Yoga for a 47 Year Old Whitewash Surfer

Why did I wait so long to learn to surf? I have all kinds of excuses; the $20 waterlogged good for nothing surfboard I bought off a friend in high school, the body surfing accident that battered my neck and made me fearful of faceplants from walled up waves, the comfort of ocean swimming that always felt awkward when a board was between me and the water, living in many landlocked cities abroad and in the states after my 20s, and on and on…

Every birthday since turning 40 has hit me like a hurricane and for some reason on my 47th it became clear that this was the year to finally learn to surf. And, I tell you, it is nothing less than intoxicating. This is not hyperbole or a passing fancy. I feel my entire being brined with salty biome. I dream about surfing all day long when I am out of the water. I watch the long time surfers slice across the waves in awe and in anticipation that one day I will join them. I imagine myself on a short board making quick decisive maneuvers as I glide across the face, the tube wrapping itself around me. Of course, my current “surfing” is about learning to land a consistent pop up in the whitewash. But, like yoga, I’m in this for the long game.

I’m sure it’s yoga that brought me here. Yoga practice reacquaints you with a more limber and suppler part of yourself you thought long lost with childhood. It is a slow building of flexibility, body awareness and connection to the connective tissue that wraps around your big toe, winds itself around the soft organs of your torso and lengthens up to the crown of your head. Learning to surf feels very much like practicing yoga in that it requires you to relinquish the past and abandon the grip of the future because everything reduces to the breath, and to the wave.

Each morning the ocean greets us, entirely different than the previous day, with a different swell, current, tide level, temperature, taste and smell. While some sports can be practiced through the development of techniques repeated with exact precision, surfing requires an entirely different approach because no wave is the same. What you learn is a keen sense of perception, and a willingness to start from square one every day according to what the ocean presents.

This Sunday, I will be attending Michele Bolano’s Yoga for Surfers workshop at Peace and Love Yoga, in Carlsbad, California. I am eager to learn from this calm, self-possessed, fantastic surfer and talented yoga instructor. I hope to see you there too.