Drifts of a budding surfer
I remember my first surfing lesson. It was with some excitement that I put on my wetsuit and set off to meet the Breton waves. It was windy and rainy. We warmed up on the beach, ran into the water and shrieks of surprise went up under the lashings of fresh water. Then we took to the boards, wave after wave, I couldn’t see the time go by. I was focused on my practice. There was something exhilarating about taking your first foams, standing up for the first time, and we all left relaxed and smiling. When I arrived in Japan, I was determined to continue surfing and I became a regular on the spots around Tokyo. I don’t hesitate to take an hour and a half to two hours by train to get to the beaches at weekends, even when conditions are difficult. The magnetism that surfing exerts on me and many others led me to question what surfing could bring to the deepest part of myself. It became obsessive, even necessary. The idea came to me that surfing could be a metaphor for life, a kind of confrontation through play. I rediscovered the pleasure of letting the waves lead the dance, like when I was a child, rolling happily in the foam. The ocean has a power that’s impossible to negotiate with. It leads the way with its brute force, but if we play by its rules, it has the power to invite us into its mad race. When the waves greet me as I enter the water, it’s like entering a temple where the earth no longer exists, a chaotic cosmos in constant flux. I have to pay attention, row, make quick decisions, observe, play the game of the vitality that surrounds us, meet the wave to combine its energy with mine and move forward towards the open sea. Knowing where I can make progress and where I need to stop. Sometimes, mistakes are unforgivable. With the fall, learn to let yourself be shaken up while keeping calm, wait, get back up, regain your composure to start again. Write down my mistakes so I can move on. It’s the power of the world around us that expresses itself. Life with its joys and setbacks. Life as it is, with its downfalls that blind us and its exaltations that take us soaring. In surfing, I’ve learned to make do with little. If conditions are bad, I adapt. Every situation is an opportunity to learn something new. There are the waves that heckle us like a disorderly herd, and there are the sunsets and swells that carry us along. But whatever happens, there’s that exhilaration of getting out of the water. Your body sticky with salt, your breath short, your muscles still warm, your senses still in turmoil. And then there’s the relaxation, the release, the mind in thrall to the sound of the crashing waves. I remember one of those evenings when a typhoon had left its swell as a reminder of its passage, and the waves had grown in size. Back on the beach, I feel hypnotized. My head is full of endorphins and the horizon captures my gaze. All around me, families, passers-by, couples staring out to sea, the incessant dance of surfers rising, falling, waiting, dashing, fluttering. Some take photos. The dance is on. Man and sea as partners. A violent passion that takes hold of us to stun us and remind us that life is like that, we can only dance to it, transforming ourselves like this surface in perpetual undulations. Seek balance, soften, spin. Those who seek to fight risk sinking, suffering the onslaught, feeling frustrated. There are two choices. Catch the wave or be caught by it. Sometimes it leaves without us because we’ve missed it, but another will follow. Every opportunity is worth taking. Surfing life, giving it meaning, putting your energy into it or taking it head-on. For me, surfing is an excellent way to keep an open mind, or to broaden it, to get out in front of ourselves, to learn to lose and to feel fulfilled by the smallest victory that comes our way. It also enables us to remain attentive and adapt to each moment, and to learn how to deal with reversals of fortune. You come face to face with yourself, whether on or under water. You have to be willing to take risks in order to evolve, to overcome your fears while knowing how to limit yourself. Every surfer has his or her share of joys and difficulties in an ocean that, in its great generosity, makes no distinction. There’s something universal and fascinating about surfing, and above all, it breathes a great wind of freedom, lifting the spirit towards something greater than ourselves, something that calls to us. It’s also a community, we meet up and share. We are filled up with good cheer until the next event.
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