NOHO Surf Balance Trainer: Glasses of Water: Perfect Steadyness: for Surfing, Slacklining, Soft Rope Walking, and Tight Wire Walking

Aloha Tribe,

I'm always using new and fun ways of working out with my NOHO Surf Balance Trainer attached to my longboard. What I seek, is perfection. Namely, perfect steadyness.

So, along this line, I have 12 plastic margaritta glasses that can be filled with water. And, these are then placed 6 to a side, nose to tail, of my longboard. The idea is, to not only make sure no glasses fall off the board, but more so, that no water spills, and, more than that, I am working on having the water as smooth as possible in the glasses.

With certain moves, like, the Drop Knee Cutback, where I like to drop my rear knee, in my case, my left knee, right down to the board with merely a fraction of an inch of room to spar. I find in this position, that it works my right thigh muscles, the quadriceps the best. With a weak leg muscle in your front leg, you'll probably notice that your board will shake intensely. But, simply stick with it. Do it again and again and again, really working your leg and buns muscles.

Try for perfection. After all, why not?  For, in perfection, one finds art.

So, instead of doing the normal Cross Stepping moves, I've been working on walking like I would on both my Soft Rope and Slackline, as well as on my Tight Wire.  Both types of balance and walking offer different experiences in balance and different muscle development.

To walk like  you would on a Slackline or Soft Rope, you use your hips and knees to balance. Stand on one foot and get your balance. Then, when you have it, and you're sure you have it, slowly, smoothly bring your rear foot forward until it is roughtly even with your side. Then, for the shear practice of it, lift your leg as high to your side as you can, using your gluteus medius muscle to do this. If you can lift your foot, to your side, as high as your shoulder or higher, you're doing great, this, of course, requires not only strength, but also super balance. Then, slowly lower and raise your leg a bit, playing with your balance, feeling it out, experimenting, seeing how far you can go. When you are ready, slowly bring your foot that has been raised in front of your supporting foot and softly place weight on it, ball of the foot first, then toes, then heel.  Once you have your weight on your front foot, begin the process again, only this time, you bring your other leg forward, and thus, it extends out and up to the opposite side of your previous leg. Do this for several steps on your NOHO Surf Balance Trainer, walking from the Tail to the Nose in this manner. Then, walk backwards, using the same process only in reverse.

Once you get back to where you started, it is now time to try Tight Wire styled walking. For this, your balance comes from your arms instead of from your hips and knees. And, thus, instead of holding your legs one at a a time out to the sides of your body like you did in the previous exercise, you simply bring each rear foot and place it surely in front of the supporting foot. This form of walking is less wobbly and more stable.

You'll find, if you practice both of these styles, that your coordination and balance on your longboard will skyrocket in leaps and bounds of joyful expression.

So, I do these types of exercises on my longboard, along with any other surfing moves I might want to practice on any given day, and then, I walk on a wooden pole that I have set up right next to my NOHO Surf Balance Trainer. The pole is one inch wide and 10 feet long. It offers a test of the previous exercises.

What I do is I do several laps on my longboard, then several laps on the pole, then several laps on my longboard, hour after hour. Or, if I want variance, I simply do the same thing in the Loft, using my Tight Wire Simulator and my home-made solid wood surfboard that sits on 4 balance disks.

I'm finding that the variation between going from the moving longboard to the steady wood pole and back, again and again and again, truly challenges my body and muscles. Oh, and, if you like, playing Surf Music and '60's Rock both seem to offer good vibrations for training with, giving your movements a sense of flow you might not otherwise have had.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley