Archive for May, 2010
Saturday, May 29th, 2010
 Learn To Surf Ski Today I went for an hour training session in the ocean, in pretty crazy and wild conditions. The waves were not massive, only peaking at 2′ – 3′, however they were very choppy, the water was moving in all directions with a sweep to the south east, and half way through the training session, the wind picked up big time.
I had two hairy moments in the water today. Firstly, when I was about 2kms out to sea, I fell off due to nothing more than a lack of concentration. I was checking up on the other paddlers, was not paying attention and next thing I knew, I was in the drink. Holding onto my ski and paddle, I was downwind from my craft. The wind was blowing strong over the ski and then me. I found in this position that the ski kept drifting over me, pushing my torso back and trapping my legs under the ski. This made it very difficult to remount. Eventually after 6 attempts I managed the straddle remount – it certainly was not elegant, but it got me back up. This experience shook me a bit so I took a moment to compose myself before continuing.
The second hairy experience was much closer to shore where again, a lapse in concentration resulted in me tipping off my ski as a wave hit me from an unexpected angle. This time though I ended upwind from my ski. This situation probably is a bit scarier in retrospect as the wind started taking my ski away from me, rolling it across the top of the water. It is quite difficult swimming with a paddle, so in the end I had to throw my paddle at the ski and swim after it. It was the only way I could catch up to the surf ski. Further out to sea with a slightly stronger wind, this situation can be very scary.
The two lessons I learned from these experiences are:
- When doing any ocean sport, there will always be the element of the unknown, times when the unexpected happens. This is why it is an extreme sport. You must always keep yourself fit enough that you can swim back to shore if you lose your equipment. Today in both experiences I could persevere in my efforts to retrieve and remount my ski as I knew no matter what happened, I could swim back to land.
- In windy conditions, it is worth considering investing in a leash for your ski. Ensuring the ski is attached to your body will ensure you will not lose it out at sea, forcing a swim to safety. If this is a decision you make though, give careful thought to paddling back in through the breakers. Personally in a wipe-out situation, I would not want to be attached to my craft.
Tags: ocean paddling, surf ski choppy waves, surf ski in rough conditions, surf ski windy
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Thursday, May 20th, 2010
 Come Fly With Me Surf ski training shouldn’t be taken lightly, and should be planned well to be able to get a paddler ready for an upcoming event. So if you’re out to plan your own surf ski training regime, here’s the breakdown of useful activities to include in your schedule.
Rest and recovery. Rest is every bit as important as training. It won’t do to be injured or too exhausted to compete because of an improperly planned training regime that didn’t include time for rest.
Training. Training can further be broken down into paddling training and body training. The former deals with techniques, styles, and skills that can be developed, honed, and sharpened in the water with training sessions. Like downwind paddling, stroke factors like breathing, full shoulder turns, and full arm extensions. The latter deals with training the athlete’s body. Running, swimming, or visiting the gym usually accounts for most of body training. Aerobic leg exercises are good preparations for any sort of distance event, surf ski races notwithstanding. Besides, it not only builds up leg muscle groups, but improves overall athletic strength and stamina.
Practice. Practice differs from training in that how you practice is how you will play or perform in the actual event. That said, though training sessions are more intense and area specific, practice sessions should take longer. The gist is to train smart and hard, but not too often, and to practice for comparatively long hours but not as intense or hard. The key to practice sessions is duplicating the conditions and the entire environment of the upcoming event or race.
A hard week of training can then be somewhat like: day 1 accounts for body training or simply rest if previous physically tasking training or practice was done; day 2 can be paddling training on flat water. Day 3 is completely for rest and recovery; day 4 is for paddling training with concern over specific areas; day 5 is the same as day 4, though things can be done faster or at a higher level; and days 6 and 7 are reserved for practice. One to one and a half hours of training would do (so you can easily fit them in your everyday schedule, too), while two and a half to three hours should be set for practice. So naturally, days 6 and 7 would be the days when you don’t have work. And of course, continuous weeks of hard training would have the opposite effect, so alternate easy weeks with hard ones.
Tags: rest and recovery, surf ski fitness, surf ski training
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Monday, May 17th, 2010
How can you break down training, practice, and rest into a surf ski training week schedule that allows conveniently wraps around your lifestyle, but can also effectively get you ready for an upcoming race? Let’s analyze what you need to do: training can be further broken down into paddling training and body training, done in more intensity than practice sessions, practice is simply practice, but those sessions need to be longer than the training sessions, and of course, rest and recovery. If you want to use a complete seven day week, here’s how you can make them all come together.
