Archive for the 'Dreams' Category

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Serena Brooke Interview

Serena Brooke

I just watched a training video with ASP Pro Surfer Serena Brooke. It features some really good surf specific exercises to develop and maintain core stability, endurance and flexibility. She’s an inspiring athlete with impressive core strength. Here’s a nice interview from her site:

What lessons have you learned from surfing that you have carried over into your life?

“I’ve learnt so many lessons from surfing that have carried over into my life, here are a few:

To go with the flow and not try to push or control things that are beyond my control (like mother nature). That you attract what you fear.

If you put your mind to anything positively it can and will be achieved. Trust in the power that brought you here in the first place.

That fear/stress is your enemy and only magnifies a problem or situation in that moment, stay positive and work through each challenge in the moment without getting ahead of yourself, one thing at a time.

I have learnt that you can always get positive things from what people might call a negative situation, there is always valuable lessons to be learned, with surfing a lot of my injuries have taught me the most.”

What inspires you to give back to the community and be a mentor to young girls?

“I wanted to be a positive role model for young girls getting into surfing whether it be on a recreational or competitive level because there are so many unhealthy or negative choices and pressures on young girls these days that I wanted them to know that what matters in life is what is REAL, not image or perfection or how you should look or be or feel, just have fun and be yourself.

The camps I do are about having fun whatever level you are on amateur, competitive to first time lessons. I also wanted to give back to some women’s charities because that is a huge problem in our society today. I feel strongly about the charities I donate to and every little bit makes a difference, even if I make a small positive difference then that is satisfaction for me, its about spreading the love basically……we all know the world needs more love!”

In the last couple of years the popularity of surfing has really escalated, there’s been Blue Crush and now several reality television shows based around surfing. What do you think is responsible for this sudden increase in popularity?

“The main stream perception and the lifestyle of our sport, its sexy, healthy, challenging and really under used to this point, its a huge sport with tons of positive benefits!”

What are some of the positive and negative aspects you’ve experienced as a result of travelling on tour?

“Positive” – I have learnt a lot about different cultures and aspects of how hard life is for the majority of the worlds population, when your complaining about having no shoes for your feet look around at the guy with no feet! You could always be worse off!

“Negative” or should I say challenging,  – Being stuck on planes for days at a time, missing your home, friends and family. Being in a country for a contest, if you lose and all you want to do is go home but you cant because there is another one next week in another country!

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

Content doing something I love and am passionate about, still surfing and evolving as a person, loving life and contributing to those less fortunate then myself.

Who are your inspirations in life?

People who live in the moment and are not attached to the outcomes, people who are true to themselves and real. I think Kathy Freeman is inspirational, Kelly Slater is inspirational in a competitive sense he just keeps getting better.

What music CD’s do you listen to when pumping up for a session? What are some of your favourite bands and music you always have with you ?

“It depends whether I need to amp up or calm down, I have a wide range of musical tastes whatever suits my mood at the time; Dance, techno, Missy Elliot, Nelly, Mary J Blidge, IIio, Sade, Black Eyed Peas, Ministry of Sound, stuff like that. I mostly listen to fast dance type music before a heat.”

What has been the highlight of your surfing career? Was it an event, a wave, a contest result, or something someone said/did?

“It would have been winning my first WCT event in Hossegor, in 1996 the first one is always the best, from the trial’s to the final as a rookie.

Finally, what does surfing mean to you?

“It’s an  of me. When life gets too much, surfing keeps me sane and level and helps me to stop thinking in the box of life it releases insight into the big picture bringing me back to nature, its pure, creative, money can’t buy it.

Every wave you catch you will surf differently you draw your own line; it’s such a unique individual expression in that moment.
Even just being out there sitting in the ocean, can turn a challenging day into a positive one. Surfing has given me a career and so many opportunities to be the person I am today.”

– from FAQ on www.serenabrooke.com

Shaun Payne in Indo

Shaun Payne in Indo

Here’s a new’ish painting inspired by Shaun Payne in Indo, his father’s awesome surf coaching and the nice people at the beach resort.

It is oil on canvas with wild garlic and rosemary olive oil with marker pen and is small to medium size.

Thank You

Lactic Acid

After hitting a peak fitness level and taking some time off to rest I’m now back into my regular training again.

I took about two weeks break from all my sea sports and even from swimming.

I just did light gym and stretching.

The last couple of days I did a mix of training: swimming, surf paddling, running, cycling with some short and light kitesurfing and surfing sessions.

This felt good – mostly taking it at about 10 – 50% and relaxing into a moderate endurance groove.

Yesterday I stepped up the endurance a bit as an experiment. I did lots of little sessions with lots of resting and eating between. The total training time probably worked out to about 6 hours but most of this was little more than walking exertion. It felt good. But by the end of the day I really felt nicely tired and needed to eat quite a lot.

I slept really well in the night.

This morning I feel a fair bit of that lactic acid fatigue. After training most days for two years it takes quite a lot to get this feeling so it feels like an achievement. I quite like this kind of mild pain as I feel that I have earned it and that I am improving. After a few slow days I’ll be able to take it further and this feels inspiring.

