What I learned about Surfing

On top of my list when I was in my early 20s (Goodness! I'm saying this now!) was to surf, first was to climb a mountain. I usually have a timeline for my plans, Climb a mountain: 18, Travel abroad: 25, (both were realized before the deadline by the way. haha) but for surfing, it was just in my list but I never believed in actually doing it. 

I learned lessons from my first ride (hoping to get a chance for a second ride) that remind me on how I should look at life when not riding the waves:

1. Impossible really becomes not possible if you never give it a shot. My list doesn't say that I should be a professional surfer but for a long time, I was thinking that even just trying it... is absurd. 

The photo below shows how scared I was on my first try:

2. Patience is always a virtue. Life is not designed to be flat, it has ups and downs, right and wrong, but we have to keep the faith and keep moving. If you didn't ride the wave the first time, be more alert and try it the second time. If you fall, hug the board tight and try again. After a few try, you'll know. :)

As cliche as it is, "something that does not happen doesn't mean that it won't happen."

3. Listen & use your senses. In today's world, everyone wants to talk which oftentimes make things complicated. In surfing, you need to use your senses, don't just look, listen and feel the waves coming. Listen to the wind blowing, look at the waves beside you, quickly close your eyes to feel the waves and concentrate on your senses. You can't afford to lose a wave cause you might not experience one anymore!

4. Sometimes, you just don't have the chance to backout, so rock it! Sometimes, life gives us things that we think we don't need but is actually for us to experience and we have to be brave enough to try what's in-store for us out there. Most of the time, we need to risk then our lives will never be the same again cause it just gets better.

5. It will always be hard to keep the balance, but only the wise can do it (Read: wise- with knowledge & experience of falling and standing up over and over. haha).

6. Be prepared (you can't afford to miss one wave, remember?).

7. Enjoy the ride. There's a feeling of euphoria when riding a wave, it's addictive. The feeling before, during and after riding a wave is indescribable but you can never tell a story about only "after the ride," it needs to be a whole process to make the story complete so you have to enjoy every second of it.

FREEDOM. It was a liberating feeling to ride the waves. 

Awesome Idea: What I always do is to imagine the feeling when I was riding a wave, then I imagine my worries as the wave- scary and huge...after a few breaths, rode over my worries, then they go away! 

Maybe that's a good idea for you to try surfing, so you'll know what to imagine when worries come again!

So here is what I've found out in my hard drive, my "chimpanzee" first ride:

*This was a quick trip to Zambales, read the whole story here.