Hello All,
So, it's back to basics for me. Back to my finless longboard. And riding Sliding Ass. Back to flexibility training and sensory awareness training. Back to wave study and bottom awareness. I so want to ride big waves. But, with no teacher nor mentor, all I can do is contemplate perhaps how it could be done. So this is but one way.
I'll focus my training for a time on flexibility and sensory development. I want to use my Chi Gung to more than feel the waves, I want to predict how the wave will feel before it happens. In a pretersensory sort of way. I want to learn to be at the right time in the right way doing the right thing, but more so, to feel that before it happens.
Flexibility training will help wonders in this. A very specialized form of flexibility training, actually. I'm very much looking forward to it.
And, sensory training, to absolute peak perfection. In a casual, laid-back sort of way. For the two, oddly enough, go directly hand in hand. The calmer one is under pressure, the more aware one is, and as such, the more one can feel, both internally, and, externally.
Take the simple act of riding Sliding Ass. Now the usual way to turn, of course, is with the foot, and you simply stick your foot in and more or less leave it to that. But, that's just the barest and most crude of beginnings. How little of the foot can enter the water to still turn? And, how soft can the foot be? Oh the experimenting here, what thrills, yes?
One of the keys, as I see it from my limited framework and perspective, in learning more about Riding Sliding Ass in order to ride big waves like Mavericks, is to, once again, return once more to our surfing language. For it is in words that we can find visions of expressions, and, interestingly enough, softness, the very softness needed in order to develop the kind of muscular flexibility I seek and sensory awareness I ask of myself for my training.
Thus, my training will consist, for the time being, in language studies, soft, graceful, flowing style finless longboard riding, muscular flexibility (along with tendons and ligaments, of course), and sensory awareness of minute aspects of wave and swell study as well as wind, bottom structures, tides, water temperature, water depth, currents, moon and star patterns, and so on.
Thus, as I see it, to ride big, one needs to be small. Internally and externally, in a manner of speaking. And thus, my quest continues. Seeking softness, yin, for, one day, the ultimate experience and expression of hardness and yang in big wave riding.
I feel, alone. I wish I knew some of you big wave riders out there. One day, I so hope that I will. But for now, I have, merely, this. The path I am on. For it is all I currently know. So, for the moment, I'll ride Sliding Ass, in preparation for adding my new Santa brought bright red Brian Anderson single box fin to my longboard. That is the fin I hope to use on my board for riding Mavericks. The right fin? Maybe, maybe not, I have no idea, but the right fin for me, totally. First, it's cute. And second, it's red. And third, it has Christmas magic about it, so what more could a girl hope for in a fin? A triple winged high-performance double swayback twisted rake hybrid? Nah. I'll stick with my magic fin. It, makes me smile. And I think that maybe that's the secret to Mavericks. .Smiling the ride forever
Bodaciously Stoked,
Lily of the Valley
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Training to Ride Mavericks: One Surfer Girl's Dream to Ride Big Waves
Hello Everyone,
Hugs to all :)
So, as you know, I dream to ride big waves within the year. And, my quest is on Mavericks. I realize that I am but at the bottom, the lowest of the low, the most basic of basic in all things. I have, but a dream, a dream learned while in the hospital under critical watch last Summer. Unsure of what the future held, let alone, the next hour. And so, I begin.
This blog of mine is my journal, my surfing training diary, so to speak. And with it, I am using it to help me shape myself, hone myself, tweak myself, until I am the surfer girl I can be. I truly love my quest for it is all that I have. It excites me. It thrills me actually, beyond all. I'm literally utterly, totally, and in all ways bodaciously stoked. And as you all know, oh how it feels so awesome. I am just so loving the ride, both on my board and, within my body. For I see surfing as not merely external, but as internal too.
In a way, I see myself as a lesbian in that my love is the sea and her waves. And I seek to unite with her. To feel her around me and within me, to be a part of her, to learn from her, to feel her embrace upon me and within me and to sense her very being. I want to know how she speaks. How she moves. Her moods and emotions. Her touch. I seek, empathy with her. I seek, unity through surfing. And my girl, she is Mavericks.
I have a long journey ahead of me, an impossible journey actually, for I am alone in my quest. Oh how I so long with all of my heart for a mentor, yet, even alone, I brave the sea for she calls to me with her breath, with her very being, and I can but not listen and heed her siren call and touch.
So the question is, how to up the ante, how to bring my training to the next level? A mentor, you know, that wise old man who can guide a girl through her own motivations and dedication, shape her longings, and hone her body, of such a man, I dream. Yet, my love is the sea and so, alone, to her, I go for I know nothing else. My quest calls to my soul, I have but no choice but to follow. Such yearnings come when one faces their own mortality, through pain and fear and the unknown. Lately, the last few weeks have been challenging, reminiscent of last Summer, yet, the greater my odds of failure, the more determined I am to succeed for I have nothing else.
I'm a live in the here-and-now kind of girl. I embrace the moment, I always have. For me, time slows and often stops, it seems. And such odd time events seem, for some reason, to be within my ability to experience them when needed. It comes not from effort, but instead, from surrender. And that is the lesson I see that the sea and especially Mavericks has to offer me too, pure surrender. For what else but to dance to her rhythms for alone, I am nothing.
To me, life is about movement. I just utterly totally completely and fully, with total unabandoned passion, plunge into and fully embrace both the internal and external in all things. I just love passionately any experience that has movement to it, it draws me, without words, in a secret language that only lovers of movement know, for it is within harmony, that one flows. This, of course, is both literal movement, and, stillness. Of all kinds. And my art for this, as some of you have read, is, Chi Gung. It is all I have. Well, maybe that and my desire. And my dream.
So my training is to center on what little I know, my Chi Gung training for it is all I can express with and all I have to offer and all I have to shape myself to learn Mavericks embrace. I can, it seems, be but, merely myself. So in purity and innocence, I offer myself to her touch. But first, I must train. My body. My mind. And, my spirit. A minimum of 18 hours a day. More, when I can. Every day. I am, determined.
As such, I will be focusing on that which I can figure out. A road, traveled by all of you who have ridden Mavericks already and who ride her still. Oh how I yearn for your wisdom and experience and guidance and friendship. Yet, in the meantime, I shall hone myself into iron, and then melt myself into sea water the best that I can.
My training program will be as intense as I can make it, I am, and have been, since this all began, pouring myself into my dream and vision as purely as I can. . Yet, I see ways to increased what I am doing even more as of this very evening. Even now, as I type these very words, my legs are held in the air, testing my quads as I type. I am sitting, at the moment, in a V position, doing my best to hold steady on my buns, my computer resting between my tummy and my legs. It's a challenging position to type from, I feely admit that, yet, doable if one but has the dream.
My focus, in addition to holding my silly typing position, is to calm my breathing. Currently, I am still right around 8 minutes 3 seconds for holding my breath underwater. I desire to increase that dramatically. I seek over 11 minutes. That, of course, takes time. As such, part of my training, in addition to being focused or flavored on Chi Gung, centers on freediving and the skills and training that art involves. My goal is to not only be able to hold my breath for a long time, but more so, to do so under stress. Thus, I challenge myself in every way I can think of to task any fear that arises before my mind. So far, I have faced my own unique fears, we all have our own of course, and I have faced through various odd situtaions and accidents, heights by standing on the edge of a cliff wall, about a foot wide and several thousand feet high, facing an alligator while in the water about boob deep with the beasty about 3 feet from me, facing a tiger shark, also, about 3 feet away and 3 different times that close, numerous close calls in car accidents, been stuck in the mud almost shoulder deep at the bottom of a lake unable to escape, and several similar odd events that have a strange way of happening, yet, at the same, time, allow one to know oneself deeper each time.
My training is regimented and disciplined, yet, with no guide, I can only imagine what such training involves. For my mind, I write in this blog type journal, as well as in journals I carry with me in my canvas satchel everywhere (along with my surfer's dictionary and a tide book or two). I am, as you all know, studying the language and the culture and the history of our sport even while I work and hone my body through countless situps, pullups, pushups, and paddling exercises. I love multi-tasking like that.
For my spirt, I am doing my best to learn about surrender. And the more I study the sea, the more she draws me, and the more I find myself listening to her deeper and deeper and deeper as I learn to surrender more and more and become more receptive with each wave and current.
For my body, I am doing unimagineable things. I am pulling large fallen trees, tossing and also rolling boulders, holding my breath, working each and every muscle in my body from every conceiveable angle. And, a new exercise today, disorientation exercises, consisting of rolling and somersaulting down hills, and twirling and spinning to learn to be as functional and aware while disoriented as possible.
I am riding my mountain bike, mountainboarding through the woods, surfing of course, starting swimming again up to 4 hours a day, and starting tomorrow, running as well as standup paddling, and paddling sprinting while laying on my board.
I am seeking balance training in every conceiveable movement I can, returning to my days of drunkey style kung fu, balance boards of all kinds, an electronic balance horse riding type machine, electronic surfboards, bosu balls, indo boards, slacklining, tightrope walking, stake standing, one leg standing, handstands both single and double hands, and flexibility training of all types using every imagineable rope and pulley and ballet bar and stretching machine I can find or make. In the case of stretching, I'm holding single stretches for up to an hour with just one stretch, allowing my body to sink and grow into each stretch.
And yet, even with all of this, I know I am but at the very bottom of training and the very beginning of where all of you Mavericks guys are. I have so far to go, yet, the journey thrills me, and since my journey is utterly hopeless and impossible to try to do by myself, the more it drives me on and spurns me to try harder and harder and harder with greater determination and ambition with each breath, each muscle contraction, each thought, each experience.
Oh, I forgot to mention diet. As some of you may have noticed, I am also religious in my diet in that it consists of fish tacos, fruit, and water, for the most part. Most every meal. Most every day.
The more I train for this vision of mine, the more I am learning about myself. The harder I try, the more I am learning to let go within each effort and to surrender to the moment with as little effort as possible, thus, increasing my quest for grace and beauty upon the wave.
The training is having noticeable effects on my mind. The harder I train, the faster I go, the more time slows for me each moment, allowing me, oddly enough to do even more with greater precision. A curious event, it seems. And oh so intoxicating to live in the moment between breaths, more so, between heartbeats.
I am finding the edge. The edge of my body. My mind. And my spirit. And the closer to the edge I keep getting, the further I am from it in that it gets infinitely smaller and smaller and smaller before me.
The more I am learning, the more I seek to learn, about myself, and, about the sea, about the waves, and about the weather, about the water, and about the land beneath the water. I am studying tides and currents and water temperature and every imagineable thing I can about surfing science. I am studying about shaping surfboards and I dream of new shapes each night and how to shape them and tweak them to infinitely tighter performance.
My world is drawing closer and closer into a world of surfing embraced by all of my senses, and the more I draw within, the more I see without.
Bodaciously Stoked,
Lily of the Valley
Hugs to all :)
So, as you know, I dream to ride big waves within the year. And, my quest is on Mavericks. I realize that I am but at the bottom, the lowest of the low, the most basic of basic in all things. I have, but a dream, a dream learned while in the hospital under critical watch last Summer. Unsure of what the future held, let alone, the next hour. And so, I begin.
This blog of mine is my journal, my surfing training diary, so to speak. And with it, I am using it to help me shape myself, hone myself, tweak myself, until I am the surfer girl I can be. I truly love my quest for it is all that I have. It excites me. It thrills me actually, beyond all. I'm literally utterly, totally, and in all ways bodaciously stoked. And as you all know, oh how it feels so awesome. I am just so loving the ride, both on my board and, within my body. For I see surfing as not merely external, but as internal too.
In a way, I see myself as a lesbian in that my love is the sea and her waves. And I seek to unite with her. To feel her around me and within me, to be a part of her, to learn from her, to feel her embrace upon me and within me and to sense her very being. I want to know how she speaks. How she moves. Her moods and emotions. Her touch. I seek, empathy with her. I seek, unity through surfing. And my girl, she is Mavericks.
I have a long journey ahead of me, an impossible journey actually, for I am alone in my quest. Oh how I so long with all of my heart for a mentor, yet, even alone, I brave the sea for she calls to me with her breath, with her very being, and I can but not listen and heed her siren call and touch.
So the question is, how to up the ante, how to bring my training to the next level? A mentor, you know, that wise old man who can guide a girl through her own motivations and dedication, shape her longings, and hone her body, of such a man, I dream. Yet, my love is the sea and so, alone, to her, I go for I know nothing else. My quest calls to my soul, I have but no choice but to follow. Such yearnings come when one faces their own mortality, through pain and fear and the unknown. Lately, the last few weeks have been challenging, reminiscent of last Summer, yet, the greater my odds of failure, the more determined I am to succeed for I have nothing else.
I'm a live in the here-and-now kind of girl. I embrace the moment, I always have. For me, time slows and often stops, it seems. And such odd time events seem, for some reason, to be within my ability to experience them when needed. It comes not from effort, but instead, from surrender. And that is the lesson I see that the sea and especially Mavericks has to offer me too, pure surrender. For what else but to dance to her rhythms for alone, I am nothing.
To me, life is about movement. I just utterly totally completely and fully, with total unabandoned passion, plunge into and fully embrace both the internal and external in all things. I just love passionately any experience that has movement to it, it draws me, without words, in a secret language that only lovers of movement know, for it is within harmony, that one flows. This, of course, is both literal movement, and, stillness. Of all kinds. And my art for this, as some of you have read, is, Chi Gung. It is all I have. Well, maybe that and my desire. And my dream.
So my training is to center on what little I know, my Chi Gung training for it is all I can express with and all I have to offer and all I have to shape myself to learn Mavericks embrace. I can, it seems, be but, merely myself. So in purity and innocence, I offer myself to her touch. But first, I must train. My body. My mind. And, my spirit. A minimum of 18 hours a day. More, when I can. Every day. I am, determined.
As such, I will be focusing on that which I can figure out. A road, traveled by all of you who have ridden Mavericks already and who ride her still. Oh how I yearn for your wisdom and experience and guidance and friendship. Yet, in the meantime, I shall hone myself into iron, and then melt myself into sea water the best that I can.
My training program will be as intense as I can make it, I am, and have been, since this all began, pouring myself into my dream and vision as purely as I can. . Yet, I see ways to increased what I am doing even more as of this very evening. Even now, as I type these very words, my legs are held in the air, testing my quads as I type. I am sitting, at the moment, in a V position, doing my best to hold steady on my buns, my computer resting between my tummy and my legs. It's a challenging position to type from, I feely admit that, yet, doable if one but has the dream.
My focus, in addition to holding my silly typing position, is to calm my breathing. Currently, I am still right around 8 minutes 3 seconds for holding my breath underwater. I desire to increase that dramatically. I seek over 11 minutes. That, of course, takes time. As such, part of my training, in addition to being focused or flavored on Chi Gung, centers on freediving and the skills and training that art involves. My goal is to not only be able to hold my breath for a long time, but more so, to do so under stress. Thus, I challenge myself in every way I can think of to task any fear that arises before my mind. So far, I have faced my own unique fears, we all have our own of course, and I have faced through various odd situtaions and accidents, heights by standing on the edge of a cliff wall, about a foot wide and several thousand feet high, facing an alligator while in the water about boob deep with the beasty about 3 feet from me, facing a tiger shark, also, about 3 feet away and 3 different times that close, numerous close calls in car accidents, been stuck in the mud almost shoulder deep at the bottom of a lake unable to escape, and several similar odd events that have a strange way of happening, yet, at the same, time, allow one to know oneself deeper each time.
My training is regimented and disciplined, yet, with no guide, I can only imagine what such training involves. For my mind, I write in this blog type journal, as well as in journals I carry with me in my canvas satchel everywhere (along with my surfer's dictionary and a tide book or two). I am, as you all know, studying the language and the culture and the history of our sport even while I work and hone my body through countless situps, pullups, pushups, and paddling exercises. I love multi-tasking like that.
For my spirt, I am doing my best to learn about surrender. And the more I study the sea, the more she draws me, and the more I find myself listening to her deeper and deeper and deeper as I learn to surrender more and more and become more receptive with each wave and current.
For my body, I am doing unimagineable things. I am pulling large fallen trees, tossing and also rolling boulders, holding my breath, working each and every muscle in my body from every conceiveable angle. And, a new exercise today, disorientation exercises, consisting of rolling and somersaulting down hills, and twirling and spinning to learn to be as functional and aware while disoriented as possible.
I am riding my mountain bike, mountainboarding through the woods, surfing of course, starting swimming again up to 4 hours a day, and starting tomorrow, running as well as standup paddling, and paddling sprinting while laying on my board.
I am seeking balance training in every conceiveable movement I can, returning to my days of drunkey style kung fu, balance boards of all kinds, an electronic balance horse riding type machine, electronic surfboards, bosu balls, indo boards, slacklining, tightrope walking, stake standing, one leg standing, handstands both single and double hands, and flexibility training of all types using every imagineable rope and pulley and ballet bar and stretching machine I can find or make. In the case of stretching, I'm holding single stretches for up to an hour with just one stretch, allowing my body to sink and grow into each stretch.
And yet, even with all of this, I know I am but at the very bottom of training and the very beginning of where all of you Mavericks guys are. I have so far to go, yet, the journey thrills me, and since my journey is utterly hopeless and impossible to try to do by myself, the more it drives me on and spurns me to try harder and harder and harder with greater determination and ambition with each breath, each muscle contraction, each thought, each experience.
Oh, I forgot to mention diet. As some of you may have noticed, I am also religious in my diet in that it consists of fish tacos, fruit, and water, for the most part. Most every meal. Most every day.
The more I train for this vision of mine, the more I am learning about myself. The harder I try, the more I am learning to let go within each effort and to surrender to the moment with as little effort as possible, thus, increasing my quest for grace and beauty upon the wave.
The training is having noticeable effects on my mind. The harder I train, the faster I go, the more time slows for me each moment, allowing me, oddly enough to do even more with greater precision. A curious event, it seems. And oh so intoxicating to live in the moment between breaths, more so, between heartbeats.
I am finding the edge. The edge of my body. My mind. And my spirit. And the closer to the edge I keep getting, the further I am from it in that it gets infinitely smaller and smaller and smaller before me.
The more I am learning, the more I seek to learn, about myself, and, about the sea, about the waves, and about the weather, about the water, and about the land beneath the water. I am studying tides and currents and water temperature and every imagineable thing I can about surfing science. I am studying about shaping surfboards and I dream of new shapes each night and how to shape them and tweak them to infinitely tighter performance.
My world is drawing closer and closer into a world of surfing embraced by all of my senses, and the more I draw within, the more I see without.
Bodaciously Stoked,
Lily of the Valley
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Soul Surfer: Why Surfing Draws My Spirit So Strongly: One Girl's Adventures Through Near-Death
Good Morning Everyone,
It's about 2 AM and I just had to write. I was laying awake, thinking of surfing and what it means to me, and I just had to express myself.
Surfing has saved my life. It has given me a new hope. A dream. A vision. And a truly beautiful way to express myself physically, mentally, and spiritually. And, it has allowed me to meet some of the most beautiful and kindest and most gentle people on the planet. Oh how it is helping me to make such beautiful friends. And in such friendships, I am finding surfing fun and beauty and art and joy and oh such magical wonder and happiness.
Oh yes, so it is still the Christmas Season and I had such a truly beautiful magical Christmas as I've mentioned. I'll put up some photos as soon as I get them on the computer. Hopefully, some of you'll find them fun. As I said, I had a North Pole Surfing Adventure Christmas and it was so awesome. And the food, oh wow, we made so many wonderful things. The party we had for our friends (I so wish you all could have been here, that would have been so fun), was so nice.
Sitting here this dark night, I feel so filled with smiles as I think of my new longboard and my new fins. I truly feel like the most blessed girl on the planet. I am finding that my explorations into surfing are giving me such a wonderful view and expression of life and living fully in-the-moment, embracing all that is physical, deep within my body, in any form of movement, or, stillness. Surfing gives me such beautiful joy, such, expression, such sensations just dance beyond expression. There is just so much to explore and feel and be and I just love the softness and beauty and femininity of the art. The longboard is just such a truly beautiful way for a girl to open herself to the world around her and to embrace life fully in an expression of pure passion. I'm sure it's this way for all of you out there too. I know it is this way for the surfing friends I have met, I mean, they all so love our sport and art and they each so very much inspire people like me in such beautiful ways to learn to move like they all do. It is all I dream of. All I hope for. For in expressing beauty in surfing, I see it as a way to bring beauty to life, for all to experience. Surfing creates such a genuine pure innocent smile of joy that it just beams from ones body and all who you then meet can feel this beautiful energy and it makes them happy. So, while surfing on the surface is about ones own physical love of feeling, it truly shines forth to make the world a better place for it makes each of us a better more beautiful person and that spreads to all who we meet. At least, that's how, in my innocence, I see it. And, well, it's how I want to see it too. I want with all of my heart for surfing to be in all of my movements, no matter what I'm doing. I long for the grace and the way surfing effects the muscles and creates such beautiful graceful athletic bodies. You can tell a surfer when you see them, for their body looks like a surfer's body. And I find that truly beautiful.
I hope and pray that I can find a shaper who is interested in givng a girl with a dream a chance. Golly I'd love to work for the best of the best in shaping boards, wouldn't that be just the greatest thing!!! I'd so love to learn to shape. My dream is that somehow, some way, I can learn that art, hopefully and in my dreams, from a legend of the art. Wow, would could be a more beautiful dream than that!!! Just to even take a class from such a person, whoever he may be, makes my heart pound with excitement. I have such beautiful visions for boards and shaping and rails and tails and, oh golly, it's all just so very exciting and magical to me. I learned to work with syrofoam long ago from my Daddy, he was a taxidermist and mounted animals for large businesses and museums and things like that. We did it the old-fashioned way, by starting with a large block of styrofoam and carving the magical visions of the animals to put the skins over. That probably sounds yucky to you, but it was a way to preserve some animals so that lots of people can see what they look like and learn about them at museums. Such three-dimensional shaping ideas of muscles and body shapes just dance in my head and I so long with all of my heart to take such mental visions and to learn to apply them to surfboards for expression with waves for what could be more beautiful than that? You know, a truly organic, almost "living," line of surfboards, ones that just feel and become true extensions and links between the body and the water in an almost orgasmic way. Oh how such thoughts excite me. It's got to just be that way for all who shape, I'm so sure. Learning to carve boards, in the old-fashioned way, each one by hand, filling the board with love and one's own spirit sounds so beautiful, like true works of art, like, the beautiful two longboards that I now have been so graced to own. I look at them, feel them, touch them, and find such beauty in their lines, such harmony in their shapes. oh how the art calls to my soul to learn to express myself in shaping like that too. Their magic draws me to them for they are such beautiful expressions of art and skill and functionality and personal expression.
Being the Christmas season, one tends to sample a few cookies and other yummies, naturally, but now, that is over and it is time for me once again to have my beloved fish tacos and fruit. With eating, I try to be careful and I so want to shape and create the perfect surfer's body. I just love the feel it allows one to experience literally in all that one does. And that feeling of muscles and shape express themselves in any and everything we do. Oh how I love movement so in all of it's forms. It just draws me uncontrollably as a form or personal expression.
Sitting here, this evening, brings my thoughts to this last Summer. How how that was so scary. I really never thought I'd see the Fall, let alone the beautiful magical Christmas that Santa and some of my surfer friends just helped me have. It was the most beautiful Christmas I've ever had in my life and, golly, it's making me cry with happy tears at the moment. Sorry you all out there in blog land about that. I feel deeply, as some of you may have guessed. That's just the kind of girl I am.
As some of you know, I'm facing, once again, some health challenges. Some rather scary things are surfacing. And the more they do, the more I am drawn to surfing as a form of expressing myself. For I so love our art so. Well, in the midst of all of this, I am thinking of a new board. A very special board. But one I can not talk of at this time for it is so very special. But before the next New Year is up, you shall all see her in her beauty for she shall be the most beautiful board every created. She is to be aboard created to surf monsters. Up to 100 footers. I know nobody has done a 100 footer, but I believe in dreaming for the stars. And I also know that nobody could ever have such a dream and follow it in a year like I am trying to do with my blog here but you all are seeing my adventure live, daily, before you eyes as I transform my body, spirit, and mind into the surfer I need to be to dance with my dream. My board will, in some ways, something like what Laird Hamilton rides for he rides giants, and I want so to ride like he does, only, I have to do it without the foot straps because of my torn acl and torn meniscus. My surgeon told me that I can never again be strapped down like that by my feet. So, I shall learn to ride monsters with bare feet, the old fashioned way, and, I shall train myself with an intensity unseen by most surfers until I can do just that.
For my dream, I need a master shaper, a man of legend, an artist, for I will be trusting him with my very life.
I seek to ride such a monster wave for pure art. For the feeling of it. Of course, my daily surfing will be in normal waves for such surfing is what sings to my soul, but I just have to seek to ride the beasts of the sea too, the true wave legends never before faced. You see, for when I lay there hooked up to all kinds of odd and scary electrical things in the hospital last Summer, my vision was so clear to me what I needed to do with my life. I had to live. To live fully and in-the-moment in all ways, in order to bring that very energy of life to others so that they can too feel such energy.
My board must be not merely functional, but one of great beauty. And, I just know that it will be.
The board must be magical and filled with wonder. It must ride like liquid mercury upon the water, that is why it is to be silver, for the dream or vision was of riding mercury, a mercury gun on a huge wave.
When I was in the ocean, surfing Hurricane Andrew, that day, that moment did something to me, It filled my soul with such a yearning, such a feeling of awe and humility before the sea, and I so liked that with all of my soul. To be so humbled, so powerless before the storm, and thus, to be so receptive to it's power, made me so longing for the storm to be within me, to be a part of me, oh my friends, I can feel the force of Hurricane Andrew (that was in '92 in Southern Florida) to this day, even in this very moment as I type these words to you all. I feel as though that storm is in me, part of me, somehow, oh I don't know how to express this but I'm sure you all who are surfers know what I mean exactly. I can this very instant feel each and every second on those waves that day, smell the air and sea, feel the wild raging winds tear into my body, the churly churly water ripping at me with sand and sea and storm making me like a sister to the sea.
I have to. I have no choice but to follow my soul and my vision for it is what fills me with hope, like it did this last painful terrifiying Summer.
I am sitting here just with the largest beaming smile at the moment. I can't help melf, surfing does this to me. My very hopes are with my beautiful red and white striped Wingnut longboard and my new board once it is made. They are my dreams, my lifeline, my magic. And through them, I have met a truly beautiful friends.
My friends, one very special friend in particular, hase such a gift for making people happy and filling them with dreams and hope and magic and health. Oh poo, now I'm crying again. Sorry about that, you all. I just feel so blessed to have met such a wonderful friends like I have met lately. I feel as though I have been blessed with the gift of a lifetimes dreams. My whole life I have wanted to surf like I am doing now, to be where I am right now. Even with some rather scary things going on. It's all worth it. For right now, today, I am truly living and it is all because of surfing. And meeting such kind people like you both. I still remember my very first surfboard I made. I was in 5th grade. I used the skills my Daddy had taught me with taxidermy to shape that board and I filled it with such love. As the years progressed and I got into high school, I actually skipped 46 days of high school (hmm, I hope my old high school isn't reading this, goodness) to go surfing. The wind would call and my spirit danced, not at all unlike the surfer girl in the movie Summer School (if you all have not seen it, please oh please do, it's a fun film with Mark Harmon and that girl in the film so was like me in those days). The waves would call and I had to go to them. And it is like that now. I feel the sea calling me. And I must go to her. You surfers out there know of this feeling, for it is in you all too.
Sorry if this was rather long blog entry this time everybod. I so hope that at least some of you have enjoyed reading it.
Bodaciously Stoked,
Lily of the Valley
It's about 2 AM and I just had to write. I was laying awake, thinking of surfing and what it means to me, and I just had to express myself.
Surfing has saved my life. It has given me a new hope. A dream. A vision. And a truly beautiful way to express myself physically, mentally, and spiritually. And, it has allowed me to meet some of the most beautiful and kindest and most gentle people on the planet. Oh how it is helping me to make such beautiful friends. And in such friendships, I am finding surfing fun and beauty and art and joy and oh such magical wonder and happiness.
Oh yes, so it is still the Christmas Season and I had such a truly beautiful magical Christmas as I've mentioned. I'll put up some photos as soon as I get them on the computer. Hopefully, some of you'll find them fun. As I said, I had a North Pole Surfing Adventure Christmas and it was so awesome. And the food, oh wow, we made so many wonderful things. The party we had for our friends (I so wish you all could have been here, that would have been so fun), was so nice.
Sitting here this dark night, I feel so filled with smiles as I think of my new longboard and my new fins. I truly feel like the most blessed girl on the planet. I am finding that my explorations into surfing are giving me such a wonderful view and expression of life and living fully in-the-moment, embracing all that is physical, deep within my body, in any form of movement, or, stillness. Surfing gives me such beautiful joy, such, expression, such sensations just dance beyond expression. There is just so much to explore and feel and be and I just love the softness and beauty and femininity of the art. The longboard is just such a truly beautiful way for a girl to open herself to the world around her and to embrace life fully in an expression of pure passion. I'm sure it's this way for all of you out there too. I know it is this way for the surfing friends I have met, I mean, they all so love our sport and art and they each so very much inspire people like me in such beautiful ways to learn to move like they all do. It is all I dream of. All I hope for. For in expressing beauty in surfing, I see it as a way to bring beauty to life, for all to experience. Surfing creates such a genuine pure innocent smile of joy that it just beams from ones body and all who you then meet can feel this beautiful energy and it makes them happy. So, while surfing on the surface is about ones own physical love of feeling, it truly shines forth to make the world a better place for it makes each of us a better more beautiful person and that spreads to all who we meet. At least, that's how, in my innocence, I see it. And, well, it's how I want to see it too. I want with all of my heart for surfing to be in all of my movements, no matter what I'm doing. I long for the grace and the way surfing effects the muscles and creates such beautiful graceful athletic bodies. You can tell a surfer when you see them, for their body looks like a surfer's body. And I find that truly beautiful.
