Going Outside

I took my third surf lesson yesterday and was hoping to learn how to actually paddle to "the outside" of the breaking waves and actually catch an incoming wave as opposed to the whitewash after it has broken. This lesson was definitely more difficult and exhausting than my first two. We did paddle to the outside, but we spent a lot of time paddling up and down the coastline, trying to get me lined up perfectly to catch a wave that would be an appropriate size for a novice. Ultimately, I caught a wave, but the feeling was so strange and new that when I tried to pop up into a standing position, I pretty much lost track of what I was doing and wiped out. I'm kind of glad that I fell off because my biggest fear about surfing was how rough that part of the experience would be, and honestly, it wasn't that big of a deal. I fell off my board into the wave, rolled around underneath it for a couple of seconds, and then it passed and I came to the surface.

I was really hoping that I would be able to stand up on at least one wave during the lesson, but after I caught and wiped out on that wave, it was the end of the lesson, and I was pretty exhausted by that point. Now that I have had a little taste of "the outside" and what it feels like to try to catch the incoming waves, I am going to keep practicing my pop-up skills in the whitewater and maybe in a couple more weeks I will sign up for another lesson to try again.