Rock Running, Rock Balancing, Rock Surfing Tai Chi and Rock Chi Gung for Surfing

Aloha Tribe,

One of my favorite training exercises that I was taught by my Watergirl mentor is Rock Running. In it, you find an area with a lot of large rocks or boulders, at least large enough for perhaps the ball of your foot to land on, and, perhaps up to a foot or several feet in diameter. Basically like what you can find on the North Shore of Oahu near Alligators, or, quite frankly, like I am so blessed to have right in my yard down by the creek. What I was taught was that you actually run, by leaps, bounds, and springs, from rock to rock, as quickly as you can. This being the  case, it helps to have someone with you to make it a race in that you can push each other in this method. This method teaches your to overcome fear, to pay extreme attention to details such as positioning, to learn to slow down time, to increase agility, flexibility, and speed, yet, it does require total attention for it can be extremely dangerous.

Rock Balancing is my own version of this, where I basically simply stand still on one or two rocks, while maintaining my balance for as long as possible, allowing my muscles in my torso or core to develop, as well as the muscles of my legs and buns. Holding a position like this, using the concepts behind the Chig Gung practice of Zhan Zhoung, one might hold a single position for an hour or more. During this time, when you first begin, you use muscular effort to do this, trying, of course, to relax as much as possible. With time and experience, you learn to hold positions that would lead quickly to muscular failure, by circulating your bodies energy or chi (qi) through your muscles, using your mind to guide the energy. Naturally, there are a series of exercises leading up to this method, and, quite frandly, even holding a stationary position, especially with your arms raised as though you were surfing or slacklining, will have most people reaching muscle fatique in minutes. It takes time to learn to hold a position still for over an hour, let alone several hours.

This advanced form of Rock Balancing, is actually, what I call Rock Chi Gung, since, to do it properly requires the ability to manipulate your chi to various parts of your body at will. This skill, by the way, while seemingly irrelevant to surfing, has tremendous surfing applications, as well as direct applications for virtually any sport such as  skateboarding, snowboarding, slackliining, slackrope walking, and tighrope walking.

Rock Surfing Tai Chi basically involves movement imitating surfing movements, while, balanced on rocks. Or, on tree roots or tree limbs, for that matter (both are also favorites of mine). With this exercise, you simply get into a surfing stance that you like, then, imagine yourself, in extreme slow motion, at Tai Chi speed, which basically means moving more or less as slowly as you can, you shift your body from one surfing body position to another, such as going from a Backside Turn to a Frontside Turn to a Drop Knee Cutback.

All of these exercises can essentially be done on anything, from rocks and branches and boulders and roots, to urban environmental applications (also my favorites), such as curbs, guardrails, handrails, pointed roofs on buildings, posts, poles, fences, horizontally suspended chains and ropes, to virtually anything you'd find in an urban environment. I see this as a new art form, and, a new sport of my own creation. In a way, it's sort of like urban skateboarding, only, without the skateboard, and, at a stationary or very slow moving pace, with positions held up to several hours.

The reason you move slowly, or, remain still, by the way, is to not only learn to build up your chi in your body, but also, you learn how to circulate it to any part of your body for injury healing, increased endurance and speed, and even increased strength, flexibility, and agility.

While this form of training seems to be rather paradoxical for action board sports such as surfing, snowboarding and skateboarding, the thing is, the more you do it, the better any of these sports will be for you to do, opening secret doors unimagined, and, leading to unlimited potential and limitless boundaries.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley