply stand with one foot on your seat and the other foot on our handlebars, steering with your front foot and body shifts.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Surfing Party in the Wilds Friday-Tuesday- All Welcome

2011-09-02T13:26:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

Tonight, Friday, begins an end of Summer, beginning of Fall awesomely bodacious Surfing Party in the Wilds, tonight through Tuesday. All welcome from anywhere on the Planet. Okay, the hell with it, lets everyone, no matter who you are, no matter where you are, if you can't come here, have your own Surfer Party this weekend, and we'll all connect in the dreamtime. Let's make this a world event this weekend!!! Surfers, anywhere, everywhere, alone, with friends, in huge groups, no rules, whoever, however, wherever, no worries, just party.

Beer. Fresh Fish Tacos. Tropical Fruit. Whatevers. Anything goes. Bring camping gear (tenst, lean-to's, hammocks).

For the cerebral types, there'll be chess and Xiangqi (if you don't know, I'll teach you). Got a guitar or ukulele or something, bring it.

Surfing. Bodyboarding. Bodysurfing. Spearfishing. Net Casting Practice (for those who've never done it). Skimboarding. Open Ocean Swimming. Coastal Swimming - for those who dare) Freediving, Snorkling and Big Wave Training under a very special program.

Night Surfing tonight, of course, it is after all a tradition. Dawn Patrol tomorrow morning before first light.

Oh, hey, if you want to learn to throw a knife, without a spin, over 43 feet, and, hit a playing card every time, I'll show you how.

All-night Talk Story too every night.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Bamboo Pole Over Pond, Rope Over Swamp

2011-08-14T18:03:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

It's Summer, and, what could be better than getting wet. But sometimes, you simply can't get to the surf yet you still want to practice your balance, so, what do you do?

I have a pond in my yard, about 5 feet wide and 8 feet long. I will extend it soon to roughly 7 feet by 11 foot, approximately the same size as a swimming pool on a modern Russian Submarine (really). The pond is about 4 foot deep.

So, I have a bamboo pole, about 12 foot long, and, I can simply lay it on the banks of the pond and practice walking on it. Using a variety of poles, from 1" to 6", I can have varied experiences.

In addition, I have a swamp that the pond is in, and I can tie a manilla rope to two trees on each side of the pond and roughly 100 foot apart. In this way, I can also practice walking and balancing on the rope practicing Chinese Soft Rope Qigong (a form of tight rope practice with a loosely hung rope rather than tight).

If I fall off the bamboo pole, I fall into 4 to 4 1/2 foot of water. Or, if I fall off the rope, above the pond, I hit the water, or, otherwise, I simply fall into the soft swamp. Either way, it's a soft and fun landing.

In being creative on the bamboo pole or on the rope, one can practice all kinds of surfing maneuvers from Paddling to Popping Up to various body, arm, and foot positions.

Anybody can do this over a pond, creek, or whatever you have. A sand pit or simply the beach also makes a soft landing should you fall. This type of training offers wonderful methods of dramatically honing your surfing balance.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

4th of July Weekend in the Wilds

2011-07-04T18:30:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

Bring a hammock tent, a backpack, one surfboard, a slackline or rope (for walking on - I love manilla rope), perhaps any food or drink you might want, and, head to the Wilds for Friday through Monday for an American 4th of July Surfing, Camping, and Balance Training Extravaganza.

See you there, all who make it. Everyone from the Tribe (all surfers) all over the World are welcome!!!

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Loose Rope Walking vs. Slacklining for Surfing Foot Development

2011-06-26T14:38:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

Loose Rope Walking and Slackling are NOT the same thing. There seems to be confusion out there as more and more people get into Slacklining as they mistakingly call it "loose rope."

With a Loose Rope, the rope is simply tied around two points, such as, trees, rocks, cars, sign posts, or whatevers. And, the rope hangs loosely when it is tied, that is, it is NOT tensioned nor pulled taught in any way, in fact, when strung up, in might rather resemble an elongated letter U. When you walk on it, it looks like a letter V.

A Slackline, on the other hand, is almost always tenstioned until it is semi-taught or fully taught. This can be done in numerous ways, such as my own Ultra-Primitive method of simply using a single rope and knots and nothing else, or, the Primitive Method which uses carrabiners and also sometimes rings, and, the more technological methods which use wenches of various types. In such systems, the Slackline, when it is first hung up, looks like a -. That is, it is parallel to the ground and tight. When you walk on this, it can look like a - if it is very tight, or, more typically, a very lazy extended out U.

Between the two, Loose Rope is astronomically harder to walk on that Slackline. It is also simpler to set up and quicker to set up and only requires just one rope which is what you walk on. This rope, by the way, can be any diameter, and I have them from 11mm all the way to 2 1/2" in diameter and up to several hundred feet long.

I love balance training. And, a great way to increase your surfing balance is by supplemental training, since, any given ride on a wave typically lasts 6 to 20 seconds or so. Thus, using something like a loosely hung rope (manilla is common, hemp less so because it is illegal in the U.S., jute feels great by the way, and even mountain climbing rope works) or a slackline (which is thin nylon webbing), has tremendous advantages, and, it's loads of fun.

All you need is a rope or a long piece of webbing, and two trees or other attachment points such as large boulders, cars, street signs, etc.

If you know how to stake out a line, you can even simply use an A frame type setup with each A staked to the ground to its sides and rear, with the rope or webbing then between the two A's.

Now then, as to rope vs. webbing, personally, I prefer rope for a number of reasons. First, it's more historical in that rope such as hemp rope or the more common manilla rope have been around for ages before nylon webbing was ever developed.

More so, since hemp, jute, or manilla ropes are made of natural materials, as opposed to chemical means like nylon, they have a "life," about them that feels more "alive." Rope moves and feels differently, and, it's so much more eco or green for today's world.

Granted, virtually everybody uses slacklines nowadays simply because they are easy to get and everybody uses them, that is, they are popular because they are popular. Silly, but true.

Sure, webbing is smaller and a bit lighter than rope so it does make slacklines a tiny tiny bit easier to transport, yet, I"ve had no problem with my ropes simply tossed in a canvas backpack.

Now while most today feel that slacklines are the original walking or balancing materials, this is not so. John Gill, the boulder, and a friend of mine, used a chain when he first started, he told me. Chain, while heavy, is easy to get and rather fun to walk on too, though, I must say, it is not like walking on rope, especially the beautiful feel of jute rope, for example.

Now then, on to working the foot. In balancing on a rope or slackline, you are working on your balance, which, as I mentioned, greatly helps your surfing balance. Yet, there is more to it than this. Laird Hamilton, the Big Wave surfer and Waterman's Waterman said in his book that surfing uses specific muscles of the foot and, interestingly enough, I've found that these same muscles can be worked to a truly unlimited degree by walking on rope. And, here is the difference between rope and slacklines. Rope, being round, works the foot more and in greater ways than a flat slackline. Your foot, on a rope, with time and training, wraps around the rope as your muscles become more flexible, and, this very muscle development, which is truly unique to rope walkers and tightwire or tightrope walkers also, leaves, eventually, a permanent "tattoo," as Philippe Petit, the world famous highwire walker said, on the bottom of your foot, the mark, by the way, if the true rope walker and highwire master.

So, if you want to more or less just work on your balance, walk on a slackline. But, if you are truly serious about your surfing, and, if you want to go to places you've never dreamed of in your skill, then, start walking and balancing on rope. If you can get it, the rope walkers dream, of course, is hemp rope. Hard to come by in the U.S. More common over in England. So, you'll probably end up with manilla, which, is perfectly fine. Then, eventually, progress to jute. And, by the way, start with large diameter ropes and work your way down as your feet become more flexible and stronger.

Just like swimmers develop the "swimmer's body," by working out more than they do simply swimming, if you want the surfer's Foot Tattoo of the Rope Walkers art, , then, take up soft rope walking.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Shaping Alaias

2011-06-24T20:41:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

So, I'm shaping a few Alaias.

One is 2" thick. Pine.

One is 1" thick. Pine.

And two others, one for myself and one for a friend are also 1" thick. It'll be fun to see how they turn out. Redwood.

All of them will be 8 feet or a bit longer. I'm still planning on the widths and shapes.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Lily of the Valley's Kelly Slater Surfing Extravaganza Camp

2011-05-08T07:46:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

So, for the next month, I've started Lily of the Valley's Kelly Slater Surfing Exravaganza Camp. Of course, this doesn't really directly involve Kelly, instead, what I'm doing is studying his moves in all of his dvds and in as many magazines as I have on him as well as all the book photos, and analyzing the movements from a Chi perspective and then, translating these movements into a moving Wai Dan series of flowing exercises, not too unlike Tai Chi actually, though more specifically, like Liuhebafa aka Waterboxing.

I have two primary forms, one is Wai Dan which means physical movements, and the other is Nei Dan which means mental or visual images in one's mind. So, in the first form, I actually physically do the movements, focusing on balance mixed harmoniously with flexibility, whereas, with the Nei Dan visualizations, I do the same form, only, I do it while sitting perfectly still and not moving but instead, simply circulating the Chi within my body and muscles exactly replicating if I was literally doing the movements.

I began my camp yesterday, and will do it for the next month, roughly 6 to 8 hours a day.

My purpose is to dramatically increase my balance, flexibility, and creativity mirrored by mimicry of Kelly's movements then, going beyond simple mimicry and adapting the movements to my own body and feminine style.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Easter Surfer Taco Extravaganza: All Welcome

2011-04-24T19:51:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

Today is Easter. If you want to surf and eat fun food, come to The Wilds.

Appetizers:

   Chips and Salsa

   Bacon wrapped stuffed Jalepenos

   Fresh Fruit: Papayas, Mangoes, Pineapple, Bananas

Main Course:

   Mahi Mahi Fish Tacos

   Mongolian Lamb Fish Tacos (to honor my Siberian/Mongolian heritage)

   Sonoran Pulled Pork Tacos

   Chicken Tacos

5 home made salsas

Drinks:

   Corona
   Longboard
   Margaritas

Dessert:

   Fruit Salad
   Coconut Ice Cream

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Surfboards I'm Currently Shaping

2011-04-16T05:43:00.001-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

So, at the moment, out in the barn, I'm working on 4 sticks. One is a solid wood Longboard. One, a solid bamboo Pigboard. One, a Twinnie Pig Shortboard from PU (polyurethane) - perfect for The Wilds. And the third is another is a Classic Retro Longboard.

At the moment, on the solid wood Longboard, I'm working on the rails. This board is Old-School, no skeg, turns with your foot, weighs roughly about 100 pounds. . With the late'60's Vietnamese Jungle Style bamboo Pigboard I'm glueing the bamboo as well as the bamboo skeg. And on the two PU's, I'm working on their rockers.

It's nice to shape boards. It lets you get exactly what you want and need. Working in the barn, with the doors flung wide or shaping out in the yard on a sunny day, feels right out of the great surf movie Morning of the Earth, especially living in the country like I do, with wilds all about me.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Boards I'm Currently Shaping

2011-04-16T05:42:00.000-07:00

You Should Have Been Here An Hour Ago by Phil Edwards

2011-04-12T08:43:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

My neighbor just gave me a 1st edition mint condition copy of the truly magical book You Should Have Been Here An Hour Ago. It is truly a beautiful book.

I absolutely love it!!! Reading the book just so fills me with stoke and dreams and Aloha smiles. I spent a good portion of yesterday reading the book outside in the beautiful sunshine, and, I shall do that today again too, over my breakfast of grilled fish tacos cooked outdoors on my cast iron hibachi. I realize the book is long since out of print, and, almost impossible to find, so, I highly suggest that some publisher somewhere republish this incredible book. It shares so much about what surfing was like during the 1950's and 1960's and there's just tons of ideas to explore and dream about.

A freshly grilled fish taco for breakfast, a great book, warm sunshine, beautiful waves, what more could a girl want!!!

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Snoqaulmie River Flooding: Du Zhu Piao - Chinese Single Bamboo Pole Drifting, Suspended Pole Balancing, and Birling: Ancient Chinese and American Timber versions of Surfing

2011-03-31T08:54:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

Today, in the Pacific NW, the Snoqualmie River is flooding, it's about a foot over flood stage at the moment and should, by the evening, be more than 4 foot above flooding. Naturally, it's a perfect day for practicing Du Zhu Piao (standing on a 6" diameter, 12 to 24 foot long single pole of bamboo) and Birling Driving (riding a log - about 11" in diameter down a river while standing on it as it races through the rapids). Both sports way enhance your surfing, by the way, and, more so, are must knows for any Watergirl.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Soul Surfer Heart Meridian: Living and Surfing with total Stoke

2011-03-29T08:28:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

All of us, at one time at least, were Soul Surfers. We surfed, for the pure joy of it. For the feeling we got as we glided upon the water. For, the Stoke. Yet, over time, some, perhaps many, lose their Stoke, at least, the Stoke that they always strive to regain.

In Chi Gung, Chi or energy travels through, around, and also beyond our body. Within our bodies, we have pathways called Meridians. There are numerous ones, such as the Kidney Meridian and the Liver Meridian, as well as Vessels, such as the Conception Vessel, and so on. The one that seems to relate to all surfers though, that is, the strongest of all of them, which is exemplified in our surfing, in how we view surfing, and, in how we live, is, the Heart Meridian.

Interestingly enough, each of our Meridians is associated, not only with a given organ, such as the Heart, but also, with particular emotions. In the case of the Heart Meridian, the emotion that is linked to it is the emotion of joy, what we'd call extreme Stoke.

Surfer's in general are some of the happiest people on the planet, for we are doing something, and living a lifestyle, formed around the activity of playing and living in joy. In a way, most of us are like a bunch of kids, that is, our inner child is alive and well and waxing up our boards even the second we get out of the water, for yet another session.

As surfers, we have strong hearts, and, that means we have strong Heart Meridians, which means we are healthy and happy. And, what a cool lifestyle, you know.

Being a Soul Surfer, I surf for the love of doing our art. The pure love of surfing. That's what Soul Surfing really means to most all surfers.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Bundoran, Ireland for St. Patrick's Day

2011-03-16T11:20:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

The place to be for tomorrow, what with it being St. Patrick's Day and all, sounds like Bundoran Ireland. So, grab your green board, mine's a Hawaiian Blades Thruster, hop on a plane, and jet over tonight for the beginning of the party. It'll be a day of surfing, feasting, thriving in the beautiful Irish weather and landscape, and, of course, contemplating on and wishing all the best for all the wee folk.

Bundoran is a beautiful magical spot, and, a great place for a St. Patrick's Day feast and celebration, and a bit o' a surf. All who can, let's meet there. Bring beer if you got it, food if you can, a green board's a must, and above all else, a smile.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Bottom Turn Pump vs. Lateral Zigzag Shimmy for Flat Sections and Top Turn Timing

2011-03-14T09:40:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

Eh Brahs, I wanted to talk about Bottom Turn Pumps vs. Lateral Zigzags for those sections of the face that are flatter, and, for where you need or chose to improve the timing for your Top Turns and Off the Tops.

Everybody, of course, uses Bottom Turn Pumps, after all, you see it all the time with the Pros, and thus, we all blindly mimic it without thinking, after all, it works. Yet, to me, it's a rather very unaesthetic action, resembling sort of a frantically frenetic humping, in a sense. Instead, I've come up with a move that's so much more beautiful and stylish and, oh so much faster.

I call it the Lateral Zigzag Shimmy, and, basically, what you're doing is when you're in the flats, in a long section before a second peak that you want to hit, you Zigzag your board at an ever increasing tempo, allowing your rails to lift your board for faster planing, and, allowing gravity to work for you as you race down the bottom of the face you're working with each successive Zigzag. In a sense, the move feels rather like when you're on your skateboard, and, you're going to fast, and your front truck begins to shimmy your board back and forth faster and faster, until, often, you wipe out unless you can regain control through absorbing the extra energy with your feet, ankles, and legs, and hips.

The Lateral Zigzag Shimmy is a lighting quick way to increase your speed, using centrifical force, planing, and gravity all in your favor, and more so, the faster you allow yourself to carve, the faster you'll glide at breakneck stylish speed instead of ending up looking like some hormone enraged ape desperately trying to get laid. Sure, strong words, but, style is everything, you know. And, why imitate the masses when you can simply branch out in originality and individualization? Dream. And, dare.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Stealth Slacklining for Surfing Creativity

2011-03-13T08:51:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

Slacklining or walking a slack rope is a great way to keep in shape for surfing. Personally, I love the rope, I love the way manilla feels, it's relatively easy to get, though webbing is easier to find in many places nowadays, and, it moves so nice. Besides, it looks good.

I've tried all different diameters of rope, and my favorite is 2" manilla, though, that's a bit hard to carry around, especially if you're thinking of using it for Stealth Slacklining.

So, get whatevers you can, preferably, something that will blend into the environment where you are. For the most part, Stealth Slackling is an urban sport that I've been working on. Basically, you simply carry some webbing or rope in a backpack, and set up quickly, anywhere in the city that looks ideal, preferably, in a spot that is rather illegal to be there. The idea, of course, is simply to have fun, but, by setting up your art, where you want to set your art up, it adds an element of artistic expression unbounded by conformity and rules.

Most if not almost all slackliners use carabiners for setting up their lines, but, as I have mentioned before, using my Primitive Slacklining System, namely, simply using knots, all you need is the webbing or rope which saves you weight and money, and, it adds an element of style to it since the primitive system is outside of the box of what everybody else does.

The idea here is to slackline in places that you'd skateboard. In other words, find anyplace that looks crazy, wild, and fun. Between two buildings if you're into highlinging, over water which is always fun and beautiful, between trees or lightposts, or even hooked up to cars, after all, why not? Between two boats or a boat and a dock is great fun, by the way, with the added challenge of the swaying boat or dock, you've got to try it!!!

Wear clothes that blend in. Use a slackline or rope that blends in, learn to tie your knots quickly, set up your line, and, do your art. No limits!!!

By doing Stealth Slacklining, you're like the surfers of yesteryear who had to sneak across private land to surf a break. Most of us conform too easily today, in our surfing, and, in our slacklining. Well, I say, cut the harness loose and run unbridled and you'll learn to free your art in ways open to new creativity and wild insight.

By doing Stealth Slacklining, the point is that you'll find new ways to express your art that you normally would not have even considered. For example, suspend your line at an angle uphill or downhill. Or set up a zigzag shaped line. Or maybe connect several lines or ropes together, creating a sort of spiderweb effect or like the spokes of a wheel so several of your friends can all walk interconnected lines simultaneously, which, adds a broader sense to your balance as you have to harmonize your movements with your friends, just like surfing on a Party Wave.

The point of this is not only to have fun but also to open yourself to new paths of creativity, which, then can be applied in everything you do, including in how you surf. In other words, learn to adapt the concepts of everything to your slacklining or balance arts of any type or surfing, and, you'll find yourself opening new envelopes of ingenuity daily.

Personally, for my Stealth Slackling, I prefer, black slacklines that I carry around in a black backpack. I guess it gives me a sort of catburglar kind of feel to my training that I find fun. When I was in Scotland, in Edinbourgh, I studied a bit about the guy who was the real Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He was a guy who was a thief. And, he often traveled on tops of the buildings. Now, I'm sure he didn't use ropes to tightrope on, but, that's one of the things I studies as I walked the streets their each night. It would have been so easy, in the old district where he plied his trade, to stretch a rope across the street at rooftop height on dark nights, to safely cross from one side to the other as a second story artist. It was fun exploring where to hang my ropes while I was there.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Moving Small With Focus Rather Than Large Movements Unaware

2011-03-08T10:39:00.000-08:00

Aloha Tribe,

So, what is the secret of surfing? Being aware of what you're doing. Truly aware. Fully, totally, 100% aware. Aware not only of every single muscle movement in your body, but more, how the internal fluids of your body move too, including blood flow, oxygen flow, and mostly, Chi flow. More so, we also need to be aware of what our board is doing, and, what the wave is doing, as well as where we are in space in relation to the wave, and all obstacles in the water, including other surfers, animals, rocks, logs, or anything else that might be out there.

So, how can we develop such awareness? Well, to get a general idea, go and rent or buy the movie Men Who Stare At Goats starring George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, and Jeff Bridges. It was originally a book, by the way, by John Ronson. Now sure, the movie spoofs a bit with Star Wars, using terms like Jedi and such, but, the concept behind the film is total Chi awareness using principles of Chi Gung. Sure, it's just a movie, and, it has nothing seemingly to do with surfing, yet, the awareness of ones self that the movie is about, is, really, what surfing at a high level is about.

Now then, back to surfing. When you surf, pay attention to how your body moves, and, how each and every muscle moves. Sure, you might say that you simply do it, but, the thing is, a much much deeper level than that, is to truly be aware of what you are doing, exactly as you are doing it. For there, lays the heart of mastery.

The way to do this is to experiment with your body. Try moving your weight a bit this way or that way as you surf, and, see what happens. Try weighting and unweighting one foot or the other. Move your arms in different positions. Allow your body weight to shift and flow, and, notice what happens. Above all, be aware. The smaller, the more focused your movements, the more you can understand what is happening as you surf, how, and, why. And armed with this, you then have a blueprint to experiment with, and thus, you can push your level to any height you chose to aim for in surfing.

Do not let limitations hinder you. Do not take someone elses style or word for this or that being the way to do something. Instead, find out how you surf, how your body works, how your board rides, and, what your break truly is like. And, with all that, play. The more relaxed you are, the more freely your energy or Chi flows, and thus, the more you can sense what you are doing, what your board is doing, what the wave is doing, and, how all these things fit together.

Don't buy into the idea that you can not and nobody can truly think as they surf. That idea is nonsense, perpetuated simply by those who have not yet learned, nothing more. You can be fully and totally aware of every microsecond of your surfing, of all that your body, board, and wave are doing, and more so, you can think fast enough to change any of these or at least how you respond to them.

Instead of surfing blindly, simply riding, allow your mind to truly speed with lighting and then allow your body to follow, for when you can do this, you can dance on water.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

You Shoulda Been Here: Last Weekend's Surfer Party

2011-03-08T08:10:00.000-08:00

Aloha Tribe,

You shoulda been here over the weekend this past weekend. It was a great surfer party. Super waves. Tons of food and drink. Lots of Surf Movies. Much Talk Story.

I made...

Kalua Pork

Boiled Shrimp

Crab Cakes

Sea Bass Fish Tacos (the harvestable kind of Sea Bass)

Spicy Tomato Salad

Asian Noodle Salad with Mango Salso

Mango Chutney - for the Crab Cakes and the Shrimp

Fresh Fruit - Pineapples, Papayas, Mangoes

for beverages...

Longboard Ale

Mai Tais

and for dessert...

Banana Pie, Coconut Cake, and Coconut Ice Cream

and, at midnight... Midnight Cubano Sandwiches

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Ultimate Surfboard Control Training: Unique Method

2011-03-03T17:24:00.000-08:00

Aloha Tribe,

So, here's something that will send your surfing style into radical gear in no time. Get something like a Bucky pillow. I got this one...

http://www.bucky.com/catalog/bed_pillows_natural_buckwheat/Buckwheat_Bed_Pillow.html

... and found it to be the perfect size for this Chi Gung Surfing exercise.

What you do is to lay on your back, with the pillow under your hips. Extend your legs out, suspended in the air. And, extend your arms, in whatever your surfing stye happens to be.

You can start with a Pop Up. It takes a bit of visualization, but, the more deeply you visualize it, and allow your body to feel it, even though you are actually on your back, the more this exercise will help you.

So, here's how to do the Pop Up. Laying on your back, with your Bucky pillow or whatevers (it should be firm, like a Bucky pillow, my teddy bear, Fluffer, also works, by the way), have your legs together just as you would if you were laying on your board. And, your hands are pressed against the "deck" which, in this case, is towards the ceiling, since, you are on your back. Your arms are bent, and, your hands are roughly at about your boobs (or chest, if you're a guy).

Now then, you are, literally laying on your back, with your arms pressing, nothing, but, you are imagining you are laying on your board, having just paddled, and, are about to do a Pop Up. It just takes a bit of a spatial mental twist, that's all. Visualization and adaptation are everything in this art.

So, arch your back as you straighten your arms, pushing your hands towards your ceiling or your imaginary deck, and, then, slowly, Tai Chi speed, move your legs, into a squatting position, your legs and feet suspended in the air, your hips still supported by the Bucky pillow, teddy bear, or whatevers.

Feel your crouch exactly as you would as you Drop Down a waves face. Play with your feet a bit, making sure to press a bit more with one or the other, depending on how you want your board to respond during the Drop. In actuallity, your feet are simply pressing up into empty air, more or less towards the ceiling, your legs suspended in the air, your pivot point being your hips. Your arms, extended, as you feel comfortable. Now, practice weighting your front or back foot.

Here comes the Bottom Turn.

Are you a Goofy Foot, a Regular Foot, or a Switch Foot like me? And, are you going to turn Frontside or Backside in your imaginary wave? Let's say you're riding Goofy, and, you're going to do a Backside Bottom Turn. You weight your heels a bit, loosen up your toes pressing the air, and shift your body weight back a bit, depending on how radical you want your turn to be. Play with this, get the feel of it, experiment, and, be willing to look really silly and giggle at yourself (that's allowed), and mostly, have fun with this.

The more relaxed you are, the more sensitive you'll be with this exercise. As you practice this again and again, I just got done with a 2 hour session of this, for example, you'll find you get more and more control of extemely small muscle movements everywhere on your body. And, that's what you're shooting for.

The neat thing about this exercise, is that, while it seemingly seems silly or like it makes no sense or would not have any practical application to surfing, because you are holding your legs in the air as you practice this, you are learning to move your legs as softly as you'd move your arms while doing a Tai Chi form. As such, this exercise will teach you to have truly sensitive feet and legs, with complete mastery over your muscular and energy (Chi) control of them. By "pressing" your feet in different directions, as you imagine them pressing against the deck of your board, you'll develep very senstive ankles and sole as well as toe sensitivity. This then, will make your feet stronger, so that you can learn to turn your board more with your feet, and, less with your body weight, thus, you can hold your balance better by remaining more centered on your deck with your body and head. This, naturally offers you more options for doing any type of move, whether you surf a longboard or a shortboard.

Link these soft, subtle practice movements in with your breathing, and, you have the makings of a great Chi Gung Surfing exercise, that will truly make your surfing awesome.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Why Slow is Fast for Surfing

2011-02-27T08:23:00.000-08:00

Aloha Tribe,

Today, I wanted to look at one of my favorite ways of training Chi Gung, namely, slow training. Now, many of you have probably heard of Tai Chi. And, perhaps some of you have heard of Accupuncture or even Feng Shui also. Chi Gung is the root of all of these arts, as well as of all energy for that matter. In other words, anything you think or do is, a form of Chi Gung.

So, what does this have to do with slowness versus speed, you ask? Tons. You see, let's take a look at Tai Chi for a moment, or, slow motion Chi Gung. You simply move your body in a series of extremely slow, smooth movements, while coordinating your movements with your breathing. It's the breathing part, and the internal part (that which happens inside your body), by the way, which most Tai Chi practitioners miss, sadly. The reason is that most qualified instructors simply don't know the true roots of their art.

And, what does this have to do with surfing? Well, everything. How or why can we surf, and, why do we get better over time? Great questions, those. Let's look at them. In an average hour, most surfers spend probably about 50 to 55 minutes either paddling out or sitting in the lineup waiting for a wave. And that leaves only about 5 minutes or or per hour to actually ride, with an average ride, if you take all breaks into account all over the world, probably being something like about 8 seconds or so. Sure, there are breaks where you can get a long ride of maybe a minute, sometimes even a fair bit longer, but for the most part, most rides are 8 to 10 seconds.

