Acceptance

A few days ago I came from a morning surf session and casually took a look at the video below where a young man talks about some interesting matters.

That morning the waves were solid, head high or slightly overhead, but because the period was long they came bulky and due to the sand bar they got fast in the closing stage and caved.

This required a quick, determined approach and takeoff, at least for my 6’3 thruster.

I got frustrated after taking a few on the head, and in that first half an hour or so, I got defensive about taking those waves. I got avoidant. I was internally fighting the prospect of failure, much more than focusing on the shifting wall of water.

After starting to get physically tired, I found myself more relaxed as is usual as a consequence of it (at least for me). I get a bit more careless just because I am tired.

And then a good wave approached and I distincly remember making a semiconscious decision of not caring about the consequences. I felt like I accepted whatever it was to become of that wave, of my effort. I then got much less distracted and more in tune with the wave, doing everything at the right time in perfect blending with the wave. It was a textbook takeoff and drop. It felt like a marriage with the wave.

This got me thinking because I want to reproduce the effect. I want to understand better how this worked. I was thinking about it and when I saw this video it resonated with me. The acceptance, the shift from the binary succeed/fail to an acceptance of possibilities, the getting rid of tresholds of expectations, it all made sense.