Waves And Wipeouts: On Learning How To Surf As An Adult

The motto of OCEARCH, a starring shark investigation organization, is “Facts Over Fear.” It’s a bad motto. If there’s thing we’ve learned from caller history, it’s that facts and fearfulness are not mutually exclusive. 

Article continues aft advertisement

I demonstrated this myself when, a week earlier my 2nd surf lesson, I logged connected to nan OCEARCH website and learned location was an 880-pound awesome achromatic shark lurking disconnected nan New Jersey coast. Her sanction was Freya. Fifteen months earlier, a interrogator had clipped a homing beacon to her fin nan measurement you mightiness gaffe a Bluetooth locator into your luggage, adding her to a roster of respective 100 tagged sharks cruising nan world’s oceans. Occasionally, a shark’s beacon emits a ping, and scientists study these pings to study much astir shark movement. This is an indirect measurement of saying there’s still an atrocious batch scientists don’t cognize astir sharks, including, successful astir cases, wherever they are. 

Sharks are noble creatures. Reams of information show they seldom airs a threat to humans, and arsenic apex predators, they’re basal to patient water ecosystems. Demonizing sharks is barbaric. Worrying astir them is anti-science. As personification who cares astir nan planet, I believed these things wholeheartedly.

While flailing successful pursuit of whitewater whitethorn not person been fun, it was thing different to deliberation about. It paused nan rotation rhythm successful my mind.

As personification who prefers his soul organs to stay connected nan inside, however, I recovered it harder to toed nan statement line. The likelihood of being bitten by a shark are almost zero. But for a fewer unlucky people, nan important portion of that condemnation is “almost.” In overmuch nan measurement my grandfather erstwhile ate respective salmon-flavored canine biscuits reasoning they were gourmet crackers, sharks occasionally—but very memorably—confuse group for seals. Surfers, pinch seal-shaped boards and acheronian wetsuits, are peculiarly susceptible to specified mix-ups. The consequence is particularly awesome if a surfer thrashes against nan h2o successful nan mode of a wounded seal. 

I was caller to paddling. All I did was thrash.

For a small while, Freya stayed put. Then, arsenic though she, too, had booked a instruction pinch my surf coach Katie, she began cruising up nan coast. By nan clip I removed my Wavestorm from nan car successful Bradley Beach, 2 towns southbound of Asbury, Freya’s astir caller ping had travel from an undersea canyon straight offshore. 

“Everything okay?” asked Katie arsenic we waded in. The waves were tiny, but I took observant steps, pushing my foamie up of maine arsenic a shield. 

“All good,” I replied. Then, trying to sound casual, I added, “Oh, by nan way, did you cognize there’s a awesome achromatic shark successful nan area?” 

“Yeah, Barry!” 

The thought that Freya had a colleague—and that this 2nd shark was not a fair-minded Nordic woman but a ruggedly egoistic American male—was a truth for which I was unprepared. 

“If I spot a shark,” I asked, “or sharks, plural, what should I, you know, do?” 

Katie cocked her head, arsenic if nan mobility had ne'er earlier occurred to her. 

“I wouldn’t interest astir it.” 

That’s nice, I thought, but why wouldn’t you interest astir it? Isn’t worrying astir sharks while opinionated successful shark-infested waters precisely what a personification should do? I’d hoped to recapture my Woochee moment, but nan water was live pinch phantom fins and toothy shadows, and I was acold excessively engaged keeping watch to drawback a wave. Even erstwhile exhaustion dulled my vigilance, my worries didn’t disappear. They conscionable moved connected to thing else. 

“I’ve noticed a problem,” I said to Katie conscionable earlier our instruction ended. “It often feels for illustration nan activity is going to break connected apical of me, and, well, threat maine successful half. What do I do astir that?” 

I braced myself for different unhelpful don’t-worry-about-it response. To my surprise, Katie beamed. 

“The flower of fear!”

“Huh?”

She leaned complete my board, catching my regard nan measurement my grandfather, erstwhile he wasn’t eating canine biscuits, utilized to look astatine maine earlier sharing a profound and hard-earned truth. 

“When you paddle for a wave, and you consciousness nan flower of fearfulness opening, it’s a bully thing. That emotion is 1 of nan astir important parts of surfing. It’s really you cognize you’re successful nan correct spot.” 

This was a conception I’d ne'er encountered. I’d ever thought of fearfulness arsenic thing to beryllium flooded aliases succumbed to, faced aliases ignored. But nan measurement Katie saw it, fear, erstwhile harnessed correctly, was not conscionable bully but essential, a root of powerfulness and drive. In 4 elemental words, she had described not conscionable a different measurement to deliberation astir waves, but a different measurement to deliberation astir everything. I floated connected my Wavestorm, doing my champion to clasp this transformational caller idea. 

“Or,” I said, incapable to thief myself, “the flower of fearfulness intends you’re astir to die.” 

Pointing my committee toward nan lifeguard tower, I waited for nan “whitewater,” nan churning foam that erupts from a breaking activity and surges to shore. As it neared, I psyched myself up pinch a mantra. 

To nan beach! 

This proved aspirational alternatively than descriptive. By nan clip I planted my correct foot, my Wavestorm and I were already moving successful other directions, and I flew backward for illustration a animation drunk slipping connected a banana peel. After a little dunking, I scrambled to my feet successful nan knee-deep h2o and gathered my board. As I stood there, catching my activity and marinating successful my ain ineptitude, an full bachelorette statement glided happily and competently toward shore. 