I hope and pray that I can find a shaper who is interested in givng a girl with a dream a chance. Golly I'd love to work for the best of the best in shaping boards, wouldn't that be just the greatest thing!!! I'd so love to learn to shape. My dream is that somehow, some way, I can learn that art, hopefully and in my dreams, from a legend of the art. Wow, would could be a more beautiful dream than that!!! Just to even take a class from such a person, whoever he may be, makes my heart pound with excitement. I have such beautiful visions for boards and shaping and rails and tails and, oh golly, it's all just so very exciting and magical to me. I learned to work with syrofoam long ago from my Daddy, he was a taxidermist and mounted animals for large businesses and museums and things like that. We did it the old-fashioned way, by starting with a large block of styrofoam and carving the magical visions of the animals to put the skins over. That probably sounds yucky to you, but it was a way to preserve some animals so that lots of people can see what they look like and learn about them at museums. Such three-dimensional shaping ideas of muscles and body shapes just dance in my head and I so long with all of my heart to take such mental visions and to learn to apply them to surfboards for expression with waves for what could be more beautiful than that? You know, a truly organic, almost "living," line of surfboards, ones that just feel and become true extensions and links between the body and the water in an almost orgasmic way. Oh how such thoughts excite me. It's got to just be that way for all who shape, I'm so sure. Learning to carve boards, in the old-fashioned way, each one by hand, filling the board with love and one's own spirit sounds so beautiful, like true works of art, like, the beautiful two longboards that I now have been so graced to own. I look at them, feel them, touch them, and find such beauty in their lines, such harmony in their shapes. oh how the art calls to my soul to learn to express myself in shaping like that too. Their magic draws me to them for they are such beautiful expressions of art and skill and functionality and personal expression.
Being the Christmas season, one tends to sample a few cookies and other yummies, naturally, but now, that is over and it is time for me once again to have my beloved fish tacos and fruit. With eating, I try to be careful and I so want to shape and create the perfect surfer's body. I just love the feel it allows one to experience literally in all that one does. And that feeling of muscles and shape express themselves in any and everything we do. Oh how I love movement so in all of it's forms. It just draws me uncontrollably as a form or personal expression.
Sitting here, this evening, brings my thoughts to this last Summer. How how that was so scary. I really never thought I'd see the Fall, let alone the beautiful magical Christmas that Santa and some of my surfer friends just helped me have. It was the most beautiful Christmas I've ever had in my life and, golly, it's making me cry with happy tears at the moment. Sorry you all out there in blog land about that. I feel deeply, as some of you may have guessed. That's just the kind of girl I am.
As some of you know, I'm facing, once again, some health challenges. Some rather scary things are surfacing. And the more they do, the more I am drawn to surfing as a form of expressing myself. For I so love our art so. Well, in the midst of all of this, I am thinking of a new board. A very special board. But one I can not talk of at this time for it is so very special. But before the next New Year is up, you shall all see her in her beauty for she shall be the most beautiful board every created. She is to be aboard created to surf monsters. Up to 100 footers. I know nobody has done a 100 footer, but I believe in dreaming for the stars. And I also know that nobody could ever have such a dream and follow it in a year like I am trying to do with my blog here but you all are seeing my adventure live, daily, before you eyes as I transform my body, spirit, and mind into the surfer I need to be to dance with my dream. My board will, in some ways, something like what Laird Hamilton rides for he rides giants, and I want so to ride like he does, only, I have to do it without the foot straps because of my torn acl and torn meniscus. My surgeon told me that I can never again be strapped down like that by my feet. So, I shall learn to ride monsters with bare feet, the old fashioned way, and, I shall train myself with an intensity unseen by most surfers until I can do just that.
For my dream, I need a master shaper, a man of legend, an artist, for I will be trusting him with my very life.
I seek to ride such a monster wave for pure art. For the feeling of it. Of course, my daily surfing will be in normal waves for such surfing is what sings to my soul, but I just have to seek to ride the beasts of the sea too, the true wave legends never before faced. You see, for when I lay there hooked up to all kinds of odd and scary electrical things in the hospital last Summer, my vision was so clear to me what I needed to do with my life. I had to live. To live fully and in-the-moment in all ways, in order to bring that very energy of life to others so that they can too feel such energy.
My board must be not merely functional, but one of great beauty. And, I just know that it will be.
The board must be magical and filled with wonder. It must ride like liquid mercury upon the water, that is why it is to be silver, for the dream or vision was of riding mercury, a mercury gun on a huge wave.
When I was in the ocean, surfing Hurricane Andrew, that day, that moment did something to me, It filled my soul with such a yearning, such a feeling of awe and humility before the sea, and I so liked that with all of my soul. To be so humbled, so powerless before the storm, and thus, to be so receptive to it's power, made me so longing for the storm to be within me, to be a part of me, oh my friends, I can feel the force of Hurricane Andrew (that was in '92 in Southern Florida) to this day, even in this very moment as I type these words to you all. I feel as though that storm is in me, part of me, somehow, oh I don't know how to express this but I'm sure you all who are surfers know what I mean exactly. I can this very instant feel each and every second on those waves that day, smell the air and sea, feel the wild raging winds tear into my body, the churly churly water ripping at me with sand and sea and storm making me like a sister to the sea.
I have to. I have no choice but to follow my soul and my vision for it is what fills me with hope, like it did this last painful terrifiying Summer.
I am sitting here just with the largest beaming smile at the moment. I can't help melf, surfing does this to me. My very hopes are with my beautiful red and white striped Wingnut longboard and my new board once it is made. They are my dreams, my lifeline, my magic. And through them, I have met a truly beautiful friends.
My friends, one very special friend in particular, hase such a gift for making people happy and filling them with dreams and hope and magic and health. Oh poo, now I'm crying again. Sorry about that, you all. I just feel so blessed to have met such a wonderful friends like I have met lately. I feel as though I have been blessed with the gift of a lifetimes dreams. My whole life I have wanted to surf like I am doing now, to be where I am right now. Even with some rather scary things going on. It's all worth it. For right now, today, I am truly living and it is all because of surfing. And meeting such kind people like you both. I still remember my very first surfboard I made. I was in 5th grade. I used the skills my Daddy had taught me with taxidermy to shape that board and I filled it with such love. As the years progressed and I got into high school, I actually skipped 46 days of high school (hmm, I hope my old high school isn't reading this, goodness) to go surfing. The wind would call and my spirit danced, not at all unlike the surfer girl in the movie Summer School (if you all have not seen it, please oh please do, it's a fun film with Mark Harmon and that girl in the film so was like me in those days). The waves would call and I had to go to them. And it is like that now. I feel the sea calling me. And I must go to her. You surfers out there know of this feeling, for it is in you all too.
Sorry if this was rather long blog entry this time everybod. I so hope that at least some of you have enjoyed reading it.
Bodaciously Stoked,
Lily of the Valley
Saturday, December 26, 2009
North Pole Surfers (Actors Needed)
Hello Everyone,
So, my first three weeks of my North Shore project went truly beautifully. So awesomely, in fact, that I am going to do another gig, only this time, I'm going to focus on the North Pole, as I have been, for the last several weeks.
As some of you may recall, in my first Actor's Needed role, I was working on getting ripped for a North Shore role, based on the idea that what if Turtle, played by John Philbin, had been a girl and thus, they were interested in me. So for that role, I focused on getting shredded and also learning Hawaiian Pidgen the best that I could. It was a truly awesome project and I had just a total blast preparing for the role.
Interestingly enough, I'm finding myself so in love with such training that I just have to continue it. So, on to the sequel to North Shore, This time, North Shore 2. Since I've found myself enthralled with the North Pole as of late, I'm gearing this second project along that line, so, the film will take place, where else, but on the North Shore of the North Pole. Why not!!! The first movie took place with a young guy from Arizona going to the North Shore of Hawaii. This time, it's a bodacious polar babe, me, heading to the North Shore. The details of the movie, of course, need to still be worked out. But that's for the writers to worry about. I'm more interested in wardrobe and props, after all, what will by board by like? Naturally, since it's still the Christmas Season (I so hope you all had a truly beautiful and magical Christmas, by the way - oh, as a slight aside, I want to send a very special thank you to a very very special girl I know who helped make my Christmas truly magical - thanks, chica - you're the greatest friend a girl could have - hugs and twirls of great joy :)
... oh yes, where was I, props, yes, my board just has to be my beautiful red and white striped Wingnut longboard with her utterly magical Brian Anderson red fin - the board is just so the magic of Christmas to me, I"m still stunned beyond all reason.
Okay, back to the film. I'll continue my Hawaiian Pidgin language skills and also round 2 of getting me shredded. I love the idea of pushing the envelope even more, in fact. Okay, so here's this ice bunny in her Artic fur parka and fur pants (okay, maybe not politically correct but you have to admit, cute beyond all reason), and she sheds her outer garments for, what else, but a fur lined string bikini, but of course. Kind of hard to find, by the way, so I'll probably have to make one, unless wardrobe beats me to it, but of course.
So, the Polar gear drops to the floor and out steps this ice bunny shredded beyond all reason. After all, one normally eats up to 9000 calories a day to maintain body weight at the North Pole but this surfing chica of frigid waters has kept her calories to a seemingly rational 800 (not 8000 mind you, goodness no), but a mere 800).
Along this line, I've been doing a lot of polar training at home, well, as good as I can at least. Since it's only in the teens here and sometimes the 20's in these darn heat waves, I'm trying to make do by wearing next to nothing as I train outdoors. I figure that if one has tons of gear on and can be at, say, the required -75, then, with not much more than a tiger shark tooth necklace and a cowrie shell ankle bracelet (and a string bikini when too many neighbors end up stopping by unexpectedly), I might have a chance of at least getting sort of a simulated cold weather training feeling.
I did do some research with a top math guy yesterday (over discussions of Russian chess - my favorite style - yes, beach bunnies play chess too), and he was mentioning that in his professional opinion, water temperature did not modify wave speed nor shape nor density.
Sigh.
Yet, with my recent Christmas magic wonder, thanks Lisa, I'm a girl who believes even more than ever in the the beauty of friendship and love and hope and all that is good in the world, and as such, I like to believe that maybe cold water can somehow effect waves, and thus surfing. Now, I just need to find out how.
Bodaciously Stoked
Lily of the Valley
So, my first three weeks of my North Shore project went truly beautifully. So awesomely, in fact, that I am going to do another gig, only this time, I'm going to focus on the North Pole, as I have been, for the last several weeks.
As some of you may recall, in my first Actor's Needed role, I was working on getting ripped for a North Shore role, based on the idea that what if Turtle, played by John Philbin, had been a girl and thus, they were interested in me. So for that role, I focused on getting shredded and also learning Hawaiian Pidgen the best that I could. It was a truly awesome project and I had just a total blast preparing for the role.
Interestingly enough, I'm finding myself so in love with such training that I just have to continue it. So, on to the sequel to North Shore, This time, North Shore 2. Since I've found myself enthralled with the North Pole as of late, I'm gearing this second project along that line, so, the film will take place, where else, but on the North Shore of the North Pole. Why not!!! The first movie took place with a young guy from Arizona going to the North Shore of Hawaii. This time, it's a bodacious polar babe, me, heading to the North Shore. The details of the movie, of course, need to still be worked out. But that's for the writers to worry about. I'm more interested in wardrobe and props, after all, what will by board by like? Naturally, since it's still the Christmas Season (I so hope you all had a truly beautiful and magical Christmas, by the way - oh, as a slight aside, I want to send a very special thank you to a very very special girl I know who helped make my Christmas truly magical - thanks, chica - you're the greatest friend a girl could have - hugs and twirls of great joy :)
... oh yes, where was I, props, yes, my board just has to be my beautiful red and white striped Wingnut longboard with her utterly magical Brian Anderson red fin - the board is just so the magic of Christmas to me, I"m still stunned beyond all reason.
Okay, back to the film. I'll continue my Hawaiian Pidgin language skills and also round 2 of getting me shredded. I love the idea of pushing the envelope even more, in fact. Okay, so here's this ice bunny in her Artic fur parka and fur pants (okay, maybe not politically correct but you have to admit, cute beyond all reason), and she sheds her outer garments for, what else, but a fur lined string bikini, but of course. Kind of hard to find, by the way, so I'll probably have to make one, unless wardrobe beats me to it, but of course.
So, the Polar gear drops to the floor and out steps this ice bunny shredded beyond all reason. After all, one normally eats up to 9000 calories a day to maintain body weight at the North Pole but this surfing chica of frigid waters has kept her calories to a seemingly rational 800 (not 8000 mind you, goodness no), but a mere 800).
Along this line, I've been doing a lot of polar training at home, well, as good as I can at least. Since it's only in the teens here and sometimes the 20's in these darn heat waves, I'm trying to make do by wearing next to nothing as I train outdoors. I figure that if one has tons of gear on and can be at, say, the required -75, then, with not much more than a tiger shark tooth necklace and a cowrie shell ankle bracelet (and a string bikini when too many neighbors end up stopping by unexpectedly), I might have a chance of at least getting sort of a simulated cold weather training feeling.
I did do some research with a top math guy yesterday (over discussions of Russian chess - my favorite style - yes, beach bunnies play chess too), and he was mentioning that in his professional opinion, water temperature did not modify wave speed nor shape nor density.
Sigh.
Yet, with my recent Christmas magic wonder, thanks Lisa, I'm a girl who believes even more than ever in the the beauty of friendship and love and hope and all that is good in the world, and as such, I like to believe that maybe cold water can somehow effect waves, and thus surfing. Now, I just need to find out how.
Bodaciously Stoked
Lily of the Valley
Friday, December 25, 2009
Christmas Day Magic!!! My Beautiful Red Fins Came!!!
Merry Christmas Everyone,
I don't know how it happened other than by magic but...
Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, OH MY GOSH, guess what, yep, true Christmas magic!!! When I got up this morning, you'll never guess what I found in my stocking. Two beautiful red surfboard fins, my RA Retro fin and my Brian Anderson fin. Both are truly magical and beautiful and awesome and I'm just the most thrilled and excited girl on the planet!!!
I so truly hope with all of my heart that all of you who are reading this have had as beautiful and as magical of a Christmas as I have. I feel like just the most blessed girl in the world. Wow I'm stoked.
I feel filled with hope and dreams and possibilities and magic and my heart is filled with wonder and belief and pure happiness.
Bodaciously Stoked,
Lily of the Valley
I don't know how it happened other than by magic but...
Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, OH MY GOSH, guess what, yep, true Christmas magic!!! When I got up this morning, you'll never guess what I found in my stocking. Two beautiful red surfboard fins, my RA Retro fin and my Brian Anderson fin. Both are truly magical and beautiful and awesome and I'm just the most thrilled and excited girl on the planet!!!
I so truly hope with all of my heart that all of you who are reading this have had as beautiful and as magical of a Christmas as I have. I feel like just the most blessed girl in the world. Wow I'm stoked.
I feel filled with hope and dreams and possibilities and magic and my heart is filled with wonder and belief and pure happiness.
Bodaciously Stoked,
Lily of the Valley
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Christmas Eve Day: Hoping Beyond Hope
Hello All,
So, today is Christmas Eve day. And, I'm finding myself truly hoping for a magical Christmas. My dream and hope beyond hope is to get a red Retro fin and also a red Brian Anderson fin. Tonight. in my stocking. I even have a special Santa stocking just for the fins.
I asked Santa this year for these two fins. It's what I truly hope for. I even want red ones, because of Santa's colors being red and white. And of course, my longboard is red and white for this very reason too.
:)
I so hope the magic happens. I truly like to believe so with all of my heart.
Somehow.
A simple wish list, from a longboard girl. Reaching out to the world. For a special Christmas wish. I hope, with the fins, to bring magic and softness, grace and beauty to my riding style, to help spread happiness, joy, smiles, and stoke. And, well, the thing is, the main reason I'm hoping for red fins is because of a medical condition that has happened in the last week or so. I really can't go into that here. But, it's kind of like this last Summer in a way.
Merry Christmas everyone. Ride happy.
Bodaciously Stoked,
Lily of the Valley
So, today is Christmas Eve day. And, I'm finding myself truly hoping for a magical Christmas. My dream and hope beyond hope is to get a red Retro fin and also a red Brian Anderson fin. Tonight. in my stocking. I even have a special Santa stocking just for the fins.
I asked Santa this year for these two fins. It's what I truly hope for. I even want red ones, because of Santa's colors being red and white. And of course, my longboard is red and white for this very reason too.
:)
I so hope the magic happens. I truly like to believe so with all of my heart.
Somehow.
A simple wish list, from a longboard girl. Reaching out to the world. For a special Christmas wish. I hope, with the fins, to bring magic and softness, grace and beauty to my riding style, to help spread happiness, joy, smiles, and stoke. And, well, the thing is, the main reason I'm hoping for red fins is because of a medical condition that has happened in the last week or so. I really can't go into that here. But, it's kind of like this last Summer in a way.
Merry Christmas everyone. Ride happy.
Bodaciously Stoked,
Lily of the Valley
Friday, December 18, 2009
What Actually is Stoke
Morning Everyone,
Today, I've been thinking about the Stoke. The reason behind why we all surf. For it is surfing, that gives us the stoke. So, what exactly is the stoke, what does it do, and more importantly, how can we make it even wilder?
The stoke is a feeling of joy. But, interestingly enough, the feeling of joy is not really felt in the mind, as we tend to think so many of our emotions are, instead, it is felt, in the body. Which, is why surfing hones the stoke to such perfection.
You see, deep within each of the cells of our body, there is energy. This energy, the Chinese call Chi. And, it is learning to harness and harmonize with this energy what chi gung is all about, and, therefore, what stoke is all about.
When we feel joy, we have endorphins released within our cells. These account for the joyful or happy feeling we all experience as we ride our boards. These endorphins flow into the spaces in our nervous system called synaptic gaps. And it is with this movement of energy or chi, that chi gung (also qigong) focuses. In the West, we tend to focus on a given thing, such as, my heart feels happy. But in the East, that is to say, in China, we tend to focus on the pathway, on the movement, and, it is because of this focus on the movement, that chi gung and surfing are linked for it is the movement that takes place within us as we surf that gives us such bodacious feelings of happiness.
As our chi flows stronger, our stoke becomes stronger, and, physiologically, what happens is that our metabolism increases (yep, being stoked helps us get ripped and shredded surfer's bodies ), and our breathing patterns increase as we get more excited. Both respiration and metabolism, are, of course, linked. This then increases our feelings of joy which in turn increases our health and our ability to heal from injuries. Thus, surfers in general, at least, the truly stoked ones, tend to have beautiful bodies and are healthy and free from injuries. A good thing, that.
So, how do we get more stoke? By surfing of course. By surfing with more awarenss, more feeling, more, bodaciousness.
The more present we are when we surf, the stronger our stoke will be. And, the stronger our stoke is, the more present we are. Likewise, as our stoke increases, so does our health and our hot bodies, and with that, our stoke increases. It's all a cyclical kind of thing. Like, a perfect tube. It's funny if you think about it but the analogy of a tube is perfect for how our stoke increases. It becomes that which it is. A tube is a tube, because, it is a tube. And, stoke is stoke, because, it is stoke.
Which may be why we all love tubes so much. They are where we can meditate and truly find ourselves, for when we are in the green room, we are present. Or, we wipe out.
Ride tubes. Be present. Embrace the stoke. And breathe. Breathe slowly, softly, gracefully, gently, and beautifully. Breathe, with style. And your stoke will soar.
Bodaciously Stoked,
Lily of the Valley
Today, I've been thinking about the Stoke. The reason behind why we all surf. For it is surfing, that gives us the stoke. So, what exactly is the stoke, what does it do, and more importantly, how can we make it even wilder?
The stoke is a feeling of joy. But, interestingly enough, the feeling of joy is not really felt in the mind, as we tend to think so many of our emotions are, instead, it is felt, in the body. Which, is why surfing hones the stoke to such perfection.
You see, deep within each of the cells of our body, there is energy. This energy, the Chinese call Chi. And, it is learning to harness and harmonize with this energy what chi gung is all about, and, therefore, what stoke is all about.
When we feel joy, we have endorphins released within our cells. These account for the joyful or happy feeling we all experience as we ride our boards. These endorphins flow into the spaces in our nervous system called synaptic gaps. And it is with this movement of energy or chi, that chi gung (also qigong) focuses. In the West, we tend to focus on a given thing, such as, my heart feels happy. But in the East, that is to say, in China, we tend to focus on the pathway, on the movement, and, it is because of this focus on the movement, that chi gung and surfing are linked for it is the movement that takes place within us as we surf that gives us such bodacious feelings of happiness.
As our chi flows stronger, our stoke becomes stronger, and, physiologically, what happens is that our metabolism increases (yep, being stoked helps us get ripped and shredded surfer's bodies ), and our breathing patterns increase as we get more excited. Both respiration and metabolism, are, of course, linked. This then increases our feelings of joy which in turn increases our health and our ability to heal from injuries. Thus, surfers in general, at least, the truly stoked ones, tend to have beautiful bodies and are healthy and free from injuries. A good thing, that.
So, how do we get more stoke? By surfing of course. By surfing with more awarenss, more feeling, more, bodaciousness.
The more present we are when we surf, the stronger our stoke will be. And, the stronger our stoke is, the more present we are. Likewise, as our stoke increases, so does our health and our hot bodies, and with that, our stoke increases. It's all a cyclical kind of thing. Like, a perfect tube. It's funny if you think about it but the analogy of a tube is perfect for how our stoke increases. It becomes that which it is. A tube is a tube, because, it is a tube. And, stoke is stoke, because, it is stoke.
Which may be why we all love tubes so much. They are where we can meditate and truly find ourselves, for when we are in the green room, we are present. Or, we wipe out.
Ride tubes. Be present. Embrace the stoke. And breathe. Breathe slowly, softly, gracefully, gently, and beautifully. Breathe, with style. And your stoke will soar.
Bodaciously Stoked,
Lily of the Valley
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Old School Surfing
Aloha Tribe,
I'm an "old school," surfer girl, being trained by famous big wave rider Darrick Doerner (DD) as a Classic Surfer, and with a very special board custom shaped by Gerry Lopez. I also have a custom shaped board made specifically for me from Robert August. I find the style and historical times both romantic and truly beautiful. You see, to me, the graceful, seductive, alluring, soft movements freely flow along gentle curving lines which sing to my soul, and to me, that is what surfing is all about.
Clearly, the longboard is the only way for a surfer girl like me to go, after all, as we chicks always say, "size matters" :)
I like my boards long and my fins big, firm, and sure. Okay, granted, I might not have the cutback performance of the more modern new school riders out there, but, I can more than make up for it with softness, beauty, and the pure feeling of the flow, and, if such movement offers passion, what greater?
The way energy or chi works in the body, it flows from place to place. The movement is soft and gentle and rhythmic. And to me, that is what the feeling of stoke is all about. It's a feeling inside the body that you can just ride forever. And even years later, thinking about it, the same feelings come back to ride gently through your body. That's one of the really awesomely neat things about the field of Chi Gung, it truly lets you feel in ways you never imagined, even, years later.
It's sort of hard to find "old school," boards to a certain degree, and more so, "old school" fins, aka the skeg. But, if you look around, you can find them. And it's the search that makes the hunt so very exciting. It's the anticipation of waiting, once an order is placed, bringing me back to the feelings of being a little girl and waiting patiently, second by second, for Christmas morning to arrive to see what Santa brought. Such a feeling can still live in all of us, though, most of us have lost it. Yet, we have a connection, you see, surfing, the very thing we love to do and the lifestyle many of us have chosen is all about the Christmas morning waiting to see what Santa brought kind of feeling, that is, the stoke. It is the feeling of anticipation and excitement and wonder and mystery and mostly magic. Such feelings give us pleasure and joy and happiness and make us smile, though most who see us have no idea why.
Surfers live in a different world from everybody else, we are a Tribe, unique to the world, living in a passionate way that few dare. We know the secret to keeping our inner child alive, the secret of spontaneous in-the-moment joyfully exhuberant play. The secret, is simply to love what we do, and, in surfing, that love is based on what we feel inside our muscles and bodies. We, the surfer's of the world, have got to be the luckiest people on the face of the planet for what could possibly be funner than surfing?
I love a return to the "old school," style of surfing. A time when surfing was fun and done just for the joy and love of it. A time when people shared waves as Party Waves and helped each other no matter the risk or cost. I long for a time when we surfers just hung together, with our own language, our own non-verbal communications, and our own special looks in the eye of being stoked, a look, that we all recognize in each other. Surfdar, if you want to think of it that way, it's a look that is unmistakeable, and, we simply know eachother merely from a glance.
Sure, those times in some ways have passed by to a certain degree, the "old school, replaced by the new school" but, it will always live in my heart as it does with many of you. And with every wave I ride, with every stroke of wax I rub on my board, with every fin I tighten, I keep that spirit alive and dancing within my heart and upon the waves.
Bodaciously Stoked,
Lily of the Valley
I'm an "old school," surfer girl, being trained by famous big wave rider Darrick Doerner (DD) as a Classic Surfer, and with a very special board custom shaped by Gerry Lopez. I also have a custom shaped board made specifically for me from Robert August. I find the style and historical times both romantic and truly beautiful. You see, to me, the graceful, seductive, alluring, soft movements freely flow along gentle curving lines which sing to my soul, and to me, that is what surfing is all about.
Clearly, the longboard is the only way for a surfer girl like me to go, after all, as we chicks always say, "size matters" :)
I like my boards long and my fins big, firm, and sure. Okay, granted, I might not have the cutback performance of the more modern new school riders out there, but, I can more than make up for it with softness, beauty, and the pure feeling of the flow, and, if such movement offers passion, what greater?
The way energy or chi works in the body, it flows from place to place. The movement is soft and gentle and rhythmic. And to me, that is what the feeling of stoke is all about. It's a feeling inside the body that you can just ride forever. And even years later, thinking about it, the same feelings come back to ride gently through your body. That's one of the really awesomely neat things about the field of Chi Gung, it truly lets you feel in ways you never imagined, even, years later.
It's sort of hard to find "old school," boards to a certain degree, and more so, "old school" fins, aka the skeg. But, if you look around, you can find them. And it's the search that makes the hunt so very exciting. It's the anticipation of waiting, once an order is placed, bringing me back to the feelings of being a little girl and waiting patiently, second by second, for Christmas morning to arrive to see what Santa brought. Such a feeling can still live in all of us, though, most of us have lost it. Yet, we have a connection, you see, surfing, the very thing we love to do and the lifestyle many of us have chosen is all about the Christmas morning waiting to see what Santa brought kind of feeling, that is, the stoke. It is the feeling of anticipation and excitement and wonder and mystery and mostly magic. Such feelings give us pleasure and joy and happiness and make us smile, though most who see us have no idea why.
Surfers live in a different world from everybody else, we are a Tribe, unique to the world, living in a passionate way that few dare. We know the secret to keeping our inner child alive, the secret of spontaneous in-the-moment joyfully exhuberant play. The secret, is simply to love what we do, and, in surfing, that love is based on what we feel inside our muscles and bodies. We, the surfer's of the world, have got to be the luckiest people on the face of the planet for what could possibly be funner than surfing?
I love a return to the "old school," style of surfing. A time when surfing was fun and done just for the joy and love of it. A time when people shared waves as Party Waves and helped each other no matter the risk or cost. I long for a time when we surfers just hung together, with our own language, our own non-verbal communications, and our own special looks in the eye of being stoked, a look, that we all recognize in each other. Surfdar, if you want to think of it that way, it's a look that is unmistakeable, and, we simply know eachother merely from a glance.
Sure, those times in some ways have passed by to a certain degree, the "old school, replaced by the new school" but, it will always live in my heart as it does with many of you. And with every wave I ride, with every stroke of wax I rub on my board, with every fin I tighten, I keep that spirit alive and dancing within my heart and upon the waves.
Bodaciously Stoked,
Lily of the Valley
Surfing Siberia
Aloha Tribe,
Someone asked me recently about where I'd love to surf, and, that got me to thinking about Siberia. You know, there actually is surfing there,, at least, there should be, in fact, Siberia has a lot of coastline. And, interestingly enough, today, there are 16 foot swells in the Bering Sea. Pretty radical, actually. I've read that the Bering Sea is the most dangerous sea in the world because of the shallow water (only 200 foot or so), the freezing temperatures, and the way everything blows about. Sounds like exciting surfing to me. Going there really calls to my Siberian/Mongolian heritage, blood, and roots.
Hmm, it makes one wonder if you could lay down paddle a surfboard from Siberia to Alaska or Alaska to Siberia. Not legally, of course, it would have to be a rather secret sort of adventure. Stealth surifng, at its best, yes. Naturally, smaller boats would be foolish to attempt a crossing when the seas were up. But a surfboard, hmm. Who could possibly spot a lone surfer on a cute longboard? Radar and sonar certainly wouldn't pick that up.
So, it's about 90 km or roughly 55 miles across the Bering Straight. Now then, to compare that with something, let's see, between Oahu and Kauai in Hawaii is roughly 50 miles and people have traveled that by various means. Laird Hamilton, for example, windsurfed it. So, if that distance could be done, then, the Bering Straight could be crossed. In theory. I'd so love to be the girl to do it.
Now then, how to do it. Surf my way up to Alaska from Washington and through Canada. Get to the Bering Strait, then, hop on a surfboard and paddle. Preferably timing it right so you'd land in Siberia at night, so hopefully you'd not be detected. Then, take a few quick photos, surf a bit of the Siberian coast, and, paddle back, ideally, without getting caught. Now that would be a surfing adventure worth trying. :)
Of course, paddling between Oahu and Kauai does sound a bit more pleasant. Let's see, camouflage print string bikinis (my favorite), sunshine, and mai tais vs. artic survival wetsuits, stormy frigid weather and seas, and, vodka. Well, okay, Vodka is good. And, naturally, Russian styled chess is the best. Vodka and chess to while away the long cold nights, not a bad idea.
