Shoaling Wave Rider

Hey All,

Some of you maybe wondering what chi surfing is all about. Well, it came to me today a way to try to explain it. You see, I see myself as a Shoaling Wave Rider. That is to say, a girl who loves to feel the bottom.  In other words, a Shoaling Wave is a jacked up or quickly rising wave that lifts high suddenly when it races across shallow water. And, when you're on it, the idea is to be so in tune, so in the flow, so present, that you can sense and more so even feel the bottom through the pressure of the wave against your surfboard.

Now here's the thing, using training like chi gung, you can learn to not merely ride your board, but to feel through your board. The longboard becomes, a literal extension of yourself as you ride. It's a rather advanced kind of idea in a sense when you really do it right because  it's not just simply vibrations and the like, nor merely subtle movements, but instead, you learn to truly feel the board and what happens to the board, happens to you.


Now here's one way to practice it. Find a wave that repeats itself as often as possible. In other words, it always breaks more or less at the exact same spot. And, learn to really ride that wave. And as you do this, truly try to sense what the pressure on the board feels like as it glides down the waves face. Then, just try shifing your ride a bit to your right or left on the wave and again try the same ride. Let's assume there is a large coral shape directly under the path you typically always take. The board will have a certain pressure against the water as you glide over this spot. Now, by shifting your take off either left or right a few feet, perhaps you'll be beyond the edge of the coral shape, and thus, the pressure will be gone. This feeling can be sensed. And that is one way to learn to sense feeling the water through your board as the depth of the water changes slightly due to bottom configurations such as large rocks or coral shapes. This is the type of attention to your senses that is what chi gung is all about.

Using chi, you learn to get so in tune with your board that you feel everything that it does.The depth of the water, the smoothness of the wave, the density of the ocean, subtle speed fluxations, even water temperature differences can be sensed through your board by someone trained in this art.  And that's where the true fun begins, for, this level of riding is but the very beginning of this type of surfing art. With this level of sensory focus, it's truly amazing how much more depth your rides feel, and thus, how much more dramatically your stoke.

Don't just ride mindlessly along, instead, zero in all of your senses to their absolute max and embrace the ocean in a harmonious dance between  Oflow and Tube Meditation with full sensory stoke. You'll be amazed at how this improves your surfing and lifts you to zones you never even dreamed existed.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley