Humbling

Aloha Classic 06 day two.

Conditions: the wave were smaller than yesterday (thank god for that!) but the wind was very strong and gusty.
These are the conditions I like least.
I did my first heat without my opponent (he didn't show up, or maybe it was a mistake in the schedule) and I passed. It wasn't easy though... For a moment I thought that I was going to be the first sailor in the world to lose a heat against himself...

I did my second heat against my friend Glenn and I was happy about it, because so I knew that he would have advanced pretty easily...
I was on my small wave board and Bob's 4.7 and boy... it was gusty out there!
A very humbling experience. I loved it. Here's why.
Even though I keep saying that my only drive is the fun, it's inevitable that with all that practice I end up sailing and surfing better. And even though I keen saying that my only drive is the fun, I end up thinking that I got kind of good.
Thank god for that heat that in 10 short minutes disintegrated the stupid little ego built in years of practice. From now on it's going to be only pure fun. No ego will be in the way. I will just have to remember how hard it was for me to sail in those same conditions in which other good sailors were seemlessly ripping. I really, truly, intensly sucked.
One more time, thank god for that.
Robin, thanks for your interest in my performance in the comment to the previous post. I believe I described it clearly enough now. Just to give one more bit of information, here's what I got out of a nasty wipeout.


(Jesus, do I really have all those hair on my arm??)
And here's instead what a good sailor could do.


Well, the photo was taken around 5.30 when the wind was a lot lighter and the conditions were a little more human. Still, during the Master men contest Josh Stone did several push loops and several one hand forward loops that only one word can appropiately define: perfect!
He won the category against Phil McGain that used all his experience to get all the way to the final. Keith Teboul was third and Kai Katchadourian fourth. All good sailors, but Josh was just consistently one step higher. How can you do a forward loop taking one hand off the boom way before the impact with the wave and land it planing in full speed with still one hand on the boom? I got to ask him one of these days...
Once again, he got my highest score with another 9 for the best wave of the day.

The Open Women was won by the Japanese Maui resident Junko and Jennifer Henderson took second.

Tomorrow, the wind should be even stronger. The wave forecast for Oahu calls for waves from 7 to 9 feet faces. I predict a big show at Hookipa again. The Grandmaster (over 45) will be in the water (Alex Aguera is my pick) along with the remaining 16 of the Open Men (Josh again, no doubt!). I'm so glad that I'm only going to judge, 'cause tomorrow I could have done some serious damage to my beautiful hairy self...