You know, if this adventure ever gets done, remember you read it here first. It'd certainly make the papers and magazines. Some silly American girl paddles and surfs across the Bering Straight and back again, news at 11.
Bodaciously Stoked,
Lily of the Valley
Someone asked me recently about where I'd love to surf, and, that got me to thinking about Siberia. You know, there actually is surfing there,, at least, there should be, in fact, Siberia has a lot of coastline. And, interestingly enough, today, there are 16 foot swells in the Bering Sea. Pretty radical, actually. I've read that the Bering Sea is the most dangerous sea in the world because of the shallow water (only 200 foot or so), the freezing temperatures, and the way everything blows about. Sounds like exciting surfing to me. Going there really calls to my Siberian/Mongolian heritage, blood, and roots.
Hmm, it makes one wonder if you could lay down paddle a surfboard from Siberia to Alaska or Alaska to Siberia. Not legally, of course, it would have to be a rather secret sort of adventure. Stealth surifng, at its best, yes. Naturally, smaller boats would be foolish to attempt a crossing when the seas were up. But a surfboard, hmm. Who could possibly spot a lone surfer on a cute longboard? Radar and sonar certainly wouldn't pick that up.
So, it's about 90 km or roughly 55 miles across the Bering Straight. Now then, to compare that with something, let's see, between Oahu and Kauai in Hawaii is roughly 50 miles and people have traveled that by various means. Laird Hamilton, for example, windsurfed it. So, if that distance could be done, then, the Bering Straight could be crossed. In theory. I'd so love to be the girl to do it.
Now then, how to do it. Surf my way up to Alaska from Washington and through Canada. Get to the Bering Strait, then, hop on a surfboard and paddle. Preferably timing it right so you'd land in Siberia at night, so hopefully you'd not be detected. Then, take a few quick photos, surf a bit of the Siberian coast, and, paddle back, ideally, without getting caught. Now that would be a surfing adventure worth trying. :)
Of course, paddling between Oahu and Kauai does sound a bit more pleasant. Let's see, camouflage print string bikinis (my favorite), sunshine, and mai tais vs. artic survival wetsuits, stormy frigid weather and seas, and, vodka. Well, okay, Vodka is good. And, naturally, Russian styled chess is the best. Vodka and chess to while away the long cold nights, not a bad idea.
You know, if this adventure ever gets done, remember you read it here first. It'd certainly make the papers and magazines. Some silly American girl paddles and surfs across the Bering Straight and back again, news at 11.
Bodaciously Stoked,
Lily of the Valley
Monday, December 14, 2009
Gidget's Kahoona
Hello Everyone,
So, I just watched the movie Gidget again. I love that film. And one of the characters I really love is the Kahoona. While he's not a literal Kahuna, he is the top surfer around. I love the idea of him having his shack on the beach and traveling the world and surfing. Naturally, there's a secret catch that comes out later in the film but that's beside the point. The Kahoona seems like an awsome surfer guy. For him, surfing is about the feeling, he totally got it when Gidget was talking to him about her love of her first surfing ride. She was totally stoked and he could feel it too. That's really one of the secrets of surfing, feeling that energy in others. The stoke is such a beautiful thing and it's so awesome how we can share it with each other.
I love the idea of traveling the world surfing, what surfer, after all, doesn't? We all have Endless Summer disease, I'd imagine. And you know, what could be better.
Now, I have a dream. A silly dream, mind you, but a dream none-the-less. I want to surf the coldest, most frigidly frozne waters of the world. And, in the process, I want to bring my red and white striped Wingnut longboard (the one in the photo on my blog here), with me. I just found a totally cute Santa type bikini, red material, white fur accents, to wear, with a photo of me with my board at the North Pole.
So, here's the plan. I learn to travel in the arctic. Taking the necessary lessons, possibly starting this year if I can get in shape enough. The physical requirement is to be able to pull 300 pounds on a sled or sledge for about 8 hours a day, every day. A trip to the North Pole, one way, takes about 56 days or so. And yes, I'd want to drag my longboard up there with me, that's a must and the point of it all. Why? If you have to ask why, you probably will never understand. It's the romantic in me, the adventurer, the dreamer, the surfer girl. Ideally, I want to be able to haul my longboard both to the North Pole, and, back, unresupplied, a task, mind you, that has never been done by anybody yet. So, I've been out all morning this morning dragging my 300 pound ship's anchor chain for training. I'll try to work up to 400 pounds, if I can, to account for the return trips food and the surfboard, but of course.
I'd love to take a ship to, perhaps, Greenland. And, start from there. Ideally, my dream is to surf in the wake of the ship as much as possible. Another possibility is to take a Russian ice breaker ship, perhaps a mail carrier, as far as I can, that could be fun. "Hey, comrade, why does that goofyfoot American girl keep surfing in her string bikini in our wake? Silly American girl. Is she stoked or what!!!, Ya, comrade."
Taking a Russian ice breaker fascinates me, partially because of my Siberian and Mongolian heritage, partially because learning the Russian language sounds fun, partially because I love Russian styled chess and playing Russian chess with the lads on the ship sounds really fun, and, partially, well, just because.
What does this all have to do with Gidget's Kahoona, you might ask? Well, everything. The idea of living the dream, of really doing it, of thinking of an adventure, planning for it, and, jumping right in. Why not, after all.
Sure, my Amazon adventure I mentioned the other day sounds a bit warmer, but I think I can find room for both. :)
I want to be like Kahoona. In a way, I already am. That is to say, more like a Kahuna what with my chi gung and all. So, I want to take my Kahuna kind of lifestyle I already live daily, and, add a bit of Kahoona to it to round it out. Hence, my adventure dreams and plans, and, hence my honing my buns into total steel today pulling that heavy chain.
Bodaciously Stoked,
Lily of the Valley
So, I just watched the movie Gidget again. I love that film. And one of the characters I really love is the Kahoona. While he's not a literal Kahuna, he is the top surfer around. I love the idea of him having his shack on the beach and traveling the world and surfing. Naturally, there's a secret catch that comes out later in the film but that's beside the point. The Kahoona seems like an awsome surfer guy. For him, surfing is about the feeling, he totally got it when Gidget was talking to him about her love of her first surfing ride. She was totally stoked and he could feel it too. That's really one of the secrets of surfing, feeling that energy in others. The stoke is such a beautiful thing and it's so awesome how we can share it with each other.
I love the idea of traveling the world surfing, what surfer, after all, doesn't? We all have Endless Summer disease, I'd imagine. And you know, what could be better.
Now, I have a dream. A silly dream, mind you, but a dream none-the-less. I want to surf the coldest, most frigidly frozne waters of the world. And, in the process, I want to bring my red and white striped Wingnut longboard (the one in the photo on my blog here), with me. I just found a totally cute Santa type bikini, red material, white fur accents, to wear, with a photo of me with my board at the North Pole.
So, here's the plan. I learn to travel in the arctic. Taking the necessary lessons, possibly starting this year if I can get in shape enough. The physical requirement is to be able to pull 300 pounds on a sled or sledge for about 8 hours a day, every day. A trip to the North Pole, one way, takes about 56 days or so. And yes, I'd want to drag my longboard up there with me, that's a must and the point of it all. Why? If you have to ask why, you probably will never understand. It's the romantic in me, the adventurer, the dreamer, the surfer girl. Ideally, I want to be able to haul my longboard both to the North Pole, and, back, unresupplied, a task, mind you, that has never been done by anybody yet. So, I've been out all morning this morning dragging my 300 pound ship's anchor chain for training. I'll try to work up to 400 pounds, if I can, to account for the return trips food and the surfboard, but of course.
I'd love to take a ship to, perhaps, Greenland. And, start from there. Ideally, my dream is to surf in the wake of the ship as much as possible. Another possibility is to take a Russian ice breaker ship, perhaps a mail carrier, as far as I can, that could be fun. "Hey, comrade, why does that goofyfoot American girl keep surfing in her string bikini in our wake? Silly American girl. Is she stoked or what!!!, Ya, comrade."
Taking a Russian ice breaker fascinates me, partially because of my Siberian and Mongolian heritage, partially because learning the Russian language sounds fun, partially because I love Russian styled chess and playing Russian chess with the lads on the ship sounds really fun, and, partially, well, just because.
What does this all have to do with Gidget's Kahoona, you might ask? Well, everything. The idea of living the dream, of really doing it, of thinking of an adventure, planning for it, and, jumping right in. Why not, after all.
Sure, my Amazon adventure I mentioned the other day sounds a bit warmer, but I think I can find room for both. :)
I want to be like Kahoona. In a way, I already am. That is to say, more like a Kahuna what with my chi gung and all. So, I want to take my Kahuna kind of lifestyle I already live daily, and, add a bit of Kahoona to it to round it out. Hence, my adventure dreams and plans, and, hence my honing my buns into total steel today pulling that heavy chain.
Bodaciously Stoked,
Lily of the Valley
North Shore (Actor's Wanted Training) Day 11
A Totally Bodacious Morning Everyone,
So, another week of my Actor's Role Training IF, I had been graced to have been in the movie North Shore, playing the female version of the character Turtle. Today is Day 11.
So far, so good!!!
Now granted, I"m not exactly getting the perfect tan where I live, in fact, there's snow on the ground (which has not deterred me from trying, for the record - yes, bikinis in the snow, what better fun!!!), but, I have been getting some great workouts. Today, I'll be dragging around a 300 pound ship's anchor chain that I have. My goal is to be able to pull it for about 8 hours straight. Assuming I can. I'lll try for another 8 hours tomorrow. And, so on. A unusual goal to some, perhaps yes. But certainly one I could imagine someone like big wave rider Laird Hamilton would love trying. I read in his book he loves working out with huge logs caber style (and I have one for that purpose too) , as I have mentioned before, in order to help him build his strength for big wave riding, so, by combining that idea with my love of the North Pole and questing to go there and what with it being Christmas season, the idea of pulling the weight of a typical arctic sledge, came to mind. And, while I don't have an actual arctic polar sledge yet, to pull at this time, I do have my ship's anchor chain, which, I suppose, in some ways does seem sort of surfy. After all, it relates to the water :)
So, I'll finish my morning light breakfast, then head out into the snow for a bit of a go at chain pulling. I have an awesomely bodacious rope to use as a handle, it's my climbing rope, a 1 inch diameter twisted hemp rope. I have a two inch diameter rope in my climbing garage for slacklining on and for climbing as well as doing pullups, pushups, and dips on.
The basic idea is I'll pull the chain about 200 meters, do some slacklining and pullups and pushups and dips in a few quick sets, then pull the chain another 200 meters and so on. That way, I'll get a full body workout. The slackling between sets will keep my balance honed to perfection as well as give me a chance to stretch while on the slackline 2 inch rope (that rope, by the way, is about 100 feet long.
Bodaciously Stoked,
Lily of the Valley
So, another week of my Actor's Role Training IF, I had been graced to have been in the movie North Shore, playing the female version of the character Turtle. Today is Day 11.
So far, so good!!!
Now granted, I"m not exactly getting the perfect tan where I live, in fact, there's snow on the ground (which has not deterred me from trying, for the record - yes, bikinis in the snow, what better fun!!!), but, I have been getting some great workouts. Today, I'll be dragging around a 300 pound ship's anchor chain that I have. My goal is to be able to pull it for about 8 hours straight. Assuming I can. I'lll try for another 8 hours tomorrow. And, so on. A unusual goal to some, perhaps yes. But certainly one I could imagine someone like big wave rider Laird Hamilton would love trying. I read in his book he loves working out with huge logs caber style (and I have one for that purpose too) , as I have mentioned before, in order to help him build his strength for big wave riding, so, by combining that idea with my love of the North Pole and questing to go there and what with it being Christmas season, the idea of pulling the weight of a typical arctic sledge, came to mind. And, while I don't have an actual arctic polar sledge yet, to pull at this time, I do have my ship's anchor chain, which, I suppose, in some ways does seem sort of surfy. After all, it relates to the water :)
So, I'll finish my morning light breakfast, then head out into the snow for a bit of a go at chain pulling. I have an awesomely bodacious rope to use as a handle, it's my climbing rope, a 1 inch diameter twisted hemp rope. I have a two inch diameter rope in my climbing garage for slacklining on and for climbing as well as doing pullups, pushups, and dips on.
The basic idea is I'll pull the chain about 200 meters, do some slacklining and pullups and pushups and dips in a few quick sets, then pull the chain another 200 meters and so on. That way, I'll get a full body workout. The slackling between sets will keep my balance honed to perfection as well as give me a chance to stretch while on the slackline 2 inch rope (that rope, by the way, is about 100 feet long.
Bodaciously Stoked,
Lily of the Valley
Friday, December 11, 2009
Pororoca: A Half Hour Full Moon Amazon River Tidal Ride
Hey All,
So, it's getting nearer to Christmas, and, as some of you know, I've been thinking a lot about the North Pole. And, of course, that got me thinking about adventures in general. And this adventure lead to that and here I am, contemplating the most excellent and perfect wave of all, Pororoca. It's a tidal wave that happens in the Amazon River twice a year, during the Spring rainy season, from what I understand, around the full moon, which, makes sense. It makes me wonder if there are some tide books of the mouth of the Amazon? I'll so have to check this. From what I know at the moment, the Amazon River is relatively flat for about 600 miles up from it's mouth, so that means the tides create a totally macking wave!!!
Now, I guess the record for riding this utterly bodacious wave is 37 minutes set by Picuruta Salazar. Wow, a 37 minute ride. How stoked does that make you!!!
So, to train for such a ride, now that would be a noble goal. Most surf rides are maybe about 10 seconds or so, which makes this a truly phenomenal and beyond imagineable dream. All the more reason to plan such an adventure, yes?
An interesting idea would be to SUP or better yet, paddle laying down (my prefernce) down the Amazon from somewhere until the wave was finally met, do a Paddle Out Reentry, and then ride to hell. Now, of course, if one really did it right, you'd come in from the west coast somewhere, hike the jungle (yes, with the longboard), get to the Amazon where it originates, and ride it to the wave. Why not? What could be a grander adventure? Sure, it would take a ton of planning and getting into shape, but just imagine the adventure of it. A year should about do, I'd imagine, to get ready.
I shall have to reflect upon this. The idea, fascinates me. I've been questing for an adventure. This sounds rather awesome.
Bodaciously Stoked,
Lily of the Valley
So, it's getting nearer to Christmas, and, as some of you know, I've been thinking a lot about the North Pole. And, of course, that got me thinking about adventures in general. And this adventure lead to that and here I am, contemplating the most excellent and perfect wave of all, Pororoca. It's a tidal wave that happens in the Amazon River twice a year, during the Spring rainy season, from what I understand, around the full moon, which, makes sense. It makes me wonder if there are some tide books of the mouth of the Amazon? I'll so have to check this. From what I know at the moment, the Amazon River is relatively flat for about 600 miles up from it's mouth, so that means the tides create a totally macking wave!!!
Now, I guess the record for riding this utterly bodacious wave is 37 minutes set by Picuruta Salazar. Wow, a 37 minute ride. How stoked does that make you!!!
