Full Commit!
“Unusual travel suggestions are God’s dancing lessons…” — Kurt Vonnegut
There’s a strange principle to wave riding that’s taken me years to embody and not screw up, which is that it’s better to commit fully and go over the falls, than it is to hesitate and get hit by the wave.
The instinct to be cautious is hardwired into us. If things look sketchy, we all reserve the right to step back, or out completely. It’s this instinct that probably kept us safe at the watering holes of our ancestry. If you feel like there’s a tiger lurking… there’s probably a tiger lurking.
Enter the sea.
Old rules don’t apply here. The very ground itself is a shifting skein of water that defies consistency. If you don’t like the tide, or the swell direction, or the wind, just wait a few minutes. The only guarantee you have is that it doesn’t stay the same.
I refer to my normal state of mind, walking around the world and working and parenting, as “land mind”. Land mind is great for navigating the challenges of everyday life. But in and of itself, it’s a blade that can be dulled by overuse. Land mind needs space. Whether you meditate or draw or drop into waves, land mind can get overbearing and callous unless you find some flow state.
Flow state has its own rules, its own realm, primarily ruled by feelings. It’s one attribute may be the absence of thought, and the presence of pure sensation and knowing.
Just like the sea.
Paddle out and discover a realm waiting that invites pure conscious awareness. You really only get a series of seconds to observe the waves as they roll into shore from the time they appear on the horizon. Seconds to react, anticipate, evaluate, make decisions.
— Is the wave close enough to catch?
— Will the wave close out, or will the wall stay open?
— Where is the peak, and which side will be the better shape to ride: right or left?
— Are there other surfers in position?
— Will those other surfers catch or miss the wave?
— Will the wave break softly and roll, or stand up and smash down?
— Which direction is the wave coming from?
Wave riding is intelligence in motion — a form of intuition that draws from immediate relationship to your environment.
Your entire experience will depend on your ability to do one thing well: read water.
Water is notoriously difficult to read.
Glassed off at dawn, with a thick marine layer in place as there often is in California, the surface conditions resemble a mirror.
The horizon vanishes. Waves are already at your shoulder before you can even see them.
If the groundswell is clean, you have more time. Even a thirteen second interval is generous.
But with wind swell, waves come seconds apart. If there’s a cross swell in the water, they’re also coming from different ocean directions, which means they hit the reef in different places.
I squint at the horizon, and sweep my eyes from side to side. I wipe the salt from my eyelashes and squint harder.
When the wind picks up to a light ruffle, the sea looks like an endless stretch of blue carpet. The waves shift and vanish and reappear and reform. A magician’s trick, endless mischievousness.
See it, then do it.
Don’t hesitate. You must move at the speed of thought.
Is you hesitate, you miss. The waves are rolling in, not static. Any hesitation costs you seconds in the approach and take off, which is the difference between catching a wave and missing it. Any hesitation to make the drop, and you can get stuck on the lip and pounded into oblivion, your nose smashed into the surfboard.
“Full commit!” My coach Christian has screamed it at me so many times at 5am that my mind just yells it for him now even when he’s not around. The second the wave stacks up and the set looks goliath, you turn and go.
Even if the wave spins you like a window shade, the surfboard is likely in a less dangerous place than it would be if you bail. (Arguably the most important safety protocol is not getting hit by the projectile missile of your surfboard.)
Full commit!
Whatever it is that you’re afraid to do, do it afraid.
There are plenty of times I’ve spun my board around to snag a wave I was afraid would detonate on top of me if I did nothing. There are plenty of times mid plunge down the steep face, that I just let the wave push the board a little further, and then found I can get to my feet with ease.
Finesse is a byproduct of commitment. The grace comes when you give up control, and go with it.
If you commit fully, you put yourself in motion and finesse is on tap, no matter how chaotic the ride is along the way.
If you stop, bail, pull out, or hesitate, the chances that you will get hurt increase dramatically.
Like any relationship of consequence, you must make yourself emotionally available for the ride, wherever it takes you, however frightening it may be. You’re relying on your own technique, experience, and confidence to pull it off.
Then the exhilaration comes. The beauty finds you. The ride of your life begins…
…Full commit!
~ Kaia Alexander, 2022
Waves and moon
