Is there anything better than the feeling of rushing down the face of a ten-foot wave with your heart in your throat? Not a lot of women can answer that question because they haven’t dared to have that incredible experience, but I am here to tell them that they can.
As a woman, surfing poses both an extreme physical challenge as well as a unique mental one. While we’re typically more agile and flexible, women are naturally built with less upper body strength and, therefore, often have to train harder than men in order to catch the same size waves. Additionally, surfing bigger swells brings an element of fear into the mix, and we deal with fear differently than men. We have to mentally overcome our societal programming, and fight harder to put ourselves in a place of physical danger.
With that said, the act of surfing a wave – the part that happens after you catch it – often comes more easily to women. Having spent a lot of time with beginners, women are often faster to stand on the board, to make turns and to move the board along the wave. However, that seems to shift once the conditions become more advanced. While we can ably “dance on water” (and, let’s face it, women tend to have better dance moves), the possible price for doing so increases with every foot of swell. Rather than facing that fear, we stick to smaller waves and less challenging conditions. There is one way of overcoming this limiting dynamic, ladies: train.
In my prior career, I used to sit at a desk 14 hours a day, and getting to the gym was always a battle. Between the lack of sleep and consuming simple carbohydrates for quick hits of energy, I was glad to just “break even” with my workouts. Then I tried surfing, and my life changed. I quit my job, packed my bags and moved to Costa Rica to train with the seven-time national champion Alvaro Solano. On my very first day, I got caught in a big set. I took seven waves on the head and crawled back on land, terrified and exhausted. That could have been the end of my journey as a surfer. Fear could have prevented me from ever getting on my board again. Instead, it was a beginning. As I was lying collapsed in the sand, Alvaro walked up to me and asked: “Are you ready to get in wave shape now?” That was the start of one of the most physically and mentally challenging years of my life. I trained. I trained some more and, when my body couldn’t take it, I trained still.
As my body took on the strong physique of a surfer, my mind got stronger, too. By pushing myself to be in the best physical condition I could, fear no longer resulted in irrational decision-making. Instead, my fitness level gave me the confidence to just relax. When I was pulled under, I let the wave have its way with me rather than wasting precious energy on panic. I felt strong enough to sit deep in the lineup where I could take advantage of the momentum of the wave but stood the risk of getting caught by outside sets.
Don’t get me wrong, the fear never goes away. There have been days where I’ve been so terrified I’ve literally been throwing up and paddling out at the same time. But by making fear your friend and not your master, you realize it is actually what enables your mind to become so focused on the task at hand that nothing else matters. Fear is also what gives you that irreplaceable rush of adrenaline that surges through your body as you dance on water.
My time living in Costa Rica year-round has come to an end, and I no longer spend 4 hours in the water every day. My challenge now is keeping my body and mind strong in order to be ready when the swell arrives. To do so, I asked Adam Rosante, fitness trainer and fellow surfer, to help me put together a training regimen. We named it WaveShape (www.getinwaveshape.com) in honor of that first day that changed my life. Launching online June 1st with a month-long challenge, the WaveShape program is designed to build explosive power, increase total body strength, skyrocket endurance, improve flexibility, and boost the confidence necessary to confidently take on the waves.
I hope by sharing WaveShape with other surfer girls (and guys) out there, I can help encourage more women to push past that fear and paddle out on bigger days. It’s worth it, I promise!
