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

Aloha Tribe,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley