I'm home! It's freezing and wet. So what did we learn, I think everyone would be able to give you a different answer. But personally I surfed worse than I did in the wave pool - enough said about that.
HOWEVER - While any evidence of my outward progression is non existent. My inward progression was expotential and I am still sorting through the Aha moments.
So in a nutshell - Clayton if you read this please correct me.
'O' - The Ocean - We learnt to identify the bus stop and the line. Interesting to me is that when I look for the bus stop I look to where the wave is peaking. Incorrect. You look at where the bottom of the wave
and identify where water is being drawn up. While I find it easier to now identify the bus stop going left or right. I still struggle with whether to be further in or out.
'M' - The Mind - Well there is a can of worms. Meditation, relaxation and visualisation. Personally, I would have liked more of this. I like to know and share the wisdom of others and sometimes myself. I would have
liked to have known, what our teacher, Dean, knew. If that makes sense. But then again some people are into that and others are not as interested in what can't be seen.
'B' - The Body - Breath work, on land and in the pool. Body movement, rotation work, strength work, preparing the body for surfing (warm up), developing connection between the upper and lower body. I loved
this work, because I am a Nerd when it comes to the body. So it was great to engage with Ben, our teacher, also a Nerd about the body. I can't recall what Ben's sport is called, but it is one of those kickboxing x
punching x head butting x wrestling one's - violent in other words. So walking with him to the beach one day, I just had to ask him, Why fighting, have you got an angry inner child who is pissed off with his parents
or something. No angry inner child there, if you meet him you will find, he is far from angry. His answer, by the way was that he saw fighting as the rawest form of human combat (my words). The breathing work in the
pool was conducted by a chap named Matt (Again excellent). I should have taken notes here. The science in the classroom was really informative, but as a swimmer I was surprised how intimidated/nervous/tentative I felt with
the pool tasks to the point that I struggled to breathe down into my lower torso. Matt helped with that and the toughest exercise, that I screwed up, I think I would have done easily had I remembered the sequence of what
we were asked to do.
Part of this task was for your partner to roll you around, stand on you while you lay flat in the bottom of the pool for a few seconds and then take hold of your leg rope. You then had to curl your upper body down to your
ankle undo the leg rope and swim underwater. This is the task I screwed up, so I am struggling to remember what came next but it involved swimming the length of the pool twice. I had never given any thought in the
past to the need to be able to 'release the leash' should it get caught up on something.
'E' - The Equipment - This was unfortunately left till the end of the very last day. Clayton talked about the different parts of the board from the nose to the tail and what to expect when you alter the shape, size (bouyancy)
of those parts. Again, I wish I had taken notes, I tried to record the info but the voice memo seemed to decide to stop at some point, probably because my icloud storage is pretty much maxxed out. I didn't worry though
because there is a tutorial on equipment. The session was a lovely way to end the week though. With all of us in a line lying back in comfy reclining chairs.
There was of course the surfskating but I have already written what I thought of that, I did however have a lovely waltz with one of the other participants, me on the board and he holding me up on Friday.
If anyone wants to know about the internal information I gathered, I can share that, but it is psychological in nature.
That's it. Looking forward to our final week (6) of school. Are we going to continue on to intermediate?

Hi Everyone
Well the week is over and I have to say it was really worthwhile.
As you know Clayton is a terrific teacher. I would add that he is so good that he doesn’t seem to know when to stop! His team of helpers are so enthusiastic there was no suggestion of well it’s 5pm time to finish for the day, go home. We were allowed to stay and play for as long as we wanted
I am not sure if I can tell you what we learnt. It was like the information was general and the learning was quite specific for each individual.
What I learnt I will happily share once I am home.
I will tell you that today we surfed at a place called Fingal Head
It is a beautiful spot. There was no wind the water was magnificent, there was a large pod of dolphins lingering around in the foreground with whales in the background
MAGIC!!!!!
Did I enjoy myself. Well I was quite teary after saying bye to Clayton and I haven’t had that reaction to the end of an experience since I was about 13
Heading home tomorrow so need a good nights sleep will write again once home
Hope you have all been working hard