Did you know I finally actually learned to surf in Playa Tamarindo Costa Rica? At the ripe age of 38!

You are using all arms and shoulders on this route man. Get low, get your arms straight, and stay crouched. Then climb that rock.

The above words are an iteration of support from my friend Ernie when we went bouldering on a Friday night recently. It shifted my entire perspective on how to properly boulder and rock climb without wearing down instantly on a route.

We won’t be talking about the Bloc Garten in this article (though it’s amazing and if you live in Central Ohio you should definitely make a visit) but this simple feedback and instruction was the inspiration for me to share a second article on surfing in Playa Tamarindo Costa Rica in 2020!

A similar journey of feedback and work brought me from “Learning to Surf” to “Actually Surfing” and today we are going back to the Pura Vida waves of Costa Rica to get back on our boards!

If you missed it I learned to Surf in March and April of 2020 and I wrote about the process HERE.

When returning to Tamarindo Costa Rica to live and work for several more weeks after a “surfing break” I have to say I was a bit intimidated to get back on the waves.

Surfing was HARD to learn. Harder than I ever imagined.
I was grateful that I had done it but when I was out by myself earlier in the year without the help of my trusted teacher Augustine from Kelly’s Surf Shop I was like a fish out of water, only I was in the ocean!

I couldn’t read the waves. I would paddle too much, paddle too little, get up on the wave too early, think I was far away from people, then next thing you know be right by them. I felt like what infants must feel when learning to crawl or walk.
It felt like living in a very excited, very terrifying world and knowing you want to do something but getting to the point where you are good at doing it are two entirely different things!

I opted to reach out to my friends at Kelly’s Surf Shop for a weekly lesson to mix my time on the waves without a teacher upon my return to Tamarindo. It was a turning point in my short and very unknown surfing career!

When you learn to do something hard there just comes a point when everything begins to click. You begin to feel like the boulder chasing Indiana Jones in the opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark and you just want MORE of it. The momentum is there.

That’s what happened in my second stint living in Tamarindo in 2020. I didn’t learn to surf or get to ride a few waves, I actually surfed. The largest reason though was I dedicated time to the surfing practice. Somewhere I hope Malcom Gladwell is smiling, knowing his 10,000 hours theory just got dropped in a surfing article!

When I started up my lessons again at Kelly’s everything began to come together. Sebastian and Augustine began lessons with breath work and meditation, we then scoured the ocean, looking for our spot that would be ours. We read the waves and watched how they were forming, where they were forming, and spoke about things like swells, off shore winds, proper techniques to get up on the board, and other “surf chat” that had me on cloud nine but totally clueless to its meaning just six months prior.

Sebastian began to drill into me the surfing fundamentals the same way I have done with kids when I coached basketball for 12 years and the same way I do when guiding a yoga flow now.

I learned to be patient and wait for the waves, I learned how far to paddle out, I learned how to flip the board around while sitting on it, I learned what waves were mine and what waves belonged to a different surfer, I learned when to get up, I learned when to turn back and go under a wave, and much much more.

After the weekly lessons I would feel energized. My confidence was building and it translated this time. I would walk down to Witch’s Rock and rent a board for an hour or two and go out by myself in the crowded waters of Playa Tamarindo. I no longer felt like I was “getting in the way” or that I needed to go as far away from every person as I could.

I used the same meditation and breath practice on my own prior to getting in the water and it translated from the lessons to being out on my own. I was getting up on waves and working on what we had just learned in the past lesson. I was paddling, reading, riding, and of course many times still falling.

But I was actually surfing, not just learning to surf.

Back to the Bloc Garten for a moment. When I climbed the next rock climbing route with much more ease and success after Ernie’s feedback it brought me back to the waves of Tamarindo.

They were so punishing to me until they weren’t. Then it was the most beautiful experience I have ever had when it comes to a physical activity. I mean that. With my most sincere love and apologies to rock climbing, hiking, running, basketball, and skiing…surfing is my favorite.
I was going out 2-3 times in between lessons and when I would pass by the shop I would anticipate my next lesson with Kelly’s.

Outdoor Adventure is an unraveling process that can be applied to life outside of the adventure. It teaches me about the world, about myself, and how to improve both as much as I can during this short stint on the planet. Both mentally, physically, and emotionally.

I’m grateful I had the courage to take up surfing and skiing at the age of 38. You are never too old to try something and just because it comes hard does not mean it’s not worth doing.
I marveled and danced and fell and hit the sand of the ocean floor so many times to get to the spot I got to by the end of my time in Tamarindo in December of 2020.

On my second to last day in the area I had the honor of going with Sebastian to one of his “hidden spots” in the area. A place where the crowds of Tamarindo don’t exist. I would tell you but I don’t want to lose my invite the next time I am living there!

The beach was desolate. The dogs roamed the shoreline and his family and I enjoyed a picnic and waves that we had all to ourselves. The waves were bigger, stronger, and yet smoother.

Or maybe that was just my imagination taking the best of me.

As we sat in the sand and spoke about the greatness of Planet Earth I realized that I had made family and friends here with the locals, and not just Sebastian, but many others. I was grateful for having the privilege to get to do it but I also knew I was sad about leaving this pocket of the planet I spent so much time in during 2020. Probably during its most quiet portion of visitors since the mid 90s, around when these waves became globally iconic.

I had connected with my mind, my soul, and my body to take up a new activity that has taught me more about my life and how to live one filled with family, service, and adventure than I could have ever imagined when Augustine pushed my board on that first wave back in March of 2020 and yelled “Get Up Miguel, Now, Get Up!”

There’s nothing like riding waves my friends. There’s also nothing like learning something new and then actually doing it past the point of a complete novice.

Ironically this surfing article and story probably wouldn’t exist without me being land locked in Ohio for the winter and going rock climbing. Sometimes when you are far away from what you love and doing something totally different that love jumps back out to you and finds you.

Thank you so much for reading friends and thank you so much to Kelly’s Surf Shop for the amazing lessons and photos! Do go check them out when you are in the Tamarindo Costa Rica area.

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Because Adventure Feeds the Soul,
Mike R