South east England is no surfing hot spot! I’m sure when I was looking into places to live in the UK, I recall that there were surf clubs in London taking weekend trips to share costs and transit prices.

It’s only 3 hours by train from London to Swansea, wales (my home), from there it’s a 20min drive to numerous different breaks in the gower. Trouble is you need a car once there (or it’s 1-3 more hours by public bus), and driving from London to the gower takes more like 5 hours. It’s often messy too! If they don’t have a car, there’s a train to Newquay, corwall that drops you right at the beach but from London it’s 5-7 hours and so expensive!

If I was in London, given the cheap flights from there and proximity to airports, I might go for a weekend in morroco or Portugal, warmer and likely cheaper than Uk travel and better waves! 😉

Nothing to add to Clayton ans Graham’s points (I was wondering about a more angled line, so happy to see I was on the right track!)

Walk up is looking good though! 😊

Dean Vrecko apologies, I realized you might just mean tight Achilles in general!! If so, I’d only suggest standing straighter may also make it easier to get the back foot down (I’m thinking of pros in small barrels- back heal is often up), and it also looks like you are stacking the front foot (which is good!) as if you stacked the back, the heal would lower more. I’m a fan of yoga for flexibitly if you still want to work on it! But if you ever Achilles tendinitis, you have some advice 😂🤣😂

I like you are looking where you are going- ever seen the research on mental imagery- apparently activates the same part of your brain as actually doing the activity so- pretty cool!

Dean Vrecko beyond the pointers pop up looks good!! That mat looks great- did you buy or make it? You tried on the bostsu ball?

Is that Achilles tendinitis you have? If so, how long has it been an issue and what medical assistance have you sought?

As a general rule, 0-6 month is considers acute, while 6month plus is chronic (theoretically healed). For chronic pain, Pain BC have great resources devised by experts in the field.

There are a range of interventions including physio, surgery (extreme cases), lasers, taping. Additionally, pain is multifaceted, and diet, sleep, stress, mood, social support ect all interact.

For activity, generally a graded approach is reccomended if it’s chronic- avoid overdoing it and pain flair ups but also, keep moving. However, early in the acute phase it’s best to rest to let it heal. If you google “physio exercises for…” you can probably find booklets made by a university or health authority which will provided exercises devised by professionals- however it’s generally better to get properly assessed before pursing a rehab plan (as an OT I feel I need to disclaimer this!! but hope the resource pointers help!)

Love this! Great to see a woman's perspective! For me, I want to work on confidence and believe in myself!!

I'm an intermediate, unstylish surfer with tons to learn, but when I surf, I feel like I found a missing part of me - I grew up on a windy, cold coastline and have surfed for 20 years, tackling storm swells, onshore winds and snow. I take any opportunity to surf.

Yet, when I see a crowded peak (esp if it's full of men, has an aggressive vibe or its a world-class break), I feel like I don't belong, and sit down the line waiting for wide swinging peaks and take the dregs. Likewise, when the swell gets bigger, I may find somewhere it's breaking smaller- not just because I'm scared of the size, but also, due to imposter syndrome - I doubt I have the skill to even be out there despite having done 1000s of successful duck dives in my life - It's important to know your limits, but I'm sure there're are days I had the ability to ride bigger waves, but didn't even try. 

Cath Gito that’s a lot! Taiwan was around 21-30 degrees when I was there, but it was abnormally warm for that time of year. I back in Vancouver now- so cold and dark! I used to live there and dec-feb could get cold (down to 8) or have warm days (up to 25), shoulder seasons are nicest, summer too hot. It always rains in Taiwan!

If you are surfing, taitung in the south has the best surf and is beautiful. Yilan has its days. Let me know if you ever want any more info on taiwan!

I’ve wanted to go to Siargo for ages, but we didn’t this time due to it being typhoon season- hopefully one day though!

Looks amazing (even if a bit big for me!). The philliphines has really been hit recently-hope there’s not to much destruction. I’m in Taiwan at the moment as that swell is coming in, but am unfortunately flying out today. Managed to get out just after the last one in some fun waves!

Best of luck on your new chapter Anthony Laye and excited to hear what you do! For me, your ability to be humble, approach challenges with humour and keep learning with enthusiasm has been inspiring, your insightful questions have helped us all learn and the line up could do with more of your kind of attitude so we could all have more fun! Thanks for helping me learn so I can enjoy one of my favorite ways to spend my time more!

Your health most certainly is more important! Hope the surgery and rehab goes well and you are back to full function quickly!

As you welcomed suggestions for further training, I was curious about any interplay between length, width and thickness and rocker (I think of guns in big waves) and how body types may impact choice (muscle and weight distribution). I'm a female with smaller feet and more weight/ muscle in my legs/hips than shoulders, I find chunky, wide boards hard to get on rail and hard to duck dive, but felt I needed volume for paddle power. As such, I tend to enjoy slightly longer, slightly narrower boards with narrow noses - my favorite board is my 6,4 and 19 wide, 2 1/2 thick with decent rocker, which I like way more than my shorter, fatter straighter 6,0, 20 1/4 wide - catches anything but chunky. My favorite board is water-logged toast, and I'm looking to replace it- I'm definitely take line 3 mostly and am working towards a 4, but thanks to OMBE training on positioning and the OREO, I catch tons more waves, so considering if I wish to mix up the dimensions!