My first time surfing ever 🏄♂️
I tried surfing for the first time at 17 years old, guess where?
Waikiki Beach -> Hawaii 🌺
It was part of my 3-weeks trip to Hawaii to visit my childhood friend Kea. He moved there from Italy when he was only 14 and we missed him so much visiting him. 😬
That holiday changed my life, sparked my love for travelling and made me realise how bad my English was (I could only say "hi, how are you?"). 🌎
To this day I am soooooo thankful to Kea for hosting us 🏡 To my Mum for sponsoring the trip 💰 and my 2 other friends Elia and Lollo that were there listening to my endless complaints. 🙏
Anyway let me introduce the team:
4 Italian 17 years old guys - Me (The Football Player), Kea (the Local), Eli (The Artist), Lollo (The Athlete)
It's the 9th day of our trip to Honolulu, we don't feel jet-lagged anymore so we are ready to ride some waves at Waikiki Beach! 🌊
We get there for sunset and it feels like we are in a movie.
Palm trees everywhere, surfboards, blue water and the volcano Diamond Head next to the city skyscrapers. 🌴
Beautiful, very very beautiful. 😲
We were on a tight budget and at the same time, Kea made it sound so easy to surf that we did not need an instructor. At least that is how he learned so let's just rent boards.
We get our colourful longboards from a local shop for $7 per hour, which felt incredibly cheap at the time.
I don't understand much of what the shop owner says but happy days Kea leads the way. 🤙
However, while we are waxing the boards I start to feel anxious...
Thinking "Who's going to be the best at surfing?! I have never done any board sport... Eli skated before, and Lollo is an overall athlete... This is going to be hard..." 🤔
At the time I could never be worse than others at anything. I always had to be the best: in school, sports or games.
My father passed me this high competitive mentality. For instance, I don't remember my father playing anything for fun.
He would always give 200% and try to win at all costs even when I was 8 years old playing against him in Ping Pong. If he knew he was going to lose against me he would not even start to play (like in video games) 😅
Incredible! He was my role model so I was like him "like father like son" (Tale padre tale Figlio 🇮🇹)
The main reason was to avoid bad comments from others, especially my friends. Like "You are a looser", "Classic guy with no balance" and similar ones.
This mentality used to stop me from trying new activities, especially when there was a competition/comparison factor.
In this case, the new activity is surfing 🏄♂️
Going back to the beach
I am there nervous because of my competitive mind but also excited.
There is a tiny part of my mind that is like "here we are in Hawaii, HAWAIIII!! not RICCIONE ITALY! all your best friends are here, this is a UNIQUE lifetime opportunity!
I don't even have time to think twice that we are done waxing and Kea gives us a basic introduction to surfing:
1- Go out by paddling 🚣♂️
2- Turn around, and paddle for a wave 🌊
3- When you feel the push stand up, Olé you are surfing 🏄♂️
Great, let's enter the water.
I push myself on the board and I feel ok, surprisingly pretty stable laying down on it.
In the meantime, Kea is already paddling out so we all follow him.
Finally, we are at the lineup (where all the surfers wait for waves to come) and I feel better, but now let's see who's the best here. 🤔
As expected Kea is on fire! He flies on any waves, making it look so damn easy 🦸♂️
My friends after a few waves manage to stand up first Eli and then Lollo. 🏄♀️
And Me? Well... Well... Well...
I am able to get on the waves but whenever I try to stand up I keep falling.
Every single time. I don't have balance even though I have the most enormous feet ever! 🙃
So it is clear I am the worst of the group! But... I actually feel good.
Every wave that pushes me gives me so much joy/adrenaline/dopamine whatever you want to call it that takes over any other feeling.
It is like being high, just from the whole thing, the sunset, the blue water, the connection with the waves. 💙
It was the first time in my life that I did not care about being the best.
It was the first time in my life that I was enjoying the moment more than worrying about other things.
It was the first time that I had tried surfing.
Let me tell you that even without standing up I had soooooooooo muuuuuch fuuun! 🙂
It was the first time in my life that I was enjoying the moment more than worrying about other things.
Then since then?
After that, we went surfing probably other 4-5 times in Waikiki again but I did not make any significant progress I was still not able to stand up for more than 1 second. 🙃
But I remember seeing a turtle in the water once 🐢
Many years passed before I went surfing again and later I started to appreciate other benefits linked to this sport 🙂
Also started to take some lessons 😅