Enjoy the African Summer 🙂

One Line Kiting

I’ve taken a few weeks break from kiting. I took some time to surf full time around JBay in South Africa. There is something magical about this area. This history, the people, the culture, the vibe. I love it. I did score some dream sessions and had a couple of magic dolphin rainy sunrise dawny experiences with a good friend from my local break.

I got some really good new surf gear after riding really old knackered stuff for some years and this felt pretty good too. Then I over did things and surfed myself out a bit. After this I took two weeks off and didn’t surf at all. I just chilled out, played some music, did a little painting and some light gym and talked a hell of a lot of crap. I had lost a bit of weight following the overtraining and the crash following it. So I made sure that I got enough to eat and I’ve mostly got the weight back to what it was before. Now I feel pretty good again.

A couple of days ago I went for a walk with my mother and her dog near my parents home. There was a light breeze blowing and I had a new super cheap one line kite from a little toy shop to try. It was fun but proved really tricky. One line kiting is a real art. It’s like a zen thing. It reminds me of my childhood flying kites on beach holidays with cousins and friends. The last time I flew a one line kite was with a friend in Finland quite a few years back. He’s a bit older than me and has a kind of real Finnish man thing about him – extreme but strong and calm. I was just getting into kitesurfing and found his zen meditation approach to kite flying really refreshing compared to a lot of the power crazy jumpy kids and typical blokes that usually seem to be attracted to the sport.

Rock on Ilka. Maybe we fly a kite somewhere again some time soon’ish.

Have fun

Some Surf Art by stuart barnes

Surf Art by stuart barnes

This is a painting I made in high school, way back – must have been about 15 or so years ago. It is acrylic on calico stretched over cardboard and is quite small. This painting is in the Alexander Shafinsky Collection,  a London based Russian collection.

Since I like making pictures like this and I need money (being a starving artist) I’ve decided to start taking commissions. If you would like a surf and/ or other related painting, big or small, mural or miniature, seascape, sea sport thing, etc, feel free to get in touch. I’m always happy to talk about art and sport and love making pictures.

Thank You

Recurring Rib Injuries – The Cure

Recurring Rib Injuries - The Cure

I’ve mentioned my recurring rib injury before. It bothered me a lot last year. This was my first year since childhood of surfing daily again. I never had this issue as a kid. I think it had a lot to do with my body aging badly due to being very inactive for many years.

Now it’s fine. I take some quite heavy wipeouts both surfing and kitesurfing and it feels fine so far (of course there are other things that hurt but hopefully I’ll figure out how to deal with these things over time).  I noticed while talking to quite a few friends that quite a few of them are suffering from the same thing – both surfers and kitesurfers. Ages range from 20’s to 40’s. When I talked to a GP a while ago he said there was not much that could be done and that it would recover naturally. I think that this is pretty much true but I do believe there are some things that can be done. I’ve tried them and they worked for me.

I think that it’s irrelevant whether it is broken or not as it cannot really be be immobilised anyway. But the pain can be quite severe and will likely do this job for you if you’re not stupid enough to take pain killers.

Anyway, this is the cure that worked for me:

1. Rest
2. Chill out and have fun doing something that is not painful. Maybe bowling or darts or ping pong or drinking tea could be good. This will help you forget about it which is absolutely crucial.

after the pain has subsided a bit…

3. Stretch. Long stretches up towards the sky are good. Torso rotations are also excellent. General yoga is great. (I’ll post more about stretches soon)
4. Swim. Swimming fixes everything. All strokes are good but freestyle is particularly good. Try doing long slow strokes, stretching forwards as much as possible and gliding a lot. Bodysurfing is also excellent. I’ve written more about swimming before here.

I’ll post some more of my thoughts on prevention soon.

If you have a rib injury, I hope this helps you get back out there soon.

Thank you

Try

One of my fav vid clips ever. Super inspiring 🙂

Blue Kites are Faster than Green ones

 Blue Kites are Faster than Green ones

Today I had a really nice long chilled kiting session with a friend. It was flat water for a change. Usually I’m too lazy to venture into flat water as the beach is closer to where I live most of the time. When I got there I was so lazy I didn’t even feel like going out. But the conditions with the tide and wind were close to perfect – nice and gusty, on and off with quite a fair bit of chop. Unfortunately there was no current and only one or two poles and hidden hazards. Last time I kited there I hit a submerged bridge at low speed as the wind was dying and I was negotiating a route in near a messed up fence with lots of trash around it. Today I managed to avoid this dark corner and it looked cleaner. Or maybe that’s because I was looking more at the sky and the horizon.

My main goal for the session was to relax. But I also experimented with going as slow and as fast as possible. Slow is definitely harder. I usually use a green kite but my kite buddy had a blue one in the same style that was partially rigged already. He wasn’t using it so I just went with that. I try not to look much at the kite or even think about it but the blue against the sky has a very different feel. And it’s definitely the fastest I’ve ever been so it has to be the colour. I only really need one kite so I’m thinking of getting a few different colours in the same style. Or maybe I’ll just paint mine when if I get sick of it.

History of Flexifoil

History of Kitesurfing

Here’s a very interesting history of Flexifoil. There are some great classic old pics and crazy experiments and stories. It’s quite amazing how humble fun things like this evolved into massive sports like paragliding and kitesurfing.

Tidal Power

Tidal Power

It’s good to see tidal power coming of age in the UK. Here’s an interesting article.