Hang 10

I can watch surfing videos endlessly. Here are two of my very favorite surfing films:

North Shore
cheesy 80's white boy meets his surf mentor, falls for the local girl, amazing Pipeline surfing... totally BAD good

In God's Hands
real surfers playing fictional characters traveling the world looking for that perfect wave

So about hang 10..... Soon after the movie Grease came out in the late 70's I got a red satin Hang Ten jacket, with the two little feet logo stitched on. Totally cool. Teri and I would wear our satin jackets and play "Pink Ladies" creating song and dance routines. Hours of fun.

After 3+ decades of life and a big part of my childhood in Hawaii-- i've finally learned what "hang 10" means! Imagine that you're standing on a longboard. Now, if you walked all the way to the tip, you could stand with your ten toes hanging over the nose. If you were doing this while riding a wave, you'd be hanging ten!

Speaking of belated understandings, I've finally decided to learn to surf since I've been wearing Billabong, Local Motion, and Ugg boots for ages. Currently, we are at half time of our two day surfing clinic at Linda Mar beach in Pacifica. After some quick lessons about waves and rip tides, we headed out for the toilet bowl breaks, equivalent to the bunny slopes at ski resorts.

The water was incredibly warm. The Tubular One yapped at us from the shore. Instructor John told me that watching North Shore got him interested in surfing, we quoted lines from the film, then he launched me into a wave. Cappy was flying over the waves on her first surf outing. Good times.

All I could manage on my first day was a bit of bodyboarding on a longboard. Also, I seemed to manage to ride on all fours all the way to shore. If I were a dog I could totally go pro.