Alternate a hard week and an easy week for six weeks before the competition. The hard week’s details are as follows:
Day 1: You can simply rest if you’ve just been in serious training or practice the day before. Normally you should train: do some running, visit the gym, or swim. If you really want to paddle, do no more than 30 minutes to an hour of stroke correction.
Day 2: Some flat water training. About one to one and a half hours of flat water paddling to get your body gradually into the mood. Don’t try paddling in big wind to avoid damaging your wrists for the rest of the week’s long paddles.
Day 3: This is a required rest and recovery day for the coming four days. This week is scheduled to include a four day cycle of training and practice to help accustom your body to similar conditions during a race.
Day 4: More flat water training. Again, one to one and half hours of flat water paddling, though you can paddle downwind this time. Try breaking down your session into two minute 500 meter sprints interspersed with eight minute slow cruises to rest your body without getting slack. During each sprint, focus on different aspects of your stroke like full shoulder turns, breathing, full arm extensions, and so on.
Day 5: More of the same, only faster. Do much of the same thing as you did the previous day, only a level higher and faster. And focus on your weak spots during each sprint.
Day 6 and 7: Practice sessions. Do two and a half hours of practice during both days. Try to imitate the environment and overall conditions you’ll be under in the race, then practice. The next day, practice downwind.
Day 6 and 7 are normally the weekends, but it should be the two days you don’t have any work to do, as they entail more time than the training schedules.
Tags: competition ski training, surf ski fitness, surf ski practise, Surf Ski Racing, surf ski training
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Saturday, May 15th, 2010
If you’re going to enter in a competition and you’re in dire need of real hard surf ski training, here’s a schedule you can try out and pattern to your own:
Monday, the off day. You can relax and rest up for the coming days, or if you really must do something, you can go running, swimming, or train in the gym on this day. If you can’t help paddling feel free to do a 30 minute stroke correction session.
Tuesday, flat water training—no big wind. One to one and a half hours of paddling in flat water will do for this day. Try using a K1 canoe and never in big wind, as you risk damaging your wrists and thus significantly lowering your capacity for the long paddles.
Wednesday, the recovery and rest day. Rest and recovery from the previous training session is required for the coming four day cycle.
Thursday, flat water training—downwind included. Just like on Tuesday, paddle in flat water for one to one and a half hours. This time you can breakdown your training hours into 500 meter two minute sprints with eight minute slow, relaxed cruises in between. During each sprint, you can focus on different areas of your stroke, like breathing in sprint 1, full shoulder turns on sprint 2, and so on. You can even train with some buddies regardless of differing skill levels. Simply regroup after everyone finishes the two minute sprints and cruise together for the eight minute slow paddles.
Friday, same as Thursday session, just faster. Try to go a notch or two above your Thursday performance while working on specific areas of your stroke that you consider your weaknesses.
The weekends, long downwind practice sessions. You can choose to do a three hour session on Saturday and a two hour session downwind on Sunday or vice versa. The idea is to replicate race conditions as much as you can and then do the same thing on the next day downwind.
This schedule is designed specifically for four day cycles to accustom your body to what it will be undergoing in an actual race. Do not try to wrap the rest of your life, schedules, and commitments to your surf ski training, it should be the other way around. This hell week training would work best if you alternate one hard week with a relatively easy one for about six weeks.
Tags: surf ski endurance, surf ski fitness, surf ski training
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Thursday, May 13th, 2010
Learn To Surf Ski Preparing for a race and don’t know the best way to get ready? Need good training and practice sessions but can’t find the time? Do you even recognize that practice and training are two different things? It doesn’t matter if you’re an intermediate paddler or just a beginner, if you surf ski for leisure or serious competition or sport, you have to train and practice. Here are some pointers to keep in mind during surf ski training.
The difference between training and practice. Do they seem the same to you? If they were, they won’t be called any different from the other. Think about other sports. Basketball players can train in gyms, but they can’t practice their sport there. They build up their bodies, stamina, and strength in training, but what they do in practice is what they’ll be doing in the hard court. It’s the same with surf ski training. You can train in gyms, or simply run for aerobic leg exercises that give you stamina, and build up muscle groups in your legs. You can train different aspects of your paddling, like breathing, full shoulder turn, and full arm extension in flat water. But when you practice, you duplicate the environment or the conditions you will be under during the competition you’ll be joining in. What you do in practice is what you’ll do in the actual event. How you will play is how you practiced.
