My youngest daughter has been wanting to try surfing for a long time, she's not a kid, she's in her early 30s and a mother, so today for the first time, we went to Queenscliff to have a go and we just happened to bump into MichaelR.

You could not wish for a worse day, short period Nor-easter wind slop, banks a complete mess, countless rips, doubling up, and a backwash every where. But we went ahead regardless.

First up we talked about etiquette, then we had a chat about paddling and just as we're about to practice the pop up, MR turns up to help.

Then I hear a voice from behind me saying " excuse me, do you have some wax I could borrow?".

I turn around and it's none other than one of the greatest surfers of all time, Layne Beachley. She was giving a private lesson nearby.

I had no wax on me, but if I played this the right way, my daughter is going to have a surf lesson she'll never forget. So I say to her, "not on me, but I've got some in the car, I'll go and grab it" I then said to MR "Can you run her through the pop up while I'm gone?" knowing full well that Layne was never going to allow MR to explain a pop up to a novice on her watch.

The car was a good distance away, but sure enough, when I got back, there was Layne just finishing off the pop up lesson, I was stoked.

It didn't end there either, while we were out, if she saw her doing something wrong, like putting the board between her and the wave, as she was pushing it back out, Layne would give her more good advice.

Some days are good days, today was even better than that.

Brilliant mate - hows that .... another one for the mantelpiece of experiences Obs champion

Wow Obct, that's awesome, all for the price of some wax. Something she'll remember for sure!

Yeah Wow Obs,you just couldn't imagine things like that happening when you plan something so simple,great day had,I bet you're daughter was stoked about that

What a great story and experience.

Did your daughter catch the surfing Bug OB?

I've been giving my nephew a few lesson over xmas and gave him his first board for xmas. has been so good seeing him become interested in it.. the froth level can't help but make you smile and enjoy surfing...

Hope your daughter sticks with it.

Great stuff OB. Layne is a lovely lady and always very giving. Great to see your daughter got some advice from such a legend.

Incidently - how was her advice? Similar to yours - or did you learn something as well ?

I've never taught anyone to surf, I'm not that good myself and it was pretty hard for Layne to teach her the pop up, because we did not even know if she was as goofy or natural, but it must of worked because she did manage to get up a couple of times in crap that would have taxed anyone. BTW, she turned out to be goofy The important thing was, she really loved it, but being a busy mum will not allow a lot of surfing time

yes ted , I see Layne out surfing there quite a bit too, and I always stop and just sit out back and watch her, she's lost nothing and she's probably better than her best even now

Nice story mate

We've had a lot of kids learning to surf at my local the last couple of years compared to previous years. I enjoy throwing some advice their way now & again & encouraging them. Couple of kids were caught on the inside today. Trying to paddle in too inside across a shallower area more waves were breaking more frequently. I'd caught a wave, saw them there, paddled out & caught a wide inside one & then told them to move over & paddle wide around the break. They were straight out after that, little pointers can help a lot.

In short EPIC story

Nice story bro!!

It was a very cool thing Layne did. The session on the sand took at least 15 minutes out of her time with her student, and she was really gracious about it.

One thing she said that stuck, was "When you get to your feet, you're not a starfish.... keep your knees bent for balance and look just where you want to go, surfing is like life, you'll go where you look."

She also had an alternative pop up method, just for learning. Too hard to explain in print, but it worked for Karen....so next time I have a student of my own - which is rare... I'll remember it.

Made a very ordinary day surf wise into a very memorable one.

Jesus .... if this barren spell keeps up , I will be getting surf lessons form the obctetrician

She is a legend. Absolute champion!

Great yarn and outcome Ob, and good on Layne, a true champion in many ways.

So we went out and his morning for her second lesson, and I hear this person behind me say, "can I borrow some wax?" So I turn around and it's none other than Kelly Slater and okay okay , I just maybe bull Sh!tting this time. But we did go out and she did have a good time, and she's still stoked about Layne

haha

I'm learning a lot about myself as I try to teach someone for the first time.

Like, "why do I often make the same mistakes out in the water?" the answer is "it's just natural" mostly because there's a lot to do in a very short time and a very short distance.

Take this morning, it was dead calm and flat as, so I though, let's just do paddling and turning, it's going to be hard for her because my boards are so big.

I show her the reference mark I always put on my boards, around 35 inches from the nose, and explain how you can be a bit further forward when you paddle out, so that the board is nice and buoyant in the water. But when you try to get a wave on a LB, you need to be just a bit further back or you'll pearl (I actually said Nosedive). She's good with that and paddles out in the right position after a bit of adjustment to drop the nose.

Once out back, I say to her, okay, now you must sit up, and again she's good with that.

I then explain that when a wave comes, she not only needs to turn the board, she also needs to be a fraction further back than she would be if she was just turning from the rested position, so I show her how I do a quick bum shuffle back and pivot the board around using legs and hands.

She says, no way, so I sort of gesture with my hands to demonstrate how my legs are sort of rowing the board around, she then tries it from the centre of the board and does a 360 straight away, we then quickly move on to the bum shuffle and using the hands to pull the rail around while the other one pushes in the water, and she nails that too.

All this has taken no more than 10 minutes and in addition to last weeks lesson in that horrible chop, she's now got all the fundamentals with only thing missing, waves.

we walk and paddle about 150 metres down the beach and find a tiny shore break, I dump my board on the beach and swim out to push her on to a few.

After about 4 misses, she finally gets one all the way to the sand and steps off, we were both over the moon and could not stop hooting, there were more misses, but she did get another 2 onto the sand and we considered the day to be a success.

But here's my point, as I was waiting for her to get back out, she was basically forgetting almost everything I had shown her, the nose was under the water, the board would often be between her and the wave, she was having trouble getting back on and she admitted to getting tired.

When I think about it, those exact same things still happen to me if I get caught in the impact zone when there's sets coming through, I struggle to get back on, sometimes in my haste I'm positioned wrong on the board, I get tired and have to take a few on the head.

It makes me think, surfing is in many respects, just a very natural thing, we do what is natural for us do, we react the way that is natural for us to react. It may not be right, but it still happens, is it us? is it the power of the ocean? You can't really tame a natural force like that, you're always going to be pushed around if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Hit it on the head with the tired bit brother - we don't breathe underwater yet so ya gotta suck a few quick ones in & cop the flogging every so often .... champion .... handsome farker extraordinaire ....

Nice story OB. Good that she's on her feet in just two lessons. DY ended up being pretty good, and she would have gone OK there too. Quite a few beginners on the break we were on.

If I get tired and knocked about by the sets, I just stay off the board and wait for them to come through. I hang on to the board right up the front, and take it under the wave with me, kind of like a duck dive, but without being on the board. It saves a lot of energy getting on and off each time you roll over esky fashion.

There are a few stages of learning, she's still at stage two. She's been told what she has to do to paddle, catch and stand, so she's conscious of what she needs to do, but not competent yet. Soon she''ll be competent, but will still need to think about it to do it. After a few more months she'll do some of the things subconsciously, and that's where she'll start to take off.... pun intended.

I was asked yesterday to show a kid how to catch a wave. Little Dom and Jack were doing it all really well, so this lady asked me to show her son, because she had no idea. This 12 year old was trying to kneel on a board too small for his little chubby frame and flat out would not listen to anything she was saying. Quite typical spoiled young fella who lorded it over his mum and believed he needed a bigger board so he could do it his way. She asked me to show him what to do, so I had a fair crack at it. Because he had a soft knee board, he flat refused to lie down on it to catch a wave and was trying to kneel on it facing sideways and couldn't work out why he kept falling off. When I suggested he watch the other kids and how they did it, he plain ignored me and skulked off.

In the end, I said to his mum, very politely and in a caring way. "Sometimes you gotta be tough, tell him that has has to listen to people who know, or he will never learn. Take him out of the water and practice on the sand, and look at all the other kids practicing and learning from their mums and dads. If he still won't listen, take him home and make him promise to listen next time otherwise he won't go back to the beach." I said that she may have to do this a few times, but in the end he'll thank her for helping him learn how to surf. Within 10 minutes they were on the sand, but he wasn't happy about being dragged out of the water, so she did as suggested and took him home.

I guess there is a certain age for some that is perhaps too young to learn how to surf.

She can now go across the face and she's even changed direction once, not bad for 1 hour and waves that are not much better than a shore dump, but we both know paddling into one will be the really big obstacle, and not always for the reasons that you think.

Power
Technique
timing
wave type

The big problem will be just being allowed to get a wave by everyone else out there.

Every time I paddle out I always see learners that have the basic skills sitting inside trying to score a wave and being beaten by good riders further out. I can still remember that and it would take for ever to get a go.

Great stuff! My son is in a similar stage of development surf wise. I refer to it as the heirachi of time and space at whatever break you surf at!