As a regular footed surfer, my session tally of rights versus lefts at The Wave is probably like most… heavily skewed to the right. But, conscious of wanting to be able to transfer my developing surfing skills to the sea at every rare opportunity, I can't be fussy enough to only surf at spots with endless rights. So I'm determined to continue to level up my surfing on the left, on my back hand, so I can at least give it a good go when the opportunity presents.
The Advanced wave is my comfort zone and Advanced Plus I would call my learning zone, enough take off wipeouts or clunky first turns to leave me in the foam, but pure exhilaration when it comes together down the line. Until a couple of days ago I'd never surfed Advanced Plus left. But true to the above, it was time to give it a go.
Why now?
1. The right was sold out
2. The new settings have been designed so the first half of the session has a less intimidating take off which lured me in
How was it?
I'd lined up Jess, the legend behind our social media, to capture some epic wipeouts so some good would come of my efforts, even if it wasn't my own confidence. But she left disappointed as after she arrived half way through the session, she'd missed them all.
Early nerves soon passed as I stuck the first few take offs. My biggest fear is always clogging up the line up with an early wipeout so I simplified my focus and just concentrated on successful pop-ups. After that, make the most of where I'd find myself on the wave. This worked. Very few manoeuvres were registered on the Flowstate technology, but with a total of 17 waves, 14 reached an easy exit at the end of The Wave after some fun trimming and occasional bottom turn distinguishable enough.
Thoughts and reflections?
Having now conquered the fear, I'm confident enough to surf it again. The new settings definitely supported the step up and now give me the confidence to think more about surfing the wave from start to finish. A good step in the near future would be to do an advanced coaching to refine the backhand technique for turns and manoeuvres. I probably need to work on a bit of flexibility too!
The line up was full and incredibly friendly, and while there were a few wipeouts throughout the session, the host managed the flow brilliantly. We all will have left with 15+ waves, more than I used to get on the old Advanced Plus settings when it was a full session. I'll be back for more.