Now, in talking to DD (Darrick Doerner), my surfing and Watergirl mentor, about Sunset Beach on the North Shore (of Oahu), he told me that the average surfer maybe caught about 4 rides per session or outing, what with paddling out, waiting in the Line Up for your turn, waiting for the right wave, and so on. 4 or 5 rides a session? I was dumbfounded at that. Here I had been surfing out in The Wilds as well as at Hanalai Bay in Kauai about 25 rides an hour or so, not knowing that was, "wrong," so to speak. Then again, I never hung out too much with the crowds and such, being Feral at heart and in soul. Naturally, I politely said nothing, and simply listened and nodded and studied Sunset. That got me thinking though, no wonder it takes some so long to learn to surf.

They say that on the California Coast, about a year of surfing is equal to about a month of surfing on the North Shore. And, off the East Coast of Africa as well as in Bali, there are spots that a month of surfing the North Shore is equal to a week there, in other words, it's possible to pack in a lot more surfing than some of us do, thus, our overall wave count can dramatically climb, if we but think about what we're doing and where we're doing it. Be in the right place, at the right time, and, you can learn extremely quickly acquiring vast amounts of experience. It adds up quickly. For example, you could get about 4 years of surfing experience in by surfing the North Shore for about 4 months, if, you typical break was in Southern California. Not a bad trade off actually.

Okay, so, getting back to our topic. Time. Namely, slow and fast. By training in slow motion, using Chi Gung, or various forms of Tai Chi, you can learn to truly pay deep attention to every minute movement your body and breath makes, and as such, you truly learn to not only relax, thus greatly increasing your flexibility, but more so, you learn to live and think in slow motion, or, in other words, at extremely high levels of speed, to put it in sports jargon, you learn to surf in The Zone.

The Zone is a semi-mythical place that virtually all top athletes in any sport get into now and again, but, the secret is to learn to do it every time and constantly, never getting out of it while doing your sport. This, fellow Tribe members, is where the art is, and, where the true excitement and benefit of Chi Gung is.

Just as getting a lot of experience, such as riding many waves, helps you to progress, getting more in tune with your body than you ever imagined even possible helps you to progress, and this, you learn to do by slowing down and truly studying and absorbing what you are doing every fraction of a second.

For most of us, if you ask us how our ride was, we might say is was Epic. Or, Bodacious!!! Or Radical. Or whatevers. But, how many of us can truly say exactly what we did, exactly as we did it, and, how it felt, and, why everything on any given ride happened as it did.

Once, DD asked me, "why did you fall". This was before he told me his Rule Number One: No Falling. As I looked at him for a second, he said, "why do people fall? Why would anybody want or chose to do that?"

And so, I told him. We fall, in general, because we lose focus. We aren't paying attention to exactly what we are doing and what our board is doing and what the wave is doing. Instead, we get out of the movement, removing ourselves from what is happening, and we think about what we want to do such as "I want to hit that lip then..." and so on. Now, there's nothing wrong with thinking about what you want to do, in fact, you truly do have to surf ahead of where you are to avoid accidents like hitting someone or to make a certain section of a wave or whatevers. But most of us think too slow. Worse, we think rigidly. Our plans, you see, have to be spontaneous explosions of lighting fast calculations absorbing absolutely everything and making no mistakes. If, we don't want to fall. Sadly, most do not know how to do that. But, there is hope. And, Chi Gung offers the path to learning this skill of thinking and thus responding physically faster than you surf.

It all starts, with, how we breathe. And, with slowing down. Thus, surfing longboard can truly help you master your shortboard, for those of you who might be wondering. Learn to surf slow, and, very soon, you'll surf the way you want to surf, the way your feel your surfing, the way you dream. And that, is a pretty exciting place to be.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Cardio Training for Surfing

2011-02-24T17:31:00.000-08:00

Aloha Tribe,

A lot of surfers wonder how to increase their cardio. And, while it is true that there are countless ways, my favorite is paddling my board and swimming. Both, come natural to surfers.

Here's what I like to do.

First off, one of the things I learned from DD (Darrick Doerner), was to always swim for my board when I lost it. Of course, this rule is sort of a moo point in that Rule Number One, I was taught, was...

1. Don't Fall

A simple rule, seemingly. In, theory.

To go along with swimming for my board when I fell, which, I was not and am not supposed to do, one naturally learns to surf without a leash. Both swimming for your board, and, not using a leash, are Old School Classic ways of training. And, both truly have merit.

So, when I don't fall (though I do sometimes) , here's what I do. I paddle my board in, all the way in, Old School Style, to the beach, and, more so, I get out of the water with my board, stand on the beach for a moment, then, paddle back out to surf again.

Doing this has helped me to learn to paddle hard, fast, smooth, and with at least a little style.

Now, another thing is, DD often surfs about 2 miles out. So, naturally, one has to be able to swim in 2 miles regardless of the surf. And, since that is what he does, and, since he is my teacher, that is what I do too. To train for this, one of the things I love doing is swimming across Hanalai Bay. It's about 2 miles from one side to the other, and one of the things that the top lifeguard there taught me was to swim over and back each day as part of my training. With some practice, I got to being able to swim comfortably over 6 miles.

As for paddling my longboard, I do it in two ways. One is that I paddle for distance or time. I simply go out and paddle my board for a few hours. The other way is to work on speed, which of course is most important in Taking Off and also in getting out of the Impact Zone, when one falls or Pulls Out in a bad position.

So, with the speed work, I simply do wind sprints. Sort of like what a sprinter would do on the land, only, I do it paddling my board.

I also paddle upstream in local rivers to build endurance, power, control, and, to work on perfecting my paddling stroke.

So, sure, you could do all kinds of things for cardio. DD has me running rocks in what is called Rock Running, and he loves mountain biking and running in the sand, all of which are great. And, if you want to stick with a beach theme, 2 on 2 beach volleyball rocks.

For myself, I've found that working on both cardio and form at the same time helps. That way, I can learn to do my cardio smoother, and, as a surfer, that's important to me because smooth movements are what surfing is all about.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Surfing Vietnam

2011-02-24T10:40:00.000-08:00

Aloha Tribe,

One of my dreams is to surf in Vietnam. I dream to surf as much of the coast as possible. As such, I am hoping to learn as much about the Vietnamese culture and language as I can before I go. I am so stoked about this idea.

I'm not sure yet when I will be able to do this, but, if all works out, I'd love to go before the end of the year this year. Hopefully, for a few months.

Why Vietnam? Well, I guess there's many reasons. One is the bamboo board I'm making. It's still only in the beginning stages, but, it's coming along. My inspiration came from the famous Vietamese Bamboo Circus. I began walking bamboo about a year ago, balancing on long bamboo poles. That lead me to exploring and falling in love with Bamboo Single Pole Drifting which is where you float down a river while standing and balancing on a bamboo pole as you river surf along with the current.

This past Christmas, my focus and theme was on having a Vietnames Circus Christmas, so, I did. I had a variety of Vietnamese and French food, my home was all decorated in Vietnamese circus gear such as tightropes, bamboo poles to balance on, juggling equipment of all kinds, silks, paper lanterns, jungle foliage everywhere, a unicycle, stilts, and, when all was said and done, my living room was transformed into a scene right out of a jungle performance of the Vietnamese Bamboo Circus. It was such fun and oh so beautiful.

I got a travel book or two on Vietnam, a few Vietnamese language books, some super maps, and, my dream of surfing Vietnam began to take shape. Sure, I"m a romantic, I freely admit that, I am, after all, a surfer, and as such we all, as members of the Tribe, are a bit of a romantic in our souls.

I am so stoked to meet some Vietnamese surfers, and, I can hardly wait to go. I want to see new places, surf exciting breaks, meet fun new friends, and, just smile and giggle with life.

My other dream for this year is to surf Gabon over in West Africa. And, the entire West Coast, or at least as much of it as I can, from Canada all the way down to Baja. I so hope to find some people who might want to go on that trip with me. I have the car, and tents, surfboards, and all the gear, now, I just need to find some feral surfers of like mind who want to take a few months off, traveling in my orange Baja Bug, surfing all day, playing ukulele's and chess all night, and just hanging talking story and lying about the waves we caught each day.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Advanced Surfing: Ankle Slappers

2011-02-21T05:42:00.000-08:00

Aloha Tribe,

DD (Darrick Doerner) as my surfing and Watergirl mentor, teacher, and friend, told me, that, to truly master surfing, I'd need to become adept at riding very very small waves, also known as Ankle Slappers.
These are waves that are somewhere below your knee in height, in other words, the type of waves that most of us would never even look at, let alone take the time and energy to master with countless rides again and again and again, experimenting with every variable conceiveable.

To begin this type of training, if it's new to you, start with waves about 3 foot or so, typically called Waist Slappers. Most longboarders can ride them, in fact, most beginner surfers typically spend quite a bit of time learning in them, and, if one truly learns how, you can ride them with a shortboard too.

The key to surfing Waist Slappers, then, Knee Slappers which are knee high by the way, and finally Ankle Slappers, involves two things, first, having fun, and, secondly, subtle surfing.

The bodacious thing about these smaller waves is that few if any Advanced Surfers would even notice them, let alone ever ride one, so, you'll have them to yourself for experimenting as you will. As most of you probably know, Kelly Slater, the 10 Times World Champion, grew up surfing in Florida, where, the waves are typically small, and, not perfect. And, he used that to his advantage . Where most of us would look at that type of surfing and roll our eyes, he was genius enough to turn what we'd think of as a weakness into his strength. So, along that type of thinking, for those of us who grew up surfing the Great Lakes such as Lake Michgan or the frigid waters of Lake Superior, for those of us on the East Coast with the smaller waves, and, for those of us in the Pacific Northwest with the huge, wild, untamed waves that few dare to or even can ride, use your home surf as your training grounds.

DD told me that if I could learn to do anything that I'd ever want to do on a normal sized wave or larger but, to do it on a very very small wave about one foot high, I'd be able to accomplish anything in surfing. In other words, the sublteties and attention to detail that you have to acquire to ride very small waves can then be applied in any surf.

So, the next time you look out at your swell, don't simply turn your back when the sea is small. Grab your board, wax her up, and, give it a go. Again, and again, and again, laughing and having fun the whole time.

Soon, you'll find yourself loving surfing the small stuff, the Ankle Slappers and that's when you'll really see your surfing in any wave explode.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

The Ride that Counted at Number 9's

2011-02-08T18:13:00.000-08:00

Aloha Tribe,

I was just sitting here, reflecting on a ride that really counted. I was out at Number 9's with DD (Darrick Doerner), and he had me surfing right on the rock down the deep channel, right in the middle of the food chain.

I had been out with DD's for a spell, all going well, when suddenly, I felt it. Something hunting, me. I turned to my left and looked to see a large back of something, about the size of the roof of a car it looked like, rise out of the water, roll over the surface, and dive back under. I had just enough of a glance to see it for a split second, and, it was big. Really big.

It was about 12 feet away when it went beneath the surface, and I could see a very large shape turn on a die and head, for me, directly for me.

I knew I had less than one to two seconds to do something, though, in that instant, it was time standing still. I glanced over my shoulder, saw a solid overhead coming, and knew, it all came down to this, I had to catch this wave.

I was calm, not frightened, but I knew I was in serious danger. The wave lifted the back of my board just as the beast, barely perceptible, more felt actually, was but about 2 foot away just off the side of my board. As my tail lifted, I simply knew my work at No Paddle Take Offs would work, it after all, had to.

So, I stood. And rode in. All the way in. It actually was rather quite the ride, looking back at it now. I had enough presence of mind to be aware of style, of all things, as I expected any second for something to slam into my board. But for some reason, I was calm, mellow actually, I guess because it all to me was happening in micro-seconds.

I got on the beach, still not sure what was out there.

Later, after DD's got the tail of his board bit off, we realized it was not Great Whites, but instead, a gang of sea lions consisting of a few males, several females, and a couple of pups. We were lucky.

I realized something about myself that day, at least, for that day, at that time. That, there are times in ones life, when it really counts, when sometimes, you pull it off. I feel really blessed.

Now, out at Tentacles, that was another story. That time, being dragged backwards on my Robert August Wingnut longboard several yards at a rather alarming speed, well, that was a bit concerning that day. But, that's another tale for another night.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Last Weekend Savage Surfing at Logs

2011-02-03T11:39:00.000-08:00

Aloha Tribe,

So, last weekend, at Logs, Friday through Sunday, the waves were PERFECT. Double Overhead, smooth faces (given the wildness of the area), perfectly peeling, 16 second periods simulaneously from two fronts at SW and NW creating purely chaotic totally bodaciousness!!!

A perfect place for Burling, Single Bamboo Pole Drifting, Longboarding, and Shortboarding. Watch the logs, they'll kill you or maime you faster than fast so you'd better be quick with an even quicker eye and lighting feet, yet, in true Soul Surfer Old School Classic Style, all done with smoothness, grace, and a slow sureness of calm in the face of a watery whirlwind, yin within yang if you will. Perfect for long, controlled, Rollercoasters all the way to the beach.

Nobody literally was out. Nobody was even on the sand no matter how far up or down the beach you looked. It couldn't have been more perfect.

In a word the surfing savage.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Surfing Move: 180 Hawaiian Pull Out into a No Paddle Take Off - possibly the hardest surfing combination ever

2011-01-25T19:13:00.000-08:00

Aloha Tribe,

Well, since I just talked about the 180 Hawaiian Pull Out, also sometimes called an Island Pull Out, it only makes sense to tie it in with the next move, the No Paddle Take Off, and, with perfect timing, which is the whole point of linking the two moves together, timing the moves right so that one naturally leads directly into the next move.

This sequence is about as tricky as it gets in surfing because there are a number of variables. Obviously, you'll have to have the waves, especially the subsequent wave for the No Paddle Take Off, all to yourself, or, be in agreement with everybody to share a Party Wave, otherwise, well, you could really get in someone's way, and, nobody wants to do that. Now, here in the Wilds, where I surf, there literally is nobody in the water, especially in the Winter, and even more so, when the waves are Double Overhead or higher.

So, the key to this move, is, picking your time and place to try it. And, let me tell you, once you learn to do it, you'll just have to quest for it again and again and again.

Essentially, here's how it goes. You do the standard Hawaiian Pull Out, modify it into my 180 Hawaiian Pull Out, then, as you ride over the shoulder, facing the shore, you keep your board pointing towards the beach and simply allow the following wave to life you up its face in exactly the right place, that, when you reach the peak, instead of dropping out the backside since you are NOT paddling, you instead are so perfectly positioned that you drop down the face on this new wave, without once having paddled.

This is a tough series of moves to perfect, and, it takes, as I said, the perfect breaks, with the right amount or types of brahs around, and perfect timing. But, then again, if surfing isn't about striving for Stoke, then, what's the point!!! Get this move down and you WILL be stoked beyond stoked.

As a prelude to this series of moves, practice both elements individually to truly master them. Once you have the fundamentals wired, then, make them art, and, following that, link them in this beautiful harmonious expression of dancing with the sea.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Surf Move: 180 Hawaiian Pull Out

2011-01-25T06:13:00.000-08:00

Aloha Tribe,

I love Pull Outs so much better than Kick Outs. Now sure, for most of us, we don't even think about this part of the ride, let alone that there is a difference between these two styles of exiting your wave while surfing. Yet, to me, this part is just as important, and, just as fun, as the whole ride on any given wave.

To me, a Pull Out is a gentle curving up and over the Shoulder of the wave, whereas, I see a Kick Out as a frantic, frenetic slashing, tight cutting angular kind of exit.

That being said, the version of the Hawaiian Pull Out that so calls to my soul, involves, not only sitting as you exit the wave, but, doing it on a spinnng board so that you end up actually facing the beach and drift backwards over the top of the wave Shoulder.

I am drawn to this style of Pull Out for several reasons. First of all, I find it truly beautiful, graceful, soft, flowing, filled with Aloha, and, oh so very fun. And, secondly, it simply fits the way I see surfing, that is to say, it fits my riding style as a Classic Old School Longboard Girl as well, interestingly enough, as the way I live my life as a surfer and a member of the Tribe.

Style. That's it in a word. Surfing, to me, is about how it feels, and, the more you can embrace that beautiful sense of feeling, of sensing all that happens to you, the more you can fully enjoy your surfing.

Now, the way I learned this move, was, the way I learned most moves, simply by accident. In other words, it just sort of happened. You see, I had been spending a lot of time working on Spinning my board while sitting in the Line Up. Sure, the normal way of doing it is to propel your feet around, even if it's only a bit provided one sits way back on their board, but, what I had been working on was using my hips, instead of my legs and feet. I liked the feeling of simply using pressure between my legs as I squeezed the boards, and, then weighting either hip in order to dip the nose at an angle beneath the surface, which, when down with simultaneously lifting your tail, you, which requires you to use a combination of the inner thigh muscles on the front of your legs, as well as the inner thigh muscles on the back of your legs at the same time and in harmony with each other. This pressure of using the inner thigh muscles and your hips allows you to dip the nose of your board in either direction, which, as soon as it drops beneath the water, it begins slicing dowwards, thus, turning you in that direction. With control, one can then feel or sense the proper time to lift the nose into the opposite angle so that the nose now angles up propelling it towards the waters surface. In this way, the board can be made to spin, with no sitting back on the board, and, without propelling your legs and feet.

Sure, that was simply an exercise, and, a stylistic experiement that for most would seem useless, but, I must say, it's loads of fun to do, and, as it turns out, it has tremendous value in various types of surfing moves such as this particular 180 Hawaiian Pull Out as well as for some super stylistic Paddle Out Reentrys. Oh, and, naturally, by the way, you have to keep your arms and hands off the board, or it would become no only way too easy to weight the board with your hands and arms, thus, so totally ruining all sense of style and more importantly, the point of the exercise, but also, by not using your hands, arms, or legs, you gain greater balance, more beauty in your moves, and, a so much greater sense of body awareness in all movement forms no matter whether you're on a wave or in the sand.

In any event, as I mentioned, that is the exercise that I had come up with and was practicing until I got it wired pretty tight. It was such fun to do.

Which brings us to the part of the story of how the move was an accident. There I was, about to exit a totally awesome wave by calmly sliding up toward the Shoulder of the wave when, just as I approached the peak, about to slide over, the wave jacked just enough to start to spin me exactly as I happened to be focusing on steering with the Nose. This, of course, spun my clockwise on a Right, as my nose dug beneath the water lifting my tail just enough to glide across the water's surface, drawing a ringlet trail with my Skeg tracing her arcing path like a finger in a still pool. The wave itself carried me to a full 180 as I was sitting on the Deck, and I drifted backwards up and over the Shoulder, riding backwards, facing, the beach.

As with all moves I've tried, having done it once, even if but by accident, I could now, for whatever reason, replicate it again at will. At which point, naturally, I begin experimenting and honing my performance, often, coming up with even new variations on a just new variation. For example, after one can do the 180 Hawaiian Pull Out, then you can practice doing it smoother, with greater softness, flow, beauty, and of course Aloha Spirit, and this, naturally, leads to a rather casual appearing almost easy looking exit from a wave. It's a great way to end a ride, and, frankly, every Pro out there out to try it if riding smooth is their style. Naturally, the next move that this leads into in your surfing repetoire is the 180 Hawaiian Pull Out No Paddle Reentry. This, as I've mentioned in another post, requires perfect wave placement and total understanding of how the swells work, particularly at your break. To do this, of course, requires deep study of the waves of the moment, their period, their direction, cross-currents, wind, and the overall timing of your ride that lead up to the 180 Spinning Hawaiian Pull Out, so that, as you slide over the back of the wave you just rode, you are in perfect placement for this next phase.

Given the type of knowledge I received from working my board the way I described above led me to developing my version of the Hawaian Pull Out, which I just shared, as well as ultimately, to the second most difficult surfing move of all time: Spinning Pearl Outs which then lead to the rarest move in all of surfing, the Submarine Move. Now that's a MOVE!!!

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

First Time

2011-01-20T08:34:00.000-08:00

Aloha Tribe,

I remember my first time. The first wave I rode, without, having any prior knowledge of the wave or break, in fact, I hadn't even seen it before. How could that be, you ask? Great question, and, a fun story.

It happened at Hanalei Bay last Spring on the north shore of Kauai. I had been out surfing with 8 other girls, when the coolest older guy paddled out towards me. His tactic for meeting me was unique, intersting, and, rather different. At first, he'd paddle near me, when there was a whole ocean to surf in, and he simply sit there, within half a dozen feet, simply watching me. So, I'd paddle further away from my girlsfriends, down the coast a score or more meters, only to find, him paddling along behind and next to me. I'd stop, set my board, turn to look over my shoulder for the coming swell, and, when I'd turn to face shore again, there he'd be, right next to me. Hmm, I thought, as I'd immediately lay on my board and paddel even further down the coast, further away from my girlfriends, only to find the same thing happen again, and, again. Finally, just as I was about to catch a most bodacious wave, I started to get set, and, there he was, parked, sitting his board, right directly in my path. Aargh!!! At this point, he lay down on his board, paddled out next to me and past me, saying, "come along, follow me, keep up." What an interesting introduction, I thought, as I simply started paddling after him, wondering where he was leading me. We stroked away from shore and into the blue. Out and out we went, then, we slowly began curving to our left at an angle away from the far distant shore. I had never been out this deep before and I tried to not think of big fish. After about 1 1/2 to 2 miles of paddling, we started approaching what appeared to be a break. I only saw it just as we got to it, as I looke UP, the face of the approaching wave. He told me that "this wave will be bigger than anything you've ridden so far," he new this, based on our talking while we paddled.

In those brief seconds as my board began lifting up the face of the wave, he told me that he wanted me to follow him straight up the face. So, I did. He took of stroking hard, saying "keep up," and I matched him which surprised me. Then, the wave, a loomed higher even as we climbed it, him saying...

"1. treat the wave just like any other wave you've ever surfed.

2. don't look down.

3. when you get to the top of the wave, spin your board 180 degrees, and simply let the board drop.

All that instruction came in a few milli-seconds, mind you.

With very little choice at this point, I stroked hard,matching his speed and power, then, once at the top, a distance much much more than my longboard was long, I spun my board with surprising speed and smoothness, shocking me it went so well even as I did it, and, dropped. Almost straight down. Following his advice, I did not look down and instead, simply and Popped Up, into a low crouch, my arms wide for a brief second in my Classic style, about to lower to my sides as I began standing higher.

Having never even seen the wave before, since we had paddled perhaps nearly about 2 miles down the beach and out to get to it, I had no idea how the wave would break, so, I simply did as I was told. I treated the wave like I always did, just as my spontaneous mentor coached me to do.

I raced down the vertical face, then, upon hitting the flats, I turned into a smooth though lightning fast bottom turn, angling my board at a dramatic angle, my outside rail rising to dance with the sky surprising me to see and feel all this happening in instantaneous slow motion.

I rode my ride out, just feeling the wave as I went, ziggzagging to play with my rails a bit and then I pulled out in a modified Hawaiian Pull Out.

And, from the top of the wave, I heard my new and spontaneous teacher shouting, "do it again,"as he sat his board directly above me on a watery mountain.

Spinning my board as I switched from seated to laying,

Paddling up the face, I spun my board again, only, this time, the wave was steeper, and, I pearled at the bottom of the face, and as my nose dipped. For a fraction of a second, I sensed doom, and I could hear my coach shouting, "don't pearl," as weighted my nose, lifted my tail, spun my board on my nose, 180 degrees, unweighting my nose and breaking it free of the pearl, and finishing the ride in a spinning whirling, 360 as the wave rode over me in a controlled pull out.

The break was Middles. The height was well well over Double Overhead. And it was my first time riding a break I had not only never seen, but never read about nor ever knew anything about it.

In a way, it was my virgin ride into the unknown. A style of riding that few probably experience. After all, normally, especially in known reef breaks like at the North Shore, for example, we read about a break, study it, then chose to go there. Or, we at the very least, stand on the shore a minute or two and study it before paddling out.

But this time, in this wild untamed, virgin ride, I got to feel something new. And, I've kept my passion for this type of wave. Riding the unknown, unseen wave. For me, it feels more intense this way, more feral, more rugged, more wild. And, I've found that I like that. A lot. In fact, oddly enough, no matter the power, or size of most reef breaks, I find them, tame, or harnessed, in comparison, in that they are, for the most part, predictable. This new style of riding, for me, offers me ways to explore my surfing spontaneous creativity and in-the-moment adaptability to whatever happens. Which, after all, is what surfing, at it's core, is really all about, and, what most of us love about it to begin with.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

The Quest

2011-01-12T13:51:00.001-08:00

Aloha Tribe,

For the next 11 days, begining tonight in about 3 hours, but starting tomorrow, I'm on a quest of simply surfing with my old-school longboard. I do this type of exploration every year at this time, my Birthday. Surfing. Fasting. Watching and listening to the sea all night. Nothing more.

One girl. One classic board. One backpack. My bright orange VW Bug. And, the sea.

Where I'll begin? Here. Where I'll end? I never know until I"m there. The swells call, dancing their chaos at Double Overhead, offering wild, untamed waves of unpredictable direction and unharnessed power.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

An Interesting Russican Chessbook for Surfing - Notes of a Soviet Master

2011-01-08T09:23:00.000-08:00

Aloha Tribe,

Tonight, a cold, rainy Friday night, I am studying a rare Russian chess book by A. Ilyin-Genevsky. He was a Soviet Master from in the early 1900's and is known as the father of Soviet chess. This book focuses on his route to becoming a Master chess player and begins when he was introduced to the game at the age of 10.

The book offers 50 of his greatest chess games, and, these reveal his playing style which is both cheerful and optimistic, perfect actually, for a longboarder. Especially an old-school, Classic Stylist longboarder.

So, what is this saying? Well, one can take two seemingly unrelated things, such as chess and surfing, and, find a link between them, not only historically, as I mentioned in my previous post about chess at Sunset Beach on the North Shore, but also, in playing and surfing style, and thus, in the way one lives ones life.

There is a game in the book which warrants extreme study, namely, Capablanca vs. Ilyin-Genevsky from the Moscow International Tournament of 1925. Not, unlike watching a surf movie of one of our surfing legends such as Gerry Lopez, for example. In both cases, you go to the Masters and study their style to absorb it into your own sense of style. And, since both Ilyin-Genevsky and Lopez both exemplify a laid back optimistic, mellow, style, to me, they are similar.

Tonight, on this dark, cold, rainy night, with the fire softly tickling her flames in my woodburning stove, I have out my magnetic travel chess set, the one that went to the North Pole, and, I'm playing through the game I just mentioned, and perhaps a few of the other 50 from the book, as I sip on some dark red wine, in the glow of the fire light illuminating my wooden chess board and wooden pieces.

Interestingly enough, the more I think of Russian chess, the more I think of my own Siberian/Mongolian heritage and links to Siberia, and, that makes me think of surfing in Siberia. A quest of mine. To play chess there, to slackline and tightrope there, and, of course, to surf there. Hmm, it makes me contemplate a white slackline. I think I must get one.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Chess and Surfing: Going Back to 1953

2011-01-05T20:19:00.000-08:00

Aloha Tribe,

I was reading in Matt Warshaw's book, The History of Surfing, that chess goes back on the North Shore, specifically at Sunset Beach, to 1953. The brahs then would surf all day, and play chess at night. So, I figured, why not. Since DD has me learning the North Shore breaks, I thought I'd get deep into chess, since, it's a new year.

So, I have two books on the chess legend Bobby Fischer. One is Russians versus Fischer by Dmitry Plisetsky and Sergey Yorankov, and, the other is Bobby Fischer: The Career and Complete Games of the American World Chess Champion by Karten Muller.

My plan, is to memorize, if I can, up to two games a day, mostly done at night, from the Muller book, and, study the references from the Plisetsky/Yorankov book. Combined, it should give me a great feel for Bobby's games and style. I truly love the book Russians vs. Fischer. It's incredible to read the insights from this truly deep and intense book, and, I see it as a great gift to the chess community, and thus, from my way of looking at it, to our surfing Tribe too.

If I memorize up to two games per day, in less than a year, I'll have covered all but two or three of the games. The idea, of course, will be to do my best to literally memorize them in long term memory, and thus, each day, to memorize one or two more without forgetting the previous games. Can it be done? By some, of course, in fact, by many chess lovers I'd imagine, but, by me, well... who knows. Then again, why not try.

