Aloha Tribe,
Today, I wanted to look at one of my favorite ways of training Chi Gung, namely, slow training. Now, many of you have probably heard of Tai Chi. And, perhaps some of you have heard of Accupuncture or even Feng Shui also. Chi Gung is the root of all of these arts, as well as of all energy for that matter. In other words, anything you think or do is, a form of Chi Gung.
So, what does this have to do with slowness versus speed, you ask? Tons. You see, let's take a look at Tai Chi for a moment, or, slow motion Chi Gung. You simply move your body in a series of extremely slow, smooth movements, while coordinating your movements with your breathing. It's the breathing part, and the internal part (that which happens inside your body), by the way, which most Tai Chi practitioners miss, sadly. The reason is that most qualified instructors simply don't know the true roots of their art.
And, what does this have to do with surfing? Well, everything. How or why can we surf, and, why do we get better over time? Great questions, those. Let's look at them. In an average hour, most surfers spend probably about 50 to 55 minutes either paddling out or sitting in the lineup waiting for a wave. And that leaves only about 5 minutes or or per hour to actually ride, with an average ride, if you take all breaks into account all over the world, probably being something like about 8 seconds or so. Sure, there are breaks where you can get a long ride of maybe a minute, sometimes even a fair bit longer, but for the most part, most rides are 8 to 10 seconds.
Now, in talking to DD (Darrick Doerner), my surfing and Watergirl mentor, about Sunset Beach on the North Shore (of Oahu), he told me that the average surfer maybe caught about 4 rides per session or outing, what with paddling out, waiting in the Line Up for your turn, waiting for the right wave, and so on. 4 or 5 rides a session? I was dumbfounded at that. Here I had been surfing out in The Wilds as well as at Hanalai Bay in Kauai about 25 rides an hour or so, not knowing that was, "wrong," so to speak. Then again, I never hung out too much with the crowds and such, being Feral at heart and in soul. Naturally, I politely said nothing, and simply listened and nodded and studied Sunset. That got me thinking though, no wonder it takes some so long to learn to surf.
They say that on the California Coast, about a year of surfing is equal to about a month of surfing on the North Shore. And, off the East Coast of Africa as well as in Bali, there are spots that a month of surfing the North Shore is equal to a week there, in other words, it's possible to pack in a lot more surfing than some of us do, thus, our overall wave count can dramatically climb, if we but think about what we're doing and where we're doing it. Be in the right place, at the right time, and, you can learn extremely quickly acquiring vast amounts of experience. It adds up quickly. For example, you could get about 4 years of surfing experience in by surfing the North Shore for about 4 months, if, you typical break was in Southern California. Not a bad trade off actually.
Okay, so, getting back to our topic. Time. Namely, slow and fast. By training in slow motion, using Chi Gung, or various forms of Tai Chi, you can learn to truly pay deep attention to every minute movement your body and breath makes, and as such, you truly learn to not only relax, thus greatly increasing your flexibility, but more so, you learn to live and think in slow motion, or, in other words, at extremely high levels of speed, to put it in sports jargon, you learn to surf in The Zone.
The Zone is a semi-mythical place that virtually all top athletes in any sport get into now and again, but, the secret is to learn to do it every time and constantly, never getting out of it while doing your sport. This, fellow Tribe members, is where the art is, and, where the true excitement and benefit of Chi Gung is.
Just as getting a lot of experience, such as riding many waves, helps you to progress, getting more in tune with your body than you ever imagined even possible helps you to progress, and this, you learn to do by slowing down and truly studying and absorbing what you are doing every fraction of a second.
For most of us, if you ask us how our ride was, we might say is was Epic. Or, Bodacious!!! Or Radical. Or whatevers. But, how many of us can truly say exactly what we did, exactly as we did it, and, how it felt, and, why everything on any given ride happened as it did.
Once, DD asked me, "why did you fall". This was before he told me his Rule Number One: No Falling. As I looked at him for a second, he said, "why do people fall? Why would anybody want or chose to do that?"
And so, I told him. We fall, in general, because we lose focus. We aren't paying attention to exactly what we are doing and what our board is doing and what the wave is doing. Instead, we get out of the movement, removing ourselves from what is happening, and we think about what we want to do such as "I want to hit that lip then..." and so on. Now, there's nothing wrong with thinking about what you want to do, in fact, you truly do have to surf ahead of where you are to avoid accidents like hitting someone or to make a certain section of a wave or whatevers. But most of us think too slow. Worse, we think rigidly. Our plans, you see, have to be spontaneous explosions of lighting fast calculations absorbing absolutely everything and making no mistakes. If, we don't want to fall. Sadly, most do not know how to do that. But, there is hope. And, Chi Gung offers the path to learning this skill of thinking and thus responding physically faster than you surf.
It all starts, with, how we breathe. And, with slowing down. Thus, surfing longboard can truly help you master your shortboard, for those of you who might be wondering. Learn to surf slow, and, very soon, you'll surf the way you want to surf, the way your feel your surfing, the way you dream. And that, is a pretty exciting place to be.
Bodaciously Stoked,
Lily of the Valley
Today, I wanted to look at one of my favorite ways of training Chi Gung, namely, slow training. Now, many of you have probably heard of Tai Chi. And, perhaps some of you have heard of Accupuncture or even Feng Shui also. Chi Gung is the root of all of these arts, as well as of all energy for that matter. In other words, anything you think or do is, a form of Chi Gung.
So, what does this have to do with slowness versus speed, you ask? Tons. You see, let's take a look at Tai Chi for a moment, or, slow motion Chi Gung. You simply move your body in a series of extremely slow, smooth movements, while coordinating your movements with your breathing. It's the breathing part, and the internal part (that which happens inside your body), by the way, which most Tai Chi practitioners miss, sadly. The reason is that most qualified instructors simply don't know the true roots of their art.
And, what does this have to do with surfing? Well, everything. How or why can we surf, and, why do we get better over time? Great questions, those. Let's look at them. In an average hour, most surfers spend probably about 50 to 55 minutes either paddling out or sitting in the lineup waiting for a wave. And that leaves only about 5 minutes or or per hour to actually ride, with an average ride, if you take all breaks into account all over the world, probably being something like about 8 seconds or so. Sure, there are breaks where you can get a long ride of maybe a minute, sometimes even a fair bit longer, but for the most part, most rides are 8 to 10 seconds.
Now, in talking to DD (Darrick Doerner), my surfing and Watergirl mentor, about Sunset Beach on the North Shore (of Oahu), he told me that the average surfer maybe caught about 4 rides per session or outing, what with paddling out, waiting in the Line Up for your turn, waiting for the right wave, and so on. 4 or 5 rides a session? I was dumbfounded at that. Here I had been surfing out in The Wilds as well as at Hanalai Bay in Kauai about 25 rides an hour or so, not knowing that was, "wrong," so to speak. Then again, I never hung out too much with the crowds and such, being Feral at heart and in soul. Naturally, I politely said nothing, and simply listened and nodded and studied Sunset. That got me thinking though, no wonder it takes some so long to learn to surf.
They say that on the California Coast, about a year of surfing is equal to about a month of surfing on the North Shore. And, off the East Coast of Africa as well as in Bali, there are spots that a month of surfing the North Shore is equal to a week there, in other words, it's possible to pack in a lot more surfing than some of us do, thus, our overall wave count can dramatically climb, if we but think about what we're doing and where we're doing it. Be in the right place, at the right time, and, you can learn extremely quickly acquiring vast amounts of experience. It adds up quickly. For example, you could get about 4 years of surfing experience in by surfing the North Shore for about 4 months, if, you typical break was in Southern California. Not a bad trade off actually.
Okay, so, getting back to our topic. Time. Namely, slow and fast. By training in slow motion, using Chi Gung, or various forms of Tai Chi, you can learn to truly pay deep attention to every minute movement your body and breath makes, and as such, you truly learn to not only relax, thus greatly increasing your flexibility, but more so, you learn to live and think in slow motion, or, in other words, at extremely high levels of speed, to put it in sports jargon, you learn to surf in The Zone.
The Zone is a semi-mythical place that virtually all top athletes in any sport get into now and again, but, the secret is to learn to do it every time and constantly, never getting out of it while doing your sport. This, fellow Tribe members, is where the art is, and, where the true excitement and benefit of Chi Gung is.
Just as getting a lot of experience, such as riding many waves, helps you to progress, getting more in tune with your body than you ever imagined even possible helps you to progress, and this, you learn to do by slowing down and truly studying and absorbing what you are doing every fraction of a second.
For most of us, if you ask us how our ride was, we might say is was Epic. Or, Bodacious!!! Or Radical. Or whatevers. But, how many of us can truly say exactly what we did, exactly as we did it, and, how it felt, and, why everything on any given ride happened as it did.
Once, DD asked me, "why did you fall". This was before he told me his Rule Number One: No Falling. As I looked at him for a second, he said, "why do people fall? Why would anybody want or chose to do that?"
And so, I told him. We fall, in general, because we lose focus. We aren't paying attention to exactly what we are doing and what our board is doing and what the wave is doing. Instead, we get out of the movement, removing ourselves from what is happening, and we think about what we want to do such as "I want to hit that lip then..." and so on. Now, there's nothing wrong with thinking about what you want to do, in fact, you truly do have to surf ahead of where you are to avoid accidents like hitting someone or to make a certain section of a wave or whatevers. But most of us think too slow. Worse, we think rigidly. Our plans, you see, have to be spontaneous explosions of lighting fast calculations absorbing absolutely everything and making no mistakes. If, we don't want to fall. Sadly, most do not know how to do that. But, there is hope. And, Chi Gung offers the path to learning this skill of thinking and thus responding physically faster than you surf.
It all starts, with, how we breathe. And, with slowing down. Thus, surfing longboard can truly help you master your shortboard, for those of you who might be wondering. Learn to surf slow, and, very soon, you'll surf the way you want to surf, the way your feel your surfing, the way you dream. And that, is a pretty exciting place to be.
Bodaciously Stoked,
Lily of the Valley
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