So, to train for such a ride, now that would be a noble goal. Most surf rides are maybe about 10 seconds or so, which makes this a truly phenomenal and beyond imagineable dream. All the more reason to plan such an adventure, yes?
An interesting idea would be to SUP or better yet, paddle laying down (my prefernce) down the Amazon from somewhere until the wave was finally met, do a Paddle Out Reentry, and then ride to hell. Now, of course, if one really did it right, you'd come in from the west coast somewhere, hike the jungle (yes, with the longboard), get to the Amazon where it originates, and ride it to the wave. Why not? What could be a grander adventure? Sure, it would take a ton of planning and getting into shape, but just imagine the adventure of it. A year should about do, I'd imagine, to get ready.
I shall have to reflect upon this. The idea, fascinates me. I've been questing for an adventure. This sounds rather awesome.
Bodaciously Stoked,
Lily of the Valley
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Epic Tides, the North Shore, and Kahunas
It was fun reading in my Capt'n Jack's Tide and Current Almanac of Puget Sound yesterday. To me, the tides played right into the epic swell at North Shore in Oahu.
It's why I love reading tide books. The computer, for the most part, as most of us use it - I'd imagine - at any rate, shows today's tide. Maybe even a few days out. Whatever. But books, why those show a year ahead. So it's fun to hang over coffee in the morning before Dawn Patrol or after a day's session in a pub with a brew while flipping through my tide books. Yesterday was the largest tide of the month so far, even beating out the full moon tide. Now I'm sure everybody knows that, but to me, it was a fun thing to read and to contemplate. I've been feeling the swell coming to the North Shore of Oahu for awhile. About 3 months actually. It's a chi gung thing, a way of getting in tune with the ocean that goes beyond what we normally think of as science and enters the realms of what we historically and culturally would have considered to be the stomping grounds of the Kahuna. It is, a zone, of magic. What else do you call something like that?
I find the mystery and mysticism of the Kahunas to be utterly fascinating. They were, to me, Hawaii's shamans. People who understood more than most see. In the case of the surfing Kahunas, these were, to my understanding, the guys who knew all about the sea. Sure, I've heard that they could tell when the waves were coming but they also knew about tides and swells and when and where the fish were, for all of that was related, thus, more than simply picking perfect days to surf, they helped feed the villages by knowing when are where to fish. And, I know from personal experience, that each and every one of those things can be done. One simply has to know how. And, to train. The secret, by the way, is in the breath. But the secret beyond the secret is that the secret is beyond the breath, at the level of feeling motion in stillness, and stillness in motion.
Chi gung, shamanism, and Kahunas all share something. Each is a way to work with the energy around us. And so, using any of those systems, which, in so many ways share so much, one can do something like sense huge swells coming. In that way, it's not unlike Bodhi (Patrick Swayzee's character in Point Break). In that movie, the character Bodhi could feel the 50 year storm coming. He knew where it would be and when. He was, in his way, a chi gung master, a shaman, a kahuna, or, as I like to think of it, a soul surfer (okay, the character did the whole bank robbery thing but that's beyond this discussion).
Yesterday, December 8th, was a last quarter moon, moon on the equator. A time of radically high tides. And, the epic waves at North Shore rose to dance.
Bodaciously Stoked,
Lily of the Valley
It's why I love reading tide books. The computer, for the most part, as most of us use it - I'd imagine - at any rate, shows today's tide. Maybe even a few days out. Whatever. But books, why those show a year ahead. So it's fun to hang over coffee in the morning before Dawn Patrol or after a day's session in a pub with a brew while flipping through my tide books. Yesterday was the largest tide of the month so far, even beating out the full moon tide. Now I'm sure everybody knows that, but to me, it was a fun thing to read and to contemplate. I've been feeling the swell coming to the North Shore of Oahu for awhile. About 3 months actually. It's a chi gung thing, a way of getting in tune with the ocean that goes beyond what we normally think of as science and enters the realms of what we historically and culturally would have considered to be the stomping grounds of the Kahuna. It is, a zone, of magic. What else do you call something like that?
I find the mystery and mysticism of the Kahunas to be utterly fascinating. They were, to me, Hawaii's shamans. People who understood more than most see. In the case of the surfing Kahunas, these were, to my understanding, the guys who knew all about the sea. Sure, I've heard that they could tell when the waves were coming but they also knew about tides and swells and when and where the fish were, for all of that was related, thus, more than simply picking perfect days to surf, they helped feed the villages by knowing when are where to fish. And, I know from personal experience, that each and every one of those things can be done. One simply has to know how. And, to train. The secret, by the way, is in the breath. But the secret beyond the secret is that the secret is beyond the breath, at the level of feeling motion in stillness, and stillness in motion.
Chi gung, shamanism, and Kahunas all share something. Each is a way to work with the energy around us. And so, using any of those systems, which, in so many ways share so much, one can do something like sense huge swells coming. In that way, it's not unlike Bodhi (Patrick Swayzee's character in Point Break). In that movie, the character Bodhi could feel the 50 year storm coming. He knew where it would be and when. He was, in his way, a chi gung master, a shaman, a kahuna, or, as I like to think of it, a soul surfer (okay, the character did the whole bank robbery thing but that's beyond this discussion).
Yesterday, December 8th, was a last quarter moon, moon on the equator. A time of radically high tides. And, the epic waves at North Shore rose to dance.
Bodaciously Stoked,
Lily of the Valley
EPIC WAVES Brah!!!
Wow, so the North Shore is THE happening place to be. 45 foot, awesome :) I'm so stoked for everybody who is there. The Eddie, what a dream of dreams. Just to feel the power of that swell, wow, that must be utterly bodacious.
It has got me thinking of training. Epic waves, of course, give a much longer ride and thus take skills beyond those of what most of us would ever dream. The power, the strength, the feel, oh my gosh, it just makes a girl want to scream. For those blessed few, chosen to ride, this smile's for you.
I love pushing myself in my surfing training and to me, everything is about feel based on movement, even when that movement is stillness like on a flat day or, as in this case of the North Shore right now, pure power. So it's fun to think of how I would even go about training for something like this. It makes me think back to the days of the big wave pioneers, our heroes of yesteryear. Such guys sound truly inspirational for they had in abundence ingenuity, physical perfection, and pure bravery. Thrill of thrills, you know, just thinking about those brahs. And, about the champions all, out there yesterday. My heart still races over such thoughts and moments.
Surfing is about the stoke, and the more stoke there is, the more one can feel it, embrace it, be it. When it's just you alone on a wave, the stoke comes from within. And from the sea around you. And as you start adding more surfers, their stoke comes to you, penetrates you, fills you, and becomes part of your stoke too. And then add in people watching and their energy fills you too. And, on top of that, you add, in this particularly awesome scene, 5 years of dreams and waiting and hope, well, everybody explodes just like the sea did. It's all about chi. The more there is, the easier it is to feel. And, the more you feel it, the more your stoke. The secret to stoke, of course, is to find the level you thrive for no matter the external conditions, and, to do that, one merely has to hone their sensitivities to stoke. That, of course, is what my blog is all about. For we each have it within us to ride out stoke to any level we dream. And that's the beauty of it. That's the fun of it. That, is the stoke. You know.
Bodaciously Stoked,
Lily of the Valley
It has got me thinking of training. Epic waves, of course, give a much longer ride and thus take skills beyond those of what most of us would ever dream. The power, the strength, the feel, oh my gosh, it just makes a girl want to scream. For those blessed few, chosen to ride, this smile's for you.
I love pushing myself in my surfing training and to me, everything is about feel based on movement, even when that movement is stillness like on a flat day or, as in this case of the North Shore right now, pure power. So it's fun to think of how I would even go about training for something like this. It makes me think back to the days of the big wave pioneers, our heroes of yesteryear. Such guys sound truly inspirational for they had in abundence ingenuity, physical perfection, and pure bravery. Thrill of thrills, you know, just thinking about those brahs. And, about the champions all, out there yesterday. My heart still races over such thoughts and moments.
Surfing is about the stoke, and the more stoke there is, the more one can feel it, embrace it, be it. When it's just you alone on a wave, the stoke comes from within. And from the sea around you. And as you start adding more surfers, their stoke comes to you, penetrates you, fills you, and becomes part of your stoke too. And then add in people watching and their energy fills you too. And, on top of that, you add, in this particularly awesome scene, 5 years of dreams and waiting and hope, well, everybody explodes just like the sea did. It's all about chi. The more there is, the easier it is to feel. And, the more you feel it, the more your stoke. The secret to stoke, of course, is to find the level you thrive for no matter the external conditions, and, to do that, one merely has to hone their sensitivities to stoke. That, of course, is what my blog is all about. For we each have it within us to ride out stoke to any level we dream. And that's the beauty of it. That's the fun of it. That, is the stoke. You know.
Bodaciously Stoked,
Lily of the Valley
Monday, December 7, 2009
Tide Books, Longboards, Surf Wax, and Flat Water
Evening Everyone,
Sometimes the surf is flat. And yet, such times bring such smiles for me. What can compare with sitting out on the still water, alone with your thoughts. It's a peaceful time, a time of magic and reflection.
It makes me think of some of my favorite things, tide books, longboards, and surf wax.
Strap my longboard on my car, and I'm good to go, even if there is nowhere to go. Just having it with me makes me feel connected to the ocean, no matter where I am. Sure, I"m a romantic, I admit it. But that's what makes life fun, you know.
I love the smell of surf wax in my car. In fact, I keep a bar or two in my bug just for the scent and memories alone. It makes me feel, through scent, that no matter where my beautiful orange beetle is taking me, the surf is just a memory away. Scent is powerful that way. Some love the aroma of neoprene, I do, I admit. Others love the subtle smell of surf wax. Another favorite scent of mine. And of course, there's the smell of sand in the car, and salt. Such smells are magical to me, they carry me on unimaginable adventures of stoke. Sure, It's a simple way of looking at surfing, but hey, when you're stoked, you're stoked.
Another favorite of mine is tide books. Yep, the old fashioned kind, with pages and everything. Sure, there's computers today, and even surf watches, but my all time favorite is to always have a local tide book with me in my worn and rumpled canvas satchel. I find flipping through it a way to reflect on where I've been, where I am, and, where I'm going. And you know, it doesn't matter if it gets sand in (like a computer) it and there are no batteries to run down like a watch. A book, a good ol' fashioned book, a simple tide book finds me happy when I am alone in a distant coffee shop awaiting the perfect tide.
For me, it's the simple things that make surfing fun. I guess that's really what longboard surfing is all about anyways. It's a way of looking at life and being happy with what is, right here, right now. Even when your board is finless, as some of you may have read a while back about my longboard. You make due. And you adapt. And you simply chill. And breathe. Long and soft and slow.
Bodaciously Stoked,
Lily of the Valley
Sometimes the surf is flat. And yet, such times bring such smiles for me. What can compare with sitting out on the still water, alone with your thoughts. It's a peaceful time, a time of magic and reflection.
It makes me think of some of my favorite things, tide books, longboards, and surf wax.
Strap my longboard on my car, and I'm good to go, even if there is nowhere to go. Just having it with me makes me feel connected to the ocean, no matter where I am. Sure, I"m a romantic, I admit it. But that's what makes life fun, you know.
I love the smell of surf wax in my car. In fact, I keep a bar or two in my bug just for the scent and memories alone. It makes me feel, through scent, that no matter where my beautiful orange beetle is taking me, the surf is just a memory away. Scent is powerful that way. Some love the aroma of neoprene, I do, I admit. Others love the subtle smell of surf wax. Another favorite scent of mine. And of course, there's the smell of sand in the car, and salt. Such smells are magical to me, they carry me on unimaginable adventures of stoke. Sure, It's a simple way of looking at surfing, but hey, when you're stoked, you're stoked.
Another favorite of mine is tide books. Yep, the old fashioned kind, with pages and everything. Sure, there's computers today, and even surf watches, but my all time favorite is to always have a local tide book with me in my worn and rumpled canvas satchel. I find flipping through it a way to reflect on where I've been, where I am, and, where I'm going. And you know, it doesn't matter if it gets sand in (like a computer) it and there are no batteries to run down like a watch. A book, a good ol' fashioned book, a simple tide book finds me happy when I am alone in a distant coffee shop awaiting the perfect tide.
For me, it's the simple things that make surfing fun. I guess that's really what longboard surfing is all about anyways. It's a way of looking at life and being happy with what is, right here, right now. Even when your board is finless, as some of you may have read a while back about my longboard. You make due. And you adapt. And you simply chill. And breathe. Long and soft and slow.
Bodaciously Stoked,
Lily of the Valley
Saturday, December 5, 2009
North Shore (Actor's Needed) Day 3
Hugs Everyone,
Ah, Day 3 already of my actor's Training for my training for a role in North Shore if I was to have played the female part of Turtle. My morning begins with pushups. The first set was 40 reps d at an inverted angle of 45 degrees, to work the underside of the pecs, or, as we have talked about, to lift the boobs from below, giving them a wide base of muscle spreading out below them to create beautiful cleavage. Breakfast, following two more sets of pushups will be a grapefruit and a papaya. I was given the grapefruit as for my Birthday. I so love fruit.
Then, after breakfast I'll start on my SUP (Stand Up Paddling) on my Surf Pro Indo Board on top of my bosu ball. Had I got up a few hours ago, I'd have loved to have done Dawn Patrol with my longboard. I got my new bamboo fin yesterday, totally bodacious, by the way. It'll seem funny surfing my longboard with a fin. I've so loved Riding Slide Ass. I just have to continue my study of that art, there's so much depth to it.
I've got a full weekend ahead of me. Woo hoo. What surfing fun is that. I do have to get my Christmas tree today and set it up and decorate my house and my chicken coop and my gypsy vardo with Christmas lights. I prefer the colored lights that come in C9 size. I find them nostalgic, magical, and oh so beautiful.
I'll try to get my decorating done this morning so that I have the afternoon to study the waves and to hopefully workout on the beach. I really want to get numerous hardcore exercise sessions in today. I'll do some mountain biking like Laird Hamilton does after his weights workout when I'm done with my kettlebells. I'll also move my log end over end for as long as I can, it's a waterlogged tree about a foot in diameter and about 7 feet long. I have it down in the sand and I simply lift one end, let it fall end over end, then do it again as I "walk" it down the beach.
Well, the day has such potential. when I get to my breakfast this morning, I'll hit my Surfish more too, always working that into what I'm doing. And my Pidgin, of course. I'll add more as the day progresses.
Bodaciously Stoked,
Lily of the Valley
Ah, Day 3 already of my actor's Training for my training for a role in North Shore if I was to have played the female part of Turtle. My morning begins with pushups. The first set was 40 reps d at an inverted angle of 45 degrees, to work the underside of the pecs, or, as we have talked about, to lift the boobs from below, giving them a wide base of muscle spreading out below them to create beautiful cleavage. Breakfast, following two more sets of pushups will be a grapefruit and a papaya. I was given the grapefruit as for my Birthday. I so love fruit.
