Surfing Paddling Styles: 360's and 180's

Aloha Tribe,

We all spend a lot of time paddling out. The thing is, how many of us truly love it? More so, how many make it fun and play with it!!! I for one, have, for the shear joy of it.

One of my recent experiments and training sessions involved Paddling Out while spinning my longboard in 360's as well as 180's.

Now granted, at first thought, there might not be too much of a reason for doing such a thing, until, one looks at it deeply, which, I have. You see, such study is all about rail mastery. And, she who can control her rails, more so, turn rail digging into art,  truly  opens up a whole new world to her surfing.

When Paddling Out with 360's,  you start with the normal Freestyle paddling stroke, then, as your board turns 180,  you begin more of a Paddling Backstroke, in a sense, in that your arms move in the opposite direction just like they do when you Backstroke swim. So, in other words, mid-Paddle, you switch our paddling direction as your board spins. It's pretty cool.

I started out simply by working my rails as I Paddled Out, allowing my board to Zigzag through the water in slow, gentle curving arcs. And, once I got comfortable with Paddling Out while rocking my board from rail to rail like that, I began to experiment with rotating and thus Spinning my board, eventually, into 360's after a few times of practice. It was way awesome. :)  

More so, playing with Paddling Out like this makes this aspect of our sport and art into something fun, and, turns what we do into arstistic expression.

I don't know  how many of you play while you Paddle Out, I suppose most are simply focused on getting out to the Line-Up. But, why not have fun in the process, and, why not learn something more about your board, and yourself too in the process!!!

And, this of course, is merely the beginning. You see, one of the moves I love is the Paddle Out Reentry. So, by combining a Paddling Out 180 with the perfect timing of the incoming wave, you can time it so you're in the right position on the new wave face at the perfect time to begin a new Pop Up and a new Ride.

To do this, one needs to truly become one with the waves and to understand exactly when and where they will break and precisely where the peak will be. It turns the aspect of wave analysis into art also as you become, in a way, a Wave Shaman or Wave Kahoona.  And what could be cooler about that for it offers such truly indepth studys of waves and the sea.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley