Bad surf days & whether I'll ever be any good
Why being kind to yourself might be the thing that improves your performance
I remember when I first started skateboarding, having to explain to a young male instructor why his experience of falling was different to my experience of falling. You, I explained, fall over, get up again, no questions in your mind as to whether you should be here, and you try again. I fall over, crash to the floor, and it initiates a runaway train of thoughts. I’m never going to be any good at this. I literally have no skill or balance. Why did I start this. I have no place here.
The last thought is the killer. I have no place here. I don’t belong, and I never will.
WOW. I would literally never talk to someone else like that, but that little thought process goes through my head in the space of 30 seconds when I’m not progressing in board sports how I would like to.
Last week that experience came to light again in my surf journey. I’m relatively recent in my return to the sport after my wrist break (not surfing, snowboarding this time) earlier this year, and it feels like I’m starting over. I was lucky enough to spend a week in Portugal, near sunny Sagres, with my family, and despite being the only surfer amongst us (although my plan for them to become a surfing family is in full effect) they indulged my passion and we tried to find a surf spot most days on the trip.
It all started off pretty well. They did lessons, I surfed out back, some good, some bad, lots of fun was had by all. And then big swell hit the west coast, lighting up the south coast for a change, and whilst conditions were fantastic for some surfers, they weren’t exactly fulfilling my ‘baby wave’ criteria I was looking for.
But, nothing ventured, nothing gained, and I’ve surfed bigger waves prior to my break, so out I paddled. After some significant effort, I found myself out back, gave my nervous system a chance to calm down after finding my way past some pretty big waves, and then thought ‘WTAF do I do now’. Because, clearly, getting out there is just half the battle, but then you’ve got to surf it back in. And it’s busy, etiquette seems to have gone out of the window, and everyone’s taking off on everything.
After letting a fair few go past, feeling quite literally, out of my depth, I decided to go for one that looked doable. I take off, and would have been successful, but guys either side of me decided to do the same just after me, both crashed, and whilst tumbling under the water, I felt their boards whack me in the face and the leg.
Luckily under water I generally feel pretty calm, so I sorted myself out, caught a wave back in to my family and checked I wasn’t too damaged. A bit of a fat lip and an eggy lump on my leg (now seriously attractive) but I was ok. I didn’t want to end it that way, so I went out to the mid section and caught a couple before it got dark and that was that.
Or so I thought. Then the negative self talk set in. I’m never going to be any good at this. How have I been doing this for so long and yet I still feel like a beginner? How will I ever get any good if I can’t do it consistently? Do I even belong here?
And so it goes. On repeat. The ability I have to tear down my own self esteem is pretty spectacular, and its got worse as I’ve aged.
And so, I find myself the next day, seeking out a smaller set of waves at a different beach, but this time it’s a waiting game. So many of us, sat out in the sea, each eagerly wanting to catch these baby waves when they do appear. But my confidence is a little shot, and the sea is filled with glamorous younger women who crucially, can actually surf well. I watch them glide from the small point break emerging near the rocks, making their way up and down their boards, lithe bodies popping up effortlessly, and again I think the same. I’m not sure that’s ever going to be me.
It stops me being in the right position, or as close to the action as I should be. I’m feeling in the way, and the waves on the shoulder have so little power they are almost impossible to catch. It becomes one of the most frustrating surfing sessions I’ve had, endlessly paddling for waves that can’t quite do the job, and not feeling like I deserve to be in the right position, incase I can’t catch it.
I go back to the beach after hours in the water, deflated, snappy with my family, despite them being utterly distant from being the cause of my frustration.
Segway to the last day of my trip. I’m determined to get one last good surf in, one that will remind me that I can actually surf fairly decently given the right conditions, that I’m just getting my timing and judgement back, that this is all supposed to be fun after all. It’s the last day of my family’s holiday, and I (shamefully in hindsight) drag them to multiple beaches hunting down the right conditions. The swell is big in many places, so we hit the usual suspects that might be smaller, and in contrast, they have next to nothing going on. There’s no happy medium, but eventually we settle on heading to Beliche, a pretty cove that looks like it has a break I can actually surf. At this point the kids are frustrated, hungry, so they decide to drop me off so I can surf and then we can all hook up after.
I get set up, head in, and it suddenly gets MASSIVE. I kid you not, two minutes after I’m in the water, the waves are way overhead, I just about make it out back and genuinely am wondering how I’m going to make it out of this ok. I spend a decent amount of time tumble turning under waves. More time simply trying to get out back, eskimo turning endlessly and getting crashed back to shore. I try three times in total, giving myself breaks on the beach, and heading back in, frustrated with my fear and not wanting this to be the last surf experience of my holiday.
I give up eventually, but can’t even get hold of my family because I have no phone signal, so I sit on my board, and the negative self talk begins again.
The irony is, I look back on my week, and I realise it’s not that negative at all. At the start I had some lovely waves, and my kids and husband were enjoying surfing (a big win). I paddled out in some pretty big surf and I survived. I practiced eskimo rolls, something I’ve never done that much of, and actually I wasn’t that bad at them, and it made my paddling out feel a lot more manageable. I’m pretty convinced I can still surf ok, it’s just fuelled me to get more time in the water and get my timings and technique better.
But what I do need to get to the bottom of is how I talk to myself in these situations. I’m sure it stems from never being the kid who was brilliant at sports. I was always OK at everything, and I always worked my ass off. I loved staying fit, but I wasn’t the girl who was good at gymnastics, or felt like I had control of my body. As I’ve got older, the fitness part has stayed, I’m outdoorsy as hell, and I love feeling strong and capable. But I’ve never seen myself as that girl who has balance. Who has that kind of finesse that these sports demand. The image of the surfer girl, the skater girl, the snowboarding girl just don’t seem to fit the image I have of myself in my head.
But maybe, just maybe, that’s ok? Maybe that’s why I’m digging into these sports so hard as I near the age of 50? Maybe it’s time to tell myself I can be whatever the hell I want to be, I just need to work at it, and it doesn’t have to look like the cali-sun streaked version of these sports that I’ve grown up with, and is still perpetuated in the media?
Maybe, just maybe, I just need to be a board woman. And that can look any way I choose. See you back in the ocean, I’ll be the one out back working out which wave I can ride in without killing myself, and I’m pretty happy with that x
I’d love to hear about your experiences of self talk - let me know what you think below - can you make yours positive? Has it got worse as you’ve got older?