Deportes and Recreation 3: Running the Waves

Mis estimados,

According to the free statistic generation program that comes with Google's blogging platform (yes, everything is tracked on the internet), and your kind, generous comments, it would seem that the last blog entry was a bit of a hit with you lot.

Which makes sense. I am not surprised that you would prefer to hear what people (especially people other than me) are like and what they do around here. Rather than, say, read another banal navel-gazing account of how I cross the road, or a silly anecdote created for the sole purpose of setting up a cheap yoga/street food gag.

Unfortunately, for this entry we revisit familiar themes more suited to what really is just another vanity blog. At least I hope the photos, which are rather flattering just up to the point where they capture me actually doing the activity that I am attempting, make up for the lack of any insight on life in Peru or the absence of thinly-veiled social commentary.

This is the last installment of the Deportes and Recreation theme (for now). In the subsequent entries, I will try to get up to date on all of the other advances in my life: finally moving into my apartment in Pius Square (superfluous, very odd), rock concerts in the jungle (sort of like Bluesfest, if it attempted to be interesting), a visit to lovely and relaxing, but somehow rainy and cold despite being just south of the equator, Ecuadorian village (Thanks for the photos Yo and Mitch!), and bullfights (bloody, but fascinating)

And the sun, hidden so long behind the Pacific clouds of cement, is with us more and more. Here's to that  (Don't forget to click the links folks – it's half the fun!)

I am a wave and this is how I fall. At the cinderblock beach restaurant under the massive tarp where we had our lunch, we sat on plastic chairs and watched as Doc, walking forward and with his arms arching and then collapsing downwards from high above his head, explained how waves break and crash. First, his body and arms described the wave's gentle roll formed when it meets a gradually rising shore, and second a forceful, downward plunge for when the seabed suddenly rises.

As the only regular and viable means available to escape the all-encompassing urbanity of Lima, I am now regularly surfing (and when I say surfing, I mean subjecting myself over and over to the violence of waves, occasionally on a board, mostly off it, and very rarely on my feet), and Ricardo, aka Doc is one of my first surfer buddies and instructors. Some time ago (how long I could only guess) Doc retired from psychiatry to dedicate the rest of his life to being a self-described surfer bum, and now his therapy is limited to teaching others to do what he loves most: correr olas. (Literally “run the waves: a more descriptive and interesting term for surfing, which I find makes it sound like a mix of something foolishly daring, say like bull running, and something outdoorsy rugged, like log rolling.)  But Doc isn't content in merely teaching one to surf. He also offers to strengthen you psychologically, which amounts to a tough love school of teaching. But more on that later

The first teacher was Ito, a young surfer in his early 20s from a small town in the north, who came to Lima recently following his pata  (slang for buddy). I found him working for one of the many surf schools that litter the beach in Miraflores offering boards and instruction at a fee to surf-curious tourists. I was keen to learn so didn't bother much with exploring my options, and just chose the first school I came across, and luckily Ito was a fairly good teacher. 

Upward Dork

What first became evident were the obvious overlaps between surfing and yoga.  The instructions followed a series of motions and positions that would easily fit in with any style of yoga and likewise force you to discover and somehow even use previously unheard of muscles hidden away in impossible locations between bones, perhaps deeper under organs or even slotted under glands, known only to ancient hindu mystics and only recently by modern medicine. Muscles that give one inner strength and grace, and as such have never previously applied by me.

Mostly, since you have to push your chest up and arch your back to be ready to spring up once a wave is caught, there is a lot of upward dog. A scared upward dog precariously balancing himself on a moving board, finding himself suddenly rising and rushing uncontrollably forward up on a swell, faster and faster towards the beach, with barely any time to even realize all of this, never mind remember what he is supposed to do next, before a viscous catapult and somersault under the waves. Downward dog.

Now you see me...

...now you don't!

uh?

But my first lesson was a gentle affair thanks to Ito's surfing by numbers method. Position 1) arms forward, paddle position; 2) hands under chest pushing up, arched back (the upward dog), 3) right leg bends and moves forward, and finally 4) stand. Easy-peasy, especially with Ito holding the very long board and pushing me while actually counting out the steps for me. I did this a few times, and not being utterly useless, I managed to get up. Mildly rewarding at best, but a start.

On my own, it was a different story. Of my few attempts, only one or two were at most half-realised: upward dog, up on one leg, up on one leg, ok well, up on one knee, one more, c'mon one more!, hold on, oh, shit, come on, fuck, mmmpppfpggpppp, *gasp*.

Still, I was pleased. It felt great to get into the water, which wasn't at all cold with my wet suit, and it was great to exhaust myself, as I used to do on the Gatineau ski trails, which this activity is supposed to replace - especially since there are many similarities here as well.

First you have to exert quite a lot of effort just to get up on to a crest before you could enjoy all the potential energy you've earned. Second, that effort and the subsequent rush makes you forget about the city, the cars, the basically everything other than what you were doing. And third, well, I get thrown around a lot and really don't have much control (there are less trees in the ocean, but alas many rocks and boulders). Also, just like learning to ski, what seemed like a super human effort at first, slowly seems more and more reasonable, and the fear recedes each time you take a brutal fall and don't die.

With this one attempt under my belt, I went with my colleague Nicolas to the more powerful beach south of Lima, where I met Doc. Doc's psychological approach was to first show me roughly what to do, mixing metaphors as he went along (It is like dancing with a woman.  You have to stand like a boxer), while strongly urging me never to think about it, ever (Your mind will screw you up). He knew me well. 

Then he let the ocean teach me the rest.

Doc and I: gnarly dudes

With this initial mental guidance, I then followed Doc in, and it took a seemingly Herculean effort (which really wasn't), after being thrown back by wave after wave, to reach a relatively calm spot past the breaking waves. Tired, I expected to rest but.... Now, go, go, go!!! What? GO!  Now? Oh, ok. Paddle, paddle paddle, frantic paddle, up on a wave, and....crash, somersaults, etc.  Paddle, back... Now! Go, go, go! ...paddle, paddle..up, crash.... etc. And so it went, over and over: .

See how easy I toss your body about? It would be nothing for me to simply swallow you whole.  This is the lesson of the ocean.  

Still, undeterred I kept at this, even and stupidly up to the point that in what would be my last attempt - with arms totally and exhausted, with which I realistically couldn't even expect to execute the slightest of slight upward dogs - I was tossed into the waves but this time continually, and as I panicked: seemingly endlessly, barely able to catch my breath whenever my head went above water, since my arms had very little strength left.  Eventually, I managed to get back on the board, but now heading towards rocks.  I decided it was time to call it a day, and weakly did my best to paddle and kick myself away from danger, and rode the white foam onto the beach, like a sad, beaten walrus. Rolling over on to the sand, I said to Doc, who like a gnarly Merlin somehow appeared, No Mas. No. Mas.

He said, that was ok. The point of the first few times is to learn how the ocean moves, and to gain confidence within yourself. I guess also to learn your limits.

Since then I tried a couple more times, mostly on gentle shores, and even legitimately caught my first wave, however small, all by myself. It felt quite amazing: once I realized that I was actually standing, the first thing that came to mind was: Holy shit, I can't believe I am actually doing this! Followed by Wow, this is great!   There's nothing like your first time.

One can dream...