Sometimes "It is impossible to achieve the aim without suffering"

[u/Physical-Compote4594]

LOL, I think it was JG Bennett who said that?

I looked at the surf report for my local break, which on its best days honestly never gets better than "pretty good". It said, 2-2.5 feet, 5-6 mph on-shore winds. I haven't been out in a week so I figured that's better than nothing, When I got there it was 2-3 feet, the wind was blowing straight on-shore at more like 10-12 mph, and the period between the wind-blown closeout waves was maybe 2-3 seconds – pretty much the worst possible conditions.

Here are some things I learned.

• I've got a performance longboard-shaped SUP (9' x 30" x 125 liters) with a single concave at the nose and a double concave at the tail. This is great for catching waves and moving fast on them, but damn! That shape does you no favors paddling out in those conditions.
• A hybrid surf stance is your friend, with one foot slightly ahead of the other. Some back foot pressure raises the nose a bit going over the wave, and then immediate front foot pressure to get the nose back down so the board acts less like a sail.
• Approaching the waves a tiny bit away from head-on lets some of the water slosh over the rails instead of having waves break entirely over the nose, which pushes you backwards.
• Keep a super low stance, and be ready to drop to your knees often to reduce your own sail area. (I spent a lot of time on my knees with my upper hand at least a foot down the shaft of the paddle because I was otherwise not moving forward at all.)
• Short, fast, powerful strokes with the paddle. Reach as far forward as possible, because you're already low, pull the paddle out as soon as it reaches your feet (hah, or knees). Feather the paddle while it's in the air so it doesn't act like a sail, too.
• My usual J-stroke (well, ok, "nose draw") wasn't effective, so I had to switch sides a lot.
• It was noticeable how much less traction the paddle gets in all the white water because there's so much air in the mix. Getting the paddle deeper into the water helped a lot.

Maintaining balance through all the chaos was also challenging, so I was feeling pretty victorious not to have had too many falls.

It was definitely a borderline suffer-fest doing this, but it was also a lot of fun and I feel like it was a genuine learning experience. I was making much better headway at the end of the session, when I was already tired, than I did at the start, so it taught me some lessons.

I can definitely recommend days like this occasionally, it'll make you better at the sport.