Then, after breakfast I'll start on my SUP (Stand Up Paddling) on my Surf Pro Indo Board on top of my bosu ball. Had I got up a few hours ago, I'd have loved to have done Dawn Patrol with my longboard. I got my new bamboo fin yesterday, totally bodacious, by the way. It'll seem funny surfing my longboard with a fin. I've so loved Riding Slide Ass. I just have to continue my study of that art, there's so much depth to it.
I've got a full weekend ahead of me. Woo hoo. What surfing fun is that. I do have to get my Christmas tree today and set it up and decorate my house and my chicken coop and my gypsy vardo with Christmas lights. I prefer the colored lights that come in C9 size. I find them nostalgic, magical, and oh so beautiful.
I'll try to get my decorating done this morning so that I have the afternoon to study the waves and to hopefully workout on the beach. I really want to get numerous hardcore exercise sessions in today. I'll do some mountain biking like Laird Hamilton does after his weights workout when I'm done with my kettlebells. I'll also move my log end over end for as long as I can, it's a waterlogged tree about a foot in diameter and about 7 feet long. I have it down in the sand and I simply lift one end, let it fall end over end, then do it again as I "walk" it down the beach.
Well, the day has such potential. when I get to my breakfast this morning, I'll hit my Surfish more too, always working that into what I'm doing. And my Pidgin, of course. I'll add more as the day progresses.
Bodaciously Stoked,
Lily of the Valley
Friday, December 4, 2009
North Shore (Actor's Training) Day 2
Good Morning Everyone,
What an awesome day for my quest to continue. Last night went well, I had a small salad for dinner and some lemon and lime water. I also did lots of pushup at various incline angles (doing 30 reps per set at each of the 6 angles) which builds the upper part of the pecs or the tops of the boobs, if you want to think of it that way, giving support from above. I also did lots of pullups (but only 6 reps at a time so far). I have a pullup bar at the top of my stairs and everytime I went up or down the stairs, I did as many as I could. I also did squats, numerous sets of double 40 reps each - sometimes on balance disks, sometimes on the floor, sometimes on my toes, sometimes flat footed, sometimes on my Pro Surf Classic Indo Board on top of either a balance disk or a bosu ball. I also did SUP on the Surf Classic and balance disk with my 6 foot Kahuna Big Stick (I love the biggest one, size matters).
I hadn't planned to have a salad last night but I was with a friend and that's what she made so that's what I had. I kept it a small one.
This morning, for breakfast, I'll have a grapefruit. I'd love a papaya but I want the grapefruit for cholesterol. I have a Doctor's appointment next week and it's amazing how several grapefruits a day can get one in shape. I'll have the papaya probably for lunch, if, I have lunch. Dinner tonight will be pineapple. I also spent several hours last night studying Pidgin and Surfish. Mostly while doing countless situps, crunches, and leg lifts of various types (hitting the quads, hamstrings, adductors, and abductors) as well as the glutes and the gluteus medius.
So, to start out this morning, while my grapefruit gets "ready," I'll do some pushups, squats, pullups, and SUP (Stand Up Paddling).
Noon now. I had only half a grapefruit for breakfast and a few sips of orange juice. I'm rather starved. But, I'm determined and focused. If other actors can do it, then so can I. I've spent the morning studying Surfish. It's coming along. Slowly. At this point, I'm still just getting a hang for the words by increasing my vocabulary. This will be interesting to see where all of this goes 3 weeks from now.
Well, since I"m so hungry, I guess I'll do situps until I'm not hungry anymore. That should work. I am looking forward to dinner. But it probably won't be until maybe about 9 tonight, so, that's a long way off to wait for my pineapple and papaya. That gives me like about 9 1/2 more hours of language study and exercise before then. A pretty full day, actually.
I'm pretty stiff from my morning SUP but I'll give it another go this afternoon to work the kinks out. And, if not, well, there's always pushups and pullups. The pullups in particular feel awesome on my stiff lower back. Oh, I'm up to 10 pullups now per set, up from 6 yesterday per set. Sure, I have a long way to go, but at least I can do tons of sets throughout the day every time I go up and down the stairs. The more I'm exercising, the more energy I'm getting and the stronger I'm getting with each workout, even though they are spaced merely an hour or so apart.
It's now early afternoon, I got through the lunch hour fine. My situps worked away hunger. I just got done with several sets of pushups and pullups and dips. And I did a bit more SUP too on my Indo Board on my balance disks. So far, so good. Well, back to situps, crunches, and surfing language. The nice thing about them is I can pop of 300 of each without much bother so it's a good way to focus on my vocabulary. I'll have earned my pineapple and papaya tonight, that's for sure.
Bodaciously Stoked,
Lily of the Valley
What an awesome day for my quest to continue. Last night went well, I had a small salad for dinner and some lemon and lime water. I also did lots of pushup at various incline angles (doing 30 reps per set at each of the 6 angles) which builds the upper part of the pecs or the tops of the boobs, if you want to think of it that way, giving support from above. I also did lots of pullups (but only 6 reps at a time so far). I have a pullup bar at the top of my stairs and everytime I went up or down the stairs, I did as many as I could. I also did squats, numerous sets of double 40 reps each - sometimes on balance disks, sometimes on the floor, sometimes on my toes, sometimes flat footed, sometimes on my Pro Surf Classic Indo Board on top of either a balance disk or a bosu ball. I also did SUP on the Surf Classic and balance disk with my 6 foot Kahuna Big Stick (I love the biggest one, size matters).
I hadn't planned to have a salad last night but I was with a friend and that's what she made so that's what I had. I kept it a small one.
This morning, for breakfast, I'll have a grapefruit. I'd love a papaya but I want the grapefruit for cholesterol. I have a Doctor's appointment next week and it's amazing how several grapefruits a day can get one in shape. I'll have the papaya probably for lunch, if, I have lunch. Dinner tonight will be pineapple. I also spent several hours last night studying Pidgin and Surfish. Mostly while doing countless situps, crunches, and leg lifts of various types (hitting the quads, hamstrings, adductors, and abductors) as well as the glutes and the gluteus medius.
So, to start out this morning, while my grapefruit gets "ready," I'll do some pushups, squats, pullups, and SUP (Stand Up Paddling).
Noon now. I had only half a grapefruit for breakfast and a few sips of orange juice. I'm rather starved. But, I'm determined and focused. If other actors can do it, then so can I. I've spent the morning studying Surfish. It's coming along. Slowly. At this point, I'm still just getting a hang for the words by increasing my vocabulary. This will be interesting to see where all of this goes 3 weeks from now.
Well, since I"m so hungry, I guess I'll do situps until I'm not hungry anymore. That should work. I am looking forward to dinner. But it probably won't be until maybe about 9 tonight, so, that's a long way off to wait for my pineapple and papaya. That gives me like about 9 1/2 more hours of language study and exercise before then. A pretty full day, actually.
I'm pretty stiff from my morning SUP but I'll give it another go this afternoon to work the kinks out. And, if not, well, there's always pushups and pullups. The pullups in particular feel awesome on my stiff lower back. Oh, I'm up to 10 pullups now per set, up from 6 yesterday per set. Sure, I have a long way to go, but at least I can do tons of sets throughout the day every time I go up and down the stairs. The more I'm exercising, the more energy I'm getting and the stronger I'm getting with each workout, even though they are spaced merely an hour or so apart.
It's now early afternoon, I got through the lunch hour fine. My situps worked away hunger. I just got done with several sets of pushups and pullups and dips. And I did a bit more SUP too on my Indo Board on my balance disks. So far, so good. Well, back to situps, crunches, and surfing language. The nice thing about them is I can pop of 300 of each without much bother so it's a good way to focus on my vocabulary. I'll have earned my pineapple and papaya tonight, that's for sure.
Bodaciously Stoked,
Lily of the Valley
Thursday, December 3, 2009
North Shore (Actor's Wanted) - the project
Talk Story Everyone,
I watched one of my favorite movies again last night, North Shore. A cult classic for sure. You either love it and have seen it hundreds of times, or, you've never heard of it. It's pretty much that simple.
But, the thing is, what I'm reflecting on today is not so much the movie, but about one of the actors. John Philbin. He played Turtle. Unarguably the most memorable character of the movie. Or, at least, the most endearing. Turtle rocks.
Now then, what interests me so totally much is how John got the role, that is to say, how I understand that he got the role. I read and or heard that he needed to get in shape to play the character and he did it in about 3 weeks, which utterly stuns me and blows me away!!! During that time, from what I understand, he not only got his body shredded so perfectly like it was in the movie but he also learned the Hawaiian pidgin surfing language. What I like to think of as, Surfish.
So, being the romantic that I am, that story, regardless of how accurate it may or may not be, at least in fantasy, utterly and totally truly inspires me. What could be done in 3 weeks, not only with the body, but also with the mind and spirit? That is what thrills me so. And, to top it off, and to add magic and wonder to it, what can be done right now, in THIS next three weeks starting this very night!!! In other words, what if I had an awesome chance to play a cool role like John did, only, the girl version, of course, a female Turtle, the wahine shaper's assistant. Ah, what a beautiful and fun dream. How would I go about it? And what would I try to do? So, for the next three weeks, starting with tonight, I'm on a quest, just to see what I can do during this three week time table.
That brings me from now, today, December 3rd, to, interestingly enough, Christmas Eve, Thursday, December 24th. What an awesome goal and project is that!!!
So, starting tonight, I'll see what I can do to get my body shredded like John did (wow he looked great as Turtle), as well as to fully embrace Pidgin Hawaiian and Surfish. I know it's called Surfonics and even Surfspeak, but I must say, and, you read it here perhaps for the first time, Surfish sounds so much cooler. At least to me.
Now then, what to do? Diet. Exercise. Language class. And embracing the spirit of surfing as a totally embracing lifestyle. Those four things. For the next three weeks. Oh, and of course, surfing as much as possible day and night, naturally.
For diet, I'll drop my normal fish tacos (typically I eat those 2 or 3 times a day - I've done that for about the last half a year or so, by the way) and try to focus just on fruit, and as little of that as possible. After all, if I was truly trying to get a role like John did, and, if it required me to be as "surf looking" as possible, well, then getting shredded is the way to go., and, I don't know if it required John to go to extremes in his diet, but, I want to, just to see what will happen. I do so wish that I knew exactly what John Philbin did, so, John, if you or one of your friends happens to be out there and reading this (and golly, I rather hope that you are), let me know, okay, I'm really on a fun quest here. Inspired by your character in the movie. We're talking pure magic and total supreme stoke to the max!!!
Why this quest and why now? Well, why not!!! I see Christmas time, at least to me, as a time of Santa. Yep, I admit, I believe in the ol' guy. To me, he was and is a shaman. The shaman's shaman, actually. The head kahuna, in a way. I love Christmas, I always have, and, I've always seen it as a time of miracles and magic ever since I was a little girl. Christmas time to me is a time of wonder and joy and happiness and fun and silliness, all rolled up into one. It's a time, to focus on good things. And thus, my movie role quest for what could me more magical and impossible than that? To get the role of the perfect surfer girl in some totally awesome once in a lifetime chance surfer flick, what could be funner?
I really love this idea. I'll exercise as much as possible every day, I'd imagine I'll try for at least 6 to 8 hours of hardcore exercise, more, if I can, I'll have to see how my body holds up. I'll see how it plays out with my torn acl and torn meniscus, of course. I am, in a way, simply following Doctor's orders.
You see, as I may have mentioned in another entry, my Surgeon is going to see me in January and he told me to hit the North Shore and surf for all I'm worth, and told me that I'd either be able to do it and utterly rip or I'd literally rip my knee apart in the process. If it worked, and, if I can indeed shred the North Shore, he said, my knee will have demonstrated that it healed. And, if not, well, that's the time for surgery he said. Hmm. I'm, for the record, sort of hoping for the first one.
So, given my Doctor's advice, and having watched the Director's Commentary of North Shore last night, I came up with this plan.
I'll prepare myself the best I can to surf the North Shore, just as if I really were going (and who knows, maybe I'll get a cool Christmas present from someone (maybe even if I"m lucky from one of you who happens to be reading this) to go, hey, it's Christmas season, miracles can happen!!!).
I like the idea of seeing myself training for an acting job like John did. It makes it fun, challenging, and I truly find it motivating. And, I find it truly magical that I came up with this idea today and it is three weeks to the day until Christmas Eve, the time of true miracles and magic for a Santa believer like me.
My diet, I've already covered. Drink tons of water. As much as possible each day. Eat a little fruit each day or at least every few days, focusing on pineapple, mangoes, and papayas mostly (what could be more Hawaiian?), and pretty much keep it to that to the best that I can.
As for exercise, naturally, it will be surfing and surfing related exercises. I do wish I knew what John did. I'd find his workout inspirational, I so totally know. Well, I have hopes that someone out there will know what he did and how he did it and be able to shed some insight for me. Please :)
In the meantime, I'll do all that I can. I'll surf as much as I can. And, do balancing exercises on my indo surfboard on top of my bosu ball, balance on my balance disks and Swedish ball, and of course swim, paddle, do pushups, pullups, dips, situps, squats, kneeling twisting pulldowns and kneeling twisting pullups, as well as mountainboard and mountainboard with my kahuna big stick and things of that sort as they come to me. I do love Laird Hamiliton's workout in his awesome book Force of Nature, so I'll probably follow that as much as I can too because it's such an awesomely laid out program, and who could possibly be in better shape than Laird Hamilton, who also, by the way, was super in North Shore.
For study of non-language, I'll focus my time on studying my tide books while I eat or have orange juice with my coffee drinking friends at breakfast. Naturally, I'll be thinking of fruit and water for perfect skin tone for my acting role. As for language study, I'll read my surfing dictionary Surfin'ary by Trevor Cralle as often as possible and also study and totally embrace my book on Hawaiian Pidgin called Pidgin to Da Max: 25th Anniversary Edition by Peppovision and Douglas Simonson. Both books are like so totally necessary for what I'm doing.
And spiritually, why I'll simply live surfing in all I do and in all that I think about, 24/7. As 15 said in the movie Point Break, "Surfing's the source man... swear to God. (I love that movie to, by the way). I love that quote, and, it's how I see surfing. More so, I"ll fully embrace that idea as I train for the next 3 weeks. Those simple words from Point Break inspire me. As does the full program I've laid out here.
Full immersion in diet, exercise, language, and spirituality, what fun. A bodaciously awesome project this will be, I'm sure. More so, I'm utterly stoked beyond all reason. And, naturally, my Christmas is going to be all surfing related. I hope my friends are reading this, and hopefully all of you out there too in case you want to send me Christmas presents, why not, right? Anything and everything surfing oriented please. That's my Christmas list wish from all of you, whoever you may be and where every you may be from. Hmm, a red string bikini, surf wax, tide books, surfing dvds, surfboards - of course - that goes without saying, perhaps a surf t-shirt or two, maybe a new fun beach towel, ah the fun of dreaming. Anybody with extra stuff that's just sitting there, an old board, perhaps? Why not donate it to the cause. I'd love a skegless , finless, wood board like in the movie :) After all, I utterly love Riding Sliding Ass. I'm addicted to it, I admit it.
Well, that's about it for tonight. My three week Surfing Movie Project Christmas Quest has begun.