An increment of surfing, for illustration 1 of therapy, is known arsenic a session. As in, “Epic session, bro!” aliases “You down for an day session?” aliases “Shredding immoderate paltry scraps of dream I’d brought pinch maine to nan canine beach, my inaugural solo surf convention went from bad to worse.” I wiped retired astir 20 times. My toes were pinched by crabs astir 30 times. I sewage to my feet twice, and moreover those 2 rides were thing for illustration nan 1 I’d knowledgeable pinch Katie that first morning. They felt little for illustration flying connected a magic carpet than opinionated connected a rusty conveyer belt. When I sewage home, each musculus twitched from exhaustion and overuse. 

“Did you person fun?” asked my woman Jacqui hopefully.

“Fun? Definitely not.”

Part of nan problem was my age. The champion clip to commencement surfing, I learned agelong aft nan knowledge mightiness person helped me, is betwixt 5 and 7 years old. Fifteen is pushing it. Twenty is complete nan hill. Thirty is geriatric. To prime up a committee astatine thirty-five, arsenic I did, is nan unsmooth balanced of signing up for guitar lessons connected your deathbed. 

You mightiness deliberation nan hopelessness of nan task would deter group from trying, but truthful acold that hasn’t been nan case. I was 1 of millions of adults who grabbed a foamboard during nan pandemic. The surf industry, which happily sells shorts and T-shirts to customers sloppy of accomplishment level, has welcomed nan influx of beginners. So has nan internet, wherever a pantheon of viral gurus caters to those picking up a committee later successful life. 

Hardcore surfers person taken a somewhat different attack to nan newcomers. They dislike them. Some usage “VAL”—short for “vulnerable big learner”—as a slur. Others nonstop their anger astatine nan beginners’ equipment. In surf-speak, “Dude, tons of foamies successful nan water” astir translates to “There are novices here, and they are subhuman, and their specified beingness fills maine pinch loathing and rage.” 

A fewer surfers are much eloquent, but nary little disdainful. At Glide, nan surf shop wherever Katie worked, nan Pulitzer Prize-winning Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life sat connected a array betwixt nan sunscreen and wax. I bought a copy. One 100 twenty-three pages in, I publication writer William Finnegan—who by each accounts is an different wide and tolerant person—describe big learners for illustration me. 

“People who tried to commencement astatine an precocious age, meaning complete fourteen, had, successful my experience, almost nary chance of becoming proficient, and usually suffered symptom and sorrow earlier they quit.”

I remained skeptical that fearfulness was a flower. But I surely preferred it to nan cactus of existential dread.

How situation he presume thing for illustration that? I thought. Also, really situation he beryllium right? While my ain surfing life spanned each of 2 weeks, I’d already compiled an encyclopedia of discomfort: nan swollen knee from landing funny connected nan deck; nan throbbing successful my shoulders each clip I thrashed retired different paddle stroke; nan bruised near butt feature from falling backward successful ankle-deep water. 

Other setbacks, while little painful, were nary little sorrowful. One greeting astatine nan canine beach, a wipeout tossed maine complete my heelside obstruction and deposited maine a fewer yards from shore. Sighing pinch frustration, I  got to my feet, and had conscionable reeled successful my leash erstwhile a knee-high activity plucked my Wavestorm from my hands and flung it into different rider’s path. He catapulted complete nan chemoreceptor of his board, splatted bellydown into nan shallow surf, and emerged from nan h2o dripping and ferocious, a beefy, balding oversea monster. 

“Fucking kook!” he said. 

This, I knew, was a surf-specific putdown, 1 whose meaning sat astatine nan pungent four-way intersection of moron, newbie, dork, and asshole. He stomped toward me. 

“Fucking kook,” he muttered again. 

Living, arsenic I do, successful a federation choking connected rage and firearms, nan sensible guidance would person been to mumble an apology. But I didn’t admit being insulted, and I could consciousness my humor boil. 

“Hey,” I snapped, “I person nary thought what I’m doing!” 

It took america some a 2nd to recognize I’d taken his side. Anger waylaid by confusion, nan oversea monster hopped backmost connected his committee (he was rather graceful, fixed his proportions and temperament) and paddled away. But my ain words hung successful nan air, acold much devastating than his insult. Even by nan debased standards of big learners connected foamies, I was unspeakable astatine this. I myself had said so. And I seemed destined to stay unspeakable forever. 

Yet I didn’t quit. I returned to nan canine formation doubly much nan week of my first solo session, and 4 much times nan week aft that. I could count my full number of successful pop-ups connected my fingers, truthful it wasn’t nan unreserved of riding waves that kept maine coming back. It was thing deeper. During each surf convention I felt frustrated, exhausted, humiliated, terrified, depleted, confused, and sore—but ne'er depressed. While flailing successful pursuit of whitewater whitethorn not person been fun, it was thing different to deliberation about. It paused nan rotation rhythm successful my mind. 

Surfing moreover made it easier to extremity worrying astir nan news. At 1 time, I’d wanted to thief prevention nan world. Now I wanted to hide it needed saving, and my caller hobby made that possible. Instead of asking, Are we witnessing, successful existent time, nan devastation of our planet, nan emergence of fascism, and nan decease of nan American Dream? I asked, Is this activity astir to shatter my spine? I remained skeptical that fearfulness was a flower. But I surely preferred it to nan cactus of existential dread. 

__________________________________

Excerpted from It’s Only Drowning: A True Story of Learning to Surf and nan Search for Common Ground by David Litt. Copyright © 2025 by David Litt. Reprinted by support of Gallery Books,  an imprint of Simon & Schuster, LLC.