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By Flavio Crisi

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Dear surfer,

Wish you an amazing surfing life and do my surf homework - fun and educational exercises to prepare your body, mind & spirit to surf for eternity🌊

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Before giving your 10 surf tasks, let me share my favorite movie ever, which every teacher, parent or student must watch - To Sir, With Love. The movie’s song (Lulu) is a very nostalgic song. PS. Sidney Portier was the first black actor to win an Oscar.


I learned how to surf when I was 22 years old. At that time, I was living in São Paulo, a city located 2 hours by car from the beach.

Even though I never took a surfing lesson and I needed to travel for surfing, I learned how to catch waves really fast.

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The reasons are that I was a good swimmer and skateboarder, and also because my surfing friends and I were very dedicated, spending hours in the ocean every weekend.

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“Tell me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are.” (JC)

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 THE 10 SURFING TRAINING 

The best way to improve your physical & mental condition for surfing!

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1. 👨‍👩‍👦‍👦 SPORTY FRIENDS

Share your healthy life. There are many surf groups on Facebook and on MeetUp.com, where you can make friends and share your passions! Just search for “surfers + name of your hometown”.

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2. 🏋️ THE POP-UP AND TAKE OFF

These are the names of the movement of standing up on a surfboard. You can train it on the floor. Do it super fast and with precise movements, like a professional surfer.

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3. 🏊‍♀️ SWIMMING IS THE BEST PHYSICAL TRAINING

If you are a good swimmer, try these exercises to increase your physical condition, paddling technique, and confidence to surf big waves alone:

  • Crawl (freestyle): with your head out of the water, like the water polo style 🤽‍♀️

  • Butterfly: breathing 3x1 - two cycles of strokes with your head into the water intercalated with one cycle of strokes with your head out of the water.

  • Deep end swimming training: running or working out at the bottom of the sea with extra weights, rocks or dumbbells.

  • Sprints: all kinds of swimming exercises with a high intensity interval training, intercalating fast laps with long rests:)

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4. 💦 WATER EXPERIENCES

They are going to improve your familiarity & intimacy with open waters: bodysurf, bodyboard, paddle board, kayak, snorkeling, cliff diving, sailing, waterfalls, jacuzzi, etc… There are hundreds of water activities.

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5. BOARDSPORTS

All of them have a similar way to move your body & get balance. From the aspect of how you put your feet on the board, there are 2 kinds of boardsports:

🛹 Without bindings: surfing, skateboarding, skimboarding, snakeboarding, etc.

🏂 With bindings: snowboarding, wakeboarding, sandboarding, mountainboard, etc.

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6. 📚 BOOKS

There are many surfing books: novels, arts, equipment, biographies, competitions, etc. I really recommend you to read The History of Surfing, by Matt Warshaw.

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7. 🏨 SURF CAMPS & RESORTS

Hotels where everything goes around surfing: lessons, movies, library, decoration, and parties. My dream is to open a surf resort with a fitness center inside. If you have some money and want to invest on this business dream, I would love to be your partner <3 

 

8. 🤩 SOCIAL MEDIA

Connect with famous athletes. For example, the waterman Kai Lenny, the big wave rider Justine Dupont, the skater Tony Hawk, the snowboarder Shaun White.

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9. 🧠 NEVER EVER

No way to watch documentaries about shark attacks 🦈

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10. 📺 SURFING MOVIES

Movies are the best to prepare your mindset and learn about surf culture! My second passion in life is cinema. I have been to dozens of movie theaters in different countries. Here is my selection to you:

 

Free Tv Channels

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Amazon Prime Movies

 

Paid Tv Channels

  • HBO: 100 Foot Wave - I love this docuseries about Nazaré, Portugal.

  • The Surf Network - A streaming tv with the biggest collection of surfing movies.

  • Peacock: Surf at the Olympics Games - The surfing competitions of Paris 2024 will be held in Teahupo'o, Tahiti - French Polynesia.

  • Netflix - at the moment, Netflix has not so good surf movies.

 

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SURFING CURIOSITIES 🎨

Let's talk about some fascinating things!​

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  • On this post on my Instagram, you can see the animation Hawaiian Holiday - produced in black-and-white by Walt Disney in 1937. It will become the first colorized surf movie in history. It’s also the reason for the names of the stances in boardsports:

    • Goofy Footer: right foot in front of the board.

    • Regular Footer: left foot in front of the board.

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  • The artist Hilton Alves has the world record for painting the largest wave mural. Located in Hawaii, It's about 5 stories tall and takes up almost 1.300m².

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  • Dear reader, my plan is to keep updating this section of my webpage “Surf Training Ebook” constantly. Please, come back soon to check my new posts about the world of surfing!

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Thank you and God bless🙏

 

“❤️ Surfing & Skateboarding have been my life’s passion for decades!” FC

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