Here’s a very brief synopsis on how to nail a surfing competitive streak and qualify for the tour you deserve.
Work on your small-to-tiny wave approach.
If you're planning a WQS campaign, then most of your events are going to take place in tiny waves. There are many ways to up your small wave game, including keeping yourself light, keeping yourself fit and keeping yourself lithe. On top of this it's a good idea to find your most effective small wave equipment that'll keep you feeling light and buoyant and finding the speed pockets in the micro surf. In essence, however, the only way you're ever going to really improve your small wave game is by paddling out and surfing when its micro-small over and over again. It's not the best way to spend a cloudy afternoon but hell, it's better than going to work in a bank, or one of those hipster coffee bars.
Work on your onshore game.
Having figured out that most of your competitive career is going to be based around small surf until you hit the big league the next reality bite is that the tiny surf you're going to be faced with is also going to be onshore for most of the time. It's ok because if you accept your lot, and work on your small wave AND onshore games, you're going to be ahead of the curve amongst your Grind peers. It was the inimitable Mark Richards who explained in an interview many years ago what fun could be had in onshore conditions, and his two pearls of wisdom were 1 – to paddle hard, take off sideways and start pumping immediately to get your speed up, and 2 – to find all those little speed pockets that onshore waves deliver. Then again, theory is useless unless you put it into practice, so you have to surf that onshore slop over and over again in order to get better at it. Still, it’s way better than working in a surf shop, or at Macdonald's.
Work on confidence.
The other half of your competitive game, after tiny surf mastering and onshore slop practicing, is confidence. Ask people like Richard Branson or The Zuck and they'll tell you that the most important way to launch a successful business is with confidence. It's the same in sport – just watch Kelly. Paddle out like you're in charge, like you're in charge and have already won before you’ve even caught a wave, and you're already on the winning side of the equation. Athletes who ooze confidence make their competitors nervous, so work on the cold hard stare, the blue steel, the firm hand shake and thin lipped smile and you'll be feared at the waters edge.
Fitness is imperative, as is sobriety.
A clear head immersed in a knowledge pool of necessary tactics is going to be one up on a hung-over brain and a dehydrated body. There's no way we could expect sobriety because that's just not what we do, but a simple rule of only cutting loose once you've finished competing is a very fair way of staying on the wagon when needed to. Fitness is more about being supple and limber, loose and elastic than being able to bench press body weight, run a half marathon or do 100 push ups, but fitness needs to addressed in whichever way it suits the individual. And remember, training to surf better is way more fun that, say, working a prawn boat or selling insurance for a living.
Getting your travel head on.
Competing on the Grind involves long and arduous travel missions with mind numbingly boring airport waits, stopovers and long stultifying hauls. No use complaining because if you're traveling to go surf in an international surf event you are one extremely lucky fuck on a global scale. Very few people get the opportunity to fly, as a percentage of global population, and to be flying to a destination to ride some waves make you a minuscule percentage. If you feel like whining then shut your nostrils. Travel is exciting, and will make up many of your fondest memories when you get older, so keep your eye on the bigger picture, download a decent book to read, enjoy the complimentary Chardonnay, and thank your lucky stars every day of the week. Travel issues are pretty insignificant. After all, you could be fixing toilets, or fluffing*.
*definition: fluffing
A technique used in most pornographic films today. When the male star has to get "aroused" for the camera he is fluffed beforehand.
A stagehand, someone usually chosen just for this job, either gives the star a hand or blow job.
John Holmes had a 13" cock, but he had troubles getting it up during shoots. He needed to be fluffed before he could perform.
