Surfing and SUP are Not a Fast Food Experiences

By Len Barrow

A few days ago I was watching a surfer.  The man zoomed into the parking lot at the surf break.  He literally ripped his board off the surf racks in his haste to get to the surf.  Oddly enough he was wearing a type of “sling”.  To my surprise he inserted a cell phone in to the water proof sling and rushed off to surf.  I watched him notice and ignore some garbage on the beach as he ran across the beach.

In the water the, this man was aggressive, paddling under people to get position.  He would not wait his turn.  It seemed that the man thought that the world revolved around him and his rushed schedule.  The locals at the break were getting a bit irritated but the man was tolerated.  Everyone almost felt sorry for him.  He completely missed the point of surfing.  He was not paying attention and by doing this he degraded his surfing experience.

Surfing is sport that should be regarded as sacred from my point of view.  How do you treat the activity of surfing as being sacred?  You pay attention and make surfing a type of ritual, not a fast food experience.   Here are a few tips on how to pay attention to the whole surfing experience; and not be limited to parts of it.

When you arrive at the beach make it a habit to slow down.  Stop and study the conditions.   This act is actually very soothing and calm.  You can ask yourself:  ‘what is the tide like?; where is the swell focusing or defocusing?; how are the winds affecting the surf?”  By doing this, you slow your mind down and  turn surfing into a type of focused meditation.  This is the joy and magic of the surfing experience.   To just enjoy the moment by paying attention to it!

Engage in activities at your local beach.  It is so important to give compassion to the beach which brings you so much happiness.  If you see a piece of garbage, pick it up and throw it away.  I know locals who routinely pick up garbage.  Duane Desoto has a little rake and dustbin!  If you see a piece of garbage floating in the water, pick it up and stick it in your shorts to throw away later.  If your beach has a ”clean up” day, participate.  By treating the beach and ocean with respect, you turn your surf-spot into a place which helps to purify your thoughts and soul.    

Respecting other people is key to enjoying the whole surfing experience.  Smile and take the time to say hello to other surfers.  Pay attention to who has not been getting waves.  When a set comes, let this person have it.   Take care of the little kid surfers at the break.  They will become older and one day and take care of you.  Be that person that people want to see.   I go to the beach every-day and just see genuine smiles as people want to talk to me.  This is a wonderful feeling.   Don’t be a “DICK”.  Keep the karma flow positive in regards to other humans!

Don’t multitask!  Multitasking is the opposite of single pointed attention.  As a trend, more and more people are bringing cell phones out into the water.  It is still rare, but it is an alarming development from my point of view.   People are forgetting that surfing is a sacred experience and turning our wonderful sport into a fast-food experience.  How can you enjoy something if you cannot pour your whole soul and attention into it single pointedly?

The above ideas may seem a bit idealistic.  Despite this, you need to remember why you started surfing in the first place.  Most “old-school” surfers that I know, believed that surfing was a type of magical, if not sacred experience.  It was something that you cared about and even worshipped.   When you treat the sport and everything around it like any other ”rushed”  modern day activity, you lose the point of surfing and turn it into a fast food experience.    Let’s re-enchant ourselves and slow down and pay attention.  I guarantee that this will enhance your surfing experience tenfold and you will remember why you started in the first place!

The Upside and Downside of Ocean Competition by Len Barrow

Surfing competition or any competition can have its upsides and downsides.  As a former US Champion and Professional surfer and coach I would like to explore some of the benefits and pitfalls that can “manifest” when you begin competing and succeeding.

One of the benefits to competing whether SUP racing or surfing is that you can really focus your mind.  In Zen Meditation, one is taught to have an object of meditation.  This is usually ones breath.  When we compete we can use our surfing technique, or stroke technique as the object of our meditation.  This is a good thing as we learn to enhance and use our attention like a flashlight to solve our problems of technique and form.  You can then shift this “acquired attention” to benefit many other areas in life.  I use the benefits of attention partially acquired in competing to ” focus” on many things.  Use see, when we have the ability to keep our attention on just one thing we can analyze it and can come to creative solutions.  I have solved many problems in this method in relation to work, personal relationships and anthropology using this technique (I am a doctor in anthropology  also).  Our primary problem in modern life is that we don’t pay attention, or don’t have the ability to focus our attention for long periods of time.  We Multi-task and grovel our absent mindedly way along the path of life.  This can make us frustrated and sad.  Surfing and Sup competing can ” turn on” our gift of attention.  If we can transfer the gift of attention to other areas of life, we can be happier, and more creative people.

As proof of this, look at Kelly Slater.  No one could rationally argue against Kelly Slater’s freakish ability to observe and understand (pay attention) to any ocean condition.  He has won in 1 foot waves to 30 foot waves at the Eddie Aikau surf meet and this has resulted in his 11 world titles.  What a lot of people don’t know is that Kelly Slater applies his freakish attention to other projects.  He has designed a circular wave-pool that creates a never ending wave when it is turned on.  Kelly created a plan for an alternate to the ASP surf tour that utilizes a different competition format (if he retires, don’t be surprised to see another tour).   Slater created the 2 man, 4 man heat system (Yes it’s possible!!?)  that is used at Pipeline to allow more Hawaii surfers into the event as well as a quick event completion.  He is a genius in my opinion as he uses his attention gained in the ocean, and competition to be creative in life. I don’t know him personally but no one can argue that he has not been a humble and intelligent ambassador for the sport of surfing.   That he stayed humble is amazing which leads to our next segment of the article about the flipside harmful side or of ocean competition.

