Surf Lessons in NY Magazine!

I assume this blog might be getting a bit more traffic from the NY Magazine article on Urban Surf Lessons. I am stoked on their write up. They did a good job getting down the gist of my lessons and of course you can always come here to learn more. What I'd like to say in defence of what they have called my "slow, steady approach" as opposed to other "more aggressive" approaches is this: no matter how aggressively an instructor is in getting you stand in your first few lessons it simply will not translate to when you go try surfing on your own. They are helping you with wave judgement, which is the most difficult skill to learn, and which, I am sure, all of the surf instructors mentioned in the article have mastered for themselves. The trick is imparting the skills of wave judgement to the beginner(s), which is what I believe I do quite well, and which is only ascertainable through a "slow, steady approach", which will eventually amount to years of dedication. Also, I did not notice that any of the other schools focus on style. Being so few urban surf schools, I sure hope they do and that NY Mag simply left that out of the article. Any one can eventually learn to stand up on a board, but who is to make sure that they are doing it with style? From the perspective of an experienced surfer, regardless of tha fact that I am also a surf instructor, it pains the surfing community to see beginners and intermediate surfers with wide poo stances, which is the most common style mistake, and is a result of bending at the waist and moving the front foot to far forward in a false sense of stability. It only takes slight adjustments to learn an aesthetically pleasing technique that works for your body type (there is more than just one way to surf with style as there are also a number of different body types and physical dispositions). At any rate, I hope this clarifies what I mean when I say that I focus on style. I look forward to the possible buzz generated by this article.The water is still warm, but it's hurricane season, which means lots of waves for better surfers and a few windows of small waves for beginning. The water should stay reasonably tolerable (fullsuits) through October and November and sometimes into early December, so I'd say I'm open to teach until then. I myself surf January through May but it can be pretty brutal getting in and out of all that wetsuit in below zero temps. If you have further questions or would like to set up a lesson do not hesistate to call or email.

Fish out of Water

This corrugated photograph was taken with an iPhone under the subway tracks at the Marcy JMZ station. Riya was sitting on the hood of our car making sure we didn't get a ticket for parking in a 'no standing anytime' zone. We were on location for a shoot by German photographer Stephan Pielow who's putting out a coffee table book in 2011 about New York and people who do watery things here. He's associated with a publication called Mare, which deals solely with ocean related topics. For this shot Stefan didn't want to do 'surfer at the beach' because it's too obvious. Instead he wanted the whole urban surfer vibe. I think he achieved it nicely enough. I also had the 9'6" down there with me and almost mowed over a few Hassid and Orthodox types when turning it around to get the closeup shot. Whether this shoot makes the book will be up to Stefan and the publishers. It was a fun shoot anyhow. It felt so New York I could hardly believe it. One of those moments when you have to pinch yourself. I wore a quintessentially 'me' outfit: an oxford shirt, my twill gstars, brown oxfords no socks, co-op tie, and my vintage pierre cardin blazer that I scored at Static in the upper Haight about 4 years ago (Japanese do vintage right!). Sometimes I do go for a darker aesthetic but this shot needed lighter clothing or I would drown in the shadow. The board I'm carrying is my 5'9" Channel Islands Ksmall - no rocker, glass on fins - a real wizard of a board. It goes well in anything from 2ft mush to 5ft ramps. How did this happen anyhow? The kind folks at Mollusk Surf Shop NYC gave me a ring out of the blue and then linked me up with Stefan and his wife Tina. I got an email that read: "Wear a Joy Division tee and bring your hot rod." I wore the Joy Division tee for our first meeting, but that too was too dark for the location. All in all it was a good time. I was a bit stressing about the car in traffic as blue smoke had been wafting out of the hood accompanied by the lovely smell of burnt oil, which reminds me of a jetski or a rickety ski boat. We took the car in the day after. It's looking like head gasket repair. Yikes! Hope to have it back soon, but if not I'm doing surf lessons by train. Just hope I don't kill any innocent bystanders lugging that 9'6" down to Rockaway.