studio non troppo : mindful design : facilitation

Photo: TravOC

In surfing, catching a wave requires being in the right place at the right time.

As a beginning surfer, I marveled at how exhausting all the paddling was: paddling out through the break, paddling to try to catch the wave, paddling back in to position after missing the wave. The really good surfers never seemed to work as hard to get up on a wave, though. They spent most of their time looking out to sea, watching for waves. (I never did learn how to read the water that way. The undulations I thought would become good waves didn’t.) Then they would gently paddle into position. (Why there? How do they know to go there?, I thought).

And then, while everyone else paddled furiously in vain efforts to catch the wave, the real surfers would make one, two vigorous strokes and be up.

Catching a wave requires one to be in the right place at the right time. It also requires a wave.