After surfing at Pleasure Point alone, I set up two-hour, two-person private lessons with the Surf School of Santa Cruz. I had to re-schedule a few times (due to high surf) but finally settled on Sunday, April 22.
We arrived a bit early (the lesson was scheduled for 10:00am), arriving around 9:20am (before the shop was open). The owner was there soon, and we picked our wetsuits. I had a 3mm Billabong, while Alex had a 4/3mm. The owner suggested 9-foot boards for both of us. We loaded up the van and headed to Pleasure Point (a couple of blocks away)
At first, we were shown the proper surfing technique on land and did many practice pop-ups.
We were given the following surfing instructions:
After we finished surfing, we returned our gear. We stopped by for some pizza at Pleasure Pizza for a slice of Popeye (spinach, feta, tomatoes) and Santa Barbara (mozzarella, artichoke, parmesan). Alex had the Pepperoni slices.
We also stopped by the downtown RipCurl store to pick up a 4/3mm Dawn Patrol wetsuit for Alex in medium and two 8' Wavestorm Surfboards at Costco ($99/each). Our surf instructor told us that they were a good deal for beginners learning to surf.
We arrived a bit early (the lesson was scheduled for 10:00am), arriving around 9:20am (before the shop was open). The owner was there soon, and we picked our wetsuits. I had a 3mm Billabong, while Alex had a 4/3mm. The owner suggested 9-foot boards for both of us. We loaded up the van and headed to Pleasure Point (a couple of blocks away)
At first, we were shown the proper surfing technique on land and did many practice pop-ups.
We were given the following surfing instructions:
- Pop-Up
- Stand up by first putting the right knee down and then the left leg up
- Keep the legs far apart for balance
- Keep the knees bent
- Arms should be separated for balance
- Watch where you are going
- Wherever you look, there you will go naturally
- Paddling
- Keep the nose from sinking
- Keep the legs together
- Kick for additional speed (when trying to catch a wave)
- Speed when on a wave
- Accelerate by moving forward
- Slow down by moving backward
- Small Waves
- Move forward to get speed quickly
- Larger Waves
- To avoid going too fast (and falling off), move back quickly
- Right of Way
- Surfer riding the wave closest to white water has the right of way
We caught many waves and enjoyed our surfing lessons. I had many long rides, and riding the same wave with Alex was fun. We did much better with the longer, foamy boards than we did on our own the week before.
After we finished surfing, we returned our gear. We stopped by for some pizza at Pleasure Pizza for a slice of Popeye (spinach, feta, tomatoes) and Santa Barbara (mozzarella, artichoke, parmesan). Alex had the Pepperoni slices.
We also stopped by the downtown RipCurl store to pick up a 4/3mm Dawn Patrol wetsuit for Alex in medium and two 8' Wavestorm Surfboards at Costco ($99/each). Our surf instructor told us that they were a good deal for beginners learning to surf.
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