Currently in CA and Other Stuff

Noticed that my last post was July 3rd. That's pretty despicable blog upkeep. But when the waves have been looking like this: 

and I've a ton of research to do, all that matters is that I post at all, and that when I post I provide pertinent information. For example, on the day pictured I surfed for 5 hours. The buoys were reading 8.2 feet at 10 seconds (with a forecast to drop throughout the day). Picked up the star team rider in Billy Burg at 6am and banched out to Rockaway. We surfed for five hours. A doctor in residence from Hawaii was tearing it apart. Fastest surfing I've seen on the East Coast barring the star team rider. Had to cancel lessons because it was too big for beginners. Other surf instructors from the Rockaway schools had also cancelled theirs. They run a pretty nice outfit down there. I would never do it that way myself, nor do I plan to, since I prefer surgical strikes to all day camp outs because I believe that to be good at surfing you must embed it into your daily life (thus requiring said strikes). A daily surf mission is not vacation. Well it is. But one can vacation and work as well. Like now, I'm writing from a cabin in Northern California, having swam in a lake all day, but I still find time to get work done. Work and play must be in balance. Both ought to be both challenging and fun. Take the doctor I spoke of as another example. He arrived to the beach at 6am, blew the tops off of chest high lips for 3 hours until 9am, when he went in to check his pager (haha doctors still have pagers). He then came back out for 5 more waves or so, then he drove off to the Bronx to work in a hospital for the rest of the day. And that's how it's done folks. Daily surfs are possible. Or at least tri-weekly. Seven days of surfing in a row is vacation. 

Other notes:

1. Taught two awesome body surfing lessons. I thoroughly enjoy teaching people how to ride waves without boards. 

2. I'll be back in NY on August 9th, not 8th. I'll start answering email inquiries and scheduling lessons tomorrow. 

3. Am planning my own camp/surf school of sorts, which has more of a seminar quality—surfing history, board design, structure of competitive surfing—for both kids and adults. 

4. Also offer tutoring in Ancient Greek. That's random, I know, but hey, if you're interested, I teach that too.