Saturday, October 22, 2011

Pop Ups on 3" Manilla Rope

Aloha Tribe,

So, yesterday my 300 foot long, 3 inch diameter manilla rope came. It's roughly 600 pounds, but very worth the weight for lugging it around in that I can string it out and not only comfortably practice a huge variety of surfing moves on it, I can also practice Pop Ups on it. Basically, you simply tie the rope to two trees, boulders, buildings, docks, boats, or whatevers, I like to use a Double Bowline with Jack's Variation on the stationary end and two Butterfly Knots on the end you tighten called the working end. Running the rope end back and forth through the Butterfly Knots, I can easily tighten or loosen the rope to any tightness depending upon what surfing moves I want to work on.

Today out in the Wilds, there are Blown Out Overheads, choppy as hell, more wind than predicted so it'll whip you a bit, so it'll be a great day for some surfing in small rough stuff. The worse or harder it gets, the more I love it because there's so many different things to work on in the unpredictable waves  offering true in-the-moment responses and decisions, as well as it's just pure fun. Sure, most love the smooth silky perfectness of tropical waves, but whatevers, I like it wild and unharnessed.

I got a lot of BMX riding in yesterday which was great, I set up an Olympic official sized BMX track on my property. It's a full quarter mile long track with some wild spots to work on such as great berm curves, lots of jumps, good solid dirt in spots and muddy as all get out in others. It's a perfect track for my training. BMX, by the way for those of you who don't do it, is where you ride on those "little kid" bikes. There are several types of events such as jumping, freestyle, and racing. Where I live, I can do all three right at home. In any event, it's a great way to really develop the fast twitch muscles you want to truly shred when you surf. Longboarding is about smooth style of course, but for those who love to rip when you surf on shortboards, you need a body shredded with fast twitch lighting fast muscles so BMXing is one way to really hit it hard.

Bodaciously  Stoked,

Lily of the Valley


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