After all, to me, I see chess in surfing, and, surfing in chess. The two, interwine for me and dance in a harmonious spiraling of art in a double helix kind of way, though, that's perhaps not quite the fully accurate analogy, for it's a combination of that and also sort of like the reflection in a window at night, overlooking a brightly lit room. Those two images, combined, give a living sense of what I feel when I do either art while simulanously seeing th other. Multitasking, I guess some might call it.

In any event, it sounds fun, and, if surfing, or, chess for that matter, is not fun, then, what's the point?

Now, I suppose memorizing one game a day would be more realistic, and, I don't know if I can do this, but, I wanted to at least try. For, to me, I see it as a marvelous way to improve my surfing. How, you might ask? Well, good question. By developing an analytical mind honed to a razor's edge, yet, capable of intuitive creativity. This, of course, is expressed in the way I surf. By analyzing a chess board for possibilities, I'll be teaching myself to analyze waves, where they'll break, how, and when, and with what power, more so, the predictive skills honed by chess will teach me to see patterns in the waves of what is going to happen.

And, if none of this comes to pass, so. What else does one do on dark nights, when alone on the North Shore? Well, okay, sure, there's lots, but, my surfing comes from where I surf with my home break, in the Wilds, where, I surf alone, for, nobody is there. And, thus, to spend nights in meditative contemplation in a sort of monastic lifestyle almost, seems intellectually to fit my surfing style of the daylight hours.

Interestingly enough, both internal arts, of the body and mind, then, also lead to an internalization of the soul or spirit too, creating a calmness, a mellow way of living life, which, is what the hippy girl lifestyle I live is all about anyways.

I surf alone, not through choice, but through fate. And, I surf for me. Likewise, I live in the country, in the middle of a deep forest with few about, thus, I play chess alone too, also, by fate. And as with surfing, I play chess, for me, not for others, fame, or glory, just, simply, because I love the game. Interestingly enough, my sense of spirituality, that being Shamanism and expressed as Chi Gung, is also a solitary act, followed, since I've been a young girl of 5. Few in the world follow such a path for the path of the Shaman, by its very nature, is solitary.

My hope with this perhaps unusual New Years kind of focus, is to honor the surfers of yesteryear, who braved Sunset Beach for the first time. Surfing. Fishing. Eating simple meals. And, playing chess.

One girl, one ultralight backpack containing daily needs plus one hammock tent and one chessboard (a travel set that's gone to the North Pole), and slung over my shoulder in a carry bag, one longboard surfboard, on a quest to surf the world and play chess in some of the most famous spots of both sports.

Now, to make it more fun, with the three languages I'm still working on, namely, Hawaiian, Hawaiian Pidgin, and, Surfish (Surfer's Language), it'll be fun for me to think, verbally, in each of these languages, as I learn to express myself on the chess board, and, on the waves.

It's a spiritual quest, I'm on, that of the Vagabond, Feral Surfer, alone, and, okay with that. Searching the world for the perfect game of chess, and, the perfect ride. Both, of which, happen, at least for me, internally.

Which, is what Chi Gung, is all about, especially at the Nei Dan level. So, by bringing Nei Dan Chi Gung to my longboard and my chess board, I hope to express in new ways my love of surfing and the quest we all are on as surfers, to find out how we fit into the sea.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Surviving on a Desert Island as a Surfer

2011-01-03T18:05:00.000-08:00

Aloha Tribe,

So, I've been sitting here with my friend, and, we've been discussing what to do if we got stranded on a tropcial island, the stereotypic desert island.

1. Build a surfboard.

Here's why. You're a surfer. And, on being stranded on some lost uncharted desert island, you'll probably die anyways before you're found, so, step one above seems the most logical step.

2. Search for the perfect break, even if it means walking the entire perimeter of the island, after all, what the hell else are you going to do since you have all the time in the world.

3. Surf.

4. Collect some water between surf sessions.

5. Surf more.

6. Maybe catch a fish or shellfish or something to eat. You won't probably have any means of making fire, since, you probably got here by accident, so, unless you're a Chi Gung master who knows how to use chi to make fire, just eat your fish sushi style, namely, raw and wiggling.

7. Work on your tan. You want to look good if you get rescued.

8. Get all the islands breaks wired. That way, when you open a surf tour to your island later, you'll be the master vagabond feral surfer of the entire island.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Surfer, Dude: Movie - Matthew McConaughey, Thank You!!! New Years Eve 2010/2011

2010-12-31T23:25:00.000-08:00

Aloha Tribe,

Well, here it is, New Years Eve between 2010 and 2011. I just got done watching the awesome surfer movie Surfer, Dude staring Matthew McConaughey.

I utterly loved it!!!

As a Soul Surfer, the movie way so made sense to me. I could so relate to his way of seeing life. Wow, I wish I had known he was making the film, I'd have given anything to be a part of it in way, especially in writing and surfing for I so love both.

Now, the movie seems to have confused most film critics and almost all who don't surf who see it. Well, hey, that's there problem. The film was totally bodacious. It was about soul, through and through. And, if you're a surfer and you don't see that in the film, then, you need to take some steps back and think about why you surf. Go back in time and remember when you were a kook and a grom, remember when you started. And, find that lost surfer within yourself. All you need do, is to remember and feel again, your first time. Your first time for everything. Surfing, your first wave, screwing, weed, really getting it, hanging with brahs in slightly illegal activities, all those firsts. And, then, embrace that moment as you travel through time in your life to those days, however brief they may have been, when you too were a Soul Surfer, for, all of us were there, and, within each of us, we still are there.

The movie is not a "surfing," movie per say, with tons of surfing, but it is more than that, it is deeper than that, for it is truly a movie about surfers. And with that, what it really means to be a Soul Surfer.

I'd love to say to Matthew, "thank you!!!" And, I mean that genuinely and purely from my heart, for the film truly touched my soul. Twirls and spins of great joy.

I recommend you all buy a copy and watch it. And sure, it's not about radical thrashing, but who cares. It's about something important, something that so many of us out in the water have lost, it's a movie about what surfing really is about. The ride. The stoke. The waves. Love. Weed. And Brahs.

In presenting Soul Surfers, the movie got it right. Matthew had one board, and, one awesome set of stripped boardies (or as they'd simply call them on the North Shore, shorts). It's funny how we've named jams (originally named from pajamas, by the way), boardies, and baggies, and now, we simply call them shorts. The thing is, for the legends out there, one used to have just one pair back in the day, and, you wore them until they fell off from falling apart. They were so individual, you could tell a brah from his shorts. Just as you could tell him from his board. And, his style. That's when Soul Surfing was Soul Surfing, and, this movie captures that so awesomely. Sure, there's surfers out there who might not like the movie because they'll say it doesn't have enough surfing, or, perhaps even that the surfiing doesn't match their current modern aerial thrashing style, but, if that's how you feel, then you so don't get what Soul is all about. And this movie has it. The movie has the single board, the single pair of shorts, the Surfish Language, the bounding of surf brahs, in fact, the movie was even made that way, that is, Matthew got a bunch of his long-time friends together, brahs he'd know for a lifetime, and they made the movie. Just like the Old-School surf movies were really done. So, bottom line, I say this movie is so much deeper than almost everybody seems to get. And in that, lies its magic. For, truly, those who need it, at the time they see it, in the way they see it, will find this movie, and more so, they'll get it.

I'm so glad this is how I spent my New Years Eve, because watching the movie inspired me to look at my surfing with fresh eyes, to feel my rides even as I write these words. I feel as passionate about the surf this very second as I ever have, and, I have Surer, Dude movie to thank for it. So, Matthew, with full passion, "thank you!!!"

I wish with all of my heart that your movie had made you millions. But, you know, it's done something more, for it has offered Soul Surfing with fresh stoke to all who watch it and understand what it's really all about. And one can't help but smile with genuine sparkling eyes at that!!!

Oh, and, speaking as a girl who's studied Chi Gung since the age of 5, and, is a Surf Shaman able to call waves, I loved the scenes of Matthew's character fasting, making his bonfire, sacrificing his board, and dancing, all to call the swells. For, all of that has been done by surfers, and is still being done by Soul Surfers, and more so, when you really know how to do it, that stuff really works. In fact, it actually would be fun to share how it works if anybody is interested. It could be explained in Surfish terms, Shamanistically, and, most easily with Chi Gung for the words are there. The point is, they got it right when they made the film. We, as members of the Tribe, through us all being surfers, have our own culture, our own language, our own gods, our own rituals, and, this movie touched upon these so beautifully. This movie is deep, brahs, and, it so truly can bring you back to the very core of Soul Surfing.

Here's what you do. Get your brahs together, and, it's NEW YEARS DAY today so go surf. It's a moral imperative!!! And then, tonight, gather up some beer and weed and one grinds (I'm grilling venison and fish tacos for all who happen by, so, come, all are welcome, simply come to the wilds), all your brahs, and some beach bunnies, and find a place to hang, watch the movie, and let go. We as surfers can change the world brahs, like we once did before. Surfing needs us. The world needs us. It's time to go back to the days of the Soul Surfer, to unite as a Tribe again, to stop our silly local beefs and embrace one another, just like in the movie, for that too was shown (with a breakfast burrito). Let the world fuck itself in this new year and as for all of us, lets go back to screwing at the beach, covered in sand and surf wax.

God I loved this movie. Now, I gotta go surf!!! I'm so excited about the New Year coming, 2011 is going to be utterly and way totally bodacious, and you know something, for me at least, it all began, right here, right now, tonight, watching Matthew's movie.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

The 12 Days (14) of Christmas Surfing for Style

2010-12-27T06:26:00.000-08:00

Aloha Tribe,

Well, today is the 1st Day of Christmas. If you've been able to follow along, hopefully you were able to surf on Christmas Eve (yes, at night, at Midnight, under the Full Moon - with a Lunar Eclipse, I might add), Christmas Morning (at the very least on Christmas Day), and, now, today and for the next 11 more Days, leading to a total of 14 Days of Christmas Surfing during the "12 Days" of Christmas. As most know, Christmas Day counts as Day 0, yesterday was Day 1, which makes today, Monday, Day 2.

The idea, is to pick something that, to you, is important to work on, a great thing, especially at this time of year, is, Style.

You see, the Holiday Season, regardless of ones faith or religion or anything of the sort, is a great time to focus one personal growth, and, as surfers and members of The Tribe, we all would naturally, by our very love of the sea, gravitate towards honing our surfing, for, what else is there, eh brahs?

And, what could be an overall greater sense of surfing sense, than, Style.

Thus, I'm focusing each day of the 12 Days of Christmas, all 14 of them, on working on making my Style softer, more graceful, smoother, more relaxed, more feminine (you boys don't have to focus on this one of course, unless, you are truly comfortable with your sexual identity, naturally - in which case I say, "go for it" for it truly would greater mellow out your surfing), more flowing, more mellow, more hippy girl (yes, I hug waves, sing to sea turtles, dance with dolphins, and genuinely smile with twinkling eyes at all fishes - yes, even those big fish we tend to not really want to think about), and, in a single word, more beautiful.

To do this, I'm doing a number of things in my training, which include, more or less all of the balance type training I've been doing for quite some time now, but with the added focus and attention to making every subtle body shift as smooth, natural, flowing, and beautiful as possible. In this way, as my dynamic balance adjusts while surfing, it offers me total control of each and every fraction of a mm of movement and fraction of a second of time. This type of training teaches you to "slow time," by actually allowing you and forcing you to think quicker, much much quicker, up to a rate of about 1/25 of a second as far as reaction time goes. Technically, you'll learn to move, think, and sense even faster than that for you can train yourself to work within that 1/25th of a second as a form of performance art, allowing creative expression of each moment. This, of course, offers then all kinds of potential and artistic experimentation on the waves, in ways you've not ever thought of before.

The key to this focus of Surfing Style for lightning fast movements with seemingly time stopping awareness, is, slowness. Extreme slowness in your training. Which involves truly feeling and sensing each and every fiber of your muscles as they pull and relax with your movements. For those who love this kind of experimentation, what you are learning here, is, Chi Gung Surfing Style, for, in such a time stopping sense of awareness and focus, you can then go deeper, much much much deeper, to the inner level of your bodies energy flow. And that, brahs, is where the real fun begins!!! For, it is the first step.

Many, of course, most actually, even with a lifetime of surfing, will never reach this lowest or first step, but, for those in-the-know, namely, those who hope for and dream of such surfing mastery, such a quest could be not followed, for it draws and sings to the soul of the Vagabond Feral Surfer with such intensity, that it can't be ignored. Hmm, hopefully there wasn't too many double negatives there for that to make sense, goodness. Bottom line, the more you do it, the more you do it, and, the more you have to do it.

Eh brahs, even if you've not been doing this kind of surfing for the last 4 days (including today), there's no reason to not start right now!!! And, if you can't surf every day, hey, that's cool, surf as much as you can. And, when you're beached, simply work on your Style in the sand, in your yard, in a park, or in your home. Wherevers brahs.

I just got off a several hour slackline session, where I focused on my Pop Ups and my Style for Dropping Down the Face before the Bottom Turn, while on the slackline, Pretty way awesomely bodacious fun that!!! You all so must try it. Get a slackline, or, a rope, or, even as the Father of Bouldering John Gill taught me, use a chain, and, suspend it between two supports like trees, boulders, your car and maybe a trained elephant (naturally, it would be a tamed one that loves playing in this kind of way) or whatevers, and try it. Working the chain is way Old-School when it comes to slacklining, incidentally, and it was John Gill who developed it about 20 years before modern slacklining was invented with the mountain climbing webbing that we all use today. Slacklines, by the way, are great ways to train because they offer dynamic motion which presents you with a myriad of opportunites for play and experimentation. And, if you want something even tougher, try soft roping also called loose roping on a loosely hung rope, now that's real fun brahs!!! Slacklines, by the way, are typically tensioned so they are level with the ground prior to you stepping on them, whereas a loose rope is suspended like the letter U, only not as dramatically, of course, and more stretched out a bit, depending upon your anchor points, naturally, you could, if you like think of it as looking like a super bodaciously aweome smile, which, is how I love to see my loose rope. I'm into smiles I guess. It comes from truly living and dancing in-the-moment, each and every second of life - which, for me, came about because of my several near-death accidents at various times in my life. Whatevers. Smile at the world, it's a lot more fun. And, you know, it'll make your surfing much better too!!!

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Merry Christmas!!! GO SURFING!!!!!!

2010-12-25T08:27:00.001-08:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS TRIBE,

Now, go Surf!!!

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Happy Winter Solistice!!!

2010-12-21T06:59:00.000-08:00

Aloha Tribe Happy Winter Solstice!!!

Today is the Winter Solstice, a truly magical time of year, in fact, one the most magical and beautiful. So, grab a fish taco for breakfast along the way, head to the beach, wax up your board, and, go surf!!! And let the rest of the world watch, dream, and wonder, but for us, it is a day to live!!! Here, now, this day, for this is the day we have!!!

And tonight, after a day of crazy surfing the wild freezing waters, it'll be time for a true Scottish celebration!!! No matter where you are in the world, all join in. And hey, just eat your local food, all's ono so no worries!!!

As for me and all who find me secret location today, it's loads of Haggis. Neeps. Tatties. Baked Beans. Fish Tacos (of course, it's a moral imperative), Steamed Green Peas, Eggnog Pound Cake with chocolate ice cream and chocolate Sauce, and, all the best Single Malt Scotch you can drink!!!

Come one, come all, it's a Scotthish bash on the loneliest beach on the Scottish North Atlantic. Just look for the "crazy" girl out surfing without a wet suit (it's a Winter Solstice sign of good faith and hope for the coming year as a way of celebrating the beauty of the rising Sun this morning). A quick dip and surf in the frigid waters, then, a copious cup of hot hot hot extremely strong black coffee, then, toss on the wetsuit, jump on your feral vagabond longboard again (or shortboard if that is your nature), and spend the day surfing. Tonight, the feast, dancing, wild fires on the shore, midnight trek through the Highlands to dance some more beneath the stars, and the a hike back for the Full Moon Winter Solstice Loneliest Surf on the Planet Quest!!!

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Surfer's Christmas Eve AND Christmas Day Ono Grinds from the Wilds

2010-12-19T07:36:00.000-08:00

Aloha Tribe,

So, I've worked out my Vietnamese/French Bamboo Circus Styled Christmas Eve surfer's meal. Golly I wish and hope some if not all of you will be around. Head to the wildest places on the planet, and, you'll find me there. Come, pull up your board, have a seat, and, feast on some awesome grinds, yah? All are welcome. Oh, by the way, the inner lining of a military poncho makes the perfect surfer's blanket, according to my surfing and watergirl mentor Darrick Doerner (DD) for Winter Surfing.

CHRISTMAS EVE SURFER'S MEAL:

Fish Tacos - as a member of the Tribe, one must always have plenty of fish tacos on hand!!!

Pork and Shrimp Bonh Mi (Vietnamese sandwiches) - with fish sauce

Pho (Vietnamese beef noodle soup) - with fish sauce

Christmas Eve Pear Tart

Chili Lime Dipping Sauce - with fish sauce

Sweet Soy Dipping Sauce - with fish sauce

White Long Grain Rice - with fish sauce

Hot Cocoa

CHRISTMAS DAY SURFER'S MEAL

Fish Tacos - Yummy :)

Vietnamese Spring Rolls

Vietnamese Sweet Soy Dipping Sauce

Vietnames Chili Lime Dipping Sauce

Vietnamese White Long Grain Rice

Vietnamese Catfish in a Clay Pot

Vietnamese Winter Squash with Coconut Milk

French Stuffed Rabbit

French Ratatouille

French Classic Creme Brulee

Hot Chocolate

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Surfer's Solstice Solitude Session

2010-12-19T07:23:00.000-08:00

Aloha Tribe,

What could be more of a Winter Solstice Surfing Solitude Session than surfing or, if you can't at least celebrating the wilds of the wilds in Northern Scotland, out in the wind beaten Outer Hebrides where only the brave dare surf alone by eating after your frigid days icy North Atlantic thrashing by grinding Haggis, Neeps and Tatties. Totally ono, eh brahs?

As for breakfast, post - Dawn Patrol: one staves off freezing to death with pounds of rashers, mushrooms, baked beans, grilled tomatoes, black pudding, white pudding, haggis, juice, cereal (oatmeal or if you're a real Scott, rough cut boiled barley, all gulped down with copious quantities of fresh icy cold milk.

Winter Solstice, a mystical magical time of the year for surfing, especially midnight surfing. This year, it'll be particularly bodacious because of the full moon at Winter Solstice.

So, wax up your stealth boards, pack a hamper loaded to the gills with hearty food, and set off for the surf of a lifetime in the wild of wilds.

Surfing with herds of hords is great fun, I'll be the first to shout that from the top of a party wave, but, at a time like the pure creative waves offered only at this time of year, when all the seas creatures rise to the surface of the surfing swells, to sing and dance and play in the moonlight with any surfer bold enough to sit alone at midnight, under a full moon, on the most magical, mysterious, beautiful night of the year.

If any of you want the surf of a lifetime, where you can truly find out who you are, and why you surf, and what the secret of surfing is truly all about, the mysteries of the sea, the songs that call us to dance upon the water, well, then you way so must seek the wilds where ever you are.

On a night like this, you are not seeking the normal breaks you typically surf day in and day out, for you don't want the crowds, nor, quite frankly, the familiarity. You want someplace new to you, someplace where you can stetch your legs on your surfboard, let your hair down, and toss your string bikini or boardies to the sea, and surf, if even only for one wave, in your purest form of physical expression. Just you, your board, and the water. Sure, even where I surf the wilds, the water will bite deep with frigid temperatures, but no matter, Surfer Up (the surfers version of cowboy up) and do it. It's exhilerating, wildly fun, and, a true treat for all of your normally domesticated senses. Cut free your harness and reins of life and surf with total abandon.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

A Surfer's Christmas

2010-12-06T06:49:00.000-08:00

Aloha Tribe,

Christmas is on it's way soon, in just 20 days or so, which gives me about 3 more weeks before I celebrate getting my Robert August Wingnut longboard last year. It's been an interesting year. My goal was to go from Kahuna Tuna or rank beginner, to big wave rider, in, one year. I have three more weeks about.

It's been a challenge at times, tearing my mensicus like I did, and I'm still sitting here with that, but, well, three weeks is three weeks. So, sometime in the next three weeks I'll get into the perfect wave. I had a shot at that 47 footer back about 6 weeks ago, but that's when fate stepped in that day, making me lose several weeks. But, such is life. In the meantime, my Pidgin and Surfish got to improve quite a bit, so that's a cool thing, and, I got a lot of time to work on trying to develope the perfect Watergirl body, a feat, never possible, of course, but fun anyways.

As most of the Tribe know, Christmas morning is made for, what else, Dawn Patrol surfing. And, Santa, of course. My two favorite S words.

My meal this year for Christmas is based on the theme of a French/Vietnam country vagabond circus. The reason for this, is the tightwire I might be getting from Santa, if I'm good enough. The tightwire, of course, is to be used to help my surfing get wired tight.

So, I'm not fully sure yet what the exact meal will consist of, but it will be a combination of both French foods and Vietnam foods, both, country style.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Slacklining Helps You Think Faster: Wanna Surf Well - Think Fast.

2010-12-05T03:40:00.000-08:00

Aloha Tribe,

Some of you may by now be getting into slacklining and bringing it to your surfing experience. If so, awesome. You see, by tightrope walking, tightwire walking, slacklining, slack rope walking, and loose rope walking, you are increasing the speed with which you can sense what is happening to your body, specifically, as it relates to balance.

This is extremely important to the surfer because in order to surf great, you need to be able to sense what is happening with your balance very quickly. The thing is, with surfing, it's not uncommon to have as much as 20 minutes or more between rides. Personally, I love the way Darrick Doerner is training me, the second my ride ends, DD has me paddle out of the path of other surfers as fast as I can by heading to the side of where everyone is surfing. Then, as soon as I am out of the way, I paddle my fastest to catch the next wave. Now granted, the reason this worked for us was because there was not a traditional lineup with lots of surfers waiting their turn, thus, there was no reason not to hustle. As such, one can catch a lot of rides. The most I got, in roughly an hour and a half or so session, was 25 rides. While I would have loved that to be even higher, at least it was roughly a ride every 8 minutes or so. In some places, like Sunset Beach on the North Shore, sometimes, one was lucky to get 3 or 4 rides for the day.

And, since a ride typically doesn't last that long, maybe an average of 8 to 10 seconds, that's not a whole lot of training time. On the other hand, on a slackline or similar rope, if you fall off, you simply step right back on. Thus, you can get a lot of balance training in, compared to surfing. This extreme amount of balance training leads to greater balance awareness, which, yields quicker balance thinking.

Here's how it works. When you're on a tightrope, it takes extreme concentration to not fall. And as such, you learn to eventually sense extremely small shifts in your balance, the more you do it. The sooner you can determine if your balance is shifting out of whack, the easier and smoother it is to maintain balance.

The thing is, what you really need to do is to learn to train yourself to perform the best that you can. If you simply walk a line or surf for that matter, mindlessly, even with years of experience, you really won't progess far. On the other hand, if you think about what you're doing, train specific exercises to help you, work on the worst things you do first until you become good at it, then work on the next worse thing, in no time at all you'll find your skills exploding.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Mysto Surfing the Wilds

2010-12-03T06:03:00.000-08:00

Aloha Tribe,

Now, as you all know, I just love surfing culture and that includes hanging and Talking Story, whether perhaps briefly in the Line-Up or after a session at greater length.

Yet, in the Wilds, I typically surf alone. Mainly, because, generally, at least in the Fall, Winter, and early Spring, there are so few if any surfers around on the frozen beach, let alone in the sea. And so, while I am drawn to sharing and hanging and being part of the group, due to where I surf, and, how I surf, I've grown up a bit of a Mysto Surfer.

A Mysto, by definition, is a Loner. More so, even the way they surf, that is, how, the whys, where, and what, remains sort of mysterious, unusual, and, well, exotic.

The thing that makes me a Mysto, besides so few wanting to be in 20 plus foot icy cold wildly churning Closed Out by all definition swells, is how and why I surf, namely, my Chi Gung.

For most of us, surfing is simply fun. We love the ride. The stoke. The feel of walking or standing on water. Yet, with what I do, there is so much more to it than that, for, I tear such concepts apart, searching into the bowels of them, exploring and adventuring into the darkest secret places, for the Chi.

Chi is a Chinese concept, and it refers to energy. It is the energy that is within us, and, around us, just like the Force in the Star Wars movies. Only, instead of being a movie, it's for-real stuff.

Now, I don't just surf "for," the the fun feeling of Chi, but more so, for what I can do with it in helping and healing others, especially surfers. For, once one learns it, Chi Gung offers ways to learn of the ocean, such as knowing when the swells will come, and where, as well as how big. You'll sense where exactly a wave will break and what it will be like before it happens. You'll be able to sense sea creatures and sea plants of all types, knowing them by their Chi patterns, as well as, in a sense, being able to communicate with them. On a more social scale, you'll be able to heal yourself of injury, and, to heal others, of cuts and sprains, broken bones and torn ligaments as well as of many diseases. So, I see such gifts from the art as ways to give back to The Tribe. Even if, where I surf, for the most part, the Tribe generally isn't there, at least at that time, for I am drawn to the wildest of seas, the coldest of climates, the most whipping rains and icy snows one can experience.

Now sure, I do love the North Shoe. For, what is not to love about Oahu. And, I go to Hawaii whenever I can, but, have yet to move there. I suppose, in the near future, I will make the leap, but for now, it's the Wilds that holds me, draws me, shapes me, teaches me, of her secrets and ways of surfing her wild seas.

When I surf, I'm not out to surf every single wave, frantically dropping down anything and everything coming my way, instead, I wait for the right wave. And, the right wave does not necessarily mean the biggest or steepest or most dangerous, it simply means, the right one, at that time. The one that calls to me.

In Hawaii, on the North Shore, I listened to the beautiful sea turtles. As odd as it sounds, they would show me exactly where the next wave was going to break, the wave they wanted me to catch, and, I'd paddle over to where they broke surface and made eye contact with me, sending their Chi to me, and, I , to them. And it was a magical feeling moment, a form of communication, a mental telepathy between girl and animal, that most would probably think is not even possible, yet, there it was, and, every time, the sea turtles were exactly right, for they had broke surface exactly, precisely, at the best spot on any particular wave prior to it coming. From this, I learned to sense the waves, to feel them, to know what felt right and what feeling right felt like.

Along this line, I learned to call the waves. Out of a flat sea even. Now sure, I could go into the extreme details of how to do this, but it's rather complicated to present them all at once, so, the way it basically works is that you work with the Chi, as I've been saying, and you create a Yang or energetic collection of water and wind, out there. With this intense focus on a single spot, one swirls or spirals the Chi tighter and tighter and tighter, just the same way you do it when you're healing a broken bone. And you keep doing it, packing the Chi into this distant tiny singular spot, until, it is overwhelmed with energy. And then, you can feel it, sense it when it is ready. And, you track it with your eyes and senses, feeling it come closer, until finally, the wave breaks right where you are exactly. I did this exercise with my Surfing Mentor and Watergirl Mentor Darrick Doerner (DD). We were having small 2 foot or so waves, wave after wave after wave, and he was so hoping for the seas to rise up so his student, me, could get a nice ride and some great practice. And he told me he wanted a 6 foot wave to rise right before us, literally touching the tails of our boards, and rise to 6 foot high and to break right on his head!!! His head, of all things. "I want it to break right here, right on my head, right now." And so, sitting on my board, I extended my arm towards the distant sea, pointed my palm, for the center of the palm is one of the 5 major spots on the body for Projecting and Absorbing Chi, and, I called the wave, telling him, it would be here in moments. And, the wave came, and right at the tails of our boards, it rose above us as we sat there, and it lifted our tails and then, it broke, right on DD's head. Literally. As that was happening, I dropped down the face, had a nice little fun ride, and quickly paddled back out as DD always taught me to do, ready to catch the next wave. And there he was, sitting there, my Mentor, looking, not impressed. Now, I was ecstatic, I was so stoked, I expected he'd leap off his board with excitement, and all he did, was look at me and said, "I was hoping for an 8 footer." I loved his understatement, for as a Teacher and Mentor, that is exactly what I hoped he'd do, at least, deep within my heart, because that's the kind of thing you'd get in martial arts training. Once, I trained in Monkey Kung Fu, and my Sifu told me to leap as high as I could to try to grab some berries. I leaped hour after hour, day after day, trying to get the exact bunch he had pointed out for me, and, one day, they were within my grasp. And as I came to the ground with the berries in my hand, expecting he'd be stoked, he simply looked at them like it was nothing, pointed higher in the tree and said, "now, pick that bunch."
For me both Mentors are the perfect kinds of teachers for my style of learning, they push me, drive me, call me to go beyond anything I could imagine, yet, have loving kind hearts and great senses of humor.

My point is, using Chi, I was able to call that wave, to fall directly on DD's head, exactly where we sat, exactly as high as he said, exactly when he asked me to show him how I did that. And it's episodes and adventure like that which make me a Mysto Surfer.

I truly love being part of the Tribe, part of the group, I just love social interaction of every kind, yet, I have grown up on the outside, in the Wilds, not even on the road where one choses the path of left or right, but instead, bushwacking out in the loneliest and wildest of places. Unusual for many people, especially for a girl I'd imagine, but, simply the way it's been for me, due to circumstances.

It was even this way, back in Grand Haven, Michigan, during High School, long after I had made my first board, and surfed those cold waters with such joy. I wanted to surf with all of my heart, like the boys there, but, I was the girl. The girl with the funny looking home-made board, without even the sense to wax it at first, silly kook that I was. Such tales told about earlier in my blog in two sections or so. At any rate, I was a Mysto then, just as I am a Mysto now, not because I want to be, but, because, I am. For I know nothing else.

When I look at a surfboard, I'm not concerned with fancy boards, but with the energy of the board, like who made her, how was she shaped, how are her lines and as such, my mind drifts to how such lines will dance with the ocean. I can be lost for hours, exploring a single board in a surf shop or at a shapers.

It's funny, life. We're often so drawn to that which we aren't or to that which we don't have. I suppose, to some, my style might seem exotic, or at least a bit different, and as such, it's possible there might be some who'd think such things are rather groovy. Yet, for me, to be part of The Tribe, to be in the Inner Circle, that to me is where the magic is. In the smiles and laughter and talk of others, in sharing their joy in watching them surf and surfing with them, and, in those special times, in their touch. Yes, my heart longs for such moments, I admit that. Such simple joys draw me.

Yet, my soul calls me to surf the wilds, to seek out the toughest places on the planet to get to, not for the adrenaline rush, for that is nothing compared to the feeling of Chi, but, for the Chi of it.

At the moment, I am thinking much of Vietnam. Hoping to learn the language at Christmas time by, if I am so blessed, getting one of those Rosetta Stone cd collections of learning Vietnamese. I love languages, especially the three I focus on, namely Hawaiian, Surfish, and Pidgin. But now, I want to add Vietnamese to the list. For I am being called there. To surf, and, to explore and share my Chi. Of course, once there, I'm sure I'll find those places where few go, not because I intentionally seek them out, but because I sense them, feel them calling, and, as a Mysto, I can't resist their siren song.

And, what is a Mysto Surfer? Well, it's simply someone like me, who surfs mostly alone, even when in a group, who surfs for their own reasons. Reasons, that few would understand let alone care about. The Mysto Surfer is a rebel in a world of domesticated surfers, a wild one in a sea of acceptance to the rules and norms, a link back to the times of the Vagabond Feral Surfers of yesteryear, surfing, for deep personal reasons that even if they could be explained, probably, wouldn't be.

Interestingly enough, in my case, surfing as a Mysto comes about not only because for the most part nobody is generally around, especially in the worst of the Winter, but more so, quite frankly, I'm rather shy. Sure, I may write freely at times, but, in person, I'd probably be that girl, over there, absorbed in waxing her surfboard perfectly before each session, seeking, in the case of waxing, not simply to get wax on the board in a hurry, but more so, finding the spirituality and depth as well as historical nostalgia and Tribal memory of applying wax in an almost sacred kind of matter, truly, really caring about what I'm doing. And, that's the way of my surfing too. I explore each aspect of it, even while I'm riding a wave, pushing my boundaries, learning who I am and what I can do, learning from the sea and my board, all, lost purely in the love of the moment.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Thanksgiving Surfer's Bash 2010 brought to you from The Wilds

2010-11-30T10:17:00.000-08:00

Aloha Tribe,

So, Thanksgiving was awesome. The waves in the morning for all those able to surf the traditional pre-Thansgiving Dawn Patrol Appetite Builder were a perfect NW magic surf.

The full days food ideas came favorites from, for the most part, truly awesome surfers from all over the planet.

Out here, in the wilds, the day of feasting began with Mike Doyles recipe for Huevos Mexicanos. In addition, we had Sam Bleakley's Fruit Salad with Honey Spiced Yogurt. With this, was simply a few extra plain bananas, which, many surfers consider the perfect surfer breakfast.

Lunch was non-existent due to an overall feeling of an awesome days mellowness of simply watching the sea.

Much later in the day, in the early evening actually, after rewaxing boards with fresh wax (I love the smell of fresh Bubblegum Wax, what can I say?), stowing gear, and just hanging, it was time to lay out appetizers.

For appetizers, we had a recipe from Sofia Mulanovich for Peruvian Ceviche. We also had Sushi, Sashimi, and Darrick Doerner's favorite - Hawaiian Poke.

Talk Story was a huge part of the day, and following leisurely nibbling of appetizers, it was time for the Main Course.

For this, we had a recipe from Ian Cairns for Garlic and Rosemary Lamb, Ben Dunn's Sausage and Crock Pot Stew, and my own recipe for my style of Baja Fish Tacos!!! Okay, fine, I'm partial to those, after all, I practically live on them almost every day, along with a bit of fruit (mangoes, papayas, pineapple, bananas). With this, we had a recipe for Mango Salsa from Bruce Irons, as well as his version of Fish Tacos (one can never have too many kinds of fish tacos - for a surfer, it's a moral imperative).

As Sides to go with the Main Courses, there was Gerry Lopez's awesome Brown Rice with Teriyaki Sauce (this is probably what I had most of), and Donald Takayama had a recipe for Surfer's Choice Clam Chowder which was to die for.

And, to top it all off, in Memory and Honor of Andy Irons, we made Andy's famous Chocolate Brownie Supreme - which, I must add, was pure magical yumminess.

Naturally, at a surfer party, there HAS to be beer, in fact, some consider the perfect Surfer Thanksgiving as, beer. Yep, beer. Surfer food in a bottle.

Our beers of the day were Longboard Lager, Corona Extra with limes, of course, and Fat Tire. The plan was for endless bottles of Jamaican Red at midnight along with our weekly Midnight Cubano Sandwiches over endless games of Jamaican Dominoes and Cuban styled cigars (Jamaican Dominoes is the version where you gamble with poker chips on each play - much fun and a game I love).

All in all, a perfect day. Everyone around had tons of food, much Talk Story, lots of laughter and joking, super waves, and just pure holiday magic. I hope that all of you had as much fun for your own Thanksgiving, and, no matter where you are in the world, remember, as surfers, we all belong to The Tribe, and, for us, every day there's surf is a day and reason for thanksgiving, so, I hope that all of you could celebrate in true surfer style, Especially, with the beer, of course.

Special Thanks to Nava Young for her most excellent surfer's cookbook Surf Food: The Ultimate Surfers Cookbook. Ride on chica!!!

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Surfer's Thanksgiving Coming Soon

2010-11-14T02:01:00.000-08:00

Aloha Tribe,

Thanksgiving, here in the U.S. is coming in a few weeks, and, this year, I'm doing a Surfer's Thanksgiving. My whole meal will be planned around foods that famous surfers from all over the world have loved. I'll be using surfing food instead of the "traditional," Thanksgiving grinds.

I'll keep you posted on my menu plans as things get closer.

That being said, my surfing and Watergirl Mentor, famous big wave surfer Darrick Doerner (DD) has shared his traditions with me of sweet potatoes, raw fish - I will prepare sushi, sashimi, Baja styled ceviche (my favorite) and poke to honor DD, gravy, and apple pie, all of his favorites, so, they will all be part of my Thanksgiving Meal, along with the rest I am planning.

Naturally, one of the traditions for Thanksgiving, for surfers that is, is to surf Thanksgiving morning. For a surfer, it's a moral imperative. So, no matter who you are, no matter where you are in the world, for this Thanksgiving Day, even if it's not a tradition you normally practice, why not head to the beach for some waves and just give thanks anyways. Thanks for all the great surf you've had and all the great surf you hope to have. And, simply offer that thanks to whoevers.

Personally, I love the idea of making a ton of food, bringing it to my local break, and, just setting up a campfire with tons of hot food for any surfer to feel free to dig in, Talk Story for a spell, then, hit the swells again with a fully tummy. Then again, living in the wilds like I do, that might mean I'm sharing my food simply with the local wildlife, but, hey, whatevers. When it comes down to it, it's the thought, I guess. I love sharing with the Tribe, to me, that's a big part of what surfing is all about, each of us watching each others back at all times, sharing what we have, hanging and talking story, surfing together, and, just being.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Gibbon Slackrack for Balance Practice

2010-11-11T11:51:00.000-08:00

Aloha Tribe,

I got an early Birthday present last night. It's the Gibbon Slackrack for slacklining indoors. It's a way totally awesome portable steel rack that holds a slackline. I do not know it's exact weight, but I'd gues maybe 70 pounds or so. You can tension the line as tightly or loosely as you would like and it can hold any type of webbing or rope, though the way it is made, it is specifically made for Gibbon slackline products, of course. To use something else, like your own webbing, or a rope, you simply tie it on rather than use the ratchet system for a Gibbon line. The rack is 10 foot long and about a foot high. The base is gray and the end supports are a sort of magenta, it's rather pretty.

I have it set up in my Surfing Room. I really love it. It's great practice for slacklining, and the skills you learn can certainly apply to surfing. Regarding surfing, on a slackline, you are developing all of your balance muscles, so, having something like this lets you practice in any kind of weather and at any time since it's just in your home. It can break down into two 5 foot sections (I'm simply guessing but maybe 35 pounds each perhaps) for taking to a park or wherevers, it easily fits inside of both my Subaru Outback Sport and my new model turbo VW Bug, thus I can bring it on surfing trips for those times when I'm not camping and doing outdoor slacklining but instead, staying in a nice hotel and want to slack in my hotel room.

If you want to simply practice slacklining, this product can do anything you'd like. You can walk, bounce, stand motionless meditating, or even do slackline yoga on it. Or my favorite, of course, slackline chi gung. In fact, here it is about 1:30 AM and I'm still practicing on my slackrack. The balance possibilities are endless. For example, regarding surfing, you can lay on it and paddle, it's high enough, then, sit, as though you were in the line up, then, paddle again with wave catching speed, pop to your feet, and, practice your surfing moves. Sure, it's not a board, it's a slackline, thus, it doesn't have the width a board had, yet, surfboards have stringers, and, knowing your stringer perfectly is what surfing is about. I've found that slacklining has dramatically improved my surfing by cutting off years of training, and, likewise, my surfing has radically helped my slacklining.

It will be interesting to spend a lot of time on the slackrack, like I do on my NOHO Surf Balance Trainer when I do my Silver Surfer Training Camp sessions. With my longboard on my NOHO, I spend as much time on it as I can during such training camps, and, likewise, I plan to do the same thing on this slackrack, simply hanging on it for hours at a time, ever increasing that time limit. I want to make it so comfortable that it is home to me, just like my longboard has become due to my Silver Surf Camp training I do so often. With my surfboard, I want to know every millimeter of it, and, I want the same for my slackrack. I want to know what it can do, how I can push the limits, where I can go with it and what mystery awaits me, what hidden treasures it holds within.

This is a great product for keeping your slacklining skills honed to perfection, especially also, if you are using it to keep your surfing in perfect shape.

I highly suggest one studies Chi Gung and bring it to the slackline and, your surfboard for it will open doors of exploration in ways you've never imagined, offering new moves, increased balance, and greater freedom in truly expressing yourself physically.

Since the slackrack is so adjustable, you can, of course, tension it up like a traditional slackline, that is to say, the line is tensioned "straight," and then it sags when you walk on it. Or, you can use cavellettis and tie your line off, if you like, thus making your slackrack more like a tightrope line. Or, if you prefer, which is way fun I must add, you can simply tie your webbing or, as I prefer, manilla rope, loose, and thus have a loose rope or soft rope system, which is especially interesting if you're interested in Chinese Soft Rope Penetration Arts. Thus, if Chinese Single Bamboo Pole Drifting is in the future for you, this is a great way to practice for that too. Drifting, by the way, rocks, and it makes SUP (Stand Up Paddle) which is so all the rage in the States now, seem rather calm and easy and, well, sorry SUPer's but, dull. There's just so much more you can do on a Bamboo Pole that offers such a greater challenge for those who love such things. Shooting the rapids, instead of in a kayak like the local boys do, try it on a bamboo pole, you'll not only turn heads but also hearts yearning for adventure.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

The Perfect Longboard Car: VW Bug vs. Subaru Outback

2010-11-07T07:39:00.000-08:00

Aloha Tribe,

So, I imagine that a lot of you dream of finding the perfect car for your surfing sufaris. And naturally, there are many cool vehicles that fit the bill, after all, we all need and love something different.

For me, I have, as I have mentioned, two cars. One is a new model VW Bug, bright orange, orange hubcaps, black and orange leather interior and steering wheel, turbo model. She's cute!!! I even have a safari rack I mounted on her roof above the sunroof. It's sort of like a metal cage that sits up there, capable of holding anything and everything.

With my VW Bug, I can get my 9 foot longboard (plus a second one if I wanted too) inside of the car. I simply take the headrests off the passenger seat and then fold the passenger seat down and, I also take the headrests off the back bench seat and fold it down too. Then, I simply slide the board in through the trunk, resting the nose of the board on the dashboard of the passenger side, and the tail of the board at the end base of the trunk. Granted, with this setup, I can be the only one in the car, but, that's cool, my friends have cars anyways, and besides, when you're heading out for Dawn Patrol in the dark of night, it's fun to have a caravan of vehicles filled with surfer brahs all following each other for a day of surfing.

There is room in the car, by the way, for pretty much as much camping gear (plus slacklines and slackropes as well as my NOHO Surf Balance Trainer), as I'll need for even extended trips of several months. As it turns out, I don't need the safari rack on top of the car, but, well, it makes the car look like a true Baja Bug, and, I so love that image.

My other car is a Subaru Outback Sport. She's bright fire engine red. With this car, I also can get my 9 foot longboard (easily with a second 9 foot longboard if I wanted) literally inside of the car, basically doing exactly what I did with the Bug. I simply fold the front and back passenger side bucket seats down, do not have to remove the headrests, and, still have room for a passenger behind the drivers seat, plus, enough gear for several months of camping also including enough slacklines, slackropes and such to share with anybody who wants to try, and my NOHO Surf Balance Trainer.

So, when there are times that I might want to have your boards safely in your car, either of these vehicles way totally can do this. On the other hand, I always loved the look of my longboard on top of my car, fin forward, adventure to the wind. It presents sort of a cool girl-of-action kind of look that appeals to my spirit and sense of adventure and taste. Besides, in the case of the VW Bug, it's kind of fun to have a surfboard on the roof on top of my safari rack, people who see it seem to love the look.

Oh, while my VW Bug is a turbo model and thus goes faster, my Subaru Outback Sport has All-Wheel Drive thus it can go anywhere, snow mud, ice, sleet, rain, whatevers. And, being a cold weather surfer, surfing in the worst the Pacific Northwest can throw at a girl, such a feature is rather awesome to know that no matter what, I can always make it to the beach regardless of driving conditions.

Either car would be perfect for anybody. It's then simply a matter of style. For me, I love them both. In warm weather, like the Summer, it's my VW Bug for sure, for what could be cooler than that, a bug with a few longboard surfboards and an elephant gun and perhaps a thruster all strapped on top, using, by the way, Baja straps, those are those extra wide, extra thick, extra strong ones with huge strong steel buckles, that, if you''re a Baja girl, you just HAVE to have. And, when the Winter storms rage and the seas rise to near 50 foot like they did a week ago, how are you doing to see me get to my surfing break out in the wilds, well, in my Subaru Outback, but of course, for she WILL get me there for those epic waves when it really counts.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Ultra-Primitive Slackline Setup

2010-11-06T08:33:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

As a longboard surfer, I've taken to slacklining to improve my surfing. And, while my path to both actually intertwines, beginning with surfing as a little girl, the progressing to Monkey Style Kung Fu where one learns to move, stretch, fight, and even sleep on a Monkey Bed - which was basically just a rope slung between two trees with the purpose of creating perfect balance, then, about 10 years ago being given my first webbing slackline from my carpenter for my home - tied in the Ultra-Primitive Style, to today, living the life of a Vagabond Feral Soul Surfer and Vagabond Feral Soul Slackliner.

Such a life calls for following both the waves, and, the wind. For both elements become your home, harmoniously blending as the Shamanic quest for balance. You'll find, as you dare this quest, that the first door that opens for you is the mysterious and magical door to your subconscious.

To live the life of a Vagabond Feral Soul Rope Dancer or Slackliner, one simply, lives to Rope Dance or slack. And, just as a Soul Surfer, who travels Feral as a Vagabond carries one board and one board only, so goes such a slackliner or rope dancer. All you carry is but a single slackline or a single piece of rope, rolled into a carefully tied bundle such as a Lap Bundle or perhaps, if you like a Backpack Bundle, and tossed into a canvas satchel slung crossbody, low over one hip along with a simple canvas backpack. The search becomes a quest seeking more than the mere perfect walk, more even than a sense of physical balance, the quest, becomes mixed in with Chi Gung, and thus, the search for internal and external exploration of yourself and the world around you based on energy.

Chi Gung, the ancient 4000 year old Chinese study of internal and external energy within, around, and beyond the body, holds the true secret to this art and lifestyle of a Ultra-Primitive Rope Dancer. The art of Soft Rope Penetration Arts or Rope Dancing aka Soft Roping is also several thousand years old, holding untold secrets, mysteries, and treasures.

One's kit is simple. Of course, it's environmentally based, thus the natural fiber travel kit, but, the key is to travel as lightly as possible. A canvas satchel works perfectly for your slackline or rope dancing gear. And, as for living, you'll explore traveling and surviving as an ultralight backpacker.

Having a few simple ways to make money helps. Whatever your gig happens to be. For me, my skills lay with the Short Cons, namely, the Shell Game, Five Card Draw Poker - as a Mechanic, and Pickpocketing (all of which can be done theatrically if you are so inclined to not wander the outlaw trail).

As a Vagabond Feral Soul Rope Dancer, one is free to travel the world. For there are always places to practice your art as you search deeper and deeper for yourself and your limits physically, mentally, and spiritually.

Some will probably live the streets as a Grifter or Street Performer, honing the art of grifting to peak perfection, while, perhaps, keeping things sort of moderately legal. Others may explore the darker sides of the mysteries of life, depending, of course, upon your personal morals. And, for those who leave the cities and head into the wilds, you'll learn to live by whit and whim in the forests, jungles, mountains, plains, deserts, and beaches, especially the beaches if you also happen to be a Vagabond Feral Soul Surfer who also slacks.

Wandering as a slacker, you'll keep your eyes out for places to hang your line. And, while initially seemingly all similar, you'll find that the more you experience, the more depth you'll notice to your walking. Does it feel different to walk a line between two pine trees? Or two oaks? What about one strung between bamboo? Or boulders high in the mountains, how are they different than rocky ledges along the coast and over the sea? How does the humidity of Ghana effect your line? Or the dryness of a desert? Does height make a difference in how your line feels and thus, how the walk feels differently to you? Can you feel the pulse of a crowded city harmoniously dancing your line in ways that the wilds do not?

Each of these, of course, has different answers. And, if you're just starting out, you'll probably not notice much if any difference. Most likely, you'll probably start on webbing, tubular webbing specifically. And, even with some experience, you'll probably focus simply on line height, line length, or even how fast you can walk the line. But, as a Vagabond Feral Rope Dancer, you're after something deeper, much much much deeper. This is where the study of Chi Gung comes into play and carries you along a path that leads to the true lifestyle of the Soul Slacker/Soft Roper. You see, the more you walk the line, the more sensitive you become to your body and to the way the line moves and feels. With experience, you might find the shift from a nylon or poly type strap of webbing to a totally natural length of rope, more than likely manilla at first. Manilla, unlike nylon has living chi about it, it has secrets and stories to tell and share, and its chi is pure. With time, you might explore the lushess softness of a jute rope or the pure magic of the greatest of all, Italian Hemp (currently illegal in the U.S. thus opening a door for those of a smuggling mind and bent). And, it is at this point that you will begin to realize that there are physical changes that you can sense. At first, they'll register tactilly but with more experience, you'll learn to explore the depth of all of your senses, perfecting them, one at a time, to levels currently undreamed of by you. There literally are no limits within this art.

The advantages of a hemp, jute, or manilla rope to a nylon slackline is that instead of separating your from nature, you'll find that your rope, having been living material and thus still dancing strongly with it's own unique individual chi, offers a way to blend as one with all about you. The trippy part of this is that it is done all naturally, and, even if you use hemp, only rather slightly on the outlaw trail.

Walking a line, be it rope or webbing, opens your mind to your imagination, which, is the first step along this marvelous path. For in order to feel it and more so use it later, first, one must imagine it.

For those who do not know, Chi or Qi is the force that is within everything, all that is visible and all that is invisible as well as all that is animate and all inanimate things. Basically, it is in, around and beyond all. And the exciting part of the story is that you can, using Soft Roping and Slacklining skills, tap into this huge mass of everchanging, constantly morphing energy for shaping your life and the world around you. In a way, you could say that the New Age that was anticipated so strongly in the '60's is now here hanging on a rope, slung loosely as a Loose Rope, slackly as a Slackline or Slackrope , or tightly as a Tightrope, between two objects. There are few Loose or Soft Rope Specialists out here by the way, for it is still mostly an unknown art, lost to the antiquites of ancient China. In fact, the Ultra-Primitive Slackline Setup is based specifically the Loose Rope Dancer. You can use rope or webbing.

In a nutshell, tie a Double Bowline with Jack's Variation on the anchor end of the rope or webbing. This part is tied around a tree or boulder. Then, about 90 % of the way down the webbing or rope, tie a Butterfly Knot which is not to be confused with an Artillery Man's Knot or a Mantrap Knot, nor especially, a False Butterfly Knot. For the Butterfly Knot, by the way, simply turn both loops the same way, essentially counterclockwise. For the False Butterfly knot, which you must not tie, the first loop goes counterclockwise and the second loop goes clockwise, and, while the two knots look similiar, they are not, the False Butterfly Knot is not as strong as the Butterfly Knot. Continue with the rest of the rope or webbing running it around your second working tree or boulder, and, as soon as you go around it, tie a second Butterfly Knot. Now, take the leftover webbing or rope and run it first up through the Butterfly Knot you just tied, then, down through your first Butterfly Knot, then back to the Butterfly Knot near the tree and go down through it again, this time trying to get your webbing or rope beneath your first pass through this Butterfly Knot. Then, take the remaining line and run it up through your midline Butterfly Knot, and run it under your first pass through this knot. Now, draw the system tight by pulling on the remaining tail of the webbing or rope. If you want this set up as a Ultra-Primitive Slackline or Slackrope setup, the rope is pulled taught. Or, if you prefer to simply use an Ultra-Primitive Loose Rope or Looseline setup, then simply tie a second Double Bowline with Jack's Variation around the working tree instead of using the Butterfly Knots, and, just let the webbing or rope hang loosely like a letter U. When you walk on a Loose Rope, it will look more or less like a letter V, with you as the low point.

In either case, Ultra-Primitive Slackline/Slackrope or Ultra-Primitive Loose Rope/Looseline, you only use a single piece of rope or webbing, without the need for a second webbing like you need in a Primitive System, and, without the carabiners that a Primitive System also requires.

This Ultra-Primitive method is new, hot, unique, ultralight, and the wave of the future. I feel rather excited to have come up with these knots and this idea of hanging a rope or webbing slack or loose. It sure works for me.

The romance of the line awaits you, the call of the wilds and cities sings to your webbing and rope, heed the call. For you will find balance poetry, art, style, spiritual growth, mental and physical mastery all honed to perfection if you dare.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Books for Slackline, Tightrope Walking, Tightwire Walking, Rope Dancing, Tree Yoga, Soft Rope Penetration Arts, Highwire Walking, and all interested in Walking, Balancing, Dancing and Aerial Chi Gung and Slackline Yoga on something Tight, Loose, Solid, or Slack

2010-11-05T11:23:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

Here are 20 books or so that I have and study constantly in my study of tying knots, creating tensioned wires and ropes, and all manners of ways to hook up lowlines, highlines, slacklines, loose ropes, and tightropes. I really love all of them and I highly recommend them all.

1. Ninjutsu: The Art of Invisibility by Donn F. Draeger - this book does not have much on "tightrope" but it does have a drawing of someone walking on a bamboo stalk lashed between two trees. One way to do this, is to have the bamboo literally tied to the trees themselves, creating a solid walking experience, like a tightrope. Another way is to suspend the bamboo pole by ropes at each end, thus making a very loose swinging platform.

2. Man On Wire by Philippe Petit - this is Philippe's book on his walk between the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York back in the early '70's. It is fascinating how he studied the scene, almost like a burglar would he said, planned everything, then, had to sneak it all in for his illegal highwire crossing.

3. 72 Consummate Arts of the Shaolin Temple by Wu Jiaming - this is a super martial arts book with tons of training ideas from an incredible amount of different Shaolin martial arts. There are several sections (perhaps half a dozen or so if you open your creativity a bit to see possibilities) that are very applicable to soft rope walking.

4. Funambule by Elgin Michel - this book is only in French - I very much like it. If you don't read French, you'll have to translate this, of course. It is a book about Philippe Petit and his highwire walk at the Eifel Tower in Paris. It covers his training, the planning, and the execution. Both this book and his book Man on Wire are truly necessary for any highwire artist.

5. On The High Wire by Philippe Petit - in this book, Philippe talks about his training and ideas on walking on the highwire. This is a truly phenomenal book that I read constantly. It is not so much a book about a particular highwire walking project like his other two books, instead, it is more like essays on his thoughts about highwire walking.

6. Knots and Ropes for Climbers by Duane Raleigh - a great book for those interested in knots. While it does not have tons of knots, it has most of the ones necessary for climbing, and all of the ones necessary for slacklining with easy to understand directions and drawings.

7. Fragments of the Artwork by Jean Genet - this book has a series of essays on numerous art type ideas, one of which deals with tightwire walking and, for this essay alone, the pure magic of it, the inspiration it offers, is worth it.

8. TM 5-725 Rigging : Department of the Army Technical Manual - a straightforward military type manual that offers most ideas of what you'd need for slacklining knots or soft rope knots and rigging.

9. Field Guide to Accompany High Angle Rescue Techniques by Tom Vines - has a wonderful chapter on highlining.

10. Handbook of Rigging by Joseph A. MacDonald - a textbook type book, huge, with tons to learn on rigging.

11. Arborist Equipment: A Guide to the tools and equipment of tree maintenance and removal
by Donald F. Blair - a great book for learning a bit about knots and tree climbing, thus useful for the slackliner.

12. Technical Rescue Riggers Guide by Rick Lipke - has a highlining chapter

13. Rope Levels 1 and 2 by Jeff Matthews - also has a highlining chapter

14. Engineering Practical Rope Rescue Systems by Michael G. Brown - this too has a highlining chapter

15. High Angle Rescue Techniques by Tom Vines - has a highlining chapter.

16. The Ashley Book of Knots by Clifford Ashley - I'd imagine this book has every knot there is in it. This book is the knot tying bible.

17. On Rope by Smith and Padgett - a great book with a wonderful chapter on highlining as well as one on circus rigging.

18. Rigging Handbook by Jerry Klink - straightforward rigging book

19. Wire Rope Users - if you want to know about wire, for wirewalking, you'll learn all you need to know about wire here.

20. Construction Safety Association of Ontario Rigging Manual - this book teaches tons on rigging.

21. Walk the Line by Scott Balcom - the only slackline book devoted totally just to slacklining out there and thus, a must have.

I so hope that some of you get these books, in fact, I'd love at least a few of you to get all of them, then, it would be so fun to get together in some local pub over a game of chess (but of course) while simulatneously sharing ideas and techniques over a fine glass of Merlot in front of a soft gentle fire. I love sharing, and, learning. And, just hanging, you know Brahs.

Buy the books, study them, learn some knots and rigging, then, get to the trees and buildings and such and slack and walk and balance and play.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Surfboard Balance for the Vagabond Feral Soul Surfer expressing Chi Gung

2010-11-04T14:04:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

Why balance works, or more specifically, how, is based on relaxation. Mentally, physically, and spiritually. The calmer you are, the more sensitive you are, the more aware you are, the greater your balance. This is so whether one surfs, walks a tightrope or slackline, or a softrope either loose or slack, or any other kind of balance work. Paradoxically, to reach such a state, requires, effort, lots and lots of specific training and more so, a way totally familiarization of your particular medium, be it surfboard, skateboard, snowboard, wire, webbing, or rope, rock, rooftops (for the catburgler types and urban equilibrists), limb, wall, rock ledge, street sign or light post, chain or vehicle (yep, urban car and truck balancing rocks - is moderately outlaw yet in the heart of art - rural vehicle balancing is fun too - tractors, cranes, bulldozers, wagons, etc.

I like to think of my longboard as having a personality and a soul. It is, to me, my friend. For, we spend a lot of time together, and, I learn from it.

I don't so much think of myself as riding my surfboard, but more so, as a Soul Surfer I see my expression upon my board as a way for the board itself to speak its own song.

Boards, I believe, are not something to be controlled, dominated, nor caged, but instead, to truly allow yourself the art of the board, requires finding a way to win the board over, in a sense, to help it help you, in your surfing quest.

To perform well with my longboard, to truly surf, is not, so much a reflection of me, but instead, shows the board in it's own sense of perfection.

For, it is not the board that wobbles nor carves too deeply on a hard bottom turn, nor is it the board who pearls or simply drops you off, instead, the board, is perfection in and of itself, thus, the lack of ability is within my own muscles. As such, to do the board the honor that it truly deserves requires total surrender to training for perfection.

When surfing well, it is the joy of the board coming forth, showing its thanks for your hard work.

As a Soul Surfer, we are artists, surfing alone, even when surrounded by countless others. The true Soul Surfer surfs not for awards nor fame nor money, but simply for the pure love of it, more so, at an even deeper level, not for oneself, but for the opportunity for the surfboard to do that which it was shaped to do.

This level of surfing demands not merely surfing well but more so, to surf with excellence and total precision in order for the board to reveal her secrets of flowing freely over the sea.

To surf well, truly freely, requires risk, just as with the bullfighter or the highwire artist. For, with each of these, living in-the-moment, fully, totally, with pure passion, one finds ones soul in the purity of your medium.

Surfing freely, unharnessed, as a true Soul Surfer, one finds that the world beyond ceases to exist. This allows pure movement of your body, for the love of movement itself, as an expression of what your board offers. The more you can lose yourself to your very act of surfing, the more you can focus only on that which is, the more beautiful, soft, and graceful your surfing will be, the more, you'll be truly one with your board, and more so, one with the sea.

This level of surfing requires the origins of the Feral Surfer, the lone surfer wandering the globe, as a Vagabond Feral Surfer, with but a single board and a single duffel bag for your kit. For, it is within this aloneness that you can find the stillness to notice that which leads your quest. This level of solitude can be seen in many of our surfing heroes and the true legends of our art and sport. People brave enough to surf the wilds, alone, simply, to surf. It is within such moments, even if that stretches to touch a lifetime, that the true Soul Surfer can find balance. And, it is at this point, that the journey truly merely begins, for from here on, one then begins to surf not as an outward expression of movement nor individuality, but, from within yourself. And, this great within is unfathomable, yielding treasures most know not to even seek. This is what something like Chi Gung brings to surfing, this ability to find surfing inside of yourself. At this level, you have taken the first step. It is here, within this first step, that you find the ability to truly explore the moves of your longboard, shortboard, elephant gun, or whatevers. Past quivering muscles lies stillness. Past stillness lies internal movement. Yang leading to Yin transforming to Yang in an endless cycle of surfing harmony. And, as for your board, well, it simply always is. Nothing more. Nothing less. Rather Taoist actually. And in that lies great truth and the mysteries of Vagabond Feral Soul Surfer.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Chess, Surfing, and the Flowing Feeling of Passion

2010-11-01T12:56:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

Hmm, well, some of you may have read recently that I'm sitting here with a torn meniscus in my left knee, my back foot, of course, being goofy foot, and as such, I'm not out on the waves on my beloved longboard. I'd love to Talk Story on some tropical shore, sipping local brews while spinning yarns of how I raced down the face of that damned 47 foot monster, flying like liquid mercury over the wrenching white water, carving lines of beauty at breakneck speed over the rippling swirls of death, yet, alas, I slipped off a stupid porch - a wooden deck, a moss covered wooden deck of doom, after stopping at my neighbors to pee, of all things. Darn I should have simply gone at the beach like a surfer girl should.

But, such an injury has given my chess game a chance to grow a bit these last few dark, cold, rainy, sleepless nights, windows flung wide to the open air, allowing the night's embrace to chill my bones, yet, at the same time, to draw comfort and light from the lone fire stirring in my cast iron wood burning stove and the single candle burning amidst an iron candle holder atop my 250 year old London pub goat's cart wheel dining table. Naturally, as I see it, chess, vodka, and long lonely nights all tremendously aid surfing skill.

But first, the dishes.

Okay, back from the dishes, now, later in the dark. Chess and surfing. Let's see...

Chess, to me, is all about art, and, feel. Sure, I'm a tactile girl, I love feeling things, and, the feeling of moving, physical sensations in fact drive me wild so, since all movement effects me so, all sense of touch so drives me, even the seemingly mundane task of holding beautiful wood chess pieces, especially those of my beloved Russian chess set, feeling their curves, their weight, the balance that each piece has as it shifts in my soft grasp, brings thoughts of how I ride my longboard. With unbridled passion.

Chess offers lessons in foresight, logic, planning, taking risks, seeing and playing art, study, friendship and hanging with a brah, special language, tribal rules, history, legends, heroes, all like surfing does. Surfing can simply be hopping on a board and racing to the shore, just as chess can simply be pushing wood and crushing your opponent. But, there's so much more to both sports and arts. For lost in mundane mediocrity, one ceases to dance, and it is in the dance where the art of chess and surfing rise.

In studying to be a Soul Surfer, that is to say, a girl who simply surfs for the pure physical pleasure and love of it, one can explore the depths as shallowly or as deeply as one might care to delve. The same, for chess. In surfing, there's so much to learn, from weather and waves and beaches to board shapes, lines, fin placement, who's who, surf science, Surf Language, moves, techniques, strategies, sharing with friends, and a gazillion other things. The same, as I mentioned above, chess.

I find that the study of one, truly enhances the other. As odd as it sounds, I love to catch a wave, and, in it, find a new exploration on the chess board regarding an opening or perhaps an ending, even during a typical 8 to 10 second ride, my mind races with thoughts driving in at about 1/25th of a second or so, thus allowing me ample time for not only feeling my board, but also mental exploration of my ride, or, as the case can be at times, chess applications. My surfing allows me to see chess moves in the waves, in the way my body moves and flows, in the feeling of the sea upon my muscles, the smell of the air, the sound of the breeze, the warmth of the sun on even the coldest of days. And, as I surf, I find myself imagining how I can express a given ride as a series of chess moves, whether it is in Openings, or Endings, or my favorite, the beautiful and artistc Middle Game. Likewise, on the chess board, I see new ways to Carve or Acid Drop, alternative methods of Bottom Turns or Pearling Control such as my Submarine surfing move into new and exciting disciplines. Oh how I love the Submarine, by the way , for it's such a radical move that. There's nothing like it anywhere by anyone!!! And, just as with great chess, sometimes, things come by seeming accident, yet, in reality, are actually the result of fully, totally, 100% passionately living in-the-moment with total focus.

A perfect chess en passant is, to me, like tickling white water and bouncing off it into a beautiful Cutback. The feeling is the same.

To me, I don't see either sport or art as inclusive upon itself, but instead, find expression for both in all about me, as, in each other, in expressions of seeming total disparity.

For some, perhaps many, to run as fast as you can with your board and leap into the sea in a diving swoop of unbridled spontaneous joy, is a beautiful path. But, not typically mine. I'm more the type who loves to study the sea first. To feel her, to know her movements and expressions as I sit upon an overhanging cliff or beneath a shading tree. I watch, and observe, and learn. Just, as with chess. I love to watch other surfers ride, feeling total stoke for them as though it were me out there riding. Just, as I love to sit and watch a hearty game of chess at the local club, imagining the feel of the pieces as I watch others move them, seeing the moves in my mind before they are made before me. The love and joy of others, whether in chess or surfing, fills my heart with just overwhelming excitement for those dancing in the moment of their passion, for I truly feel bodaciously stoked for them. You see, in the movements of others, using Chi Gung, I can literally feel what the other feels, I can feel the weight of the chess pawn or knight, or, the biting edge of a rail in a perfect power Bottom Turn. Chi Gung offers a way to literally feel such physical expressions of others, in your own body, and thus, to learn not merely from watching but more so, from feeling what others do. In the case of chess, which is a mental game, it is the Nei Dan of Chi Gung which allows you to feel, sense, and embrace the very thoughts of those you watch even before they touch their pieces, in other words, you know, really know what they will do, for their thoughts are upon that very thing. And, in surfing, it is the chi or qi of Nei Dan which allows you to sense and feel what a particular move feels like literally of a surfer whether he or she is actually surfing in front of you or even in a movie. Time, in such situations, does not exist. All that matters, is the flowing feeling of passion dancing with art.

Chess teaches you to think and plan, and, if you bring your chess to the level of art, to feel, for you can literally sense what your opponent will do, not merely logically nor by force, but instead, by something so much more powerful, be feeling or reading your opponents thoughts. It's a chi gung thing, nei dan as I just mentioned a moment ago, specifically. I first noticed it in fencing when I was training for the women's epee in fencing for the Olympics as I tried for Samoa. According to concepts of chi, "where the mind goes, the chi flows." In other words, first, you have to think it. These thoughts, when focused, can be sensed by those with proper training. Now, as for surfing, if you can think, you can be instantanously spontaneous in your creative approaches to any given wave. You can use your brain to pick where to be to catch a wave, what to do as you make the drop so you don't wipe out, and, how to ride, even when surprises pop out at you like a water burst at Makaha on Oahu, if you're not ready, you'll shoot 20 feet into the air.

Sure, some think of chess as slow detailed, calculating mental effort, and, it can be. Yet, some love the game of Blitz Chess where you play lightning fast, simply responding as quickly as you can to what your opponent does.

The thing is, with enough training, or, using an art like the 4000 year old Chinese discipline of chi gung, you can learn to think incredibly quickly, thus, everything appears in extreme slow motion. For most people, such events seem to come randomly in their lives, if at all, typically, during some extreme accident or trauma or emergency. Yet, once one learns how, through mental training, one can constantly be in such a state of awareness. A super example from a fun movie is in the first Spiderman movie a few years ago when the main character, Peter, noticed a fly buzzing in extreme slow motion just as he was about to get into a fight scene in the film. Such stuff is not the mere fantasy of movies but nor simply the realm of those in desperate situations, but, can be with you always.

So, by developing your brain, for example by playing chess, you can indeed improve your surfing in ways you may not have anticipated. Interestingly enough, your surfing will enhance your chess and your chess will enhance your surfing, so, on those dark nights, such as tonight, at 2:12 AM when the world around me sleeps in the wilds of the woods outside my door, I sit here with my favorite Russian styled Chess set and, my other set, the one that's gone to the North Pole, it's a magnetic set and equally fun. I love chess sets and chess pieces, just as I love surfboards and surf fins. Of course, my true heart belongs to surfing, chess is simply a fun passion for me, yet, it has always been in my life since I was a little girl, in fact, interestingly enough, I just thought about it and I actually learned chess the same year I made my first surfboard. Funny, that. Between the two, my life followed chess in that I lived in the middle of the country after leaving the Great Lakes and my beloved surfing there. But now, I am near the sea and surfing is my life, as it has been since a year ago last Summer when I almost died. I got my board for Christmas last year thanks to Santa and a very very kind Robert August who personally shaped it for me, and began my surfing in the late Winter, learning the wilds of the Pacific Northwest then heading out to the North Shore. Oahu rocks, I truly admit that. And, what could be a cuter town that Haleiwa? Soon, when life is right, I shall live there. Had circumstances been different this Fall, my original plan, some of you may have read, was to surf there from September through Christmas, for about 4 months or so. Life got in the way, I lost a pet, now I have a torn meniscus, but, my heart still soars the waves.

Speaking of tearing my meniscus, according to the Doctor, a true specialist in the field, and one of the Pacific Northwests top guys, said such an injury would probably never heal, yet, at least after 6 weeks the pain should be gone he said. I tore it last Monday. Tonight, I just got through with about 3 hours of tightwire walking and balance training on my indoor tightwire. Too many bears and mountain lions hunting outside in the swamp on a dark night like this to train outside, perhaps when the moon is fuller. My knee, using chi gung for healing, feels GREAT!!! I feel solid, flexible, confident, stoked, agile, and strong tonight. Tomorrow should be interesting, that is to say, in a few hours when it gets light. I'll hit my loose rope for some Soft Rope training, shooting for 6 hours today. I should be able to make that since I just got in 3 hours okay.

I so hope that more surfers all over the world get into Chi Gung (Qigong) as a form of healing them of surfing injuries, it's truly an incredible discipline. In the meantime, my goal is to help as many hurt surfers as I can. And, along the way, perhaps get a good chess game in now and again. :)

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Happy Samhain Tribe

2010-10-31T13:01:00.000-07:00

Happy Samhain Tribe,

So, Halloween is upon us. Watch out for Wererats and Weresharks in hawaii, Werewolves in Europe as well as Werecats, and, over in Asia, beware of Weretigers. As for here, well, take care lest the WereOctopus grabs you out at Tentacles, it's been known to happen. Locally, most of the shaping shifting beasties are dogs, according to the local Native American legends, but some wolves come into play too. And of course, then there's all the shapeshifting sea creatures along the Pacific Northwest as well as over in the British Isles.

What fun.

I ended up tearing my meniscus, not on the near 50 foot wave, oh no, after all, that would have been a fun bar story. Instead, on a damned porch. Yep, a moss covered deck, and, off I went, into knee hell. I guess it's a good week for it, what with it being Samhain or Halloween week and all. It's laid me up for a few days so far. The Doctor says, such things never heal, but, with Chi Gung, I should be back and at em in no time. Basically, the meniscus is a type of cartilidge in the knee, and, because of the lack of blood supply, it typically can never heal in most people. That's where Bone Marrow Chi Gung comes into play. It's a way of restimulating the marrow in the bone, to change it from no marrow to marrow in older bones, and from yellow marrow to red marrow also in older bones. And, it also helps the blood flow. So, using Nei Dan Chi Gung as well as Wai Dan Chi Gung as forms of expression of Bone Marrow Chi Gung, I'll redirect the blood supply along the outside edge of the meniscus to redirect the small veins and such in the meniscus, to stimulate new bloodflow growth patterns, thus, sending fresh blood, oxygen, and Chi (Qi), into the torn wound within my knee.

Modern Western Medicine says it has to be cut out, if the damage progresses, since nothing can really be done, but, Chi Gung, being the root of Eastern Medicine, says there are ways to help it. My Knee Doctor, a leading guy in his field, says, if such a thing can happen, it'll be the makings of a Noble Prize in Medicine. We'll see about that. He wants to reexamine everything with his high intensity MRI 20X more powerful than most MRI's, in about 6 months, so, we'll see at that time whether your local surfer girl is up for a Nobel Prize or something of the sort. That would be rather fun. At any rate, in the meantime, I'll just do that which I do and give this a go with my way of healing.

And, what perfect timing to get so stupidly hurt, being such a magical time of year. A time filled with legends, mystery, magic, wonder, dreams, and the living dead, of course, not to mention werewolves and their like.

So, being hurt and all, yesterday I spent the day with my favorite movie, John Carpenter's The Thing, staring Kurt Russell. It's a GREAT horror /sci fi film. As such, I decorated my living room like an Arctic Explorer's base, sort of like in the movie, ate Military Expedition Rations, drank vodka, had a good supply of extra large ring sized (60) very dark (maduro) cigars on hand for guests of the dark woods, and played Russian Styled Chess (being of Siberian and Mongolian heritage - some of you may not have known that, this is my favorite style of Chess) on a travel chess set board that's been to the North Pole. How romantic is that!!! Sleeping on a military cot beneath a hammock, all night chess games, what greater fun for the limping wounded? I so need to get bit by something, anything will do, some were beastie or other, tonight to get some greaty lycantropy strength. Sigh. Hey, it could happen. After all, I live in the middle of the woods, in the middle of a swamp, at the very end of a single lane dirt trail, with a gypsy vardo (a gypsy wagon home) in my yard that I built myself. It doesn't get more creepy and eerie than that. I'll sit outside tonight, with a candle for light, play some chess with the clouds, and see what comes walking down the lonely path or crawls out of the creek, swamp, or woods.

Happy Halloween everyone,

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Come Monday 47 Foot

2010-10-23T01:55:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

And still she grows. some of the waves in the Wilds should hit 47 foot (Triple Overhead).

As a Watergirl student under one of the world's original Legends and originators of Big Wave Surfers, it seems like sort of a moral imperative to hit both breaks, simply as a means of self experimentation, of course. A 20% or so increase like that would be interesting as a comparative study in riding pressure based on height, probably thickness, and of naturally, mostly, Chi Analysis based on Yang Flow.

I admit it, I most certainly have never surfed a wave like this epic 47 footer yet, few, I'd imagine, have tried paddling into such a beast (I'm not Jet Ski trained and besides, I'm being trained in and truly love the ways of old-school, afterall, there's got to be a first time for a big wave virgin. Besides, when your mentor, who happens to be one of the greatest Big Wave Surfers ever says you're ready by saying the classic "fucking go for it" especially, when you feel it in your heart and know you've trained the best you can. After all, sometimes you just have to jump into the proverbial deep end of the pool, not for fame, not for glory, but simply for Soul Surfing, for, none will probably see this ride, who could, after all, for purity of the true essence of Soul Surfing, all one would need do is stick Number 9's.

I'd imagine that 47 Foot will probably reach a speed of about 35 mph or so, maybe more. Thus, here are the rules I've been told to follow (plus a couple of my thoughts on them following a few...

1. Be Ahead of the Game - Know yourself, know what to do, then, do it with 100% commitment.

2. No Mishaps - Once, I was preparing to go out with my mentor and another legend and I was told to "keep up," and, "do what we do." And, "oh, by the way, no falling."

3. Be Safe

4. Be Strong - Like the She-Hulk and the Silver Surfer (my literary fictional heroes who I literally base my training on).

5. Be Happy - I live by this one

6. Be Fast - Think like lightning, move like Quick Silver (mercury)

7. Be Cool - This one is pure Chi Gung

8. Be Calm -Also pure Chi Gung as well as my life style and natural expression.

9. Be Collective

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

35 Foot This Monday Dawn Patrol in the Wilds: The Chi Surfer

2010-10-22T14:46:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

So, the coming swell is growing, and, shifting north. It'll hit here, in the Wilds, for Dawn Patrol Monday morniing. It should be about 35 foot with a 16 second Period.

I hope I can make it. It all depends on what happens Saturday. If I do go, my focus, as always, will be on Chi Surfing. That's where, while surfing, you absorb the Chi of the wave and store it in your Dan Tien. This stored energy can then be used later in a variety of situations, such as self healing if your hurt or sick or healing or helping others in need.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

NOHO Surf Balance Trainer: Glasses of Water: Perfect Steadyness: for Surfing, Slacklining, Soft Rope Walking, and Tight Wire Walking

2010-10-21T19:22:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

I'm always using new and fun ways of working out with my NOHO Surf Balance Trainer attached to my longboard. What I seek, is perfection. Namely, perfect steadyness.

So, along this line, I have 12 plastic margaritta glasses that can be filled with water. And, these are then placed 6 to a side, nose to tail, of my longboard. The idea is, to not only make sure no glasses fall off the board, but more so, that no water spills, and, more than that, I am working on having the water as smooth as possible in the glasses.

With certain moves, like, the Drop Knee Cutback, where I like to drop my rear knee, in my case, my left knee, right down to the board with merely a fraction of an inch of room to spar. I find in this position, that it works my right thigh muscles, the quadriceps the best. With a weak leg muscle in your front leg, you'll probably notice that your board will shake intensely. But, simply stick with it. Do it again and again and again, really working your leg and buns muscles.

Try for perfection. After all, why not? For, in perfection, one finds art.

So, instead of doing the normal Cross Stepping moves, I've been working on walking like I would on both my Soft Rope and Slackline, as well as on my Tight Wire. Both types of balance and walking offer different experiences in balance and different muscle development.

To walk like you would on a Slackline or Soft Rope, you use your hips and knees to balance. Stand on one foot and get your balance. Then, when you have it, and you're sure you have it, slowly, smoothly bring your rear foot forward until it is roughtly even with your side. Then, for the shear practice of it, lift your leg as high to your side as you can, using your gluteus medius muscle to do this. If you can lift your foot, to your side, as high as your shoulder or higher, you're doing great, this, of course, requires not only strength, but also super balance. Then, slowly lower and raise your leg a bit, playing with your balance, feeling it out, experimenting, seeing how far you can go. When you are ready, slowly bring your foot that has been raised in front of your supporting foot and softly place weight on it, ball of the foot first, then toes, then heel. Once you have your weight on your front foot, begin the process again, only this time, you bring your other leg forward, and thus, it extends out and up to the opposite side of your previous leg. Do this for several steps on your NOHO Surf Balance Trainer, walking from the Tail to the Nose in this manner. Then, walk backwards, using the same process only in reverse.

Once you get back to where you started, it is now time to try Tight Wire styled walking. For this, your balance comes from your arms instead of from your hips and knees. And, thus, instead of holding your legs one at a a time out to the sides of your body like you did in the previous exercise, you simply bring each rear foot and place it surely in front of the supporting foot. This form of walking is less wobbly and more stable.

You'll find, if you practice both of these styles, that your coordination and balance on your longboard will skyrocket in leaps and bounds of joyful expression.

So, I do these types of exercises on my longboard, along with any other surfing moves I might want to practice on any given day, and then, I walk on a wooden pole that I have set up right next to my NOHO Surf Balance Trainer. The pole is one inch wide and 10 feet long. It offers a test of the previous exercises.

What I do is I do several laps on my longboard, then several laps on the pole, then several laps on my longboard, hour after hour. Or, if I want variance, I simply do the same thing in the Loft, using my Tight Wire Simulator and my home-made solid wood surfboard that sits on 4 balance disks.

I'm finding that the variation between going from the moving longboard to the steady wood pole and back, again and again and again, truly challenges my body and muscles. Oh, and, if you like, playing Surf Music and '60's Rock both seem to offer good vibrations for training with, giving your movements a sense of flow you might not otherwise have had.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Developing Sensitive Feet for Surfing, Slacklining, Tight Wire Walking, and Soft Rope Penetatration Arts

2010-10-21T10:44:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

Would you like to make your feet more sensitive, so that no matter what your balance sport is, that you can feel your board or wire or rope better?

Well, here's a tip. Get some Chinese Wolf Berry and mix it with Sea Salt. Boil this. Then, while it's still warm, rub it into the soles of your feet. This method comes from the Chinese Soft Rope Penetration Arts for Soft Rope Walking. Now, here's the addition secret, and, the key to Chi Gung, for that matter.

Breath.

Okay, there's a bit more than that. Here's how. Inhale and exhale through your nose (not your mouth) as softly, slowly, and beautifully as you can - and, this means no noise. Your breath should be smooth and flowing.

As you do this, inhaling and exhaling as slowly as you can (perhaps 5 or 6 seconds on the inhale and 5 or 6 seconds on the exhale or whatever is good for you, to start with), eventually working up to 8 minutes plus per inhale, never stopping during that time but making a single inhalation literally last that long. It, takes practice.

As you do the breathing, a secret Chi Gung key is to have your tongue pressed against the roof of your mouth, on, the soft palete. In other words, you tongue curves back and up and touches the top of the inside of your mouth.

Keep your tongue held here the entire exercise. The reason has to do with how energy or Chi flows through the body.

Once you can do this, simply at this point, feel the warm water on the soles of your feet, bring your mind and attention to the damp warm feeling. Where you mind goes, your Chi flows.

As you try to sense the bottoms of your soles, focus on this particularly while inhaling. The reason for this it will help to draw Chi from the Wolfberry and Sea Salt into the soles of your feet, which, by the way, happen to be two of the five easiest spots on the human body to absorb Chi, Qi, or energy. In Japanese, by the way, the word for Chi or Qi is Ki. In Scotland, it' Maucht. Prana, in Hindi. Different word, same thing. In this case, a warm damp foot that is quickly drying off as you do this exercise.

By combining the herb and mineral as well as doing the breathing, your feet, will, in time, grow softer and more receptive to feelings and sensations. With this, you can then be more aware of all parts of the bottom of your foot in great detail, which, can then allow you to fully develop each of your foot muscles, which, are so vital in surfing (DD and Laird Hamilton have talked about this), as well as in Tight Wire, Tight Rope, Slackline, and Soft Rope.

In my Chi Gung training at the Master level back in the day, one thing I had to do was drink boiled wolfberry twice a day as well as eat it twice a day. Nasty tasting and smelling, by the way, but, a great way to increase Chi and thus your energy. Personally, while the smell is not great as you boil it, at least you're rubbing it on your feet and not eating or drinking it several times every day. Blech. But, part of the training, so, whatevers it takes.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

28 Foot (Triple Overhead) Sunday in the Wilds, 35 Foot a few hours South

2010-10-21T02:11:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

The massive storm coming, is racing a bit ahead of schedule, it now looks like, driving big 28 foot waves toward me to arrive on this coming Sunday. Yesterday, it looked like it might be Monday, but now, it is coming sooner. Or, if I wanted to go for a couple hours extra drive, I could find some 35 footers (Triple Overheads).

Now granted, these waves will be tough if not nearly impossible, and, dangerous beyond all reason, mostly because of the fact they'll be Closed Out, but also simply because of how the waves hit here. Perhaps a few might dare them, that'd be awesome to sit in the Line Up with you and meet you. But, if this is like it was last Winter and early Spring, I'll be the only one out. Dangerous and foolish, by the way to do that, so, please, don't anybody else try something like that. You truly need to know how to survive in that kind of sea, how to swim it, how to take the beatings, and here, how to even punch through it.

It requires a special kind of move that I've worked on all Summer and Fall, getting ready, for that time when you do find yourself in the sea beneath a mountain about to destroy you. It's a way of using Chi Gung, as a form of swimming, to guide yourself through the inevitable spin cycle to survival.

Helpful too, of course, is breath control, in fact, it's vital because, unlike the beautiful waves on the North Shore of Oahu, for example, with their long periods and perfect faces, here, the biting cold water will tear at your soul and the short periods will be more than you ever imagined as you are hit by wave after wave after wave, held under, at times, for an eternity. If you can hold your breath under such circumstances for 8 minutes or more in such situations, it can save your very life. If you can't, you really shouldn't be out without realizing the risk you're taking.

Waves like this, in the Wilds, happen. And, when it's all you have, you have to learn to live with it and more so, to play with it, for, it's all there is. But it takes a certain way of looking at the sea to long to step up and dance in dangerous situations like this.

Sunday, Monday, whenevers, when this storm comes, the sea will be a monster. And all who dare her embrace will be in for a thrashing. So, respect is vital. The sea, she is alive, she has a spirit, a soul, and, this must be honored as Watermen and Watergirls know.

Oh, and, leave your watercraft at HOME. The wilds is for, primitive surfing, wild space, the embrace of nature in her fury and in her primal feral darkness. If you want it, really want it, then, learn to paddle out in this kind of set. Let others play with their gasoline toys in other lands. Here, there be beasts.

One of the exercises I will be doing out there, is working with my Swiss Ball. Darrick Doerner (DD), the famous big wave surfer and my surfing and Watergirl mentor, has taught me how to do some very special exercises with it in seas like this. So, I'll have my board, my Swiss ball, and, my Coast Guard Rescue Swimmer Rocket fins for some serious Coastal Swimming. As a Watergirl, there is so much for me to do and train in wild seas. So, such storms make me smile. Which is, by the way, one of the secrets in this kind of sea, for if your smile is genuine, you can understand yourself and have a loose body. Fear will make you tense, so what one needs instead, is to respect the sea in all of her teachings as she talks to us and shows us all, as members of The Tribe, to understand her language and to speak with her in her own tongue, in her own way, in her own time.

In the meantime, until this weekend comes, I shall be back to the Basics, again and again and again. Studying the sea and surf science, training my balance, my endurance, my strength in various ways, (roughly 28 or so that I mentioned way back in the Fall or early Winter about a year ago or so. My training, as always, will be intense, all day and most of the night, every day and night. It's about 2:15 AM or so right now, on a night with a near full moon, I am up, and, I am training. My day ahead will be long and brutal and necessary and it has me stoked. In the next few days ahead, I'll sleep only an hour or two a day, and eat only water, bringing my body as close as I can inside and outside to her natural watery state. And, after I surf, on Sunday or Monday or whenevers, when the seas lay down a bit, I'll get some rest and revitalize and restrengthen my body, mind, and spirit doing Chi Gung and of course, honoring the sea by having a fish taco and some fruit (a very watery food - much yin).

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Triple Overhead (18 footers) this Weekend, 28 footers coming Monday!!!

2010-10-19T19:16:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

So, this weekend should be a wild time surfing, swimming, and Coastal Swimming. There should be Triple Overhead 18 foot waves this weekend with about 13 second periods. But the fun really begins on Monday, yep, Monday, with 28 Footers bashing those brave enough to dare to hell and back. Oh my gosh, talk about totally killer.

Pretty exciting. I do have to see my Veteranarian on Saturday, about one of my chickens - I so hope she turns out okay, but then, after that, the weekend is wide open. I'm rather stoked.

Today was a good day of training, I had to workout at home but first, I got in about 6 hours of Slacklining, Tight Wire Walking, Loose Rope Walking, as well as my Remo Williams gym workout in, and then, I really got to work with a few more hours of training doing some mountain biking, some hiking, and, the creme de la creme, tightrope and loose rope walking training on the swinging bridge across the river (walking this is like getting hit by a major wave with every step, a total balance killer).

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Psoas Major and Iliacus Muscles for Balance: Rather sexy

2010-10-18T13:48:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

I just got done walking about 30 trips on my Tight Wire Simulator, after, my previous 4 hour balance workout this morning, and it was really fun to see my morning workout paying off.

My Tight Wire walking was really fun. More so, it really way totally worked my Psoas Major muscles and my Iliacus Muscles. Not only does it feel great to push those muscles, but to actually see them changing these last few weeks, to see them taking shape is kind of sexy and fun. They're cute muscles, and, of course, they have very practical applications for many forms of sports as well as for artistic physical expression.

These muscles, the Psoas Major and the Iliacus, as well as the Gluteus Maximus and Gluteus Medius, will be super beneficial for Riding Sliding Ass on my new home-made solid wood, skegless, surfboard. That's awesomely cool, because I love that feeling and it's my favorite riding style and on my new board, the muscles will really go into overdrive and develop even more with the heavy plank.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Balance Training Loft: Remo Williams Style for Surfing

2010-10-18T12:06:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

My loft is coming together. I have several stations in it, put together as a run or sequence to follow. Of course, it can be reversed, as well as alter direction at any of the changeover spots.

The stations, so far are...

1. 10 foot long home-made solid wood surfboard on rail roller - allowing side to side movements both to the left and to the right just as though you were doing a Frontside Turn or a Backside Turn.

2. Balance Log with 2 x 6, eight foot, board, allowing forward and backward balance simulation. This movement while surfing replicas dropping the nose for increased speed or for practicing Pearling maneuvers such as a 180 Pearling Pullout Spin, or sinking your tail for stalling or slowing down, as well as to prevent pearling.

3. Walking Chain - a 20' chain that hangs loosely or can sit on the floor to walk and balance on (1" links).

4. Walking Pole - a wooden dowel (I have several of these) for balance beam type walking (1" diameter, 10 foot long). This can sit on the floor, or, be suspended at each end by ropes.

5. Elevated 2 x 6 x 8' walk between two wooden saw horses.

6. Walking Pole - one of three.

7. Army helmet (as a "post," to stand on) - there are two of these.

8. Army Storage Chest - to walk on edge

9. series of several varied size ammo boxes (about 6 of them) to walk on, some are roughly 4 x 8 x 6 others are 2 x 8 x 4.

10. 2 x 4 balance beam 8' long. Elevated.

11. Walking Bricks - a series of bricks to step on from brick to brick There are 8 bricks, laid out in a Baqua pattern circle that is painted on the floor for Baqua training.

12. Clawfoot Bathtub (cast iron and ceramic coated) - walk and balance on edges.

13. Two ceramic planters ( for Chinese Soft Rope Penetration vase training) - balancing on edges while taking water out of planters with bucket. The planters start out filled with water, then, every few days, you take a bucket of water out, making the vase more tippy in the process, until eventually, there is no water and simply the vase or planter to stand on the edge on top of it.

14. 11mm static Assault Rappeling Rope hung loose for Rope Dancing - loose rope balance and walking ( 200 foot)

15. Wine Barrels - for standing on and Rolling - there are 3. Watch one of the more recent The Musketeer and you'll see d'Artagnan rolling on top of and balancing on wine barrels - a fun scene and my inspiration for this part of my training.

16. Dresser plank to Wine Barrel - 2 x 6 board for sitting on.

17. Dresser plank to Wine Barrel 2 x 8 board for laying on.

18. Tight Wire Simulator Standing Station - for standing in one spot, both feet on line for as long as possible without loosing balance and while keeping both feet in contact with wire. Currently, about 2 minutes 23 seconds. Up from 37 seconds two days ago, 25 seconds the day before that, 8 seconds a few days before that, and 3 seconds before that.

19. Balance pole for stepping over and under

20. Loose Rope - 25 foot long. Suspended in elongated U shape.

21. Tight Wire Simulator - 10 foot long (made of two portable sections). A third 5 foot portable section is in my bedroom. It can be moved about my home at will, such as to the Surfing Library, by the fireplace, outdoors by the creek or by my Gypsy Vardo, in the living room, to the office, in the kitchen, and so on.

I'll be adding more stations soon. A tight wire station, a slackline station, a swaying balance pole, manilla ropes of various diameters from 1/2" to 2"and so on.

The type of training I'm doing is a form of Light Body Kung Fu focusing in Chi Gung, for developing perfect body balance for my surfing and, ultimately, high wire walking - I see all of my training as linked together for a common purpose. I can practice on my various pieces of equipment, both in the loft and also outdoors, as well as in my Surfing Library on my NOHO Surf Balance Trainer.

The workout begins and ends on my surfboard, thus, I am freshest before the several hour workout and also, the most fatigued after the workout for another session of surfing or surfing training.

I'll get up some photos soon, of all the various stations, both indoors as well as outdoors.

In addition to training out in the Loft (several hundred yards down the dirt lane), I train in my home constantly on various wood poles, metal pipes, and manilla rope as well as the edges and rails and backs of furniture, which allows me to move and walk around almost anywhere in my home while balanced on at least one of these. At first, I did this only while doing chores, now, I travel like this everywhere I go in my home, whether to the kitchen, library, various rooms, bedroom, or even the bathroom. Thus, if I'm not out in the waves surfing, anytime I'm home or in my yard, I'm training balance. It's fun to see how my muscles are changing, shaping, and strengthening as well as my balance becoming more graceful, thus allowing me greater access to moving softly and beautifully for greater Chi Gung applications to my movment, matching, my external body with my internal energy flow.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

What Chi Gung (Qigong) Brings to Longboard Surfing

2010-10-15T20:12:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

As most of you know, I love Chi Gung. And, I love longboarding. And, the cool thing is, one, enhances the other.

Chi Gung is a 4000 year old Chinese system of studying the energy of our bodies, as well as the energy that's all around us and in everything. What I've done is I've taken my experience in that art, and, brought it to longboard surfing. And, here's what it does.

With Chi Gung, you specifically and concretely train yourself to develop all of your senses to their absolute maximum potential. As such, when you surf, say on a longboard, you can actually feel things that you've never felt before. In other words, you'll have new feelings in your body as you surf, which is the whole reason we all began surfing to begin with, and, these feelings, these physical sensations, will grow deeper and more advanced the more Chi Gung that you do.

Basically, in a nutshell, Chi Gung begins as a form of breathing training, where you learn initially to be aware of your breath, to merely notice it at first. Over time, and with many various exercises, you learn to ultimately control your breathing, and, more so, to guide the energy of your breath anywhere in your body, as well as into your surfboard. This makes your surfboard, literally, an extension of yourself.

What you're learning to do is to feel, in your body, all the sensations and experiences that your surfboard encounters, and, to be aware of them, as your own. When you can learn to do this, your surfing will be on a whole new level, for you'll learn to lose yourself in the feeling of surfing over the waves in ways you've never imagined nor experienced.

This, of course, is the feeling of stoke. That awesomely energetic sensation that we so all love. You can learn to experience that deeper and deeper and deeper, with literally no end to what you can learn about yourself and your sensory awareness.

As such, it's truly magical what you can feel as you surf, feelings of pure and total ecstasy and complete abandon where you lose yourself to the beautiful feeling of gliding and carving on your longboard. And, for those of you who are shortboarders, the same thing applies, simply more yang and less yin, merely the opposite side of the same coin.

We all can learn to push our limits, to expand what we can feel and sense. Some of us, many actually, have and do use various drugs to reach such levels, but, with a cool art like Chi Gung, drugs aren't necessary to reach such a high for an art like this is a pure and totally naturaly high through learning to merely embrace your body on levels that most have never imagined.

What Chi Gung brings to Longboard Surfing, is, pure magic. Dreams of sensations that are undreamable. This art offers ways to manifest that which you truly desire in your riding, and more so, you can learn to do this not only during your ride but as you remember it later, as well as in watching the rides of others.

Imagine watching your favorite pro, and, literally feeling what they are feeling as they do it. That, is what Chi Gung has to offer. We can learn to feel what others feel, and, we can learn to feel what we ourselves truly feel as we surf.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

NOHO Surf Balance Trainer: Silver Surfer Camp Again

2010-10-15T16:19:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

Since I have two pets I am trying to help this weekend, for both are very ill, I will not go surfing, since I need to be home for them. Yet, I will train as much as I can at home. My focus will be on my NOHO Surf Balance Trainer, and, as such, I'll do another Silver Surfer Camp weekend.

My goal, with such a weekend, is to stay on my NOHO Trainer as much as I can, doing everything I'd normally do during a weekend while on my longboard. I'll be using my 9 foot custom shaped, Robert August Wingnut red and white stripped longboard. I love that board. She's so beautiful.

By spending as much time on my longboard as possible, eating, reading, sleeping, stretching, exercising, balancing, and of course, practicing my surfing moves, I believe that I can learn to truly become one with my board and really get to know how she moves, her moods, her rhythms, and what makes her ride as she does. My inspiration, as I've mentioned before, comes from the Stan Lee Marvel Comics Superhero: The Silver Surfer. That character more or less lives on his surfboard as he surfs through the galaxies on adventures. And, while that is just a comic book of course, the idea of training as a surfer that way, to me, makes a lot of sense. The more we do any skill, the better we become at is. And, for most of us, our surfing rides typically last perhaps 8 to 20 seconds per ride, maybe? Sometimes only a few rides a day, sometimes, 25 or more in a couple of hours. Whatevers. The point is, regardless of how much you can ride, it's still far less than what, say, a skateboarder can since the sidewalk is always there with no Lineup and no Paddle Out.

Most of my time, of course, will be spent with my sick chickens, but, when I can, to build my own energy, hope, and faith, I'll train on my longboard. And, my Soft Rope and slackrope and tight wire, of course.

I'm stoked.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Riding Your Hips

2010-10-15T12:42:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

Most of us learn to steer with our eyes, our hands, our arms, our shoulders, and THEN, our waists. We learn to steer and control our boards from the top down. Sure, our feet apply pressure, but we are taught as well as learn through experience, that it is our shoulders and up that do a lot of work.

Perhaps, and, this is just a guess, but maybe it's because so many surfers have been guys and guys are often stronger in the shoulders and arms than girls, whereas girls are heavier and more balanced in the hips.

The thing is, it would seem that all of us could benefit from learning to use our hips a bit more, A subtle shift forwards or backwards, left or right might be all that is needed, especially on a longboard, to glide smoothly into long romantic arching turns filled with grace, beauty, style, and oh that wonderful flowing feeling that all of us so love.

One of the things is, it seems, is that many of us learn from looking at the stars and legends, and, we try to copy them. The thing is, we need to take into consideration who we ourselves our, and, as such, to find our own paths to true surfing stoke.

Each of us has different strengths and balance and grace, as well as experience on the water, and, all of that and a hundred other things need to be taken into consideration.

Sure, the old-school way was to watch our heroes surf, or, to look at photos of them in the magazines, then, to try to copy what we've seen. Today, of course, it's so much easier with dvds that can freeze frame any position and muscle contraction. You literally can see what muscles are pushing on a board, how or where a person's balance lies, and by watching again and again, we can even learn to anticipate what a surfer will do or more so, what a wave will do. This last fact, is truly an awesome way to learn about the water because you can study the structure of a wave, frame by frame, and watch as it rises and falls and each ripple upon its surface as it happens. Then, going back a frame or two, you can learn to predict what will happen on the wave, since, you've already seen the future by previous viewing. In this way, one can learn truly magical elements of waves and as such, the language of the swell and sea.

So, what does all of that have to do with our hips, you might be asking? Well, loads. You see, when you focus on something, like a slight shift of weight due to hip position, you're learning to read your body and her sense of balance, to play with it, to truly understand the exact and critical point to the millimeter of where you balance shifts. It is the same, when reading the waves.

Now sure, I know that most of us don't bother with such seemingly trivial irrelevance, yet, for some, such experimentation is fun, I clearly, as you have read, fall into the latter category. For me, it's all about seeing what I can do. Pushing a bit more, trying something new and creative, spur the moment, in an instant of spontaneous imagination. I find such experiences truly, totally, bodaciously thrilling.

The thing is, the more we practice, the more we experiment, the more we play (and that's the important one), the freer we are in our surfing and thus, in expressing ourselves as we surf, more so, when we truly surf free, we find that we lose ourselves to the wave, we simply become water energy ourselves, riding, flowing, in harmony, with no sense of self, for, in such moments, we are the sea, both within our bodies and how all of the fluid in our body adapts to what we are doing but also, on the wave we surf.

It's fun to ride with your hips. It loosens up your waist, helps with overall body flexibility, and, well, it just feels awesomely awesome, so much so, it makes a girl just want to yell from pure ecstasy.

Ride loose, Tribe, flow free, and simply be the wave.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

What to Do in Closed Out Waves

2010-10-14T07:32:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

On days when it's Closed Out, and the Peak breaks all along the wave at once, most of us look at it, assuming we even went to the beach that day, sigh, and promptly leave. What with computers today, some of us don't even bother to head to the beach. It saddens me for the old days. Yet, I wonder, if or when we do simply leave or not bother even going, how many of us have momentarily lost touch with our inner child, that spirit within us who remembers our first ride, who embraces the whole reason we got into surfing in the first place. It's so easy, in today's modern world, to become complacent.

The thing is, in the wilds where I live, if I lived that way, that is, not hitting the swells on "lousy days", I'd end up never being able to surf. So, what I've found helps me at least is to love what I do have, when I have it, where I am,, and, simply learn to do whatever it is you can in such conditions, be it Closed Out waves, too strong of wind, whipping flesh tearing rain, sleet, blinding snow, hail, or even, during the Flats. The truly awesome thing is, we can all do this.

The surf is loaded with opportunities for play and experimentation and study and simply learning. And, personally, as a Watergirl, it's my job to learn it all. I was told by my surf and Watergirl Mentor, DD (Darrick Doerner), that he's probably watched 10,000 hours of watching and studying the sea. Now of course, naturally, he didn't literally count every time, but in Chinese culture, for example, the use of 10,000 simply means, a very much lot or uncountable, so, I think that's what he meant, to study the sea, to surf in it, to explore it, watch it, learn from it, and learn all it has to offer every moment of every chance that you have. The sea, to a surfer, is life. It is, our everything.

When the sea is Closed Out, that's the time for us to return to the Basics. Perhaps we'll spend some time on the shore, watching the rhythm of the thrashing waves. Squeezing the cool sand beneath our toes. Feeling the breeze against our skin. Smelling the salt air. Oddly enough, each of these things increases our sensory awareness, and, as such, increases our ability to experience more physical sensations when we do surf. In other words, the more that we learn to truly feel and be fully aware of all of our senses, the more stoke we can feel when we do drop down the Face of a beautiful wave. There's so much to study and be aware of, so much to notice with our senses. Sure, you can see waves approach, but, can you feel them? Go ahead, try it, stand or sit on the beach and close your eyes and simply feel the pressure of the sea as it rises towards you. You'll feel an air cushion push against you with each wave. Interestingly enough, if practiced long enough, such sensitivity can be used when you're out in the Line Up and you can sense when a big swell is coming, even without seeing it. That was but one example of what can be done.

Another thing to do is to simply watch anybody who happens to be out when we might be considering not going, in mere moments, their fun will embrace us and we'll find ourselves running with our board in hand to the next wave. It's a cool feeling, to feel the stoke of others. For me, as two of my pets fight for their lives this very moment, I am learning to truly dance in the moment, to live now. To fully embrace what I have this instant. I am doing all I can for my two chickens, Sunshine and Lola. And, I pray that they can survive the day and night and live long beautiful happy surfer chicken lives. Their chicken coop, by the way, is decorated as a Surf Shack, with two paintings of surfing chickens, and surf memorabilia such as tiki cups and statues, jars of exotic cigars from around the world, an old checker board, and so on. I pray the two of my chickens who are sick can heal today. The third, Gwenny seems to be doing great!!! I'm trying to take my love of surfing and infusing my body with it as I pet them and comfort them today, filling them with love and hope and beautiful dreams, as well as beautiful memories. Please, any of you out there, if you have a prayer for a special pet, please send it along a wave today. Thanks, and love to you all. Aloha.

Let's all, surf, this moment. And, love. And Live.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Overheads for the Weekend: Glassy in the Mornings, Closed Out the Rest of the Day - Shortish Periods

2010-10-14T07:25:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

We have some nice Overheads for the weekend coming up. Today too, for that matter. Super in the morning, probably even Glassy, then, Closed Out by the afternoon and dusk, so those will be awesome too. The Periods will be moderately short, about 9 seconds. A bit easier than the sometimes 4 to 6 seconds we often get.

It's truly amazing how balance training helps your surfing. It lifts you to whole new levels for experiementing with new moves and exploring old ones you thought you knew. I highly recommend learning to walk on Soft Ropes, Slacklines, and Tight Wires. And, don't worry about the height, that's not too important, though, it does have some applications in that sitting on top of a Double Overhead far Inside, you'll appreciate your sense of height confidence you can gain from a rope or wire as you look straight down the face for the possible Acid Drop of a life. Late Drops are fun. Just remember to Angle, if you like such things, or, learn to Submarine or do a Pearling 180 Spin, whatevers. The point is, play, have fun, and experiment and always push your limits.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

NOHO Surf Balance Trainer with Bells, Bells on Soft Rope and Slackline as well as Pickpocketing Mannequin Dummy

2010-10-13T17:33:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe

I was reading that there was a tightrope walker who trained when he was little by having bells put on his line by his father. That made me smile, because, as a pickpocket, I have a mannequin at home that I have loaded with bells and traps of all kinds in order to develop the soft touch of the Master Cannon.

That gave me the idea to put bells on my various soft ropes, slacklines, and tightwires. Now, the reason the young wire walker had bells on his was apparently so that his father would know that he was not only working the line, but also that he was safe. If the bells tinkled, that meant he was okay.

I, on the other hand, do the exact opposite with my pickpocketing mannequin. I try to make none of the traps spring nor none of the bells to ring.

So, my idea with my various walking lines is to do the same thing, string them with bells, then, work until I can walk anything without any bells ringing.

This then made me think of my NOHO Surf Balance Trainer. I have a wonderful net that I use for Retarius Gladitor type training (I love martial arts), and I can lay that over my NOHO Surf Balance Trainer and string the net with Christmas jingle bells of all sizes, shapes, and types. Then, as I practice my longboard surfing skills on my NOHO, the game will be, just like with my soft rope and my pickpocket dummy, to not make any noise. If I do, I lose and have to do the drill again. It makes the training a game, in a sense, where you have a very distinct goal to work for, namely perfect softness, gracefullness, and smoothness, which, is what I strive for in all of the various arts that I practice. For, I dream of beauty in each of these arts.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Soft Rope Home Chores: Remo Williams style (movie)

2010-10-12T12:05:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

I've set up various ropes, poles, logs, and tight wires in my home, to get from place to place, along with walking on tips and edges of furniture such as on their backs and chair arms and such, while I do my daily home chores as well as between training sessions, thus, I'm constantly training. Even while watching tv, mostly dvds about surfing, slacklining, high wire walking, and, of course, Remo Williams for the training scenes, I stand and walk on my tight wire training simulator.

My inspiration for this type of training comes from one of my favorite movies, Remo Williams, which, by the way, finally is out on dvd. The training sequences in the movie - which maybe run an hour perhaps, (always my favorite part of any movie) truly are not only really fun, but, also wildly creative and, they work. That's the cool part. Well, that is to say, if you put in the time every day. That's the secret to surfing and soft rope aka rope dancing it funambulist terminology, as well as low wire and high wire training, you must train daily, more so, you must be truly passionate about what you're doing if you hope to reach your potential.

So, my home now looks sort of like Remo's warehouse did in that movie. At the moment, I was just washing and drying dishes and putting them away, all the while balancing on one of my manilla ropes strung across my kitchen, while walking about the kitchen on the rope.

I want to explore Italian hemp rope. It is the strongest type of hemp rope in the world. I truly love walking on hemp. I feel like I blend with it, harmonize with it, like it is a natural product for me to work with. It's kind of like the solid wood surfboard I'm making out in the barn, old school, they way things were done. The board, by the way, is coming along. I have it glued. Next, the shaping and sanding.

In the Chinese style of Single Rope Rope Penestrating Arts", you use a loosely hung rope, manilla, seems to be an excellent choice. Start with a larger diameter, like 2 inches, and work down to 1 1/2", 1", and perhaps possibly even 3/4".

This is a called a Shaolin Soft Rope Art,

Also from China, in the Xinjiang region in the NW, the type of rope that appears to be walked on looks like 1 inch hemp rope (China is a major producer of hemp). The art here is called Dawaz, which is a Uygur word for tightrope walker. The art of walking a rope, from here, is over a 1000 years old.

Some other words for a tightrope walker are Voleur, Ascensioniste, and Funambule. These words are talked about in Philippe Petit's excellent book On The High Wire. Also from Philippe's book, he gives the definitions of rope walking, namely,

1. Rope Dancer - one who walks, dances or performs on a low hung rope, a few meters above the ground. The rope can be tight or slack or even be loose. A modern slackliner would fit into this category.

2. Low Wire Artist - Someone who walks on a wire made of some sort of metal that is tightly hung only a few meters high.

3. High Wire Artist - A person who walks a very tightly strung wire, at height over 30 feet. He also uses a balancing pole for balance.

For surfing practice, any of these styles of walking would work, of course, though I suspect that most people would probably stick with Rope Dancing, specifically slacklining, typically probably 3 to 7 feet or so high, I'd imagine.

Naturally, of course, there is a radically different feel to walking something loose vs. slack. vs. tight. Each, offers it's challenges.

As a person interested in balancing arts, thus, as an Equilibrist, it's great to learn it all, and, all at once.

So, I include solid stationary objects like rocks, branches, limbs, roots, curbs, fences, truck beds, rooftops, and so on in my play and experimentation. Once I get this down, just as with surfing where I'm drawn to big waves, I am drawn to the high wire. Yet, I love the feel of manilla, and, I dream of hemp rope. So, we'll have to see how this all plays out over time. The thing is, both have traditional and historical ties to rope walking. Hemp, comes from the cannabis plant family (cannabis sativa), while manilla comes from a type of banana plant called abaca. Manilla, while called hemp today by most people, is also about 20% stronger than hemp, it is cheaper than hemp, and, it is much easier to find than hemp rope of equal size, especially when you're looking for the larger sizes like 2 inches in diameter or so. That being said, there are some places on the web that have 1 1/2 hemp rope or about 38 mm diameter. Now then, Italian hemp rope, well, that's a quest, it seems. And, a worthy one. Perhaps someone can help me? I'm looking for somewhere between an 1 1/2 (38mm) and 2 inches (about 50 mm diameter hemp rope) for my walking, and thus, my surfing training. One of the challenges, it seems, with acquiring hemp rope, is that the U.S. Government under the Drug Encorcement Administration, and the Controlled Substance Act has a Zero Tolerance for hemp even as merely a rope for rope walkers, and does not seem to differentiate the various types of hemp or Cannabis. Interestingly enough, hemp rope because less popular than manilla because hemp required tarring when used at sea on ships, whereas manilla did not. Will my dreams of having and walking an Italian hemp rope materialize? Time will tell. But, in the meantime, I have my hemp manilla rope.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Balance Endurance: Getting ready for 8 mile railroad track walk

2010-10-12T10:34:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

I have a non-operating (most of the time) railroad track near my home. I want to increase my balance skills endurance, so, I've been training myself to walk on the tracks from one small town to the next a distance of 4 miles, and then back again to where I started, for a total of 8 miles.

When I first started walking on railroad tracks, I'd fall off now and again and have to momentarily place one or the other foot down. But, as I've been practicing on various diameter ropes, pipes, tree roots, bridge railings, fences, tree branches, rocks (of all sizes and shapes), and wires, ranging from about a 1/2 inch to 2 inches in diameter, I found that my railroad track walking balance has greatly improved, as has my endurance and concentration to stay on the tracks without falling.

One of my goals is to always look ahead as far as possible. There is a tendency, to watch ones feet or near the feet, but, by looking out, a distance, it aids surfing in that to surf well, you need to watch the wave and the water ahead of you, thus, this type of training greatly benefits and develops this skill.

It's taken a bit of focus and a lot of daily training night and day, but I'm finally starting to notice some progress in my slacklining (where the line can sway side to side), tight wire walking (where there is no swaying), and pole walking, where the pole can sway side to side as well as forwards and backwards (this one is the hardest for me so far).

I'm finding that the more I walk, the more I yearn to walk. And so, training leads to visualizing training, which leads to more training in an endless spiral of mental and physical workouts.

At this point, I'm starting to play with my body a bit, while balanced. I'll shift a hip here or there. Or tense a particular muscle to see what happens, and, how to recover from it. And, I'm rigid with my diet, trying to get as lean and ripped as possible.

Slowly, things are starting to pay off, though, I am but at the very beginning of my journey. Naturally, I want to take all that I learn on the ropes and wires, limbs and rocks, rooftops and rails, and bring it to my surfing. I had not mentioned rooftops yet, walking the peaks fascinates me as an art form.

This art is endless in its depth, for, by using Chi Gung as the root behind it all, there are unimagineable experiences to explore.

Much of my training is based on the Shaolin martial arts and chi systems. As such, I have turned my home and yard into what looks like the training sequences from old Chinese Martial Arts movies.

I am working night and day on this, even at night, doing drills like vision training with candles, as well as vision training during the day of still objects and also moving ones. Such visual training greatly enhances a surfers abilities in reading the waves while riding them, as well as in spotting distant waves while in the line up.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Soft Rope Penetration Walking: 2", 1" 1/2" Manilla Rope and Tight Wire

2010-10-10T17:48:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

I've been doing a lot of Soft Rope Penetration Chi Gung and tightwire walking and last night I noticed my Tibialis Anterior, the muscle that goes over the shin bone and down to the big toe, needed some strengthening, due to my lifelong living barefoot and if flip flops almost totally.

In any event, I spent Saturday evening, plus most of the night, and early this morning working on these muscles, and, now, there has been some truly beautiful improvements in my muscle control and balance. I felt a steadienss I've not previously had on both my 2 inch maniila rope and also my 1 inch manilla rope as well as my tight wire. I feel, stoked, blessed, and, stunned.

This morning, due to uncountable hours of training last night, I was a bit stiff for a few minutes when I first awoke, but Chi Gung instantly took care of that.

So, when I did my balance training today for my surfing, well, I felt, really solid. And, happy.

This is so exciting. I'm so happy I literally twirled. A bit of Tibialist Anterior work, some Chi Gung, and wham, a new rope walking girl!!! I can so hardly wait until tomorrow to see what tomorrow brings.

Oh, and, as for the surf today, instead of the predicted Triple Overhead, it was Double Overhead, still Closed Out, as predicted, but that's what surfing is like here. So, no worries. After all, surf is surf and waves stoke, no matter the conditions. At least I can dream of the Triple and higher Overheads waves to come. And, come they will. Oh yes. I'm so stoked.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

The Forgotten Balance Muscle: Surfing, Slacklining, Soft Rope Walking, Chinese Single Bamboo Pole Drifting, Log Rolling

2010-10-09T16:20:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

I've been training my balance a lot lately, refining it, tweaking it, kicking in the ass to truly hone it to perfection. And, in the process, I've been pondering the ever so slight leg wobble. Now, well, I had figured it was simply my knees needing strengthening or my hamstrings, or whatevers. And, I simply continued doing the above Sports and Arts and noticing daily improvments and even session improvements.

Yet today, for whatever reason, at a grocery store of all places, I happened to look down at my flip flopped feet (I almost never wear shoes, and, am barefoot whenever I can be). My attention was caught by the ever so minute tremble of the muscle that lies over the shin, crosses across the foot from the outside of the leg to the inside of the leg, and, running to the top of the big toe. Viola, the Tibialis Anterior.

As it turns out, this is THE muscle known for balance. And, if you happen to live your life barefoot like I have for a huge majority of my life, walking on the ball of my foot rather than the heel, then, the muscles that is antagonistic to this, the Tibialis Posterior (on the back side) would be disproportionately stronger.

Hey, I"m not talking a major difference in strength between the two, but, there is enough of a difference in me for this wobble I've mentioned. And, seeking balance perfection, I now know what to do.

Increase my walking in a straight line using tight wire walking, Soft Rope Walking, and slacklining, as well as walking along curbs, cracks, and any other line I happen to find, always keeping both feet on the line, one at a time, beyond the 6 hours a day I'm currently doing them, and, of course, in surfing, focus on my backside turns more than frontside turns. In a backside turn, you pressure down with your heel, which, is the move needed to strengthen this muscle.

It will be interesting to see how this muscles strengthens with my increased efforts and more so, deeper awareness.

Naturally, I'll also be using Chi Gung to strengthen the Tibialis Anterior, namely by guiding Chi using a combination of Wai Chi and Nei Chi exercises, done at an extremely slow Tai Chi speed, adding to the fun by listening to hippy style 60's music for the rhythmic flow.

Slowly, one by one, I'm pinning down these weak muscles, like the psoas the other day, and, adding them to my repetoire of flexing workouts.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

The Secret to Surfing Balance

2010-10-08T22:27:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

I've been thinking a lot about balance lately. Training night and day, sometimes, even sleeping an hour or two here or there. And, as I've been exploring what's happening inside my bodies muscles, I've also been following my chi flow.

And, I found a secret. At least, for me. And, ultimately, that's really all that any of us can do, namely, find what works for us.

I mentioned earlier that I built a Tight Wire Trainer for tighrope walking today, and, I've spent countless hours on it today and this evening.

I've been studying my balance, on my new training equipment.

And I found that the secret seems to be flexing or tightening your psoas major and also your iliacus muscles. These are located on the front of your hips, sort of on the outside front actually.

By flexing these muscles, as well as flowing chi into them, I found that my balance on my tight wire trainer instantly improved 100%.

The first time I did it, I simply flexed the muscles, that is to say, I merely noticed that they were flexed as I walked on the thin steel pole. But, once I realized what muscles were involved, I was immediately able to use Nei Dan Chi Gung to mentally guide my energy or chi through those muscles.

In the field of tighrope or tightwire walking, the masters of the art say that one needs to flatten out the arch of the lower back. There are numerous ways to do this, the simplest being a game called Trap the Mouse. In it, you lay on the floor and have a friend place their hand under the arch of your back, and, at their chosing, they try to draw their hand away, while you try to straighten out your back and trap their hand. It's a fun game. Of course, it can be done alone, standing against a wall, for example.

In any event, the masters of the high wire say that the key to balance is in this movement. Thus, hip flexion, in other words, lifting your knee towards your chest.

Now, as it relates to balance, at least for me, the mere slightest energy or chi flow into the muscle, without actually flexing it, is enough to alter my bodies balance, thus, enabling me to remain casually standing balanced upon my tightwire.

Transferring this idea to surfing, such flexing of these muscles is enough to allow one to play with their balance upon their board. This then frees up the dramatic and even extreme body movements of shifing your entire weight in any given direction.

Granted, this might not work for most, but, I wanted to share it since it seems to be working for me. It was a truly wildly fun discovery tonight, and, I'm looking forward to an evening of exploration regarding degrees of tension, chi flow direction, chi density, chi temperature, chi movement patterns such as spiraliing, circling, zigzagging, or going straight, and so on.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Portable Home Made Tight Wire Trainer (Tightrope Walking) for Surfing Training

2010-10-08T19:06:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

Today I made a fun piece of training equipment. I built a Tight Wire Trainer for practicing Tightrope Walking.

I got...

1. Two sections of 5 foot long 1 inch diameter steel pipe (to walk on)

2. Four Tee sections (like a letter T) - used to connect the walking pipe to the base and the base to the legs

3. Four one foot sections of 1 inch diameter steel pipe (as legs)

and, the following for making various height adjustments...

4. Two two inch connection sections of steel pipe

5. Two 4 inch connection sections of steel pipe

6. Two 6 inch connection sections of steel pipe

7. Two one foot connection sections of steel pipe

Everything simply screws together in a matter of minutes, so I can take this anywhere such as parks, friends homes, the beach, wherevers. For the most part, it sits on the floor in the Surfing Room of my home so that I can use it anytime day or night.

When I'm not out surfing of course, I've been using a variety of slacklines, slack ropes or soft ropes, swinging poles, and similar things for practicing outdoors (in my yard, by the creek, by the river, in the mountains, in parks, at the beach, and anyplace else I might want to work on my balance. I always, at the very least, have a 50 foot section of 1/2 inch manilla rope in my orange VW Bug wherever I go, so, I'm always able to set up a Soft Rope in a moments notice for training my surfing balance.

But, with this new piece of equipment tonight, I don't have to be concerned about the rain or snow or ice. Granted, the ropes and such can still be set up in them, but, well, it's nice when the weather is intense, to practice inside by a nice warm fire. And, since I live in the middle of the woods, in a swamp, there's mountain lions, bears, bobcats, and similar animals prowling my property all the time, so training inside is a bit safer when it's dark.

One of my favorite places to train is out in the loft above the garage, with a single candle illuminating the room. The double wide barn loft doors swung wide 20 feet above the ground to the open air,

I'm happy with my Tight Wire Trainer. It'll be a great way to practice tightrope walking. Once I get a real wire and all of the rigging, of course, that will be awesomely fun too.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Fish Taco Surfer's Quest: The Beginning...

2010-10-08T16:56:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

It just occurred to me, wouldn't be awesomely fun to go on a Fish Taco Surfer's Quest. You know, find the best Fish Tacos and see which breaks they are at. It would make for some truly yummy research and totally bodacious waves, not to mention great sessions Talking Story at each break of past fish tacos and the best rides.

Most surfer's, I would imagine, would find the breaks first, then, hunt out the fish tacos. I was thinking it would be fun to do it the other way around. Find the best fish tacos, and then, the breaks. That way, the fish tacos become the true reason for some of the most memorable surfing rides of ones dreams.

So, for me, the quest goes back to the north coast of Kauai. They have incredibly killer fish tacos out there, truly worth a flight to the Islands for the fish tacos alone, let alone riding Middles, which is my favorite break on Hanalei Bay. For me, a break isn't about the perfect wave or the perfect size or who thinks what about this break or that break, but instead, it's all about the memories and the feelings that I still have to this moment. Just thinking of my rides at Middles right now, dreaming of the perfect fish taco afterwards following the perfect ride (a time stopped Acid Drop leading to Spinning Pearl into a Reverse 180, followed by a spontaneously modified Hawaiian Pull Out still has me smiling, with twinkling blue eyes and a rumbling tummy.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Developing Surfer's Leg and Bun Muscles from Soft Rope Chi Gung Training

2010-10-08T11:34:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

Not only is being a surfer just the greatest lifestyle on Earth, but, looking like a surfer is kind of cool too. Naturally, we develop surfer's bodies from surfing. But, there are additional things one can do, if, you happen to want to further the look of the muscles that really count.

In surfing, balance, of course, is key. And, strong balance comes from strong legs and buns of steel. So, here's one fun way to not only work on balance as a supplemental training to your surfing program, but also to get some way totally cut muscles.

The muscles I'm specifically talking about are really being developed on me from my intensive Soft Rope Chi Gung training.

These are the muscles that are really taking some beautiful shape.

On the inside of the legs, to the side of the calf, is the medial side of the Soleus. I've never seen it developed in anybody else, so I think its pretty awesome. And, on the outside of the hip is the Gluteus Medius. The Gluteus Medius is particularly exercised in walking tightropes, slacklining, slack ropes, and all movements involving the outside of the hips, giving really beautifully rounded muscles in the hips.

In addition, the Gluteus Maximus (the buns), the Rectus Femoris, Vastus Medialus, Vastus Lateralis, and Biceps Femoris , and the Gastrocnemus, are all truly worked because of the squatting of the legs and the focusing the weight on your rear foot. In surfing, it's the rear foot that does most of the work, while the front foot more or less mostly steers.

As I practice my balancing, I'm trying to keep my arms relaxed, this, balancing for Soft Rope Chi Gung using my hips, legs, and feet.

The feet, by the way, are the other area that are incredibly worked out while while slackling and slack roping. Developing these muscles provides truly unique ways to experience your board beneath your feet as your surf, giving you power you've never even imagined with all parts of the underside of your foot and toes.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Da Mo (Buddha) Chi Gung Style Surfing the Yangtze River Over a Thousand Years Ago

2010-10-08T10:08:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

In 520 AD, a surfer appeared. The person was Da Mo, also known as Buddha. One day he was at the Yangtze River and he had to cross it. He borrowed a reed from an older woman, stepped on the reed with both feet, and floated into the river. Then, he called forth the wind, which blew him across.

That is a common story and the subject of numerous paintings in China.

Da Mo taught a special type of Chi Gung (Qigong), of which one branch of it was Duckweed Drifting On Water, a form of Light Body Chi Gung or Kung Fu.

There are not too many more details than this, yet, if one were to contemplate the style, some elements of the story and some of the ways to achieve them are indeed possible. Naturally, personally, I believe the whole story.

First, the Yangtze River sometimes grows huge colonies of a plant called Duck Weed. This is a sort of small leaved plant that covers the surface of the water. There are also, by the way, huge groves of Moso Bamboo along the Yangtze River.

Now then, Da Mo was described as borrowing a reed. Well, bamboo could be thought of as a reed, in fact, there even is a species of bamboo called Reed Bamboo (Oclandra Stridula). Da Mo was said to have taught Duckweed Drifting. This is the art I've been sharing a bit of lately. It involves ways to make the body sensitive enough to move lightly and gracefully. This is done through sequential exercises, beginning with strengthening the legs and hips through walking hills with a heavily weighted sack on your back and is followed with the various exercises I talked about before, leading up to Soft Rope Walking, which involves walking on a slack tight rope. Now then, I've also talked lately about Chinese Single Bamboo Pole Drifting where you learn to stand on a single bamboo pole and paddle or push yourself across water using a second smaller bamboo pole.

It is possible, for someone skilled in the art of Light Body Kung Fu to learn to move more lightly as they gain mastery of their art. As such, one could, with huge amounts of practice, learn to ride a smaller and smaller Bamboo Drifting pole just as lumberjacks learn to roll smaller logs (where they begin with a 12 foot long, 15 inch diameter log, then move to a 14 inch, then a 13 inch, a 12 inch, and finally an 11 inch log). The point is, as you get more skilled, you can learn to ride smaller logs, or, in this case, smaller bamboo poles.

On top of this, add some Duckweed into the river and you could ride on an even smaller pole since the Duckweed would had bouyancy to the pole.

So, about the wind, it is a Chi Gung method that is know by some masters. Basically, it involves a form of Nei Gung or mental Chi Gung ability, where you focus your energy using your mind. In a case like this, you need to have mastered both projecting and absorbing chi. More so, you need to do this with extreme focus. By focusing on absorbing chi from a distance, into the palm of your hand, lets say your left hand, you can create a sort of void around you that needs to be filled with yang energy, thus, wind comes. This wind will flow toward your palm, and, can be directed out of your other palm in the opposite direction. Sure, this sounds seemingly impossible, yet, someone like the Buddha could clearly do this.

The key to it is to absorb chi into your palm from a large geographical area. This involves also the ability to spiral chi or energy. This same method of calling the wind, by the way, can also call waves for surfing.

Using these methods, it is possible that someone, truly gifted in these kinds of arts could, in theory, ride on a rather smallish reed of some sort and be blown across a river by the wind.

Frustratingly, Western Science tends to see things differently, and the arts and sciences of the East are only just barely beginning to be explored. The future is truly thrilling, for along with such knowledge comes whole new ways of looking at surfing, in other words, truly innovative techniques await our discovery.

The cool part of this story is that, at the very least, it provides a fun and interesting way to imagine how such an event could happen.

So, given all of this, it truly inspires me to continue my explorations into the Light Body Kung Fu style of Duckweed Drifting On Water as well as Chinese Single Bamboo Pole Drifting.

This weekend, possibly today even, I'll bring my moso bamboo pole to the river to see how it floats and holds my weight. I only have to apply the coconut oil to finish the waterproofing stage, then it will be ready. I just took the excess mud and ash off once the pole dries in the sun, then I'll apply the coconut oil. If I make it to the river today, while there, I'll keep my eyes out for a lumberjack type log for practicing log rolling on as well. Surfing the river sounds truly fun, and, wildly Watergirl.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Du Zhu Piao - Chinese Single Bamboo Pole Drifting, Suspended Pole Balancing, and Birling: Ancient Chinese and American Timber versions of Surfing

2010-10-07T16:51:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

Today, I waterproofed my Chinese Single Bamboo Pole Drifting (Du Zhu Piao) pole using Hawaiian wood surfboard methods.

The poles used in this art, by the way, for the Chinese Single Bamboo Pole Drifting have a length that is typically between about 5 - 9 inches in diameter (averaging 6 to 6 1/3 inches diameter) and 12 to 24 foot long, depending upon your body weight and how you want to ride the pole, whether you like it fully submerged, partially submerged, or completely floating on top of the water when you are on it.

I mixed up a combination of ashes (from various trees, tree saps, and nuts) with mud, and I covered the pole. Now, I am lettiing it dry. Tomorrow, I'll apply coconut oil over the entire pole. Then, every time I surf on it, I'll apply more coconut oil after each session.

I spent most of my day practiced balancing on my Suspended Pole from the Treading on Soft Rope program I am studying. It is, tremendously more difficult than balancing on a slackline because the movements are so much more dynamic with incredibly wide swaying motions. But, I'll get the knack of it eventually with enough training and practice.

I also inquired about log rolling (Birling), from a log rolling school and supply shop. I so hope to hear back from them soon. I figured, that what with me living in the NW, it seemed like a sport that a Watergirl should be familiar with, after all, it certainly will enhance my surfing awareness, timing, rhythm, and balance, along with speed and strength.

Tomorrow, I plan to put the coconut oil on the Chinese Single Bamboo Pole Drifting pole, after the mud and ashes are fully dried, and then, I'll take it down to the river for a bit of a surf. It should be interesting to see what happens, and, I'm truly rather stoked about the whole thing. Oh, and, while I'm down at the river, I'll keep my eyes out for a log for birling. I read about the dimensions today. Something about 12 foot long and roughly 12 inches in diameter should do the trick, of course, since my goal with the birling log is merely for my own balance practice, I won't be having a second person on the log like you would with the sport of log rolling, thus, a 12 foot long 6 or 7 inch diameter log, should, in theory, work fine. I'll find out. Regardless, it'll be fun to ride the Chinese Single Bamboo Pole Drifting pole in the river and local lakes, as well as to find a log and try it in the wilder parts of the river - sort of river surfing logger style, tipping my red wool tuque hat to logging tradition and history, winter is on its way, after all.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Triple Overheads Coming This Weekend

2010-10-07T09:39:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

So, if all goes well, we'll have some beautiful triple overheads this weekend. Sure, they be closed out, but, well, that just goes with the territory. Here, you learn to play in such surf.

It'll be a great weekend for surfing as well as rough ocean swimming. In fact, some Coastal Swimming will also be awesome. Coastal Swimming is when you swim as close as possible to extreme environmental features such as rocks, jetties, piers, and such. It offers tremendous challenge because precise swimming is required. It is, of course, an extreme sport and conditioning tool, practiced, by few. In fact, while I am sure there are tons more, personally, I only know of three who do it. Myself, and two surfing legends on the North Shore.

This will be a great weekend to bring my Swiss Ball to the sea. Basically, it's an air filled ball, about 3 foot in diameter. You swim out with it into the largest swells you can find, and, the game is that you have to hold onto the ball at all times. It's an elite form of big wave surfing training, taught to me big wave surfing legend, my Surfing and Watergirl mentor, Darrick Doerner (DD). If you drop the ball, you lose. That's how the game is played. The idea is that the huge air filled ball will float and bounce in the waves, and thus, truly send you flying (while maintaining your grip on the ball at all times - that's the challenge of it), so that you actually end up flying through the air much further, higher, and more aggressively, than if you were swimming or surfing. As such, it teaches you how to fall safely while truly getting trounced in monster waves.

I love swimming in rough seas, seeing it, as my backyard, in a sense. My goal is to truly learn to feel at home in the highest, wildest seas possible in order to use such training for Rescue Swimming work.

I hope all works out this weekend as it currently looks, and, with my plans. It'll be awesome to stretch the muscles a bit.

Assuming I can indeed go, I'll bring my monofin and Rocket fins also to further expand and develop my Watergirl training.

While the waves don't sound like they'll be much for graceful mirrored face riding, they will be super for whitewater practice, which, I've always seen as an art in itself, that few truly love. It seems we all tend to look for those mystical perfect waves, and, yet, the waves are as they are, so why not learn to embrace and play in everything.

Quite frankly, from a surfing perspective, the waves here in the wilds rather suck, but, it is what it is, and thus, one simply learns to love it. So, when it comes down to it, we all have what we have, and, making the best of it is all we can do. When we release ourselves to this, we can find art in anything.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Ancient Chinese Rope Walking for Surfing, Slackrope Walking, Slacklining, and Balance Training

2010-10-06T10:33:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

I'm studying an ancient Chinese rope walking form of Kung Fu, to improve my surfing. The art is called Treading on Soft Rope. Rope Walking is an art that goes back about 2000 years to the Han Dynasty.

It has several phases to the training.

                   Treading On Soft Rope.

This art is an internal art, like Tai Chi, Baqua, Hsing-Yi, or Liuhebafa (all of which I've studied), and, is rooted in Chi Gung, also spelled Qigong.

There are several phases to this ancient and traditional style of Kung Fu.

Phase 1. You wear a heavy backpack or gunny sack and run over uneven ground with holes and bumps and such. This art is a form of Rock Running. It teaches one to pay extreme attention to detail for foot placement and balance.

Phase 2. Suspended Pole Walking. You take a bamboo pole, mine is 12 foot long and 2 inches in diameter, and suspend it at each end from two trees, so that it swings, kind of like a giant long swingset, in a way. You walk on this suspended pole. The idea is that you train on it until the pole does NOT sway at all.

Phase 2 part a. Vat Walking. You get a large vat or barrel, mine is an old wine barrel, and you traditionally set 7 of them up , currently, I only have 3. You more or less place them within stepping disance of each other, and you fill them with water or whatever. Then, you walk on top of the barrels on their edges, since, they have no tops on them. Every day or so you take a bucket of water out of each barrel which makes them, over time, lighter, and thus, more tippy. With 7 barrels, or even 3 for that matter, you can have all kinds of walking patterns of circles, clockwise, counterclockwise, semi-circles, and so on.

    part b. Leave No Footprints On Snow. You get a pile of very loose sand, about a foot deep, or, you do this at the beach, and, you cover the area with leaves. Then, you walk on top of the single layer of leaves with the idea of leaving NO footprints in the sand. I have a nice sand pile about 20 foot square outside next to my Gypsy Vardo - a 19th century styled Gypsy horse drawn wagon that I built, that one can live in.

     part c. Rope Running. You tie a 31.8 foot rope around yourself and let it drag out behind you and train yourself to sprint, like a sprinter, until you can run with the rope completely floating in the air and totally straight out behind you as you run.

Phase 3. You take two bamboo stakes, and pound them into the ground. My takes are 6 foot long and I bury them 4 foot.. Then, you take a manilla rope, mine is 1 inch diameter. I also have a 1/2 inch that I want to learn on, and you tie the rope between the two stakes so that it is sort of like a slackrope or slackline. Then you walk on that until it does not sway.

Phase 4. You go to a river, I live on a creek and the river is about a mile away, and, you tie a rope from one side of the river to the other, onto trees. I'll be using my manilla rope. The river, I have not measured, but probably is about 300 or more foot across, I imagine. Then, the final test it to walk the full length of the rope without falling in.

Phase 5 . The last phase, never really ends, because you always use something smaller and lighter. It is called Treading on Duckweed Across the Water. It starts, as an art called Single Bamboo Pole Drifting or Du Zhu Piao. It comes from the Wujiang drainage area of the northern Guizhou Province. In it, you get a 6 to 6 1/3 inch diameter, 12 to 24 foot long piece of Moso bamboo. This acts as your "boat," in a sense. You stand on this in the water. You also use a pole, mine is 12 foot long, one inch Tonkin bamboo and is used to push yourself or pole or paddle yourself across the river, sort of a Chinese version of SUP (Stand Up Paddle) surfboard. With this art, you start on the large Moso bamboo pole, then gradually get a smaller and smaller one, and also a thinner piece of bamboo, until it, ultimately is simply a flat reed. Moso bamboo grows primarily in Zhejiang Province in SE China. It grows to about 6 inches in diameter and roughly up to 90 feet tall. It actually can grow up to 3 feet in one day!!!, thus, making it truly filled with awesomely bodacious amounts of Chi. Not only do you float, paddle, and practice balance on the Du Zhu Piao Single Bamboo Pole Drifting pole, but you also practice a form of Chi Gung called Taoist Yoga on it. In many ways, this is similar to Indian styled Yoga, only it is more Yin based or softer with more focus on what happens internally in your body, as such, personally, I feel it is a much healthier and more beautiful art. I'd imagine, in half a year to a year, with the popularity of SUP Stand Up Paddleboard paddling that is going through the surfing world, that people on SUPs will begin doing Yoga as a form of balance training on an unsteady platform, in this case, an extra thick surfboard type craft. Of course, since I prefer Chinese style, I'll stick to Old School style of practicing yoga, that is, Taoist Yoga, on a floating bamboo pole, which, I must say, is much harder than SUP by far!!!

All of these exercises, put together, make up this particular style of slack rope walking. And, as I see it, they all relate directly to surfing in that they teach balance, foot control, agility, strength, flexibility, and grace and beauty, all in a fun and rather unique way to train. As you can see, I find the history and traditions and such of an art like this truly fun to do and replicate. You'd all love my yard, by the way, where I am making all of this training equipment. In a way, it looks right out of a Chinese martial arts movie where the hero builds a bunch of traditional and primitive training equipment to train on while he gets ready to fight the villain in the final part of the movie.

This method, is an ancient Chinese method of rope walking from the Hubei Province area of China in the NW.

Many of these training methods come from a book called 72 Consummate Arts Secrets Of The Shaolin Temple by Wu Jiaming. I have added my own interpretations and materials to the arts in the book based on my experience in Chi Gung and in surfing, as well as to fit the environment where I live, while trying to stick as closely as possible to the traditional Chinese methods of practice.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Rock Running, Rock Balancing, Rock Surfing Tai Chi and Rock Chi Gung for Surfing

2010-10-04T12:50:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

One of my favorite training exercises that I was taught by my Watergirl mentor is Rock Running. In it, you find an area with a lot of large rocks or boulders, at least large enough for perhaps the ball of your foot to land on, and, perhaps up to a foot or several feet in diameter. Basically like what you can find on the North Shore of Oahu near Alligators, or, quite frankly, like I am so blessed to have right in my yard down by the creek. What I was taught was that you actually run, by leaps, bounds, and springs, from rock to rock, as quickly as you can. This being the case, it helps to have someone with you to make it a race in that you can push each other in this method. This method teaches your to overcome fear, to pay extreme attention to details such as positioning, to learn to slow down time, to increase agility, flexibility, and speed, yet, it does require total attention for it can be extremely dangerous.

Rock Balancing is my own version of this, where I basically simply stand still on one or two rocks, while maintaining my balance for as long as possible, allowing my muscles in my torso or core to develop, as well as the muscles of my legs and buns. Holding a position like this, using the concepts behind the Chig Gung practice of Zhan Zhoung, one might hold a single position for an hour or more. During this time, when you first begin, you use muscular effort to do this, trying, of course, to relax as much as possible. With time and experience, you learn to hold positions that would lead quickly to muscular failure, by circulating your bodies energy or chi (qi) through your muscles, using your mind to guide the energy. Naturally, there are a series of exercises leading up to this method, and, quite frandly, even holding a stationary position, especially with your arms raised as though you were surfing or slacklining, will have most people reaching muscle fatique in minutes. It takes time to learn to hold a position still for over an hour, let alone several hours.

This advanced form of Rock Balancing, is actually, what I call Rock Chi Gung, since, to do it properly requires the ability to manipulate your chi to various parts of your body at will. This skill, by the way, while seemingly irrelevant to surfing, has tremendous surfing applications, as well as direct applications for virtually any sport such as skateboarding, snowboarding, slackliining, slackrope walking, and tighrope walking.

Rock Surfing Tai Chi basically involves movement imitating surfing movements, while, balanced on rocks. Or, on tree roots or tree limbs, for that matter (both are also favorites of mine). With this exercise, you simply get into a surfing stance that you like, then, imagine yourself, in extreme slow motion, at Tai Chi speed, which basically means moving more or less as slowly as you can, you shift your body from one surfing body position to another, such as going from a Backside Turn to a Frontside Turn to a Drop Knee Cutback.

