It’s a funny thing now that I’m not around competitive sports anymore I still see that people will go to extremes to do the things they love such as surfing. When I played football or college baseball there were guys all the time playing hurt. I think this is something that all of us who play sports have experienced on a number of occasions. Now that surfing is my life I notice people still do the same purely for the feeling or love they have for riding waves. Theres no coach pressuring you, teammates you can’t let down, or a championship on the line, your just out there riding the waves, however I see people all the time doing whatever it takes to get them back in the surf, gotta love it!
Im fortunate to meet a lot of different people from all over the globe at our surf camp. I love the energy and excitement that some people bring when first learning to surf. It really makes my day when I show up for a surf lesson and the clients are pumped up and cant wait to hit the surf. Most of our clients come from areas where they are land locked and have the opportunity to surf much so certain muscles or body parts take time to adjust. One of our surf campers was surfing with us for 2 weeks and about 8 days into his stay his ribs bruised up pretty bad.
It was picture day and I had to get this client into the water to surf. He was in a lot of pain however all he wanted to do was surf. So we came up with the idea to duck tape some padding on his upper ribs so he could lay on the surf board. It worked and he was able to get that one surf photo he came to Costa Rica to get the only thing we didn’t think about was how it was going to feel when we ripped it off, ouch!