Stronger

I've been working with Otavio a lot lately. He has still had me working on basics like keeping equilibrium on the board in the water and paddling as opposed to swimming on top of the board. This week I went out into some actual waves, much like I tried to do before and failed. This time I paddled out into some calm water with him first to keep practicing basics, but then he had me paddle back into the waves from beyond, which is a lot of hard work. Anyway, I actually caught a wave after I rested sitting on my board for a while. He kept pushing me to go ahead and try. So, finally I did, and after I missed a few, I caught one for a while. Then he said he wanted to try my board, so I let him, while I floated and rested for a while. I was just happy that someone was actually surfing on my board. It was great, although I could only see him part of the time when he would ride on top of the wave.

So, then he brought the board back and went to the beach while I was still trying to catch some waves. He said they were really fracas (weak), so it was harder to catch them right now because I have to paddle the same speed of the waves to catch them when they are so small and weak. He missed the one that I actually caught and rode into the shore, although I was prone all the way (that means on my belly). Anyway, I am feeling a lot stronger in the water.

Oh, I forgot. The funniest thing that has happened lately was on the beach. I was practicing popping up on my feet (found out I'm goofy) on a board drawn in the sand. And, so that I would know the right time to paddle and pop up, Otavio was acting like a wave, with his arm curled upward to imitate the shape of a wave coming at me. He had me do it a couple of times for him as well. It was a little awkward, but it was funny, even though he is such a serious dude, or maybe because he is such a serious dude.

note: postdated actual post date 3 March 2006