How much training and how much practice. Practice is preferably done during weekends—or whenever it is you don’t have work for the day. You’ll need more hours in practice than in training, though training should be more intense. Training schedules can stretch for one to one and a half hours during a regular day, but as mentioned before, should be intense enough to build up your paddling capacity and acumen. That being the case, training sessions should not be done too often, and never when you’re tired to begin with.
A good surf ski prep week. So keeping all these in mind, if you plan a seven day surf ski preparation regime, you should distribute the days to three things: training, practice, and rest. You can allocate three days to training separated by two rest days, and the remaining days (presumably the days when you don’t have any work to do) should be spent on practicing. Training sessions should be done both on water and on land for paddling specific training (like technique and skills) and body training (for stamina, strength, resilience).
Tags: surf ski practise, surf ski skills, surf ski training
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Monday, May 10th, 2010
 Surf Ski Training Whether you’re surf skiing for fun or for serious sport—like competition level sport—you still need to do some training to get anywhere. Surf skis aren’t the easiest things in the world to handle, so some surf ski training regimes would do you some good. Here’s a typical surf ski training week you can pattern your own schedule to:
Monday: Rest. Yes, Rest. Especially if you’ve raced on the weekends or have had similarly physically tasking practice sessions.
Tuesday: One to one and a half hours of paddling. Use skis on flat water. Here’s how you can break down your one and a half hours: 20 minute warm ups first, then two minute sprints of 500 meters separated by slow cruises of eight minutes in between. The sprints you can do from a standing start. You can even do this with a group of individuals with different skill levels. Simply regroup after the two minute sprints and slow cruise together for the entire eight minutes. During the sprint, don’t try to concentrate on all or many aspects of the stroke at the same time. Try focusing on individual aspects in different sprints, like full arm extensions on sprint 1, then breathing in sprint 2, and so on.
Wednesday: Aerobic leg exercises. You can run, visit the gym, it’s your choice. Doing aerobic leg exercises builds respiratory capacity and resilience, and it shapes up leg muscle groups. It’s also a good preparation for any sort of distance event.
Thursday: You can choose to do the sprint sessions, or visit clubs for high intensity exercises that help overall paddling performance.
Friday: More rest. This is the ‘in-between’ rest period for the week. If you missed some sessions or exercises, you can do those.
Saturday: Practice. Duplicate the conditions you’ll be under in the race you’ll be entering, and do long distance, slow trips in those conditions for two and a half hours. If you’re not entering in any event, try to do the two and a half hour exercise in conditions similar to the environment where you surf ski. This is to familiarize yourself to the conditions and environment where you’ll be racing or skiing. If you continually practice for long hours in a completely different environment, you won’t be able to apply much of what you practiced on the actual surf skiing area you’ll be going to. It’s true that in the future you will need to be flexible enough to deal with any environment, but take things one step at a time. Like in the sprint sessions: one aspect of the stroke at a time.
Sunday: Repeat the Saturday session. It is important to actually make the full two and a half hours just like the day before—remember, practice makes perfect. It isn’t a cliché for nothing.
Tags: how to surf ski, surf ski practice, Surf Ski Racing, surf ski trainng
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Saturday, May 8th, 2010
Come Fly With Me Among the surf ski skills and techniques perhaps one of the most often neglected is the remount. That’s somewhat queer, because common sense dictates that remounting should be one of the first surf ski skills learned and mastered before moving on to others. But one would find that most intermediate paddlers only know the rudiments of remounting, and just one type of remount. If you’re just beginning to surf ski, now is the best time to learn all about remounts.
The straddle and sidesaddle remounts should be most useful for beginners. The straddle remount is generally faster but when it can’t be used, the sidesaddle remount would work best. There are also ski types that work well with one or the other. The straddle remount entails that you’re upwind of your ski and that you can point it into the wind. Grab the foot straps and paddle with one hand and the far rail end of the cockpit with your other hand, and pull yourself up from the water. Lie face down diagonally on your ski and then swing your legs over and across the ski while swiveling your butt onto the seat. This may take some practice and you will find that you’re most vulnerable while performing this maneuver. Grabbing the paddle with both hands stabilizes your position and then you can swing your legs into the cockpit. You can pull your legs in while balancing the whole ski using the paddle. A paddler well versed in the straddle remount needs only a few seconds to perform it.