All of these exercises can essentially be done on anything, from rocks and branches and boulders and roots, to urban environmental applications (also my favorites), such as curbs, guardrails, handrails, pointed roofs on buildings, posts, poles, fences, horizontally suspended chains and ropes, to virtually anything you'd find in an urban environment. I see this as a new art form, and, a new sport of my own creation. In a way, it's sort of like urban skateboarding, only, without the skateboard, and, at a stationary or very slow moving pace, with positions held up to several hours.

The reason you move slowly, or, remain still, by the way, is to not only learn to build up your chi in your body, but also, you learn how to circulate it to any part of your body for injury healing, increased endurance and speed, and even increased strength, flexibility, and agility.

While this form of training seems to be rather paradoxical for action board sports such as surfing, snowboarding and skateboarding, the thing is, the more you do it, the better any of these sports will be for you to do, opening secret doors unimagined, and, leading to unlimited potential and limitless boundaries.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Taco del Mar Fish Tacos and Homemade Fish Tacos: The Perfect Surfer's Diet

2010-10-02T08:16:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

Well, in another month, it'll be a year since I've started this blog, though, not a year since I began surfing, which actually started in about January or so with my new Christmas present Robert August Wingnut longboard. In any event, I have been living, more or less, for the last year and a half on my Surfer's Diet, aka: Fish Taco Diet.

Basically, I try to eat one or two fish tacos a day, and, some fruit, namely, papayas, pineapple, and mangoes. Sure, I can't stick to that exclusively in that friends come over, we go out to dinner, or whatevers, but, for the most part, that's it.

I totally ove the fish tacos from Taco del Mar, I think they do a truly awesome job making them, in fact, it would be so cool to be the Taco del Mar fish taco surfer girl, if such an awesome position was available, for I'd love to represent them as a Surfer and Watergirl in a heartbeat. I always get my fish tacos from there with everything, plus, extra extra jalepenos, yes, that's double extra. I love the heat of chilies, especially jalepenos and habaneros. I typically try to eat about 8 to 12 jalepenos and about 5 habaneros a day.

If I don't have a Taco del Mar fish taco, I simply make my own. Here's how.

I almost always use Mahi Mahi.

I'll get a half pound or so, and, marinate it in a combination of tequilla and citrus juice, along with cilantro, chipolte, and Mexican oregano.

1/2 pound Mahi Mahi
1 shot tequilla - I personally love Jose Cuervo Gold Tequilla
Juice of 2 fresh lemons
handful cilantro
several shakes of ground chipolte - enough to cover the fish
several shakes of Mexican oregano - enough to cover the fish
organic corn tortillas

I then take that, and, put it in a plastic bag and marinate it overnight in the fridge.

The next day, I braise the fish in the oven in a covered Le Creuset Mini Oval Coquette - my favorite is the Caribbean blue color - totally Watergirl, I must say.

While that is braising, I'll grill outdoors on a cast iron hibachi, the jalepenos and habaneros, which, when done, I"ll finely chop the hananeros and cover the fish with them, then, add the whole jalepenos. I'll next grill this all, along with my corn tortillas, and that's my typical daily meal. Twice a day, for the last year and a half. Along with fresh fruit, plenty of water every day, we are surfers after all and water is our element. And, sometimes, margaritas or Corona Extra.

If I don't make my Fish Taco at home, I'll always grill my Taco del Mar fish tacos on my hibachi. You see, what I do is I go to Taco del Mar, or have a friend do it for me, and I pick up around 30 to 40 fish tacos at a time. I always down one right away, after all, it's a moral imperative because they are so yummy. And then the rest, I bring home, wrap in parchment paper, and place 6 to a gallon sized plastic bag into my freezer. Then, I simply take out two a day, which, I always grill to warm them up, I guess, because for me, the act of doing that is my Baja Moment, I mean, you see, as a surfer, my dream of dreams is to surf Baja and as such I always have with me my Spanish Dictionary as well as numerous Baja maps and travel books, just in case today happens to be the day I make a Vagabond Feral Surfers run below the border. One of these days, I WILL!!! And I know, to some of you such romanticism of food and a surfing destination may seem silly, but I suspect that at least some of the Tribe know what I mean. You know.

One of my favorite things to do is to grill my fish tacos while sitting outdoors in my yard, down by the creek, and, as my food grills, I always read one of my two favorite coffee table surfing books for the umpteenth time, either Stoked by Drew Kampion or The Surfboard: Art, Style, Stoke by Ben Marcus. These are two of my favorite books and I always read one or the other while cooking, as a sort of surfer's ritual and tradition, my tradition, my Baja Moment as I like to think of it. I love traditions and as a surfer, we have so many truly beautiful ones. That's one of the things about the Tribe, I love our surfing traditions, history, legends, heroes, and lore. Such tales stir my heart and soul and I truly loving sitting around with other surfers Talking Story, and, to do it over Fish Tacos, well, that's even better!!!

Oh, hey, here's a cool way to meet a bunch of surfers at your break. Get the fixin's for home made fish tacos or, go to whatever Fish Taco restaurant you have by you or that you prefer, and gather up as much as you can, along with plenty of beer and limes of course. Tote along a grill or hibachi or some such thing, and, after you session, toss it all on the grill. The smell will bring surfers running, and, it's a great way to meet new friends.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Chi Gung Surfing Moves for Surfing Mastery = perfect on NOHO Surf Balance Trainer

2010-10-02T05:57:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

Chi Gung is about learning to use the energy in your body. As it relates to surfing, Surfing Chi Gung involves teaching how to utilize your bodies energy for dramatically improving strength, flexibility, coordination, agility, injury recover (over 7 times faster than normal), increased body and muscular speed, almost unlimited endurance, as well as grace, beauty, and flowing softness.

One of the ways to practice this is by extreme slow motion exercises which mimic your surfing style. In other words, the first move is paddling.

What I like to do is to lay down on my NOHO Surf Balance Trainer and to arch my back like the yoga cobra position, sometimes in surfing called the Scorpion Back, and to position my arms as though I am paddling my board. First, I'll have my right arm forward and my left arm as though it is in the pulling stroke, then, I switch arms. I'll hold each position for as long as I can. What this does is to tighten the muscles of the body which are used in paddling, and, this creates muscular tension, which, in turn, blocks the chi flow of the body in that particular position, thus, building up the pressure of the chi, in this case, in the lower back muscles, the upper back, the shoulders, arms, and chest.

When you can no longer hold the position, and you come out of it, it will relax the muscles and the energy or chi (qi) will flow freely through the previously tensed muscles, completing the bodies circulation of energy, and thus, supply your muscular tissue with an increased supply of blood, oxygen, body fluids, and chi. This in turn, helps the muscles to grow, and, to heal.

Next, I'll sit on my NOHO Surf Balance Trainer as though I've made it out to the lineup and I'm waiting for a wave. In this position, I'll just let my body relax, and really focus on the musceles involved in sitting.

Next, I'll spin my NOHO Surf Balance Trainer, you'll need a fair amount of room for this if your using a longboard and in mid spin, stop, and focus my attention on the muscles involved in spinning and twisting my board to turn it around. Most surfers use their legs at the beginning stages, while more advanced surfers use body position and leverage while sitting back on the board.

Then, I mimic paddling again, only this time, using more power and muscular strength to more accurately copy the paddle style of increased speed used to actually catch a wave.

Following this, my next position I actually break down into several steps. It's my Pop Up. The first step is laying on the board, the next, 1/3 of the way through, the next all the way through while focusing on hip flexibility, and the last, the final stage just before standing. Each of these positions is held as long as possible.

And finally, I stand, keeping my legs slightly bent, my body in my natural surfing style pose. From here, I shift my body on my NOHO Surf Balance Trainer to positions I like to use while on a wave, such as a backside bottom turn, a frontside bottom turn, a backside top turn, a frontside top turn, a drop knee cutback, cross stepping, and nose riding, both hanging five, and hanging ten. Each pose is done in a variety of patterns, depending on how I might visualize a given wave to be acting. From here, I love adding all kinds of new moves, anywhere from my own invention The Submarine (the rarest and most unique surfing move), to Pearling Recovery moves, Stalling, Angling, Pulling Out, Kicking Out (I personally prefer Pulling Out better - its softer and more graceful), Hawaiian Pull Out, 360's, and any other moves that simply sound fun to work on.

Putting all of these parts together, the entire exercise can last as short or as long as you like, the longer, the better. In fact, if you can hold a position for a full hour, you're doing super great.

In the martial arts, such as the most Watergirl martial art there is, the Chinese Kung Fu style of Liuhebafa, also known as Waterboxing, this extremely advanced form of martial arts which is not only the most complex of all martial arts, but also the longest form, is often done by Masters of the art for up to 6 hours a day.

Interestingly enough, the more time one spends on this type of exercise, be it Waterboxing or Surfing Chi Gung, the more benefit you'll see.

At first, most surfers won't want to put in the time, after all, why not be out in the swells, surfing, right? But, the thing is, if you put in the time and effort and work through the basics of this exercise, you'll eventually known what the feeling of chi should be like in each movement of your surfing, and, at that time, you'll be able to stop focusing on the more basic through advanced levels of Wai Chi Surfing, and move instead, to the master level training of Nei Chi Surfing, where you flow your bodies energy using your mind instead of your muscles. When you can do this, at this point, you'll be able to really start to have some fun with Chi Gung and surfing because a whole new world opens up to what you can do on a wave.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

The Secret of Old-School Classical Longboarding: Chi Gung Soul Surfing

2010-10-01T16:32:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

As you all know, I love the longboard. It spiritually fits me. I guess it's because of my hippy girl nature, that, and the Chi Gung and Shamanism I've practiced for a lifetime. You see, such a way of looking at life, that is to say, truly blending with the energy around you, the chi or qi, creates, a receptive harmony that just fits naturally with the longboard.

Sure, all of us see ourselves as Soul Surfers, yet, how few of us really understand what that really means? Naturally, the answer can only be found deep within each of us, in our own way, for, only ourselves, for we each walk our own path. Mine, happens to bushwack the wilds for that is my nature.

Soul Surfing, to me, is deepest explored using Chi Gung, since, as a tool, this 4000 year old Chinese art not only supplies the exercises and tools to do the job, but more so, supplies the language too that so many of us as surfers, lack. After all, we can say, we're stoked. But, what does that really mean? And, are their various levels or degrees of stoke even for ourselves? Of course there are. In fact, the depths are not only unexplored, which makes them utterly exciting, but more so, are virtually even unknown.

To find the secret of longboarding, all we really need to do is to find, within ourselves, that which allows each of us, for ourselves, to flow freely, naturally, and receptively, in graceful lines with the sea.

Sure, of course there's high performance longboarding, and, sure, many are on that path, but, for the Classical Stylist, for the Old-School Surfer, well, it's all about the flow.

And, what exactly is that flow? Well, it's how we feel the wave, and, how we blend with it and become one with it. When done the way we might dream, the result, is pure magic and feels like floating above the sea. In a way, it's not at all unlike how I like to think it would be for the comic book Marvel Super Hero The Silver Surfer, as he soars through the universe and galaxies, assuming, one could really do that, of course. But you know, that's the cool part in a way, we can, in our minds. And, as such, we can feel what is beyond us, with our energy, once, we know the secret.

Such a path of learning to feel and embrace the energy or chi (qi) around us, is what the field of Chi Gung is all about. It teaches you, basically, to simply learn to really embrace all of your senses at levels you never even imagined possible.

When in such a zone, instead of simply being on a wave, or, riding a wave and feeling the energy of a turn, there is so much more depth beyond this. You can feel the tiny ripples of each wave, the density of the water and its relationship to the bathymetry of the seascape, the minute shifts of yin and yang energy as they flow within and about you, your board, and the sea. When in such a state, it is as though time slows to microseconds, with each 1/25th of a second or even faster, not only noticeable, but more so, able to be played joyfully with.

This zone, of course, it what all pros in any sport tie into, they simply don't call it Chi Gung, merely because they haven't probably heard of the field, thus, the simply call it "the zone." But the cool thing is, once one begins exploring this in depth, there is so much to it that a mere label like the zone is like a simple title on a book without any of the details that are in the book. In other words, it means virtually nothing without the depth.

Of course, to enter such a zone, one needs access to both the right and left hemispheres of their brain. The left hemisphere, for logic, and the right, for feelings and emotions. Combined, one enters the realm that few, even elite athletes, know.

We all tend to set limits for ourselves, based on the statis quo that we are familiar with. And, all that Chi Gung is merely about is being willing to tear those limits asunder and boldly embrace what lays beyond in the wilds.

Such moments, in sports, occur when there is any kind of breakthrough, such as the breaking of the 4 minute mile, or the riding of a 50 foot wave. Until it's done, it seems impossible to all. Once done, many can do it. So really, the only limits are our own bravery and imagination.

And that really is what a field like Chi Gung is all about, and, that, at least to me, holds the secret to Soul Surfing, and thus, the secret to Old-School Classical Longboarding.

Chi Gung Soul Surfing for Old School Classical Longboarding, I see it as an unexplored virgin path through the wilds of the mind and body to unimagined places yet to even be created.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Surfing Session through November: The Quest of the Soul Surfer

2010-10-01T15:11:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

So, starting possibly tomorrow, Monday, at the latest, I'm thinking of doing my best, if all works out, to surf through November. Ideally, I'll be able to surf as much as possible each day, hopefully, building up to surfing long sessions in the swells. I'd like one long session each day, rather than numerous sessions. A bit more challenging with a wetsuit, what with particulars and all during the day, much easier, in a tropical sea wearing a string bikini. In any event, I'll do the best I can to maximize each day.

It'll be a great challenge for the month, just to see what happens. I'm preparing for a trip, though, I don't exactly know where I'll go (Vietnam maybe?). I'm hoping my surfing mentor and Watergirl teacher has some ideas. Essentially, I'd like to find a spot, anywhere in the world, and go there for, perhaps, 2 or 3 months of daily training, dawn to dusk each day. I really want to dramatically increase my surfing up several notches.

I'm hoping for a quiet wave, one, alone. Ideally, in a tropical environment. Living off fish and fruit, sunshine and water. Basically, due to the importance of this training, I see the world as my potential playground, so, I've a bit of exploring to do, to pick just the perfect magical spot. It'll be interesting, to see where it ends up.

So, what I'm looking at is a month of intense surfing starting sometime this weekend or by the end of the weekend, followed by several months of finer honed surfing, after which, I'll probably head possibly back here for more surfing the wilds alone, which should get me through Spring.

By Spring, I'll be, hopefully, where I plan to be with my surfing to hit the North Shore for a few months or so.

I'm looking at a lot of surfing in the year ahead, ideally, daily, for most of the day, every day. A year of that should get me into shape for the following year, after which, then, well, it's a surprise.

I'm pretty excited. So, I've some planning to do to figure this all out regarding details and such. But, that's what weekends and some good margaritas and cerveza are for.

My goal? The quest of the Vagabond Feral Soul Surfer.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Chi Shredding: Turning Your Board Using Chi (qi)

2010-09-28T18:39:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

So, it's about time to talk a bit about Chi Gung (Qigong), and explain a bit of what it can do. The first thing that comes to mind, is, shredding.

In other words, it is possible to turn your board, be it a longboard, shortboard, skateboard, snowboard, wake board, or even a slackline (technically, you're not "turning" it but you're controlling how the line moves or remains stationary) using, chi (qi).

Now, as we all know, the way most of us turn is by weighting our toes or heels. And, of course, we use our upper bodies too, especially leading with our arms and shoulders, and, even look where we want to go.

But, there is another way. A mysto way. The way of chi surfing.

You see, the thing is, once you learn to circulate chi (qi) in your body, and, beyond your body, you can learn to weight and unweight your toes or heels, as well as the front of your board or the tail, all using, chi.

In this way, you don't have to risk losing balance since, your muscular body shifts remain, stationary. Instead, its your internal energy, your chi, that moves and flows through and around your body.

Most of you have probably seen the movie Star Wars. Well, in many ways, chi is like The Force, only, it's real.

So, imagine guerilla styled surfing on mysto waves using a mysto way. Pretty cool, huh?

Well, how does it work? That's the tricky part, where training comes into play. First, you need to learn to build up chi (qi) in your body so that you have more than enough. Then, you learn to circulate it through your torso, and, eventually, through your arms and legs. Also, initially, such training requires physical muscular effort, called, Wai Chi. But, with practice, you can use your mind to circulate your chi, using a method called Nei Chi.

With nei chi, you flow your bodies energy within and around your body, into your board, and also into the wave your riding, as well as absorbing energy or chi from your board and the wave simultaneously.

When you are at the level where you can do this with your mind, your surfing then becomes one of surfing energy, a totally unexplored, untapped, wild frontier of surfing waiting for those daring enough and interested enough to explore.

This same energy can be applied to all of the forms of training I've talked about lately, such as tightrope walking, slacklining and slack rope walking, balance training of all types, yoga, including Tree Yoga, and of course, all board sports.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Surfing Chi Gung (Qigong) for Wave Science

2010-09-28T17:30:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

I love the study of the sea. And, as a surfer girl, its a required subject to learn as much as possible about waves and bathymetry, storms and swells, tides and currents, water temperature and saline density, along with a host of other subjects, making it, nearly endless, which, for me, is the exciting part.

I feel truly blessed. Where I live, there are beach brakes. In fact, according to Willard Bascom in his truly awesome book Waves and Beaches: the dynamics of the oceans surface, the shoreline here is the gentlest of any beach anywhere, which, makes it pretty cool as far as surf goes.

You see, with the reefs of Hawaii and other places, the waves are, more or less, predictable. As is, the ride. It's the first thing I noticed when I went to the North Shore last Spring.

But, with gentle bathymetric beach breaks where I call home, the waves constantly change, even from wave to wave, offering, truly incredible opportunity for spontanaity on the waves. Not at all unlike, in a sense, what Nick Muller does with his snowboard. Nick, as a snowboarder, I believe, is truly the best when it comes to smooth riding style, creativity, and adaptability, he's just utterly awesome. Interestingly enough, from what I've read, he's trained in qigong (chi gung) for awhile, which I think is pretty much way totally kills. Everybody should study it, I believe, if they truly want to excel in any sport or activitiy, no matter what it is, for it offers means to go beyond any physical and mental performance of any kind, there literally is that much potential.

In any event, I find the spontaneous adaptability and creativity of soul surfing to truly be the key to surfing harmoniously and receptively with any wave. And, such skills are honed in home breaks like mine, making me feel truly blessed.

Now for most surfers, why goodness, they'd not even think of surfing where I do, the waves are too sloppy, too closed out, too unpredictable, too dangerous (in the Winter), yet, for me, they're truly beautiful.

And as such, I'm on a quest to truly study them, as Willard Bascom did, in a way, that is, by hanging on the beach at every chance and truly studying with an inquisitive and questioning mind. For, in such, comes the art of performance on the surfboard, chiefly, through in-the-moment genuine playfullness.

That's the key to it all, a quick eye that takes in the environment in a flash, with a honed body that can match the slow motion type observations, with a soft gentle smile of relaxation and joy.

I love studying waves and the sea, for Surf Science so fascinates me. And, the more I learn, the more I find it offers me ideas of how to surf in new and excitingly untapped ways.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

A Simple Manilla Rope and an Umbrella for Surfing Training

2010-09-26T12:23:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

I've been thinking a lot about my surfing lately, and, working hard at improving it, particularly as it relates to perfection in balance, namely, through softness, gentleness, and beauty, honed by slackrope walking, on, a manilla rope.

Why a manilla rope? Because I'm a traditionalist. In my surfing. In my training. In my way of loving life. In other words, I find beauty in the "old-ways," primarily from maintaining the tradition, but more so, from the challenge of simple equipment, when one merely had to make do with what you had. I like that. A lot. For in it, I find beauty.

Regarding slackrope walking, there's an area in Central Asia, specifically in NW China called Uyghuristan, aka East Turkistan aka Xinjiang (in Chinese). And there, at an orphanage, they specialize in tightrope walking, and have, in the area, for about 400 years, I believe. What I find fascinating, is the simplicity of the equipment used. Rugged hand chopped logs for supports, manilla rope for walking on, and, no safety net. It reminds me of the Chinese martial arts movies I love where the hero always builds his specialized training equipment using local materials such as bamboo and rope. I love such training camps.

As such, I'm in the process of setting up my own "martial arts - so to speak" tightrope walking course in my yard using logs and manilla rope. I have the rope, a 50 foot section of 1" diameter 3 strand twisted manilla. Now, all I need is the logs for the supports. In the meantime, I have numerous trees to use since I live in the middle of a swamp, on a creek, in the middle of a forest. I want the logs, simply to have the system portable. I have a place I can get them at a local rugged log bed maker in a nearby town, but in the meantime, I'll simply use 2 x 4's, which, while not fully ideal as far as romance goes, certainly can do the job.

But, for the moment, I simply use two trees, and, my manilla rope. Tying it around the trees, cinching it semi- tight, takes but moments, and I am ready.

Walking the rope has enabled me to explore myriads of minute balance possibilities, finding, within each muscular undulation, artistic depths unbound and unfathomed. Gtowth, namely, progress, seems to come in bursts. At the moment, I'm working on total muscle control, with, much to go.

In the last few days my progress has leaped with startling bursts, yet, I have much to explore, for perfection, of course in anything for that matter, can never truly be reached but always strived for off unexplored paths, bushwacking the wilds of imagination.

With my simple manilla rope, I've found a body awareness that has eluded me since my old Chinese Monkey Kung Fu days of yesteryear. Those days, of course, bring back smiles of Monkey Beds - a horizontal rope that one slept on, a Monkey Vine - a vertical rope for practicing kicks and strikes, and, tree climbing, along with ropes set at various angles for climbing, diving, and jumping, over, under, and around in uncountable patterns of mesmerizing complexity.

Compartively, my manilla rope has made my longboard seem much more stable, as you can imagine. Thus, allowing me a greater freedom of surfing expression on my quest for art and soul on the sea.

I love my surfing camp that I've created. It's a wonderfully fun place to train, with all kinds of wild training equipment, not at all unlike my old pickpocketing training camp I used for honing my skills in that beautiful and exciting art.

Oh, as for the umbrella, since I'm following a 400 year old Chinese martial arts kind of theme in my training camp, the umbrella I use is an all wood and paper Chinese umbrella with a straight handle. The paper is green and white, the tines are bamboo, the handle wood. It is light, beautiful in a rugged kind of way, that blends perfectly with the manilla rope I'm walking on. The umbrella, by the way, is traditional to the Chinese tightrope walking style, which is why I use it. That being said, I find it a perfect supplement to exploring shifts of air currents as they effect my balance for surfing, while, walking the manilla rope.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

How Slacklining and Slackline Yoga helps Surfing

2010-09-22T18:26:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

I've been doing a lot of slacklining and Slackline Yoga lately, often, hours a day, lately, up to 6 hours a day.

Now then, some of you may wonder how such training possibly helps my surfing, after all, what's wrong with surfing to surf, right?

Well, the thing is, slacklining, let alone Slackline Yoga, is much tougher than surfer, hands down. No comparison, actually. As such, if you can slackline, then, you can surf, once, of course, you learn how to surf and learn how to swim and all about the sea and all that goes with surfing.

Walking or doing yoga on a slackline is like using the stringer on your surfboard as your balance point, the only difference with, a stringer has an additional 14 to 20 inches or so of width on either side of it to help stabalize balance, while a slackline or a slackrope, is merely the width of the webbing or rope that is used, perhaps anywhere between a half inch and 2 inches or so wide. Thus, there is less room for error on a slackline or slackrope.

As for the movement of a surfboard, that too is easier in that the movements, whether raising or dropping the tail or nose, or raising or dipping an inside or outside rail, offer much greater room for experimentation, error, and play.

So, at least for me, I've noticed that my time spent on a slackline or a slackrope or a tightrope, tightwire, or even a pole, branch, or rock, greatly increases my awareness and my maneuverability and thus control of my surfboard. This applies, regardless of whether one rides a shortboard like my thruster (I wish I had a twinie, I love them so, well, one day perhaps I'll somehow obtain one through cash, grace, or luck) or a longboard.

Anything regarding movements and such that can be done on a board can be done on a rope or webbing, and as such, slacklining offers truly an endless opportunity for personal growth, limited merely by your imagination, energy, and patience, after all, when the waves call surfers, the waves call and who among us can resist such a siren?

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Mountain Hiking while Slacklining, Tree Yoga, and Slackline Yoga for Surfing

2010-09-21T10:23:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

Last night, I hiked my steepest local mountain. I've been doing it each day for the last 4 or 5 days.

Along the hike, each time I find a suitable rock or tree limb or tree root that I can stand on or walk on while balancing, I've been doing it.

In this way, I'm working both my endurance and balance skills at the same time. You see, climbing the mountain as quickly as I can, naturally, fatigues my muscles. And, by constantly balancing in this fatigued state, I'm learning to find balance while my body is pushed to its physical limit.

At likely spots, I set up either my slackline or my Tree Yoga kits, which I carry in a heavy backpack to make my task even more challenging, and I work out on them, while physically exhausted.

This is dramatically effecting my surfing in a positive way even on a daily basis. Each time I train, my surfing is not merely improving but making dramatic leaps into the stratosphere.

This training idea came to me upon reflecting upon the Winter sport of the Biathalon where you Nordic Ski and shoot a rifle during your race. The skiing exhausts the body and the shooting requires perfect body control.

This training I am doing using the balancing gear does the same thing as far as sports goes. In this way, I'm training myself to surf not only the North Shore regardless of the swell size, but also to surf anything of any size, in time, of course.

In the meantime, I'll keep pushing myself constantly to improve in all ways. I want my surfing, no matter the conditions, to be perfect, more so, beautiful.

Oh, the key and secret to the whole thing, by the way, is the Chi Gung that I practice. It allows my racing heart and utterly exhausted body to be able to find perfect balance nearly instantly by calming my body, slowing my pulse, helping me to gain focus and smoothness, all in an instant. I highly recommend this kind of training to all of you who truly want to improve beyond your wildest dreams no matter your sport or activity. Good luck and have fun. Be sure to study Chi Gung, also spelled Qigong, it's the key to it all.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

France: Balance Training: Slacklining, Tightrope Walking, Surfing, Pickpocketing

2010-09-20T14:40:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

Wouldn't surfing France, just totally kill!!! As I was thinking of places to go for an upcoming trip, France jumped right to mind.

I guess it's because the most daring tightrope walker of all, Philippe Petit , is from there, namely, Nemours, and, to do him honor, since I so look up to his style of walking and balance, I'd love to visit France. Along the same note, my surfing Mentor, Darrick Doerner, is Basque, and, that's between France and Spain, so, my two favorite guys who inspire me in the balancing arts, specifically wirewalking and surfing have ties to the area.

I'd love to come to France for a few months of surfing, slacklining, wire walking, rope walking, Recreational Tree climbing, Tree Yoga, and Slackline Yoga. Naturally, from an artistic persepective, I'd also love to study the local pickpocketing there since pickpocketing for entertainment and study is an art form I truly find fascinating, especially, as it relates to balance and physical harmony with oneself and one's surroundings.

I'd love to search out the top surf breaks, the largest wildest forests for my aerial balance arts, and, the major cities for my other stylistic artistic explorations.

France, to me, is art. In all that she is and represents. I see the country as beauty, grace, harmony, and balance. Thus, it seems like a perfect place for my studies.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley

Surfing Iran

2010-09-20T13:41:00.000-07:00

Aloha Tribe,

I've been studying, very closely and in great detail, the Iranian coast, especially as it relates to bathymetry and thus surfing. I'm finding that it is truly fascinating in many ways. There are numerous spots on the Arabian Sea, that, with the right storm, could produce some truly epic surf.

I love bathymetry, and, I see it as my secret to finding beautiful waves in exact locations.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley