Confidence Fleeting

One Minute from Kookingitup on Vimeo.

Over the last week, there was a very good run of swell.  Depending on where you surfed it, you either were getting caught inside by some bulldozers or you were surfing some pretty fun waves.  It didn't hit San Diego particularly well as it was a very steep swell with not a lot of west in it.  I surfed spots across the border and south facing beaches more north and got some really good waves. In my opinion, Sunday was my best day of surfing during this swell.  I surfed my regular spot across the border for a bit until leaving for something a bit uncrowded.  And while I was driving north across the bend on the "Libre", I saw a peak just exploding over these ram shackle houses that are on the edge of the cliffs.  I made a quick u-turn and found this lonely point just going off with only five guys on it.

There were about 4 other guys on the cliff, contemplating whether or not it was worth it.  The paddle out looked pretty sketch, and an exit strategy looked like a mile paddle to the safest beach.  I asked the boy's on the cliff if they were going.  After a minute of talking ourselves into it, one guy just looked at me and said "Fuck it".  He started walking and three of his buddies, including me, followed.  Lucky enough, I made it out pretty clean.  But damn, this swell was pumping some dragons.  It was a damn great sesh of paddeling around beasts and going for broke on a few waves.  But I have to say, I did it, with some grace.  When I surfed the next day back home at a local reef, I told some of the older guys where I surfed the day before.  And they scolded me for it.   One guy said, "Dude, you can't take chances like that when you have responsibilities, that's for youngsters."  Another guy told me how he almost tore out his entire eye brow after hitting a rock at that spot.  I guess I got lucky, for the swell and tides were was just right (I guess), as I came out pretty unscathed with a lot of good memories.  But over and over again, the same phrase was used by everybody about that spot:  "The damn rocks."

Over the next few days I surfed a local reef with the same crew of guys.  It wasn't a perfect swell for this spot, but it was good enough.  But even though I had a really great sesh at that "damn rocks" spot, I was struggling a lot with my confidence.  My pop up hasn't been particularly well lately.  I ate it a bunch of times the day before.  I figured that the jump from two feet surf to 5 foot + had a lot to do with it, but I'm starting to think otherwise.  It probably has to do a lot with my weight, as I've been hovering around five pounds over my surfing weight, which makes a big difference on some of my boards.  But instead of trying to starve myself, and lose five pounds in one day, which wasn't going to happen (cuz I love my grinds), I tried something else.  Over the last few days of the swell, I just made it a habit to just tell myself as I was paddling into a wave this small mantra "Relax, don't over think it."  I know myself pretty well, and I know that when I am doing things with a flow of thought and instinct, rather then just thought, the end result comes out pretty well.  So I changed my mantra to "It's cool, just pop up".  And that seemed to work for a bit. 

 
But then there is Trestles.  And with summer, Trestles equals... too many groms. The Bearded Bandito and I decided to catch the tail end of the swell at Uppers.  And it was a great choice.  It was pumping.  Big walls were just coming one after another.  And if you surf Uppers any, big south swells just close out that spot at times.  But the medium sized ones are the ones to go for.  And all the groms knew that.  One grom after another was just flying out of the white water as I was trying to drop in, making me pull out just before I was about to pop up.  And when they weren't flying out of nowhere, they were just dropping in.  To say the least, it got pretty frustrating.  And damaging to my confidence because of two things:  (1) Kids younger then half my age were schooling me and (2) They really made me feel old.

So now I'm three steps back to where I was a few days ago.  Confidence feels like it is fleeting and there are no waves until the end of next week.  Generally when I'm feeling down about myself, I tend to not wallow in it too long.  I find out what's bothering me and do something about it.  So here is the first step, processing and identifying it, and the next step is looking for the best method to heal and improve and then put that plan of action into motion.  But today, The Bearded Bandito and I had a conversation about this "confidence" thing (he was feeling the same way after our Uppers session).  We both felt as if we lost something and left it there on that beach in front of Uppers.  And maybe that is what we were suppose to do to evolve as surfers, and become better men.  And whatever is going to fill what we left, is going to make us that much better, because maybe, just maybe, that part of our confidence, that part of ourselves that was left behind, was holding us back.  And just maybe when the next swell comes, we won't be held back. That new part that fills that void, will give us the push we need to lose something else... 

Or maybe we'll just get schooled by groms again.  Who the fuck knows.