October 1986, a family trip to a southern part of the coast of Brazil. In my book, a surf trip. I remember riding a lot on my dad's old fiat and from the back where I was normally assigned a seat I could see the now vintage surf stickers and in one of them it read, 18 SURF. It was a celebrative sticker of a brand that was 18 years in the business. That sticker got me exercising my math, I could not understand that someone or something could have all those years of surfing experience. To me at the time, a 13 year old 3 years into surfing consistently getting my first barrels and doing my first airs as the whole aerial surfing was being invented, it was amazing to think where I was going to be when I was with 18 years of surfing.
Birth of my teaching passion.
Well for some more then others, as I distanced my level from my friends at the time they would ask me how I was able to do what I was doing. Right there the knowledge I am sharing thru WAGSURF was born. I was really giving time to the questions and coming up with ways to bring my friends to do the same as I was doing.
They say it takes 5 to 8 years to become good at surfing.
At 12 seconds ± per wave, It does Take Time to become good at surfing you get revelations as you dive deep into the knowledge of surfing I remember that my noticeable breakthrough came about when I completed 5 years of surfing and then 8 years and then 12. We are always evolving. I developed my 7 drills on the surfskate to get your feet and body used to control a board and develop the muscle memory required to rip in the water. Every 1 hour you spend doing my exercises equals 1 month of muscle memory. So 12 hours into it equals a year and so forth.
A great shortcut to improve your skills but ocean reading skills. For that surfing with a coach or more experienced surfers will train you eyes to see the same. There is a methodology though but this is a subject for another post.