Adventures in SUP Surfing…Down Under

I remember when I decided to study abroad at Sydney University in 2008. I thought, “This is my chance! I will be living just minutes from Bondi Beach, I WILL learn to surf.” But I never got on a board the entire 5 months I was there. Then in 2010 I went backpacking through South American and S.E. Asia. When I arrived in a tiny little surf town in Chile the first people I met at my hostel were a group of Aussie surfers. I thought, “This is my chance! I have absolutely nothing else I have to do this next week in Chile, I will get these Aussie's to teach me how to surf.” But the week went by and I spent hours watching the Aussies surf, but I never got on a board. A few months later I arrived in Bali, Indonesia, a surfers paradise. I stayed at a surf hostel and was literally the only person there without a surfboard. The first day I thought, “This is my chance! I will go down to the local surf shop and rent a board and surely one of these nice backpackers will teach me how to surf.” But I got the long board carried it down to the beach everyday, but never got ON the board. Fast forward to 2015, I decide to move to Nicaragua for the winter to launch FloYo at Rancho Santana. I thought, “THIS is my chance, I am 29 years old, I will be in Nicaragua for 6 months with unlimited access to surf boards, world class waves AND I am a confident paddler now so I GOT THIS!” But guess what….I never got on a board.

But for some reason, when I turned 30 in August I decided that enough was enough. I was going to get out in the ocean and at the very least attempt to surf. Well, I am happy to report, that it took me 30 years, but I can now proudly say that I have surfed! I took one lesson at Rancho Santana this past November with the Mantra Fit retreat crew. That lesson was what I needed to let go of all the fears and gain confidence in myself. Then, when I went in Australia in January I was determined to gain some SUP surfing skills. So, I packed my Yolo Inflatable and surfed for 4 days straight on the Gold Coast and absolutely loved it.

So, what made me flip the switch and finally get out in the ocean? I started reversing my focus from a negative thought process to positive thoughts. Rather than thinking “What if I get barreled by a huge wave and held under the water for too long” I started to think about how amazing it would feel to ride a wave all the way in to the beach. I thought about how much fun it would be to simply be out on the water, even if I wasn't catching huge waves. Taking one negative thought at a time and changing it to a positive thought ultimately made me realize that the positive thoughts outweighed the negative ones on a massive scale. The first day I stepped into the ocean on the Gold Coast a dolphin swam up to my board. That dolphin stayed with me for a good 20 minutes. I took that as a sign that I was where I was meant to be, the dolphin was there to show me that life is too short to let fear hold me back from jumping into that great big ocean!

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