Smiles and hugs everyone,
Bodaciously Stoked,
Lily of the Valley
I watched one of my favorite movies again last night, North Shore. A cult classic for sure. You either love it and have seen it hundreds of times, or, you've never heard of it. It's pretty much that simple.
But, the thing is, what I'm reflecting on today is not so much the movie, but about one of the actors. John Philbin. He played Turtle. Unarguably the most memorable character of the movie. Or, at least, the most endearing. Turtle rocks.
Now then, what interests me so totally much is how John got the role, that is to say, how I understand that he got the role. I read and or heard that he needed to get in shape to play the character and he did it in about 3 weeks, which utterly stuns me and blows me away!!! During that time, from what I understand, he not only got his body shredded so perfectly like it was in the movie but he also learned the Hawaiian pidgin surfing language. What I like to think of as, Surfish.
So, being the romantic that I am, that story, regardless of how accurate it may or may not be, at least in fantasy, utterly and totally truly inspires me. What could be done in 3 weeks, not only with the body, but also with the mind and spirit? That is what thrills me so. And, to top it off, and to add magic and wonder to it, what can be done right now, in THIS next three weeks starting this very night!!! In other words, what if I had an awesome chance to play a cool role like John did, only, the girl version, of course, a female Turtle, the wahine shaper's assistant. Ah, what a beautiful and fun dream. How would I go about it? And what would I try to do? So, for the next three weeks, starting with tonight, I'm on a quest, just to see what I can do during this three week time table.
That brings me from now, today, December 3rd, to, interestingly enough, Christmas Eve, Thursday, December 24th. What an awesome goal and project is that!!!
So, starting tonight, I'll see what I can do to get my body shredded like John did (wow he looked great as Turtle), as well as to fully embrace Pidgin Hawaiian and Surfish. I know it's called Surfonics and even Surfspeak, but I must say, and, you read it here perhaps for the first time, Surfish sounds so much cooler. At least to me.
Now then, what to do? Diet. Exercise. Language class. And embracing the spirit of surfing as a totally embracing lifestyle. Those four things. For the next three weeks. Oh, and of course, surfing as much as possible day and night, naturally.
For diet, I'll drop my normal fish tacos (typically I eat those 2 or 3 times a day - I've done that for about the last half a year or so, by the way) and try to focus just on fruit, and as little of that as possible. After all, if I was truly trying to get a role like John did, and, if it required me to be as "surf looking" as possible, well, then getting shredded is the way to go., and, I don't know if it required John to go to extremes in his diet, but, I want to, just to see what will happen. I do so wish that I knew exactly what John Philbin did, so, John, if you or one of your friends happens to be out there and reading this (and golly, I rather hope that you are), let me know, okay, I'm really on a fun quest here. Inspired by your character in the movie. We're talking pure magic and total supreme stoke to the max!!!
Why this quest and why now? Well, why not!!! I see Christmas time, at least to me, as a time of Santa. Yep, I admit, I believe in the ol' guy. To me, he was and is a shaman. The shaman's shaman, actually. The head kahuna, in a way. I love Christmas, I always have, and, I've always seen it as a time of miracles and magic ever since I was a little girl. Christmas time to me is a time of wonder and joy and happiness and fun and silliness, all rolled up into one. It's a time, to focus on good things. And thus, my movie role quest for what could me more magical and impossible than that? To get the role of the perfect surfer girl in some totally awesome once in a lifetime chance surfer flick, what could be funner?
I really love this idea. I'll exercise as much as possible every day, I'd imagine I'll try for at least 6 to 8 hours of hardcore exercise, more, if I can, I'll have to see how my body holds up. I'll see how it plays out with my torn acl and torn meniscus, of course. I am, in a way, simply following Doctor's orders.
You see, as I may have mentioned in another entry, my Surgeon is going to see me in January and he told me to hit the North Shore and surf for all I'm worth, and told me that I'd either be able to do it and utterly rip or I'd literally rip my knee apart in the process. If it worked, and, if I can indeed shred the North Shore, he said, my knee will have demonstrated that it healed. And, if not, well, that's the time for surgery he said. Hmm. I'm, for the record, sort of hoping for the first one.
So, given my Doctor's advice, and having watched the Director's Commentary of North Shore last night, I came up with this plan.
I'll prepare myself the best I can to surf the North Shore, just as if I really were going (and who knows, maybe I'll get a cool Christmas present from someone (maybe even if I"m lucky from one of you who happens to be reading this) to go, hey, it's Christmas season, miracles can happen!!!).
I like the idea of seeing myself training for an acting job like John did. It makes it fun, challenging, and I truly find it motivating. And, I find it truly magical that I came up with this idea today and it is three weeks to the day until Christmas Eve, the time of true miracles and magic for a Santa believer like me.
My diet, I've already covered. Drink tons of water. As much as possible each day. Eat a little fruit each day or at least every few days, focusing on pineapple, mangoes, and papayas mostly (what could be more Hawaiian?), and pretty much keep it to that to the best that I can.
As for exercise, naturally, it will be surfing and surfing related exercises. I do wish I knew what John did. I'd find his workout inspirational, I so totally know. Well, I have hopes that someone out there will know what he did and how he did it and be able to shed some insight for me. Please :)
In the meantime, I'll do all that I can. I'll surf as much as I can. And, do balancing exercises on my indo surfboard on top of my bosu ball, balance on my balance disks and Swedish ball, and of course swim, paddle, do pushups, pullups, dips, situps, squats, kneeling twisting pulldowns and kneeling twisting pullups, as well as mountainboard and mountainboard with my kahuna big stick and things of that sort as they come to me. I do love Laird Hamiliton's workout in his awesome book Force of Nature, so I'll probably follow that as much as I can too because it's such an awesomely laid out program, and who could possibly be in better shape than Laird Hamilton, who also, by the way, was super in North Shore.
For study of non-language, I'll focus my time on studying my tide books while I eat or have orange juice with my coffee drinking friends at breakfast. Naturally, I'll be thinking of fruit and water for perfect skin tone for my acting role. As for language study, I'll read my surfing dictionary Surfin'ary by Trevor Cralle as often as possible and also study and totally embrace my book on Hawaiian Pidgin called Pidgin to Da Max: 25th Anniversary Edition by Peppovision and Douglas Simonson. Both books are like so totally necessary for what I'm doing.
And spiritually, why I'll simply live surfing in all I do and in all that I think about, 24/7. As 15 said in the movie Point Break, "Surfing's the source man... swear to God. (I love that movie to, by the way). I love that quote, and, it's how I see surfing. More so, I"ll fully embrace that idea as I train for the next 3 weeks. Those simple words from Point Break inspire me. As does the full program I've laid out here.
Full immersion in diet, exercise, language, and spirituality, what fun. A bodaciously awesome project this will be, I'm sure. More so, I'm utterly stoked beyond all reason. And, naturally, my Christmas is going to be all surfing related. I hope my friends are reading this, and hopefully all of you out there too in case you want to send me Christmas presents, why not, right? Anything and everything surfing oriented please. That's my Christmas list wish from all of you, whoever you may be and where every you may be from. Hmm, a red string bikini, surf wax, tide books, surfing dvds, surfboards - of course - that goes without saying, perhaps a surf t-shirt or two, maybe a new fun beach towel, ah the fun of dreaming. Anybody with extra stuff that's just sitting there, an old board, perhaps? Why not donate it to the cause. I'd love a skegless , finless, wood board like in the movie :) After all, I utterly love Riding Sliding Ass. I'm addicted to it, I admit it.
Well, that's about it for tonight. My three week Surfing Movie Project Christmas Quest has begun.
Smiles and hugs everyone,
Bodaciously Stoked,
Lily of the Valley
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Soul Surfing
Soul Surfing. We hear the term a lot. But what is it? And, how does one find it? Well, I don't know about everybody else, but to me, it means some truly beautiful things.
Three of my favorite Soul Surfers are Robert August, Gerry Lopez, and Wingnut. And from watching each of them on movies, and one day I so hope, in person, I have got a few basic ideas of what Soul Surfing can be all about.
Soul Surfing, it seems, is all about the moment. It's about truly loving surfing with all of your heart. It's about being fully present in the moment in exactly what you are doing. It is being right here, right now, on this wave and that is all that matters for the ride. Soul Surfing is about having fun, about fully embracing the stoke. It is about, being.
And sure, lots of us see ourselves as Soul Surfers, and in that sense, we all are. Yet, it is an art that is never ending and a path that leads us to unlimited internal potential within ourselves. And that's the exciting part of it.
Yet, among the Soul Surfing elite, there are the guys out there who just stand out, the guys who seem to really have it, like the three awesome legendary men I mentioned above. They each have something about them that goes beyond what most of us can ever even imagine. They have a depth that we can but dream of.
And how does one get there? Goodness, I don't know, I'm but a simple kahuna tuna, a mere beginner with but a loving and open heart of dreams.
But, that being said, I do know what I am doing to help myself surf my path. And that, maybe, is about all any of us can do, find our own path through surfing, for we each ride a different wave for the water is never the same twice.
All I know is what is working for me, on my own little waves, in my own way. And for that, I'm using chi gung, simply because I've studied it for most of my life and therefore it is a part of who I am. As such, I use breathing exercises and physical exercises as well as mental visualizations to bring me into that zone where lightning fast evens seem to be happening in slow motion. It is a zone that can be entered at will, once one knows how. And in such a frame of mind, with such total sensory awareness, one can lose oneself fully to the moment.
To do this though, first, since I am but a beginner, I am learning skills. Honing each to the best of my ability, in order to be able to use them without having to think of them, to be able to use them at the level of art. I am, of course, not there yet, it is but a dream of mine. But I'm working at it. The sensory awareness part, the slowing of time to a near standstill, those, I have from a lifetime of training and dedication to the old ways. But bringing them to surfing, that is the new part for me. And that is the exciting part. I'm bringing what I know, what I do best, to the most beautiful sport and art that I know, surfing, namely, longboard surfing. With plans for big wave surfing along the way for I see both as fully related in that both require, at the level of art, total immersion into what is happening now, with the longboard, in almost slow motion in a 60's kind of style, and in big wave riding, in an intense in-the-moment presence. Both bring one to the same place, just, from opposite directions. That's what I see as their connection, and, that's what draws me so to both so deeply and passionately.
Soul Surfing, at the level of the legends I mentioned earlier, is not, I'd imagine, about this technique or that one, that is the zone for the beginner, like me, but instead, is about the flow. And that is the path I aspire to. To ride with the same feeling that I have with chi gung. I want to ride with chi. So first, the techniques need to come. And that is so where a mentor would come in handy. I dream of such a man. Or woman for that matter. To help me on my path. But in the meantime, as are most surfers, I am but alone with the sea. And perhaps that is how it often is. For in surfing, as in life, it is within ourselves, that we truly find ourselves.
So, where am I on my Soul Surfing path? In regards to technique, but at the very beginning, the lowest of the low. But regarding being in the flow, I am where I am. For me, sitting on the flattest of seas, with nary a ripple, brings such ecstatic stoke, for even in the tiniest of movements, so subtle that they are barely perceptible, I find such great joy. My thing is movement, I admit it. Any kind of movement. Both internal and external. And such waves are such a stoke to ride with pure spontaneous exhultation.
Soul Surfing is my goal, my quest, my life. It always has been. From the day I made my first surfboard when I was in 5th grade. I caught the stoke then, and it has always been a part of me. I guess it's like that for all of us, for we each have such cool stories to tell as we Talk Story.
Bodaciously Stoked,
Lily of the Valley
Three of my favorite Soul Surfers are Robert August, Gerry Lopez, and Wingnut. And from watching each of them on movies, and one day I so hope, in person, I have got a few basic ideas of what Soul Surfing can be all about.
Soul Surfing, it seems, is all about the moment. It's about truly loving surfing with all of your heart. It's about being fully present in the moment in exactly what you are doing. It is being right here, right now, on this wave and that is all that matters for the ride. Soul Surfing is about having fun, about fully embracing the stoke. It is about, being.
And sure, lots of us see ourselves as Soul Surfers, and in that sense, we all are. Yet, it is an art that is never ending and a path that leads us to unlimited internal potential within ourselves. And that's the exciting part of it.
Yet, among the Soul Surfing elite, there are the guys out there who just stand out, the guys who seem to really have it, like the three awesome legendary men I mentioned above. They each have something about them that goes beyond what most of us can ever even imagine. They have a depth that we can but dream of.
And how does one get there? Goodness, I don't know, I'm but a simple kahuna tuna, a mere beginner with but a loving and open heart of dreams.
But, that being said, I do know what I am doing to help myself surf my path. And that, maybe, is about all any of us can do, find our own path through surfing, for we each ride a different wave for the water is never the same twice.
All I know is what is working for me, on my own little waves, in my own way. And for that, I'm using chi gung, simply because I've studied it for most of my life and therefore it is a part of who I am. As such, I use breathing exercises and physical exercises as well as mental visualizations to bring me into that zone where lightning fast evens seem to be happening in slow motion. It is a zone that can be entered at will, once one knows how. And in such a frame of mind, with such total sensory awareness, one can lose oneself fully to the moment.
To do this though, first, since I am but a beginner, I am learning skills. Honing each to the best of my ability, in order to be able to use them without having to think of them, to be able to use them at the level of art. I am, of course, not there yet, it is but a dream of mine. But I'm working at it. The sensory awareness part, the slowing of time to a near standstill, those, I have from a lifetime of training and dedication to the old ways. But bringing them to surfing, that is the new part for me. And that is the exciting part. I'm bringing what I know, what I do best, to the most beautiful sport and art that I know, surfing, namely, longboard surfing. With plans for big wave surfing along the way for I see both as fully related in that both require, at the level of art, total immersion into what is happening now, with the longboard, in almost slow motion in a 60's kind of style, and in big wave riding, in an intense in-the-moment presence. Both bring one to the same place, just, from opposite directions. That's what I see as their connection, and, that's what draws me so to both so deeply and passionately.
Soul Surfing, at the level of the legends I mentioned earlier, is not, I'd imagine, about this technique or that one, that is the zone for the beginner, like me, but instead, is about the flow. And that is the path I aspire to. To ride with the same feeling that I have with chi gung. I want to ride with chi. So first, the techniques need to come. And that is so where a mentor would come in handy. I dream of such a man. Or woman for that matter. To help me on my path. But in the meantime, as are most surfers, I am but alone with the sea. And perhaps that is how it often is. For in surfing, as in life, it is within ourselves, that we truly find ourselves.
So, where am I on my Soul Surfing path? In regards to technique, but at the very beginning, the lowest of the low. But regarding being in the flow, I am where I am. For me, sitting on the flattest of seas, with nary a ripple, brings such ecstatic stoke, for even in the tiniest of movements, so subtle that they are barely perceptible, I find such great joy. My thing is movement, I admit it. Any kind of movement. Both internal and external. And such waves are such a stoke to ride with pure spontaneous exhultation.
Soul Surfing is my goal, my quest, my life. It always has been. From the day I made my first surfboard when I was in 5th grade. I caught the stoke then, and it has always been a part of me. I guess it's like that for all of us, for we each have such cool stories to tell as we Talk Story.
Bodaciously Stoked,
Lily of the Valley
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