Longboard Surfboard 360's Spinning

Aloha Tribe,

Yesterday was a wildly fun day on the water. I spent my session learning to spin my board. At first, I simply wanted to do it while sittiing in the lineup. Instead of slowly paddling my board around, as a wave came, I wanted to simply use my inner thighs to control my board, with my hands free in the air. By applying various degrees of pressure with my inner thigh  muscles, I  was quickly able to learn to dip the nose of my board and angle it down so my board would spin either clockwise or counterclockwise.

Next, once I practiced the technique for a bit, I began to focus on board speed and spinning my 9 foot  longboard faster. I played with the speed for awhile until I was able to do it smoothly and consistently and then I focused on precision stopping the spin on a dime from either a clockwise or counterclockwise spin, then, either resuming the spin in the original direction or immediately reversing direction.

After working at all of the above for a few hours, I started doing some yoga on my longboard. I began with straight leg bends from the seated position, then moved into paddling from that position. Next, I worked on a modified form of Downward  Facing Dog by doing it from my knees, getting a great extension into my arms as I leaned forward.

At that point, I thought I'd try both the American and Chinese Splits to loosen up my legs a bit.  And I followed that by sitting cross-legged on my board and just feeling the movements of the water.

By this time, I wanted to try spinning my board from my knees. So, I began doing 360's off my knees, while kneeling in a seiza position where my buns were on my heels. When I had full control over that, I moved to a higher kneeling postition where my thighs were perpendicular to my board and the water. Next, I began experimenting with 360's from the Pop Up position, when you first land on your feet but have not stood yet.

All in all, it was a truly magical session offering me a beautiful study of digging my rails and playing with them with various degrees of pressure and using various body parts and muscles for control of the rails, nose, and tail.

During the course of all of that training, I kept my endurance up by doing wind sprint paddling sessions between each of the various maneuvers I was practicing. I couldn't have had more fun.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley