Sean Anderson (me) surfing Publics surf on Oahu Hawai’i where we conduct most of our surfing lessons. (Photo-credit : Joseph Libby)
So let’s just start by agreeing, in advance, that the above is an odd, wordy, and perhaps ill-conceived title. However, anyone who knows me well is already thinking, “that’s Sean for ya!”
That’s why I believe it is a fitting intro into the chain of blogs meant to follow. It’s a place, topic wise, that previews the way my thoughts and rants tend to flow in and out like the tide. Even though these ideas may not seem to be moving consistently forward, they do fill in steadily and with some amount of fluidity and stealth. Before you know it, these ideas are rolling up to the alien shore that they were both destined for and have traveled so far to reach.
This is my first Blog. I plan to try and add one a month to this site and although this wasn’t my idea of something I should be doing, after some debate and some stalling on my part, I have reluctantly decided to at least try. There are a few reasons that I have fought past all of the varying excuses and predispositions that I have against writing these blogs. I know this will make my business partners happy and there are a handful (or two) of other people that have asked me to put some of these things in writing as well. I suspect that this is partly because they have been subjected to one too many of my verbal “greatest hits”. I do have a tendency to go on and on, with the fanatical intensity of a zealot, in regard to the wide variety of ways that the art of surfing can connect you to so many other aspects of life. They say, perhaps out of kindness, that these things are worth writing down and that I really should do so. I will assume the best, I will take them at their word, and as I have said, I will try.
Coaching comes naturally and feels right to me. I like coaching both one on one and in groups. Teaching the rudiments of surfing, much to my own surprise, is something that I enjoy and that I take to instinctively. From teaching someone to get up and riding on their very first wave, all the way down the line to teaching the more advanced aspects of surfing like how to ride the barrel or land an air reverse, the entire journey is all very rewarding and enjoyable.
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Jena-Noelani (my daughter) working on her focus, agility, and flexibility for martial arts, for surfing, and for life.
What has for a long time now been a very fascinating part of all of this, for me, is how in teaching and coaching surfing, I found myself drawing upon my life long martial arts training. I started this training when I was six. I began teaching formally when I was in my twenties. I taught martial arts for over twenty years publicly and even now I still teach my daughter, my son, and few close friends at our family kwoon (dojo or gym).
It’s not just the physicality and the skillful teaching techniques that I love about the martial arts, as they were taught to me, but it is also the philosophy and the almost scientific way that it pulls things apart, allows one to examine them, and then puts them back together again.
I believe that you must reconstruct everything and relearn things you have already learned in order to become better than you thought you could be. Your movements become something that you discover you had not truly considered and been fully aware of. In surfing, in business, in relationships, and in most things, we tend to move through all of them the best we can. However, for most of us, we move with a much better view of the things around us than the view we have of how we ourselves are moving against, and through, and with these things. This applies to obstacles and opportunities alike. It applies to waves and everyday challenges.
For most people, when they observe someone moving in a way that seems graceful, powerful, and almost without effort, through a challenging section of a wave or through a difficult situation in life, it seems almost like magic. It seems these people have some special quality that others lack. Sometimes it seems almost unfair. We are prone to call this quality luck or talent and of course those things do exist. When you are surfing, luck can have a big part of how your session turns out. This is true even for the most experienced and talented individuals. Every professional has surfed a number of heats that they feel luck has critically impacted. We tend to feel this way especially after a disappointing result. The same goes for how some of our days happen to unfold. You can have things go your way or it can feel like you can’t catch a break or catch a wave for that matter. There are, of course, cases of highly talented individuals and people who we would call naturals. This can be and usually does have a lot to do with the body type you were born with and the things in your life that have impacted your physical and cognitive development. However, the most important part of this equation that seems like magic is not the things that we as individual surfers can’t change about ourselves but, as it turns out, they are things we can change. For some, things do tend to come faster and easier but when you deconstruct the actual mechanics of what someone does to move powerfully, gracefully and seemingly without effort, we find that it’s not really magic at all. It is more like science. It is not some quality or ability that only a lucky few can possess. In each fundamental part of each maneuver, there are micro moments and micro movements that in and of themselves are simple and more importantly learnable for just about anyone. They just have to be pulled apart and examined first.