In extreme wind and wave conditions that prevent you from pointing the ski’s nose into the wind, you can let it drift sideways and remount using the sidesaddle method. Again, you must be upwind of your ski. Boost yourself up using the same grips as the straddle method, but instead of lying face down, immediately swing your butt onto the side of your ski, sitting on it. With your legs hanging down into the water you’re in a pretty stable position. The hard part is getting into the center of the seat from that position. But a deft slide of your butt and swing of your legs can get you into position quickly, and then you’re on your way.
Like other surf ski skills, remounting needs effort and practice. Practice remounting in warm waters and try it wearing the complete gear you’ll expect to wear during extreme conditions, so you can get accustomed to remounting with all of the gear on you.
Tags: ocean paddling, surf ski skills, surf ski waves
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Monday, May 3rd, 2010
 Come Fly With Me Some surf ski skills that can keep you from embarrassing, losing (not to mention life threatening) situations include knowing what to do when things go wrong. You can be in the Impact Zone, or just catching a wave when you get thrown off your ski. Nevertheless, you should know what to do automatically.
When the wave gets the best of you and you wipe out, remember to immediately turn the ski into the waves or back to shore, never turn it sideways. If you can’t get the ski to face the waves, be sure to position yourself between the waves and the ski. Doing so would ensure that when you wash ashore, you get washed onto the ski and the ski doesn’t wash over you. Having a ski washed over you can potentially hurt more than your pride. But even before you let the waves beach you, try hard to get back on the ski quickly. If there isn’t any time or opportunity to do so, just hang on tight. Grab the foot straps and wait for your chance to get back on. If you’re heading for the shore fast and your ski is in between you and the wave, try ducking underneath the ski and coming up on the opposite side. While doing this, obviously you don’t let go of the ski.
If the wind and the waves insist on pushing your ski sideways, do a sidesaddle remount, otherwise, normally a straddle remount works faster. Here’s where all the remount practice kicks in. Regardless of whether you’re new to surf skis or not, you have to know your remounts. Upon remounting, remember to focus and get it right the first time if possible, because doing it a few times over can cost you a lot of energy. Sufficient practice would prevent any injuries brought about by a combination of cold, harsh waters, adrenaline, and rushing upon remounting, so practice, practice, practice. In fact much of what you do by instinct when things go wrong can be trace to how much and what you practice. So your training regimen should have ample time for practice.
Upper body strength, especially arm strength, helps a lot during remounts, so work your arms during body training. Building up your stamina can also help you outlast a menacing set of waves in the Impact Zone, not to mention it improves your cardiovascular and respiratory capabilities.
Tags: surf awareness, surf safety, surf ski, surf ski skills, surf skills
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Saturday, May 1st, 2010
Having all the required surf ski skills needed to paddle out and return safely is good, but if you don’t have the proper attitude and mindset, you’ll still flounder. The skills you can hone during training and perfect with practice, but the traits you can’t get just anywhere. Be sure you have the traits and facets that should go with your surf ski skills before paddling out:
Assertiveness. The waves and the wind can break a meek spirit. Be aggressive about the whole deal. In fact, surf skiing can help get rid of some frustration or anger.
Direction. Know your directions. Keep facing the ski into the waves, not side on.
Commitment and speed. Do not hesitate. The wind will knock you down and the water will engulf you. Decide, then execute. Go all out, and don’t dawdle.
Awareness. Look around before paddling out. You do need to be committed and speedy in making decisions and pulling off maneuvers, but don’t be too quick to rush into a hopeless situation. Being in a rip or next to a pier doesn’t excuse you from waves.
Always move forward. Paddle into the wave, even if it’s just foam. You need to be going forward, otherwise you won’t get through.
Now the next challenge is the Impact Zone. This is the area where the waves break and have a lot of power. The Impact Zone can present more than just a rough ride, so you should know how to get through:
Simply paddle through smaller foam wash to the point just before backline.
Assess the situation. Check for sets of waves and what the current holds for you. IF there is a set, wait it out, if it’s relatively open, go.
Legs out when in doubt. Put your legs out to stay in control in the foam. From this stable position you can further assess the situation.
When you’re good to go, go flat out. The impact Zone is usually about 30 – 40 strokes long, but though it’s a relatively short distance, it can be physically taxing, so if you’re going to go, go hard. After 50 strokes you should be in the clear.
And once you do decide to tackle the wave, don’t stop paddling. While you only have to cover a short distance, you can’t simply stop. You’ll be wiped out if you stop in the middle of the Impact Zone.
Tags: surf ski oceam, surf ski skills, surf ski surf, surf ski waves, surf skills
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