One of the downsides to competition is that it can transform you into a monster and in many ways destroy your attention-abilities.  One of the most common ways that this happens is after we have repeated competitive success, some of us become arrogant.  This is the complete opposite of the “goal of attention and practice” of Zen tradition.  Just a drop of arrogance destroys any of the “attention -benefit - gains” we have made during our successful competition and training. 

There is the famous story of a competitive surfer in the eighties from California that illustrates my point.  Let us call him “Jon Edward”.  Jon had an amazing talent.  He was a wave magnet which means he could pay attention to the waves so deeply that he was in the right place at the right time to get all the sets.  It was almost as if he had his hand on the telephone to call waves in.  We used to call him “jealously” 1-800-DAIL A BOMB”.  He could summon all the biggest waves in a heat (Big wave in surfing =bomb).  In competition, we call these guys “freaks” in a good way.   As he had repeated success he became exceedingly arrogant.  In Zen, Arrogance turns a person into a Demon, or Hungry Ghost metaphorically.  He soon dropped out of high school and went full time on tour, oddly with huge sponsorships from corporations.  He soon began destroying the top pros and after each success he got more arrogant.  This destroyed his ability to pay attention and  his wheels metaphorically fell off.  He lost his super powers gotten by paying attention suddenly due to his arrogance.  He ended up imploding using his sponsor’s money to finance rabid binges on hard drugs, destroying his mind.

I think the moral of the story is if you start to win and get arrogant and stuck up (Whether in SUP racing or surfing competition); you will lose in the end.  I have seen this time and time again as a professional coach.  If you do well and truly be humble, you can cultivate the gift of attention that you have gained to help yourself and others in many aspects of the life that is ahead of us.    

As some Locals say in Hawaii:  “BE HUMBLE, NO GRUMBLE”……..Lets all pay attention!

Regrouping (Check yourself before you wreck yourself)….Two reasons why surfers have frustrating surf sessions

By Len Barrow

When I was younger I used to have a problem when I surfed.  Sometimes I would lose my rhythm.  As I caught a wave I would go into a cutback and fall off.  On the next wave I would paddle hard for the wave but miss it. Then I would turn around and get pounded by sets that I failed to realize were coming in.  This led to my mind to go astray and my attention began to get frayed.  Frustration would creep in and I would begin to lose my focus and attention.  At times I would get so agitated that I would paddle in.   This influenced the rest of the day for me in a negative manner.  I don’t want you, the reader, to repeat my mistakes.

Len Barrow, paying attention and using Low Volume to Match Low Volume Wave

I would be surprised to find a SUP or surfer who has never had one of these days.  As I grew older I was shown a few techniques from one of my Hawaiian uncles.  These ideas are simple and can really enhance your SUP or surfing experience and I wish to share them with you here.

uncle showed me the idea of what he termed “REGROUPING”.  If your surf session is going badly you need to PAY ATTENTION by analyzing what you are doing wrong.  I know this sounds strange but stop your surfing and paddle to the inside of the break to take time to watch the waves and “reset your rhythm”  You will find that your mistakes usually fall into a two simple categories that I shall explain here.

Here are the primary two reasons why many surfers have bad sessions. 

1.Being Out of Rotation

You may find that every-time you wait for waves, they don’t come or when they do you are stuck on the inside trying to paddle out.  This can be very frustrating, yet there is a solution to this.  Again, stop what you are doing and “regroup” yourself in the following manner.  Paddle to the inside of the surf break.  Why the inside of the break you may ask?  By sitting in front of the whole break you can get a better perspective as to what is happening.  The point being is “how to observe the whole break” in relation to “how the water and waves are moving”.  Once you observe and understand this you can regroup yourself get back to the “pulse’ of the ocean!  You cannot get this perspective by sitting all the way on the outside of the surf point.  By sitting on the inside you may watch, observe and pay-attention to the totality of what is happening in the break .

As you sit, breathe deeply, and calm down.  Pay attention to the patterns of waves coming in.  Never forget that surfing is 80% observation and only 20% physical surfing.  You may notice that the waves are coming in flurries of set (larger waves) at certain time intervals.  Take note of the interval.  Maybe the sets come in every 8-10 minutes.  If this is the case, be patient.  Wait for 8-10 minutes and when the flurry of sets come you can get a wave.  Even if you don’t get the set (due to crowds) you will start becoming more in tune with the timing or pulse of the ocean.  If you do catch a wave at this interval you are beginning to flow more with the ocean!  Slowly paddle out again and wait for the next set.  Bingo!  You are now in what surfers call “Nature's Rotation” and are tuning in to what nature is trying to tell you to do!  This technique seems simple but  it takes a long time to learn yet your surfing enjoyment will go up exponentially.

2.Surfing Too Loud.

Sometimes you may find that you are falling off your board to frequently.  This can get really frustrating. Again, one needs to regroup and pay attention to why one is faltering.  One of the primary reasons that people fall off their boards is that they are surfing to “loud” for the given wave.  Let me explain this phenomena .  If you are on a soft rolling wave, you cannot put too much power or pressure on your board.  If you do this you will dig a rail or your surfing style will look “overdone” and ugly.  Adjust your “volume” to the wave that is given to you.  “Lower your volume” or put less pressure on your rail when you cut back or when you go off the top.  Instead of trying to attack the lip on a soft and mushy wave just lightly “pop” the board off the top.  Remember, you are not supposed to drive 100 miles an hour in a 25mph zone!  This is called “surfing light”.   This will help you to stop digging rail and falling off.   If the waves are big and fast, then you may turn up the volume and really jam the rail into the water.  Until then, take it easy. 

It is important to understand that it is we that must fit our surfing in to nature, not the other way around.  Any good surfer has this figured out.  So the next time you are having a bad day surfing, sit back and regroup using the tips above.  I assure you it will enhance your surfing experience!