What I Talk About Surfing

by Zofia Seymour, Issue #1: Lockdown

Have you ever had one of those moments? A small, seemingly insignificant one that leads you down a completely new path in life, changes your ideas of the world, your goals, your needs, who you are, how you imagine your life to be? I had one of those moments when I decided to take up surfing as a hobby. At the age of 25 I bought a surfboard and blindly threw myself into a sport which I will never really be very good at. Here’s what I have learnt so far.

I’d always been a beach baby, running wild on the sand and paddling in the sea, fascinated by rockpools, driftwood and shells. I’m also a hiker, enjoying the wild solitude and the wonderful boredom that comes from doing nothing but walk for a really long time in relative discomfort. So I relished the semi-masochistic activity of throwing myself repeatedly into waves, getting smashed over and over with a huge piece of foam intent on smacking me on the head and staying in the sea until I literally couldn’t feel my feet or hands and my whole brain shut down in terror from the cold. What was even harder to adjust to was really, really sucking at something (I still am not very good). I seemed to struggle endlessly for every inch of slow progress and my enthusiasm way outstripped any skill or talent I had. As someone who has traditionally been good at picking new things up quickly, it was a challenge to take on something I was really just quite bad at.

Probably the first thing I learned from surfing was to do something for the utter, sheer love of it– letting go of my self-criticism, my competitiveness to always improve, my self-flagellation for not being better.

I had to realise that getting grumpy and frustrated was (surprise, surprise) not helping me be a better surfer. I had to learn to let it go and accept the journey. I had to fully put my ego aside.

Happy place at my local, photo by Josie Gibbs

One of the most amazing things about surfing is that it cannot be forced. You can only push yourself to a certain extent, limited as you are to the conditions and the fact that you actually have to catch a wave before you can even start to do anything. Surfing is one of the most in-the-moment things I have ever experienced. You can’t be or do anything else. You just have to exist, that time is completely dedicated to nothing else. Anything else just gets in the way. For someone who is often rushing on to the next thing, has a million things on her mind and is always overthinking, surfing is a particular form of zen that, initially, I had to force myself into. At first it felt selfish, like useless wasted time because it seemed so unconstructive or unproductive.

But now I understand the very importance of this feeling and mindset– to not be anything, to just exist.

That, and the breathtaking beauty of the coast and ocean. It was a whole new world to explore and surfing took me to many new places just to see what was there– what a gift to myself.

The second big thing I learnt was to read the surf report. The random numbers and squiggles representing swell height, period length and wind direction slowly unraveled into understandable sequences and patterns. Before surfing, my only awareness of the weather was a perfunctory check for sun or rain. I didn’t pay attention to the length of days, the sunrise or sunset, the full moon or the tides. If I noticed these things at all, it was accidental as I stumbled across them running around in my regulated life of calendar days, clocks and schedules.

As my weather checks became increasingly more ritualistic and my understanding of them grew, my perception of the world changed. I started to seek out sunrises and sunsets (I now have a full blown addiction to them both), pay attention to the phases of the moon and tides (full moon means more light-enough-for-adventures-time) and figure out the best conditions for surfing.

Of course, this soon meant that I ran into the inevitable realisation the weather doesn’t adhere to being good on the weekend or outside of the nine-to-five hours. This was a huge issue (and the reason why people often tell you that surfing will ruin your life). I became increasingly frustrated with my human programme conflicting with the weather’s timekeeping.

I had the epiphany that, instead of the clock, I wanted my life to be dictated by the weather, the tides, the sunsets, the rain and sunshine. The nine-to-five, Monday to Friday became  increasingly arbitrary to me.

It seemed much better to organise my life around the uncontrollable and utterly unpredictable weather. This idea crept in on me slowly but has become the root premise of most of my decisions. I wanted to be flexible, to work in harmony with the world around me, to time-keep and manage myself according to when it is most effective for my hobbies, my work and my day-to-day. To play when the conditions are best to play, work when the conditions are best to work. I also got rid of the idea of a work/ life balance and instead aimed to just have a fully integrated life.

Most of all, it blew my mind how, up until then, I had paid little attention to the world around me (and the amazing beauty of it). It led to other observations—the types of clouds that form before rain. The way the moon shifts to rise and sets at different points on the horizon throughout its cycle.

Surfing was basically a gateway drug to my absolute love and wonder of the natural world around me. This also led me to start paying attention to my body and my daily and monthly cycles of energy. 

After 27 years of knowing myself, I finally came around to the observation that I am a hardcore morning person, active and productive, full of energy when I first get up (how did it take me so long to come to this conclusion?). I have a regular pattern of energy cycles—one week full of mental energy, ideas and focus, best for starting new projects and bursts of intense creativity. The next week I have high physical energy but find it hard to concentrate on mundane tasks. Again, how has it taken me so long to pay attention to the one thing that I have known my whole life—myself? And why have I, up until this point, not been harnessing this knowledge and using it to my advantage? I should work when I am most productive. I should schedule new projects for the weeks I have a crazy burst of energy and keep my low–mental–energy weeks busy with hiking and surfing. I should get up at six a.m. when I work best.

I feel majestical. Photo by @saltysinnerz

So, this is what surfing taught me. It taught me to pay attention to both the world around me and my own body. It taught me to live in the moment and work through the process. To let go of control and realise that all things take time and will happen at the right time.

It opened my eyes to how blindly I followed human schedules without stopping to question, examine and observe, and to perhaps improve both my work habits and personal life by utilising my natural ebbs and flows.

It guided me to a path that is constant experimentation and learning, figuring out my own schedules, discipline and routines that work best for me— the desire to design my own life to be how I want it.

I still don’t describe myself as a surfer. I think there are many different reasons people surf, and who knows if any are the same reason as I. Surf culture is complex and sometimes intangible —an ideal or a stigma, co–opted and appropriated. I often don’t feel aligned with the image it is projecting, and I don’t really care about the surf competitions. Mostly, I just don’t think I’m good enough at surfing to describe myself as a ‘surfer’. Although it has become an integral part of my life, I have not yet had the courage to add it to my identity. One day I will.