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A Surf and Yoga Experience in Maui |
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An article about a holistic Hawaiian islands vacation. Surfin' safariLocal surfer dudes encourage some new students at all-women's
camp on Maui Unexpected reception just added to the wave of excite LAhaina, HAWAII—It is the moment that I give up, when I know the wave has passed beneath me, know that I was too far out, or didn't paddle hard enough, that I hear the stranger yelling. "Keep driving, lady!" he screams, exhorting me to keep pulling my arms through the water as the wave sucks me back. He is behind me; I cannot see him. I do not know him, yet somehow, I am absolutely certain that of the dozens of people bobbing around this popular surf break, these screams are meant for me. "Keep driving! Keep driving! Keep driving! Yeahhh!" He yowls in triumph as my surfboard takes off, shooting toward shore in a frothy mix of white and blue, and I lumber to my feet. There were many fine moments in a week of surfing and yoga on Maui, but the unexpected encouragement of strangers out on the water is still what makes me smile most. It happened more than once. The first time, I was shocked. The second, delighted. The third time, stunned. I am not sure what I expected, but support and encouragement from young Hawaiian surfers forced to share their waves with inept tourists wasn't one of them. On my last day, I pulled back from a wave because I didn't want to hit a local surfer in the trough. Instead of gliding past me with his powerful stroke, he looked up, saw me hesitate and yelled. "Paddle! Paddle! Paddle!" And I did. It was one the most challenging vacations I ever had, and one of the best. I didn't know when I booked a week at an all-women's surf camp on Maui that middle-aged Mommy vacations were all the trend. I was just trying to escape a very long winter and too many months of too much work. On the plane to Maui, my seatmate marvelled at my coming "adventure." Adventure? I was hoping to kick back in Hawaii, not crank it up. Oops. A little explanation: I am a lousy surfer, a world-class lousy surfer. In fact, I consider myself the William Hung of surfing, someone with no natural talent at all, who nevertheless finds bliss in being knocked about the ocean over and over again. Within 24 hours after arriving in Hawaii, my knees and feet were bleeding, I had purple bruises the size of a plum on the inside of each arm and my shoulder blades burned with a new and novel kind of pain. I was also very, very happy. There are dozens of women's surf camps in North America. The movie Blue Crush, combined with the rise of fitness vacations, has sparked a boom. You can learn to surf with other women in B.C., California, Mexico, Costa Rica, Florida and probably many other places. SurfDivas, in California, was the first and is still the best known. I wanted a little more pampering, warmer water and some yoga, so I chose Swellwomen, the brain child of Me-Shell Barnas, a 29-year-old former competitive snowboarder and New York City marketing whiz who decided to chuck that life and become a yoga and surf instructor on Maui instead. It was a good choice. Me-Shell hates to have Swellwomen described as a camp, preferring the term "wellness experience." I didn't appreciate the difference until months after I had returned home, when I realized that the yoga, surfing and swimming routine begun in Maui has stuck, that the vacation paid dividends in long-term fitness and peace of mind that I couldn't even imagine while I was there. In Maui, it just felt like a really fun camp. Swellwomen, like any good camp, quickly molded a group of strangers into a comfortable team of friends. In our case, it took less than two days. There were six of us, aged 22 to 44, from as far away as Nova Scotia and New Zealand. There were athletes and yoga teachers; a Hollywood set decorator and a university student. Tracy was in Hawaii to compete in a four-hour paddling race in six-metre swells. Between us, we left five partners and six children behind. Four months later, we were still in e-mail contact, still sharing our individual surfing triumphs in the Atlantic, North and South Pacific Oceans. We are hoping for a 2006 reunion. Each day began at seven with yoga on the lawn of our resort on Ka'anapali Beach. Load the boards on the van at 8:30. Surf until lunch. Do a workshop in the afternoon (if you can still move). Another yoga class. Two more hours of surfing at sunset. A quick bite at an open-air café in Lahaina on the way back to the hotel. Oh yes, and snorkelling, tours of the island, shopping excursions. No one could stay awake past nine. Maui is an astonishingly diverse island. Most of the resorts are on the dry side, which is almost like a desert. The north shore is a rain forest. The southern tip is a barren field of lava rocks. Me-Shell made sure we saw a good chunk of it all; the exploding blow-hole that shoots the sea hundreds of metres into the air, the banana shack surrounded by terraced fields of taro, the verdant valley where King Kamehameha led the decisive battle for Maui more than two centuries ago. But it was surfing that was at the heart of the experience. Hours of paddling out past the waves and riding them back in, over and over again. Dustin Tester, founder of Maui Surfer Girls, a summer camp for teenaged girls, was our instructor. We surfed at Launiopoko, a park south of the honky-tonk tourist town, Lahaina. The first day was raining, with rolling grey waves thundering toward shore. We practiced popping up on our boards before heading out. The ocean bottom is coral at Launiopoko; seaweeds and bright fish and spiky, knobbly things beneath the swirl of water. But there is no time to look. You have to keep paddling. Push your board down to go through a wave that has crested. Flip underneath it if the wave is too big. No breathers. Keep paddling or the waves will knock you back again. Most of the group learned to surf in minutes. Sally leaped up and rode her very first wave all the way to shore. Bonnie and Sherry, who are surfing buddies from Malibu, worked on perfecting their form. I only made it to my knees the first day, but it still felt like flying. It was only when we got back to shore that I realized I had lost several layers of skin from my knees and that I was bloody and in pain. How did that happen? I don't remember being knocked, don't remember a single bad thing. Me-Shell planned the week well, certified massage therapist Morningstar Ramsay was our cook; she worked out the knots in our shoulders and pampered us with tasty, healthy food like poached salmon, fresh papaya and pineapple. Dustin promised our shoulders would adjust, and she was right. By the third day, I could paddle to the break without stopping, didn't wobble, managed to glide through the waves on the way out. Of course, it helped that the waves were smaller. It also helped that I stopped at the Billabong store in Lahaina to buy a rash guard and board shorts to protect my skin. Everyone improved. You could see it every day, almost minute by minute. Bonnie and Sherry learned to pivot at the drop and surf down the line of the wave, not just the white water after it has broken. Even I got to my feet — sort of. Bonnie began to finish each wave with the yoga posture Eagle. It became a rallying cry for the group. We took to yelling "Eagle!" at random moments in town, at the resort, just for the delight of seeing six women suddenly twist their arms like noodles and laugh out loud. For a group as diverse as this, in age and temperament and experience, the quick bond was a lovely mystery. By the third night, when Me-Shell sent us off to a lovely, cheesy, luau, we were a team. We laughed the loudest, hooted the most. Bonnie cheered so loudly for the hula boys that the emcee referred to the subsequent applause for the hula girls as a "pity clap." A man a few seats away turned to his wife and nodded his head in our direction. "I wish I were with that group!" he said.
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