Session 114 - stalling in Santa Cruz

Hungover and got a late start, but decided to head down to SC with Ry and Ramin to meet up with Nic and Joel. Ramin was a soldier, had already gotten up early and surfed OB, apparently got one big one and caught a beating otherwise. Anyways, I'll keep this short since it's a distant memory at this point, but 4m was fun, my first session there, although I'd been there in the past but hadn't surfed it. It was a fun wave, totally protected, with a nice barrel section on the inside. Crowded though, as most clean consistent beautiful righthand points are in these parts. We had a solid crew though, and it was fun to holler at Ramin and Joel flying down the line on set waves. After watching one of the older local guys pull in, stall, and get barreled for a few seconds I was inspired. Though stalling is relatively easy and it used to be part of my limited repertoire, I realized that lately I've been so obsessed with down the line speed and cutbacks that I forgot about the simple barrel stall. I caught a smaller wave, bottom turned into position and then did probably the most exaggerated stall ever. I sat with all of my weight on the tail and shoved my entire arm into the face of the wave. At the same time the middle part of the wave was jacking up and breaking over me. I stalled until I was covered up and couldn't see anything except for water splashing in my face, then I released. It was far from a clean barrel exit, the wave basically broke on me, but because I was planted in the right spot and driving toward the beach rather than toward the shoulder, I was able to hold on and ride out of it. Sweet. Each and every wave after that I attempted to stall into the barrel, although I soon remembered that it only works when the wave is actually barreling. In any case, I'm stoked that I surfed somewhere new and learned something new. Forget about speed runs and punts, I'm not a grom anymore, stalling is where it's at! Maybe I should listen to Mark and get a single fin.